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Comment by kypro | Hacker News Reader

> Bitcoin is not unseizable. A quick google search of “bitcoin seized” will uncover countless instances of governments’ confiscating bitcoin from illicit businesses, including Silk Road. This reality contradicts part of the old narrative about bitcoin—that it is useful for criminals. Bitcoin is easily trackable on the public bitcoin blockchain, making it a bad choice of currency to use when committing crime.

Could someone explain this to me? How would a government confiscate bitcoin held in a cold wallet? I get they can track it and potentially seize it if it was held on an exchange, but presumably anyone buying Bitcoin because they're worried about the government seizing their assets would not hold it on the exchange and would store it on a cold wallet?

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"Give us your Bitcoin or we hold you in a dark cell forever" is the usual way

A rubber hose comes to mind.

You confiscate the cold wallet? It exists in physical space, and so does the government lackeys. Once they have that, they are just missing a passphrase and you to get access and seize it.

Not all cold wallets exist in meatspace.

Does it matter whether or not the cold wallet exists in a 14 eyes nation?

If it exists outside of someone’s memory, it exists in meatspace and can be seized.

Assuming you know it exists and where.

A cold wallet is not secure against a battering ram to your front door and a team of paramilitary police.

Governments have:

    - guns

    - jails

The threat of either of these is likely going to help you remember the password to your cold wallet quickly.

Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/538/

Your only protection is if they don't know your cold wallet actually exists, something that is rather hard to pull off with Bitcoin - it is easier with some other cryptos (Monero, ZCash, Beam, Grin)

Depends which government and where this person resides.

If it isn't in an offline wallet it's likely with a legal entity registered somewhere or at least doing business in the US giving US courts jurisdiction. Even if not in the US, whatever jurisdiction they are under can enforce US rulings or court orders if allied or under treaty. If the FBI/etc follow the process to get a judge's signature saying the entity is holding illegally obtained or fraudulent assets of any kind, the entity can be liable if they do not cooperate.

Same thing as any order to seize or freeze financial assets but perhaps with more scrutiny given the pseudo-anonymity of digital currency. Same for acts by Congress that route through the Treasury to freeze assets like the Magnitsky Act.

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