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Comment by GhostVII | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty impossible to beat the $5 wrench attack (or in the case of the government, 5 years in prison) unless you have anonymity, which Bitcoin does a very bad job of.

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Luckily there is Monero https://www.getmonero.org/

Not sure why you're getting downvoted, to my knowledge you're correct.

The IRS even has a $625k bounty for anyone who can break privacy coins like Monero!

https://heraldsheets.com/irs-will-pay-625000-cracks-monero-n...

I'd be extremely surprised if this bounty was anything else than misdirection and bait.

people don't realize this. If there is no flaw in the current implementation of Monaro, then it can't be traced. It is entirely possible that something has been figured out and allows tracing, but that is no different than using bitcoin. So I don't get the hate towards Monaro. \

would you sell the secret how to break privacy coints for $625k?

I didn’t downvote, but Monero is not magic. State-level attacker absolutely can trace real-world recipients of money “laundered” through Monero.

See “Breaking Monero” series on YouTube.

I don't know why Monero isn't more widespread. It's anonymous, cheaper than Bitcoin, and faster. Plus, there's xmr.to, which has integration with a bunch of wallets so you can send Monero directly to a Bitcoin address and they'll convert transparently.

Well if it becomes popular, holding and dealing with Monero will be made illegal and ISPs will be tasked with blocking it.

Governments can be very vindictive if their tax revenue is threatened.

If you have a use case for Monero, you're better off it remains exotic enough that it flies under the radar.

There is no way they were only facing 5 years. Any sane person would do 5 years for a billion dollars.

It's worth a billion dollars today. But in 5 years, who knows? Could be worth $10B. Could be worth $0.

Ooo so brave, saying Bitcoin will go to 0! No one has heard that before!

Is there a particular reason for the snark? We are talking about essentially a 5-year blind trust in a historically volatile asset.

It's stolen property. They're never going to be able to keep it even if they do do some prison time. If their claim is that it's truly lost and they no longer have access, and then the funds ever move again on the blockchain, boom, right back to jail under contempt and other charges.

You can also do the time and leave the US after.

Well, it is stil a matter of research of how to maintain anonymity, and the best ones are keeping their secrets.

Right. It's nothing half a million dollars worth of jailing costs can't fix.

Multisig or SSS.

SSS?

In my circles, That’s instructions forgetting away with murder: “Shoot. Shovel. Shut up.”

Does it mean something else in this context?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing

Or just set up 2fa and give the second factor to a third party whom the state has difficulty compelling. Granted this does require unconditional trust.

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