# High Court freezes €52m worth of Bitcoin



## Brendan Burgess (19 Feb 2020)

High Court freezes €52m worth of Bitcoin seized by CAB
					

A man has been made to forfeit Bitcoin worth €52m by the High Court as part of an investigation into the sale and supply of drugs.




					www.rte.ie
				




How does a court freeze one's holding of Bitcoin? 

Brendan


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## Leo (19 Feb 2020)

They can't just put a freeze on it systematically like they can for a typical bank account, so most likely they will submit a transaction to transfer it into their ownership. If they don't move it, Collins could still control it with a copy of his private key.


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## Slim (19 Feb 2020)

Brendan Burgess said:


> High Court freezes €52m worth of Bitcoin seized by CAB
> 
> 
> A man has been made to forfeit Bitcoin worth €52m by the High Court as part of an investigation into the sale and supply of drugs.
> ...


I don't know but would be concerned that it will not be worth anything like €52million In 7 years!


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## rob oyle (19 Feb 2020)

Slim said:


> I don't know but would be concerned that it will not be worth anything like €52million In 7 years!


Exactly my thoughts... if Brendan is right, this'd be a huge loss to the taxpayer.


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## noproblem (19 Feb 2020)

Why can't the goverment introduce laws that could enable it cash in the Bitcoin now? They weren't too long in doing things in the aftermath of the Celtic kitten


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## cremeegg (19 Feb 2020)

How can the government transfer it into their ownership if the holder is unwilling to cooperate with the court. Do they have to dust off the thumbscrews.


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## noproblem (19 Feb 2020)

cremeegg said:


> How can the government transfer it into their ownership if the holder is unwilling to cooperate with the court. Do they have to dust off the thumbscrews.


Incentives work with those guys


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## Brendan Burgess (19 Feb 2020)

Slim said:


> I don't know but would be concerned that it will not be worth anything like €52million In 7 years!



I hadn't read the article when I posted it.  

I hope that the State doesn't end up with a liability to this guy when the price goes down.

Brendan


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## tecate (19 Feb 2020)

Brendan Burgess said:


> How does a court freeze one's holding of Bitcoin?


It must have been held on a centralised exchange - in which case they can freeze it just like they can freeze funds in a bank a/c.  Either  that or they found the private key or he gave them the private key.


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## tecate (20 Feb 2020)

Slim said:


> I don't know but would be concerned that it will not be worth anything like €52million In 7 years!





rob oyle said:


> Exactly my thoughts... if Brendan is right, this'd be a huge loss to the taxpayer.





Brendan Burgess said:


> I hope that the State doesn't end up with a liability to this guy when the price goes down.


These were your first thoughts.  Mine was look how much revenue gov.ie is going to generate hodling for 7 years!


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## Leo (20 Feb 2020)

Brendan Burgess said:


> I hope that the State doesn't end up with a liability to this guy when the price goes down.



I believe that's why they do not exchange assets. They seized 6,000 bitcoin, in the unlikely event Collins successfully appeals, whenever the time comes, they can return 6,000 bitcoin. They can't be held liable for his choice of volatile asset.


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## Mrs Vimes (20 Feb 2020)

There was a case a couple of years ago where they had seized a BMW and returned the same BMW 9 years later and tried to argue that because it was the same car the man was not entitled to any compensation for loss of value.
I believe the accused was awarded €30,000 but I can't find the actual article I read at the time.


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## Brendan Burgess (20 Feb 2020)

Leo said:


> whenever the time comes, they can return 6,000 bitcoin



Hi Leo

That makes sense. 

I wonder if CAB has the systems in place to keep Bitcoin safely? 

Someone will have to keep the code very safely and pass it on if they leave the job. 

It must create a headache for them. 

Brendan


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## tecate (20 Feb 2020)

Brendan Burgess said:


> I wonder if CAB has the systems in place to keep Bitcoin safely?


I doubt that.  Institutional investors and hedge funds don't want to take on this responsibility so I don't think CAB would want to (or be equipped to).



Brendan Burgess said:


> It must create a headache for them.


It may be something that they're not used to dealing with - but it doesn't have to be a headache.  They just need to use a crypto custodian service such as Coinbase Custody, BitGo, Gemini,  - and a whole host of others.  There's also non-centralised custodian Casa.


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## RedOnion (20 Feb 2020)

Brendan Burgess said:


> It must create a headache for them.


They've seized race horses in the past and managed. Bitcoin will be far less of a headache by comparison.


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## noproblem (20 Feb 2020)

RedOnion said:


> They've seized race horses in the past and managed. Bitcoin will be far less of a headache by comparison.


