zlacker

>>mikeyo+(OP)
I ask this every so often during threads regarding stolen cryptocurrency:

Is there any solution yet to preventing stolen cryptocurrency funds from being spent? Isn't the only solution to have a central database and require laws to require every transaction to be pre-checked to see if it's stolen funds or not?

And not only that, the centralized system will have to be constantly keeping track of wallet mixing to see where funds are being redirected to, attempted to being washed to?

>>loceng+E6
There is no solution because you would end up punishing innocent people. E.g. if a thief buys a car with their proceeds then it's not fair to punish the car dealership by confiscating the originally-stolen coins. This was decided in Scotland in 1749, cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawfurd_v_The_Royal_Bank

>>runeks+9b
That Scottish decision, while still the basis for bona fide acquisition of money in the UK and US, does not yet appear to apply for cryptocurrencies.

Your Wikipedia link cites a 2019 paper published in the Georgetown Technical Law Review whose analysis (https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/...) on page 415-6 says that 2016 US v 50.44 Bitcoins (https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-5044-bitcoins) determined "cryptocurrencies do not meet the UCC's definition of money" and thus bona fide acquisition is not sufficient to prevent the crypto from being legally seized from the possessor and returned to the original owner.

>>swarsh+Qd1
To be clear, I'm arguing that the same reasoning behind the Scottish decision is why cryptocurrencies don't have a built-in features that prevent stolen cryptocurrency funds from being spent: because it would make the currency non-fungible.