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Comment by thret | Hacker News Reader

4.5 million bitcoin scheme, 40 million in fines? Ridiculous. According to the article he took around 1 million for personal use and returned the rest.

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He kept 150,000 Bitcoin.. Today they'd be worth over $50M. If you stole a stack of stock certificates on a day when they were only worth $10 and were arrested on a day when they were worth $100, you couldn't just pay back $10 in cash and walk away with the stock, why should BTC be any different?

Failure to repay is subtly different from going out and stealing in the traditional manner. If you fail to repay stock and get super lucky with the value I think you should be able to pay cash+interest+penalties* and walk away. (And play roulette next time, less likely to end in jail.)

They're not going to demand less money if the stock goes down, are they?

*penalties perhaps meaning you pay $30 plus interest

What if they were now worth $0? Should he not have to pay then?

If you only had to pay back what you stole, it wouldn't really be punishment.

And it has to be punishment, instead of, say, rehabilitation, because?

So you don't scam twice as big and just get caught for half of it on purpose. Pretty sure that's Die Hard though.

Because retributive theory of punishment.

How do you rehabilitate a person who does something like this such that they won't do it again? Serious question.

Deterrent.

Well, possibly it could be rehabilitation, but what if rehabilitation fails and they offend again? Do you just layer on more rehabilitation each time, or do you eventually decide on punishment at some point?

Justice

Because there are a thousand other people saying "oooh, what a good scheme. Maybe I should try that."

Deterrence is a significant part of the justice system.

Because otherwise it would be irrational not to commit crimes?

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