Similar to Bitcoin really as some of those racehorses turned out to be donkeys in the end


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## tecate (21 Feb 2020)

noproblem said:


> Similar to Bitcoin really as some of those racehorses turned out to be donkeys in the end


Horses and donkeys?  Dinosaurs provide the correct analogy for many views expressed in these parts on the subject.


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## rob oyle (21 Feb 2020)

The plot thickens... https://www.irishtimes.com/news/cri...es-codes-for-53-6m-bitcoin-accounts-1.4180182


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## cremeegg (21 Feb 2020)

It’s the thumbscrews then.


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## noproblem (21 Feb 2020)

Interesting conversation on Sean O Rourke show about it just now


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## mtk (21 Feb 2020)

Article today in irish times says keys are " lost" to his 6 accounts ( were written on paper and hidden in fishing rod case ,,,,, then it was stolen)


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## tecate (21 Feb 2020)

If the bitcoin addresses are known, then they can be monitored.  If money moves at some stage, then it will be clear Collins has had the private keys all along.  Lory Kehoe of ConsenSys Ireland & Blockchain Ireland suggested on Sean O'Rourke's show that the wallets are hardware wallets.  

It's likely that hackers are working on cracking the security of hardware wallets already.  However, they now have an even greater incentive.  I'm sure if someone did, a substantial bounty could be offered by CAB for recovery of the keys.


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## Zenith63 (21 Feb 2020)

Out of interest there are only 40 Bitcoin addresses with "exactly 500 bitcoin" in them as described in the article, all have been accessed within the last 12 months.  Maybe it's not exactly 500?









						Bitcoin / Addresses
					

Explore, sort and filter addresses from Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain




					blockchair.com
				







tecate said:


> Lory Kehoe of ConsenSys Ireland & Blockchain Ireland suggested on Sean O'Rourke's show that the wallets are hardware wallets.
> 
> It's likely that hackers are working on cracking the security of hardware wallets already.  However, they now have an even greater incentive.  I'm sure if someone did, a substantial bounty could be offered by CAB for recovery of the keys.


The IT article says the keys were printed on an A4 sheet of paper.  Personally I think it's highly unlikely that only a single copy was made and it was kept in something so easily water damaged or stolen.  As you say though, if they have the addresses of the Bitcoin then it will be public info if any of these are accessed.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (21 Feb 2020)

tecate said:


> If money moves at some stage, *then it will be clear* Collins has had the private keys all along.



No it won't. It could be evidence that someone else has found his fishing rods


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## Leo (21 Feb 2020)

Zenith63 said:


> Personally I think it's highly unlikely that only a single copy was made and it was kept in something so easily water damaged or stolen.



Some reports put the estimate of Bitcoin lost forever as high as 5 million! So lost or forgotten keys are all too common.


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## Sunny (21 Feb 2020)

Easy come. Easy go. Can't wait until we are all using Bitcoin....


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## tecate (21 Feb 2020)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> No it won't. It could be evidence that someone else has found his fishing rods


It's a possibility....albeit a slim one.  I guess if some of that starts to get spent, Collins has the perfect cover - they'd have to nail him down to spending the money somehow.  That said, I think someone finding his fishing rods is as likely as this guy finding his hard drive!.   


Leo said:


> Some reports put the estimate of Bitcoin lost forever as high as 5 million! So lost or forgotten keys are all too common.


Most estimates seem to suggest 3 million lost but I certainly hope it's the 5 million figure you mentioned.  Designed in scarcity is a cornerstone of bitcoin.  That scarcity limits it from being devalued by an endless supply.  If there's 5 million less, all the better.


Sunny said:


> Easy come. Easy go.


Yes, it would have been a mixture of easy come and the reality that it had little value back then.  If you're mining bitcoin using a regular PC at a time when the unit price is a few cents, then you're unlikely to have a robust system in place for the storage of private keys.  That wouldn't be the case today (that's not to say that more BTC won't be lost - it will - but to an ever decreasing extent).



Sunny said:


> Can't wait until we are all using Bitcoin....


You don't have to self-custody if you don't want if that's what you're getting at.  This is an evolving technology  - with evolving UX improvements.  Work on user experience improvement has barely just begun as the technology itself and the basic infrastructure surrounding it has not as yet settled.


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## Leo (21 Feb 2020)

tecate said:


> Most estimates seem to suggest 3 million lost but I certainly hope it's the 5 million figure you mentioned. Designed in scarcity is a cornerstone of bitcoin. That scarcity limits it from being devalued by an endless supply. If there's 5 million less, all the better.



Difficult to say with certainty alright. Chainalysis estimated 3.8 million in 2017, CCN reported 6 million last year, but these reports are always caveat heavy. Who knows, maybe Satoshi will reappear and reclaim his million


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## tecate (21 Feb 2020)

Leo said:


> Who knows, maybe Satoshi will reappear and reclaim his million


Not ruling anything out for sure


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