Over at ACM.org, Robin K. Hill writes Cryptocurs Don't Asportate [*]:
Cryptocurrency cannot be stolen—by definition. We don't need to ask whether crypto is a commodity or a credit vehicle, nor whether the exchange or the client owns the funds [Anderson]. We need only look at the principle behind the arrangement. Most bank accounts have an owner, a vessel (the account), some contents (the money), and some means of access (an account identifier or accountholder's personal identity). AND there is some authority that manages these elements (the bank). Cryptocurrency conflates the vessel and the contents, while rejecting the authority. I claim that cryptocurrency also absorbs the owner into the acess, leaving only two things, the access and the contents.
Note that the term "decentralized finance" might be more precise here, but "crypto" is the coin of the realm, so to speak. We digress to note that cryptocurrency promoters explicitly omit the element of authority, claiming its absence as a feature, not a bug. Yet this doctrine has already, and ironically, been contravened. The government(!) of El Salvador has declared that Bitcoin is legal tender and must be accepted as payment; the IMF (an even broader authority!) urges retraction [IMF]. A long-standing request to the local government for permission to excavate the tip (landfill) in Newport (Wales) has ben rejected by that Council [BBC]. Law enforcement can indeed handle this as a crime [HamiltonPolice]. In all of these situations, a crypto holder has invoked authority to thwart the anarchy of decentralized finance.
To return to the concept of theft: Our unabridged dictionary of 1930-something (Websters Third International, title page long gone, remaining 3206 pages intact) defines theft as the "taking and removing of property" with the intent to deprive the rightful owner. So both taking and removing are elements. In fact, there's a word for the removing, the act of carrying away items in larceny—asportation. Our tradition has long given up the idea that money requires a tangible realization, but we retain the idea that it's stored somewhere, to which place we go when we want it and from which we can get it. That's obvious with fiat currency in the form of cash, but it also applies to bank accounts, where transfer is accomplished through ledger entries that move (intangible) funds from one bank account to another.
Where is crypto? Cryptocurrency funds do not reside in a digital wallet—a digital wallet is like a physical wallet or envelope or piggy bank rather than a bank account. Cryptocurrency resides on the blockchain. ("Every bitcoin consists of its entire history since it was mined" [Anderson, pg. 6].) In a transfer, no asportation takes place. Access is granted through the key, not through the digital wallet that contains the key. In human reckoning, there may be a "rightful owner" to be deprived (and a thief, the cryptocur, if you will), but crypto has no room for that specification. Whoever controls the key is the owner.
Asportation at merriam-webster.com.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by janrinok on Tuesday February 01 2022, @07:12AM (3 children)
What a marvellous piece of writing. It is clear, understandable (albeit with some new vocabulary - but that is explained.) and easy to read. And it explains the problems that crypto-currencies and their users face ahead.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:52PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @06:18PM (1 child)
Notice that there's little difference between cryptocurrencies and physical currency in this philosophical throwing to the wolves. Physical currency genuinely has no distinct owner or authority, except for large amounts of currency. Sure, there are serial numbers, but that's not going to matter when you get mugged.
Meanwhile the author completely ignores the sophisticated infrastructure for establishing ownership of cryptocurrency, claiming that because ownership and access are conflated, that this means that theft is impossible. This is just stupid. First, access is not trivial. There are still publicly viewable bitcoin wallets with large amounts of bitcoin that have been untouched for years. That demonstrates that access is not easy to come by. Thus, access is simultaneously a serious proof of ownership.
What is missed here is that cryptocurrencies demonstrate that a lot of the paraphernalia of the banking system just isn't needed. This paper really is just looking for excuses to sabotage the viability of cryptocurrencies rather than bringing up legitimate problems.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday February 01 2022, @06:50PM
I wasn't arguing that I agreed with her - I felt that she expressed herself well, so I said so. Others disagree, it's not the end of my world.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday February 01 2022, @08:40AM (14 children)
The analysis is inconsistent. On one hand, the author claims on money transfers on bank accounts:
So an update of a ledger is asportation if the ledger is maintained by a bank.
On the other hand, the author claims on cryptocurrencies:
So an update to a ledger is not asportation if the ledger is maintained by a collective of cryptominers.
I can't see a relevant difference between the two.
And the author also seems to be completely oblivious of the difference between ownership and possession. According to the criteria used, you could not own a trade mark either.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @01:07PM (13 children)
For example, my bank account doesn't contain any money - it's just a number. I can exchange that number for goods and services, or cash, but the cash isn't sitting there in my account - ever. So the account never contains actual money, contrary to the article's claim.
Can cryptocurrency be lost? Of course. Whoever controls enough of the blockchain can also steal crypto. The chinese were capable of this at one point, but they didn't want to upset the apple cart on this particular ponzi scheme.
And of course once all the coins for a particular scheme are found, then what? All those miners either go on to the next scam or die.
