THELOGICALINDIAN - It has been broadly appear this anniversary that the US government has blacklisted two BTC addresses affiliated to cyber abomination These accurate addresses were singled out because their owners are believed to be Iranians whose country is currently adverse abundant bread-and-butter sanctions from the US While the BTC addresses are acutely affiliated to ransomware boilerplate media has gotten one acute aspect of the adventure amiss You deceit banish a bitcoin address
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The Office of Adopted Assets Control (OFAC) is the banking intelligence addition of the U.S. Treasury Department. It enforces bread-and-butter sanctions adjoin adopted entities the American government has taken barring to. Right now, it has Iran in its sights. By OFAC’s own admission, however, aggravating to banish bitcoin addresses is a first. “While OFAC commonly provides identifiers for appointed persons, today’s activity marks the aboriginal time OFAC is about advertence agenda bill addresses to appointed individuals,” explained the agency, adding:
You Can’t Blacklist a Bitcoin Address
The addresses in question, 149w62rY42aZBox8fGcmqNsXUzSStKeq8C and 1AjZPMsnmpdK2Rv9KQNfMurTXinscVro9V, accept been complex in over 7,000 affairs back 2013 and accustomed abutting to 6,000 BTC. As of Nov. 28, anyone interacting with these addresses could technically be captivated accountable by the U.S. government and punished in some way. In reality, though, these threats are little added than abandoned words. No one — not alike the U.S. government, with its army of apparatchiks and enforcers — can anticipate a specific abode from sending or accepting bitcoin. With cryptocurrencies such as EOS or ripple, OFAC would acceptable accept added success, but decentralized assets such as BTC and BCH are uncensorable.
To authenticate the pointlessness of the blacklisting, both BTC addresses accept accustomed affairs in the accomplished 24 hours. In one instance, vanity addresses were acclimated to broadcast OFAC and to reiterate the futility of its agenda bill sanctions. While cryptocurrency exchanges can and do block accounts affiliated to assertive addresses, the Bitcoin agreement charcoal allowed from such interference. Permissionless and stateless, bitcoin can’t be blacklisted. That’s why it’s so valuable.
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