Things like this and yet HN continues to be anti-cryptocurrency. Does anyone understand why?
Has this been tested in court? If your crypto is stored in a brainwallet, you can invoke fifth amendment rights to prevent that from being divulged.
Edit: Civil asset forfeiture already runs afoul of the fifth, and no one seems to care:
> nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
"right to remain silent" is literally for that purpose. There are ways around it, if the government grants you immunity, but it's still far more onerous than freezing a bank account or invoking civil forefiture. Not to mention, disclosure of the key and/or wallet addresses may plausibly result in you incriminating yourself (eg. by proving that you bought drugs on silk road or whatever).
If he had kept the money in cryptocurrency then they’d just imprison him until it was turned over.
The crimes in question involved real estate deals with paper trails. They also have transcripts of conversations where the partners acknowledge what they're doing is wrong and could potentially trigger an FBI investigation.
Monero won't save anyone from that.
The first part you can do with any cryptocurrency, the anonymity provided by Monero may allow you to succeed at the second.
FBI agent: What cryptocurrency assets do you own?
You: 2 BTC, 1 ETH.
FBI agent: We found some Monero transactions in your past, we think you're holding XMR and lying to an FBI agent about it. Off to jail for you.
>You: 2 BTC, 1 ETH.
bzzzt
You're supposed to remain silent, not expose yourself by lying.
They need evidence
The article is literally titled "The Day Amazon Sent the FBI to Take My Family’s Bank Accounts" (emphasis mine). I'd imagine the FBI would have a much harder time to seize someone's crypto wallet than freezing their bank accounts.
> After they knew we had no money to pay for legal representation [due to the asset seizure], Amazon’s lawyers sued my husband in federal court. If we can’t afford to defend ourselves, Amazon automatically wins.