But obviously crypto can be stolen , because it HAS been stolen. Same as money can be stolen from my bank account , even though in the bank it's just a number, not cash.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @01:38PM (10 children)
Hanging a no theft argument on no asporation, when things move physically the same in a bank account seemed sketchy to me as well.
I don't think the no theft conclusion is BS, but there might be a better way to get there.
The basic Bitcoin agreement in the block chain says "Here's a puzzle, whoever solves it first gets the coins."
This seems unsupportive of a concept of ownership.
Ownership and hence theft could come from an external legal framework, supported by authority, which Bitcoin separates itself from.
It could also come from some sort of moral agreement, but the Bitcoin paper is mute on this.
Where in Bitcoin is it implied that that ownership is more than whoever solves the puzzle first?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @06:25PM (9 children)
Why is that relevant? If I get paid normal money by a game show for winning by solving a puzzle first, does that mean I don't own the money? Solving the puzzle is relatively easy and there's a collective decision mechanism by which the solution is acknowledged and the bitcoin credited to the solver's wallet. Getting that bitcoin out of that wallet without knowing the access code is a much harder problem. And there's plenty of untouched wallets out there demonstrating that nobody has figured it out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @07:27PM (8 children)
"Getting that bitcoin out of that wallet without knowing the access code is a much harder problem. And there's plenty of untouched wallets out there demonstrating that nobody has figured it out."
If ownership in Bitcoin means whoever solves the puzzle first, and if you did manage to come up with the solution for a random wallet, then how could using it to take the coins be theft?
There are lots of ways to get a key. Deception, hard work, finding an old drive. If you stole or committed fraud to get the key, then that, in and of itself is theft. But if you rightfully got the key, then the interesting question is if using it is theft, or just using Bitcoin as it was intended?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 02 2022, @02:27AM (2 children)
FTFY. Since bitcoins are used like money, they move around and end up in wallets that don't belong to puzzle solvers.
How did you come up with the solution for a random wallet? It's not easy to the point that the largest wallet in the world, which has somewhere around 900k-1mil bitcoins, is untouched. That's around $35-40 billion at current valuation. That's a lot of incentive to figure this out.
So the next step is to get the information from the existing wallet owner. And well, that's where theft starts coming in. If you do it via fraud or theft of the solution, then you're stealing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 02 2022, @03:26PM (1 child)
"If initial ownership in Bitcoin means whoever solves the puzzle first"
True if the puzzle you are talking about is the mining puzzle.
"If non-initial ownership in Bitcoin means whoever solves the puzzle first"
True if the puzzle you are talking about is the transaction signing required to transfer the coin.
The discussion is about the second puzzle, which yes, is really hard, but not impossible in some circumstances without fraud. (Really hard work or bought an old disk drive?)
The question is in this case, is using the solution to take take the coin theft, or just how BC is designed to work?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 02 2022, @04:13PM
Again, we're either talking about the mining puzzle or a puzzle that nobody is close to solving.
Then it's fraud, theft, etc and we have no need to worry about ownership weirdness.
Again, it depends how the solution was found.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday February 02 2022, @07:31AM (4 children)
To keep with the game show win example: If you won the money in a game show for solving a puzzle, and I then solve the puzzle of what your online banking password is, and use that to move the money you've won to my account, does that mean I now own that money?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 02 2022, @04:23PM (3 children)
Depends on whether the system can recover it or not. If you then pulled it out as cash, or transferred it to another country, it may well be long gone. There wouldn't be so much bank fraud and theft, if it weren't possible.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday February 02 2022, @05:14PM (2 children)
Yet another person who doesn't understand the concept of ownership.
No, if you steal something and nobody can prove it, that does not mean it's yours now. It just means you can successfully pretend to own it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 02 2022, @06:23PM (1 child)
What's the difference between "successfully pretend to own it" and "own it"? Reminds me of the "property is theft" people who argue that we're all just people who successfully pretend to own everything we own.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday February 03 2022, @08:58AM
The difference is that if all relevant facts were known to everyone, if you truly own it, you could still claim ownership, while if you only pretend to own it, those facts would reveal that you don't actually own it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:00PM (1 child)
good point, that with the chinese.
i suppose they saw early on for what it is "a weapon of mass value destruction".
so they pumped it / allowed mining until it could "feed" itself and then choped of the rotten arm and watch how the vultures start rotting alive.
result: no more vultures, only hard (real) work :P
crypto is financial anthrax (unless the rich are in danger of xploding from daily accumulating wealth and need a escape valve with a wink).
srsly, someone is going to explain to me how crypto can buy a real apple veeeery soon. (no i don't mean that the crypto user needs to be lobotimzed to become cypto compatible first)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 01 2022, @10:17PM
More likely they saw it as "not my job". When cryptocurrency started bypassing official currency controls and miners started exploiting subsidized power on a national scale, that probably woke someone up. Keep in mind that it's only been since 2009 [wikipedia.org] that they allow Chinese businesses to trade anything outside of China in Chinese currency. They're way behind the curve on this sort of thing.
It's real complicated. You use it like money. Exchange crypto for apples.
