Bitcoin money is not associated with any particular human owner. Money is owned by a sequence of bits known as a ‘public key’. And guess what: it’s all in the public domain. Everybody can see who are the rich public keys. And if you just invested in a powerful mining computer to mine bitcoins, you may be well tempted to use all this mining power, to mine the corresponding private key of a rich public key. Why sweat to mine a few miserable bitcoins, if you can, at once, own millions — safely. The ‘rightful’ owner of the money cannot come after you because (i) he or she cannot prove that they are the ‘rightful’ owner of the money. The money is ‘owned’ by the specific public key, or to say, owned by whomever is in possession of the corresponding private key. If your trusted friend, or spouse steals your private key, the police will not help you. You bought yourself anonymity all right, but you purchased it with rotten security. No big deal, if you invest your play money in Bitcoin, but if your entire retirement fund is there, it is not so funny…
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