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Comment by RIMR | Hacker News Reader

What do you even do with that much bitcoin realistically? It's dirty, so any attempt to turn it into fiat puts you at risk of being found. Whoever had it refused to touch it for 7 years, likely because they knew it was a fast-track to getting arrested.

Giving that money straight to the feds in exchange for immunity might be more attractive than trying to hide the reason you became a billionaire.

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Pretty crazy to think about. Its a billion dollars. For that much money, it might almost be worth it to go to jail for it and let your kids try to launder it 50 years later. There are bound to arise opportunities to launder at least part of it right? Even without considering that the bitcoins might become even more valuable, you could set up a dynasty with this money.

Or you can just ask the feds to keep you in a witness protection program which treats you and your family like royalty for 50 years. I don't know if it exists, but it might.

The USA government can easily launder 1 G$ in bitcoin and give you part of the profits; it's not clear who else could. The only alternative I can imagine is some giant money laundering scheme with some authoritarian state, probably involving the smuggling of oil, diamonds and/or weapons.

It was 70k illiquid Bitcoin. The dollar value was entirely virtual.

What strikes me about these people is how they can't stop and cash out. They risk to lose their life to jail yet don't have an exit plan. They just continue gambling.

whoever had it didn't have a "Marty Byrd" type person to launder the money. such a shame, could have done so much with that money in terms of humanitarian aspects.

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