Sure, just like normal money. You trade with financial anthrax all the time. Lots of drama.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @09:52AM (1 child)
But does it yassify?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @11:09AM
>> But does it yassify?
Only your Prequel app knows for sure.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MIRV888 on Tuesday February 01 2022, @10:42AM (8 children)
Money is a concept.
If everyone agrees bitcoin is money, then bitcoin is money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @01:10PM (7 children)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @02:02PM (2 children)
It's primarily a concept, vastly more so than a physcial thing. 40trillion$ > 2.1$ trillion more. If you take everything into account such as derivatives, stock, ... you get to $1.3quadrillion.
So yes, there is physical currency, but it has no value in itself. The physical thing is given value by others. Today, currencies are also no longer backed up by gold supplies or similar. It's all "imagined". There have been times where the physical coins had more value in raw materials than their represented values.
In short, on that front bitcoin and money are exactly the same, differing in the fact that you can pay your taxes using one but not the other. (And all derived "values" from that)
I heard about actual physcial bitcoins, where the key and everything needed to own the coin was stored on a physical device. As such that would be equal to the paper money version we currently know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:03PM
it probably needs a battery. i have a spare ... for 0.5 bitc... oh wait.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:25PM
Top tip - even Tether doesn't have intrinsic dollar value. Merely calling it a "stable coin" doesn't make it stable. The only way it could deliver on its promise of being stable would be to have a business model that would be unable to guarantee ever making any profit at all. And as that's unlikely - as its a terrible business model unless it's a scam - the simplest conclusion is that it's indeed a scam.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:13PM (2 children)
There is no intrinsic difference between a crypto currency and a fiat one apart from the trust relation between the issuer of the fiat. I have been promised that I can use the fiat to settle debts, and pay my taxes. There's no such promise with arbitrary cryptos. However, obviously, were a nation state to imbue a crypto with that fiat, it would become fiat. It would just have an unconventional ledger, and that's nothing more than an implementation detail. Users shouldn't even need to know what's going on inside the black box, as evidenced by the fact that almost nobody, yourself included, seems to know what money is.
I will buzz myself for use of "money" where I should say "currency" in the above, but most people don't distinguish the two. If you're pendantic enough to distinguish the two, you'll notice that almost none of what anyone's been calling "money" for over a century is actually "money", it's just currency. "Money"'s pretty much a dead concept. (Which is why it's been so trivial to repurpose the word to refer to currency.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Tuesday February 01 2022, @06:17PM (1 child)
Potential for violence. That is what makes a fiat currency work. That is what makes it valuable.
The potential to inflict violence is universally valuable. It is a way to express raw power and to enforce your will on another. This is always valuable. If you say something has value, and someone else tries to say it does not, and you have them killed and their families tortured, you will find your coin does indeed hold value in the eyes of the survivors.
This is essentially what makes the dollar still work, kind of, today.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 02 2022, @09:46AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 02 2022, @02:29AM
Even ones and zeroes on a disk are a physical representation. So crypto indeed has a physical representation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:15PM
To asportate is a transitive verb.
Besides that, this is simply a retread of arguments missing the point that computer security is a misnomer given that computers don't understand the world and the context of mandates such as: "Sally likes Bobby, but don't let Bobby find out!" A better term would be computer reliability, because a supposedly secure computer system would be one in which intended operations occur reliably, as opposed to unintended ones.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 01 2022, @03:42PM (1 child)
"Cryptocurrency cannot be stolen"
Yes [cbsnews.com] it [cnbc.com] can [zdnet.com].
Theory aside, in practice, it's being stolen, ergo it can be stolen.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Wednesday February 02 2022, @03:10PM
Thats what I was saying. It can be stolen, it can be lost. Hell, it can be held but completely useless to the owner. There are a few wallets out there with tens and even hundreds of thousands of bitcoin in them, but no passkey to open them.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday February 01 2022, @06:28PM
Now with Asportate (TM). It's better for your waste line.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Tuesday February 01 2022, @07:28PM (1 child)
The article fails to mention the most important problem with cryptocurrency: the environment-devastating mining.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday February 01 2022, @10:13PM
This is a solvable problem; There is a defined process for the network to replace existing processes. My gut tells me Miners don't love having to pay the recurring opex for energy for mininig and cooling. Combined with the arms race for custom silicon that makes mining a difficult business. My wager is they'd support a move to more efficient mining, i.e. proof of stake instead of proof of work, if it allowed them to recover their existing capex and preserve mining market share in the future.
Ether already made the jump.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday February 01 2022, @09:59PM
ASPORTATION. The act of carrying a thing away; the removing a thing from one place to another. Vide Carrying away; Taking.
A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856.
Asportate didn't come up for me in any English dictionary, but one can infer the meaning from the above.
(Score: -1) by Mockingbird on Tuesday February 01 2022, @10:04PM
"This is my bitcoin. I have the key."
"Where did you get this key?"
"Found it. Fell off a truck. Not stolen. It's mine!"