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Alleged Bitcoin Creator Raided By Australian Authorities (arstechnica.com)
wbr1 writes: As reported yesterday, Wired and Gizmodo think Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto is actually Australian businessman Craig Wright
Now, Craig Wright has been raided by Australian police. Curiously, a statement from the Australian federal police said that the raids were not related to the recent Bitcoin revelation. "The AFP can confirm it has conducted search warrants to assist the Australian Taxation Office at a residence in Gordon and a business premises in Ryde, Sydney. This matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin." Supposedly not related, but interesting nonetheless.
Reuters adds,"At Wright's rented home, a modest brick house in the leafy middle class suburb of Gordon, three police workers wearing white gloves could be seen searching the garage, which contained gym equipment. A man who identified himself as the owner of the house, Garry Hayres, told Reuters that Wright and his family had lived there for a year, and were due to move out on Dec. 22 to move to Britain. Hayres said that Wright had a 'substantial computer system set-up' and had attached a 'three-phase' power system to the back of the house for extra power."
Now, Craig Wright has been raided by Australian police. Curiously, a statement from the Australian federal police said that the raids were not related to the recent Bitcoin revelation. "The AFP can confirm it has conducted search warrants to assist the Australian Taxation Office at a residence in Gordon and a business premises in Ryde, Sydney. This matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin." Supposedly not related, but interesting nonetheless.
Reuters adds,"At Wright's rented home, a modest brick house in the leafy middle class suburb of Gordon, three police workers wearing white gloves could be seen searching the garage, which contained gym equipment. A man who identified himself as the owner of the house, Garry Hayres, told Reuters that Wright and his family had lived there for a year, and were due to move out on Dec. 22 to move to Britain. Hayres said that Wright had a 'substantial computer system set-up' and had attached a 'three-phase' power system to the back of the house for extra power."
I thought Bitcoin was a commodity. Capital gains aren't realized until you sell them for actual money.
Have gnu, will travel.
Getting "outed" as Satoshi Nakamoto is the new SWATing, I suggest we call it IRSing and it is much, much worse.
Because there are a lot of zeros involved. The creator supposedly holds a large amount of bitcoin mined early on and now it's worth a fortune; $400-$1000 million, depending on who you believe.
Authorities see all those zeros and all precedent and due process go straight out the window; instant door kicking time. You could offer them proof positive of an ISIS cell with a chemical weapon in a Sydney residence and they wouldn't move this fast.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
but the timing was related
Could not possibly be. There's a lot of words used to describe the federal police, but fast is not one of them. Raiding a house literally hours after news broke on some internet magazine? If the government actually possessed that kind of efficiency we would have solved all the world's problems by now.
Well, governments are good at moving when it involves money coming their way. Witness red light cameras, how quickly meter maids spawn out of thin air, and how fast they garnish your wages. But you try to get money out of them, or another private citizen, and all of a sudden it's like trying to squeeze water out of a brick.
For the same reason that an arbitrary number in a bank's computer is thought of as "money". As soon as people start to believe in it, it is worth something.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Why does *anything* have 'value' ?
It can be either:
- intrinsic (like metals or silicon because of how they can be used)
- extrinsic (because of greed of an artificial market, like diamonds)
The medium is irrelevant -- be it physical or digital. Why do you think some people pay hundreds of dollars for a digital weapon? Because they have more money then time and want it "now."
Never underestimate the price some people put on greed.
--
~2022 The greatest discovery: First Contact
~2024 The greatest tragedy: World War 3
The value of anything is how much other people think it's worth. A friend made a fortune importing Pokemon cards for sale to retailers even though he (and I) thought they were the stupidest things. They are just a few cents of cardboard with ink printed on them. But arrange that ink in a certain way so a bunch of people (rightly or wrongly) think it's valuable, and suddenly they're worth several dollars.
So even if you think bitcoins are stupid (I do), that doesn't mean they're worthless. They're worth what someone else is willing to pay for them, which is quite a lot.
On a more abstract level, that enough people value bitcoins enough to raise it to its current price does indicate substantial discontent with traditional financial systems. That's a real problem irrespective of whether or not bitcoins make sense.
Err, not likely. The US government at least was made to be inefficient. Because they had a taste of how efficiently the king could levy taxes against them. Slowness in a 3 branch government is a designed in feature, not a bug.