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Comment by yakak | Hacker News Reader

I don't think bitcoin was even a recognized currency until 2014.. It is utter madness that someone can make a game today and you can be tried for winning on players technical errors a decade after the IRS decides if it is a serious speculative game. It's like back in the first MOOGs where people wanted to arrest in game thieves. Talk about killing your industry.

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If you trick somebody into giving you something, and they consider that thing valuable, you're on the hook for fraud. Doesn't have to be about official coins. Of course, if you're playing a game where thieves are part of the game, you have to accept that. Or not play the game.

In 2013 FinCEN and the IRS declared that Bitcoin was always property so you can't make some kind of "it's just a game" argument.

In 2013. He pled guilty to wire fraud in 2012. Can FinCEN/IRS retroactively determine something (like tradable skins in a game) is property and prosecute people over it?

If you can own it, it is property; if people are paying money, or exchanging goods or services with value, for it, it is valuable property. Enforcement agencies publishing a ruling or opinion as go what kind of property it is (and isn’t) isn’t what makes it property.

If you find a bug in a multiplayer FPS (let's say d-pad rocking to allow you to wall-climb or something) that gives you a competitive advantage, and you use that competitive advantage to best players and win their assets in combat, can you be arrested for fraud/theft?

If you systematically use it at large scale and make enough money to be worth prosecuting yes. People have been arrested for writing code to play 100000 FIFA games a day in order to get in game coins to sell (https://www.theregister.com/2016/11/14/ea_hackers_charged_fo...). The wire fraud statute is incredibly vague and can be used to justify almost any prosecution. Some others: using fake names on accounts used for botting Ticketmaster is wire fraud, a wire transfer made as part of a commercial bribery scheme is wire fraud even though commercial bribery is legal federally.

That's why I emphasized always. The laws and precedents saying that anything that quacks like property is taxable property are decades old so they predate Bitcoin. In 2013 the government just said "Remember these laws from decades ago? No? They apply to you."

> In 2013. He pled guilty to wire fraud in 2012.

He pled guilty on Nov 4 2022, the wire fraud occurred in 2012.

If it's not property, what is it?

Bitcoin has been classified as a commodity, not a currency, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

I’m not sure why you’re downplaying this. If I maliciously exploited a video game for serious financial gain today, there’s a good chance that will be a crime.

> I don't think bitcoin was even a recognized currency until 2014..

It is not legally a “recognized currency” now (“virtual currencies” are essentially treated as non-currency properties), and it was both property and had value before 2014.

Wouldn't it at the very least be a recognized foreign currency, since it's the official currency of 1(?) country

Maybe; i was thinking of the treatment of crypto generally and the fact that BTC specifically has been adopted as legal tender and thus might be “foreign currency” rather than merely “virtual currency” to the extent that makes a difference.

I don’t think it matters to the offense here, which only relies on it being property with value, though.

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