Hacker News Reader

Comment by rootsudo | Hacker News Reader

No, bitcoin wouldn't have been a better choice. Quotes like these really show how the public view such sentiment.

Unless under Subpoena or if there's a equivalent emergency of CALEA for an payment gateway, they would not reveal the exact financial statement or settlement. The ledger is private.

Meanwhile the bitcoin ledger is public, anyone can see a transaction and know when it happened.

With the payment gateway via applepay/cashapp, you know who the person sent it and received it only under warrant/Subpoena. If this is released wrongly, or non-intentionally, then it can easily be inadmissable in court breaking chain of evidence, etc etc.

With bitcoin, once you know one party's address, you can view all transactions and see the immediate network effect. Same with knowing the payment gateway details of authorizer and debtor/debtee. There is no need for warrant/Subpoena to view this.

I can go on, but you get the picture, I hope.

View on HN

Yeah, this is probably why the fake IRS makes you buy gift cards and ask you to give them the codes.

In the alternate universe where Gaetz was a little bit smarter, he would've withdrawn cash from an ATM and bought Amazon gift cards from a retail store, and sent the girls the codes from messaging account not associated with him.

Which loops back around to “people are bad at opsec” which is why bitcoin doesn’t provide a lot of privacy against someone determined.

Why not just give the cash in person?

Dunno, since he used the Cash app maybe he was grooming her from a distance...

Bitcoin would be clearly a better choice. Yes, you don’t need a subpoena to view the ledger, but the ledger doesn’t necessarily provide a way to identify you.

People suck at opsec (see: Silk Road), and the people making these mistakes would’ve used an exchange required to adhere to KYC/AML requirements to operate in the US (which connects chain information to PII).

Cash in an envelope leaves no trail. Large ATM withdrawals can be explained away.

Bitcoin seems like a silly choice, even if your prostitute accepts it. Cash seems much more obvious and easier. Plus, lower transaction fees and faster transfer.

I read several articles where the FBI says butcoin is the most traceable form of money. Sure you don’t know which person creates a wallet but then there is usually an entry point and exit point into fiat cash requires identity unless you literally sell your wallet on a thumb drive in person.

Bitcoin can be provide anonymity from law enforcement if you work hard enough. Cash app clearly can not.

Its not really that hard. Just mix the coins somehow after purchase.

Not without trusting a third party that they're not going run off with your money. Also, coinjoins on BTC are craxy expensive because transaction fees are crazy high.

Luckily BCH has near-perfect coinjoin privacy with CashFusion. It is capable of running > 20 person coinjoin rounds with no change outputs and no trusted third party. And the transactions always cost a fraction of a penny cause BCH has reasonable sized blocks.

That's what mining is for. It doesn't matter what the bitcoin address is if the source for the coins is out of thin air.

With bitcoin how would law enforcement know the sender or reviever address? They would have to subopoena whatever service converts bitcoin to/from fiat currency. So at worst it's as bad.

They know the receiver address since they can just ask the girl. They also know as much as she does about what addresses he used to pay her.

The harder part is proving that those addresses are his or a proxy for him when he denies it. It’s possible to hide this well with effort but guy who used cashapp is probably not your best chance.

That's my point. In the senerio she is working with the police, if it's Cashapp he's screwed. If it's bitcoin maybe there is some deniability.

99% of the time, via the onramp through Coinbase, a central exchange or a local p2p broker.

You can tumble coins, but many people don't know how and many competent ones do get scammed.

I'm not sure what you are responding to. I admitted that the transactions could be traced via. the onramp, but my point is that Bitcoin is not any worse than Cashapp. (Which the parent is trying to say)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com