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Comment by RichardCNormos | Hacker News Reader

It's not immediately clear to me that this is illegal. If anything, the Feds didn't "seize" the Bitcoin, they forcibly acquired a license to the wallet's private key. If they didn't understand that the license was non-exclusive, well, that's not the fault of the other licensees.

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Even funnier, when his brother moved the coins it was a “theft” from the feds? Can you imagine the feds saying we seized an iPhone with a banking app downloaded on it, and then someone else goes to the bank and withdraws the cash and now “stole” it?

> not immediately clear to me that this is illegal

Seizure is a legal term. A yacht registered in the Marshall Islands docked in Antigua can be announced seized even before it's physically secured. Stealing that yacht and claiming YOLO isn't a valid defense.

Following this argumentation would imply that cryptocurrencies don't provide a real value and therefore can't be stolen (which also implies that your average cryptocurrency scam is fair game because nothing of value is lost).

A bank account can be seized but that access is not a license. IP is irrelevant here.

A crypto wallet isn't a bank account though. A bank account has controls on who has access, with an owner to grant and revoke it.

Everyone has access to use every crypto wallet

It may not technically be theft, but surely there’s an assortment of crimes committed by doing what he did, including but not limited to fraud, conspiracy, and interference with an investigation.

Are you just naming random crimes?

Yes. To defer to the prosecution’s arguments, however, it seems that Gary was charged with the following crimes:

- removal of property to prevent seizure (18 USC 2232)

- money laundering (18 USC 1956)

- obstruction of a criminal proceeding (18 USC 1512)

- lying to federal law enforcement agents

Also, the BTC were subject to forfeiture pending the resolution of the indictment against his brother.

It is also up to and including, but not limited to wiretapping, tampering with evidence, and monetary regicide.

sure Bloomberg's headline uses the word "stole" as if that was the crime

Gary is accused of money laundering and other crimes, because of the money laundering and other crimes. Money laundering is a tacked on charge that requires discovering an illicit origin of the funds. Then subsequent actions, such as the laundering through additional mixers, depositing in BlockFi for collateral with clean funds loaned against the dirty ones, and using those clean funds, can all be criminalized.

I don't think license is the right word, but equal access to the FBI to that wallet

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