https://www.nemannlawoffices.com/blog/law-enforcement-seized...
In most places this is "proceeds of crime", requiring associated convictions.
In places that have unexplained wealth statutes, the bar is also pretty high - "balance of probabilities" is not hard to argue IF YOU HAVE LEGITIMATE SOURCES OF MONEY.
You're acting like the government will charge you for a $100 in your wallet.
You would be able to point to the timestamp when you took possession of the wallet which would prove providence unambiguously.
I'm always amused by the paranoia in the xxxcoin communities. If the government had and exercised the power you believe it does, why on earth do you think putting your money in bitcoin or whatever would provide any protection at all?
Edit: case in point:
> KYC and AML invert the burden of proof and are essentially an exception to the 4th amendment
Oooph.
Their point is that the government does not prosecute you, they threaten the banks with "regulatory incidents" if they don't comply. The result is that some people find it difficult to ever open a bank account with no means to "clear their name" as it were.
But given the sourcing, my money is on "Some rube got roped into taking 'payment' as part of a laundering scheme and was left holding the bag". Real fraud is rampant and pervasive. Libertarian fantasies are usually just that.
He has no valid serious convictions that I'm aware of, the only one he has was reversed because it was prosecuted in the wrong jurisdiction (and aside, had some other serious appellate arguments to consider if they hadn't chosen jurisdiction as the reason to vacate).
That is fair. I've noticed that these things often go unsaid. I was just offering clarification. (And I'm glad I was close enough since I don't like misrepresenting others.)
I tried to open a bank account when I was moving states before I had a local state ID or any utility bill or proof of address, no one would do it because they stated the standard the feds hold them to for KYC would essentially presume I am guilty of lying and require me to provide documentation to prove I'm not.
If you and your friends are just innocently idling in a your car wearing a ski mask in the middle of summer with a shotgun and a large duffel bag, in front of a bank that was robbed in this manner four times last month, you're highly unlikely to, at minimum, beat the ride.
Or is this just a theoretical concern for anyone who isn't laundering Bitcoin stolen through ransomware or from exchanges?
Did the jury have reasonable grounds for voting to convict?
And some of those interactions are taxable events - e.g. if you are exchanging out of cryptocurrency denominations, then by US tax law as a US citizen that was a taxable event.
The issue of provenance is an issue regardless of the type of funds.
In most jurisdictions the burden of proof is civil, so more likely than not.
The original claim is easy to prove: it'll be in a wallet which was held for that amount of time. The bank isn't obligated, unless you turn up covered in blood, to prove that you didn't just beat a guy with a hammer till he gives you the password - because you'll go down for that crime by other means.
But very few people engaging in ongoing criminal transactions are going to have a supply of aged BTC accounts to use in trade for goods and resources, and certainly you'll trigger red flags if you keep turning up with a brand new "held it for years" account of $50,000 each week. I mean we know this: because it makes headlines when untouched BTC accounts start moving.
Simply swap into monero and then send it to anybody else.. Maybe lets say you have 100$ in btc, you convert it to 100$ in monero and just spend 10$ 10 times in a span of a week and I am sure that nobody can keep track of it.
But needless to say such a government doesn't need to pass boring AML laws to do that. It can just throw you in jail because it wants to. The actual rule of law under which we live doesn't have that property.
Sometimes your employer goes out of business. Employees do not always preserve their payslips.
Then there are countries like Georgia, it's culturally acceptable to buy real estate with cash. If no valuation of the property was made, it becomes very difficult to prove where the money came from.