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Comment by okwubodu | Hacker News Reader

The future of finance btw.

I do think the exploiter takes the $10M deal. As it stands, attempting to cash any amount out is somewhere between very dumb and life-threatening.

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While mixing 250 million dollars is near impossible in the short run, you could easily mix a million dollars a month every month for the next 10 years. Mixers aren't a full proof way to obscure funds but the FBI has outright admitted that it's nigh impossible to track it down.

Furthermore there are decentralized mixers that run on Ethereum so it's no longer possible to go after the operators of mixing services. tornado.cash has billions of dollars available to mix with which is more than enough to obscure millions of dollars worth of ETH at a time.

This is true.

I don’t doubt that they could move the money but their bigger problem is a single misstep between the wallet and a bank account immediately putting an end to the scheme.

Eh if code is law exploitation isn't illegal.

$10M is a LOT, I wonder how he will trust them to pay. Once they get their coins back people can change minds.

Probably a bad time to say blockchain solves this, but spinning up a (very) basic swap contract is trivial. He doesn’t need to trust them.

So it's "ETH escrow" where the trusted third-party conducting the atomic swap of assets is the blockchain in the form of executing a contract?

Correct.

4% net is a terrible money laundering rate. Better to keep it and mix it slow than take the first marshmallow immediately and lose way more.

Why life-threatening? Is Wormhole going to whack them or something?

A lone wolf with $250m and no legal recourse is an attractive target for all kinds of folk

Assuming it's a lone wolf and not a criminal gang (suits on Wall St. or sex traffickers in Bulgaria).

Also, that's what patsies and false credentials are for. It's easier to buy new identities in other countries where money talks and ethics are flexible.

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