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It's naive to assume the government wouldn't be able to figure out such an obvious scheme. I disapprove of civil forfeiture laws as a matter of policy, but your proposed mechanism for outwitting them is absurd.


They would of course "figure it out". Actually, there wouldn't even be anything to figure out in the first place, it would be painfully obvious what had happened and they would strike out at you for doing it. Your bitcoins are transferred out of your wallet hours after you are arrested but before you give them the passphrase to your wallet... what is there to figure out?

You seem to be entirely misunderstanding what I am proposing.


I don't think so. You seem to be entirely overestimating the effectiveness of your proposal.


How is destroying bitcoins not an effective way of ensuring that nobody has those bitcoins? How is that not effective?

You seem to be under the impression that I think the authorities would not realize what happened, or would not strike out at you for doing it. I am suggesting neither of those things. They can be as angry as they want to be, but that will not un-transfer those bitcoins. Hell, they can beat you with a wrench for the rest of your natural life but that will not get the bitcoins back.

You plainly do not understand what I am suggesting. "That would be organized crime and authorities are good at recognizing organized crime" is not a coherent response. Speak plainly, what specifically do you think the flaw is?


The problems are threefold. First, civil forfeiture is not the end; destruction of wealth doesn't achieve anything in particular. Second, your scheme involves coopting others and putting them at risk of conviction for conspiracy, reducing liberty in the aggregate. Thirdly, it's unlikely that anyone has all their worldly assets in bitcoin, so this will simply result in attempts to seize other assets of similar value (if prosecutors reasonably suspect the money to have been hidden or transferred elsewhere) or indifference (if it has inarguably been destroyed). The purpose of civil forfeiture laws (notwithstanding their scope for abuse) is to prevent the criminal enjoyment of ill-gotten gains.

You're so obsessed with getting one over on the government that you've adopted the position of the dog in the manger; if you can't have it, nobody else will, ha-ha-ha!

They can be as angry as they want to be, but that will not un-transfer those bitcoins.

I feel like I'm talking to a 12 year old. Your entire position is predicated on the fallacious belief that government's primary goal is to get its hands on your property. You're in the grip of an ideological delusion. If anything, your scheme is going to widen the government's reach by exapnding the number of prosecutable individuals.


>They can be as angry as they want to be, but that will not un-transfer those bitcoins. Hell, they can beat you with a wrench for the rest of your natural life but that will not get the bitcoins back

That's very comforting.


Actually it is, because it means that since they provably have no way to coerce you, anything they do can be shown to be petty revenge, and that's really the worst way to support one's case.

Governments are used to having a stick to support their arguments with; take it away, and you will find them very bad at making an argument.


>Actually it is, because it means that since they provably have no way to coerce you, anything they do can be shown to be petty revenge, and that's really the worst way to support one's case.

Petty revenge is the bread and butter of lesser bureaucrats in government.




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