Divorcing Couples Fight Over the Kids, the House and Now the Crypto (nytimes.com) 37
As cryptocurrencies gain wider acceptance, the division of the family stash has turned into a major source of contention, with estranged couples trading accusations of deception and financial mismanagement. From a report: An ugly divorce tends to generate arguments about virtually everything. But the difficulty of tracking and valuing cryptocurrency, a digital asset traded on a decentralized network, is creating new headaches. In many cases, divorce lawyers said, spouses underreport their holdings, or try to hide funds in online wallets that can be difficult to get into. "Originally, it was under the mattress, and then it was the bank account in the Caymans," said Jacqueline Newman, a divorce lawyer in New York who works with high-net-worth clients. "Now it's crypto." The rise of cryptocurrencies has provided a useful medium of exchange for criminals, creating new opportunities for fraud. But digital assets are not untraceable. Transactions are recorded on public ledgers called blockchains, enabling savvy analysts to follow the money.
Some divorce lawyers have come to rely on a growing industry of forensic investigators, who charge tens of thousands of dollars to track the movement of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether from online exchanges to digital wallets. The investigative firm CipherBlade has worked on about 100 crypto-related divorces over the last few years, said Paul Sibenik, a forensic analyst for the company. In multiple cases, he said, he has traced more than $10 million in cryptocurrency that a husband hid from his wife. "We're trying to make it a cleaner space," Mr. Sibenik said. "There needs to be some degree of accountability." In interviews, nearly a dozen lawyers and forensic investigators described divorce cases in which a spouse -- usually the husband -- was accused of lying about cryptocurrency transactions or hiding digital assets. None of the couples agreed to be interviewed. But some of the divorces have created paper trails that shed light on how these disputes unfold.
Some divorce lawyers have come to rely on a growing industry of forensic investigators, who charge tens of thousands of dollars to track the movement of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether from online exchanges to digital wallets. The investigative firm CipherBlade has worked on about 100 crypto-related divorces over the last few years, said Paul Sibenik, a forensic analyst for the company. In multiple cases, he said, he has traced more than $10 million in cryptocurrency that a husband hid from his wife. "We're trying to make it a cleaner space," Mr. Sibenik said. "There needs to be some degree of accountability." In interviews, nearly a dozen lawyers and forensic investigators described divorce cases in which a spouse -- usually the husband -- was accused of lying about cryptocurrency transactions or hiding digital assets. None of the couples agreed to be interviewed. But some of the divorces have created paper trails that shed light on how these disputes unfold.
Crypto is just a game (Score:2)
And the only people playing the crypto game are people who have money to waste on speculating or pumping and dumping. Well...I have $15 worth of BTC, but that's only because some overvalued company started giving it away for free yesterday. I might use it to buy a pizza.
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Good luck with that. After you pay the transaction fee, you'll have about $13 left. Maybe you can get a small one topping pizza for that?
Divorcing couples fight over assets (Score:3, Interesting)
Nope, but ... (Score:2)
I think the "interesting" part is supposed to be the idea that now, people have resorted to putting their funds into crypto and then claiming they have much less income than they really do.
If seems to me that if this becomes a popular enough trend, it will overwhelm the ability of the forensics people who specialize in tracking crypto transfers? While they're bragging that this is traceable, it isn't EASILY done....
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I think the "interesting" part is supposed to be the idea that now, people have resorted to putting their funds into crypto and then claiming they have much less income than they really do.
But surely hiding (or attempting to hide) assets isn't at all uncommon. That there's yet another way now that crypto exists seems obvious. Maybe I should RTFA. Nah...
edit: hey ./ my ellipses are not ascii art!!!
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I'd rather have the filter than the swastikas that were here before.
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In general I welcome it, however it doesn't seem to work very well. Blocking normal use of punctuation, while allowing trolls to post stupid crap, as ascii art.
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If seems to me that if this becomes a popular enough trend, it will overwhelm the ability of the forensics people who specialize in tracking crypto transfers? While they're bragging that this is traceable, it isn't EASILY done....
These sort of articles are always light on technical details. It's most likely all the tracing/seizing we keep hearing about is taking place on exchanges (where at the very least there's an email address and IP records associated with a user's account).
Husband buys BTC on Coinbase via bank transfer = pretty obvious attempt to "hide" assets.
Husband buys BTC using cash at BTC ATMs and stores it in a "paper wallet" = good luck ever figuring out where that money went.
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While they're bragging that this is traceable, it isn't EASILY done....
If you have there wallet the I believe there will be just a program that can trace every transaction, high paid consultants have always been around to overcharge.
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The main point of cryptocurrency is to hide money for illegal purposes. I suppose there's a legal reason for hiding money but people usually use other means than crypto for that.
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But hiding assets isn't new, either. It's been going on since time immemorial where people wo
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This is news?
Of course. Anything, as long as it can be used to put crypto in bad light.
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My thoughts too. While married assets are equally distributed, with a divorce there is a lot of debate on which assets belong to who, and not all of them can be split. While normally I think they just need to give the other side 1/2 of the Crytpo, I expect issues where say one side decides to keep the house then the other side has a disparage so they may keep more if not all of they crypto, even though the crypto may be or not the better investment.
Easy prevention (Score:2)
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This is a lesson which needs to be taught earlier, or at least, how to prevent legally minimize losses should a split happen.
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Indeed. It's a lesson that men, specifically, need to learn; the legal system is so biased that you should consider them your enemy. Yours and your children's. I have seen dads held responsible for things mom did. I have seen countless men commit suicide because the courts stripped them of everything ( money, time with their children ) and turn them into mom's slave. I have seen men held in contempt of court because the court imposed impossible orders to guarantee the life to which mom was accustomed.
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Marriage for a man in today's society is a losing proposition. Particularly if children are involved.
Not exactly. It is risky proposition, but the rewards of a successful marriage are well-documented, numerous, and not available by other means. Now that feminism was effectively killed off by woke ideology, we can re-balance family law and stop pretending that it is still 50s when determining support owed to women. Or men can roll with the times and all declare themselves to be identifying as mothers.
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Ok, I'm game...like what?
Care to list a few, maybe 5-10 of them?
Ok, new one on me....feminism has turned to ultra-feminism, larger and more damaging that previous incarnations.
A man isn't goin
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But that begs the old question.
Do they really live longer, or, does it just seem that way...?
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Found the clueless person when it comes to family court.
I had an incredibly biased judge who threw out a report by a court appointed psychologist with 40 years of experience. The shrink recommended I have sole decision making, my ex be limited to every other weekend.
My ex was found to be emotionally abusing our children and that she is attempting to alienate them from. The shrink determined that my ex is incapable of co-parenting.
The judge ignored the fact that she made false allegations of me sexually abu
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I would guess most of the users around here are already following that advice, albeit not of their own volition.
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In a divorce you could also just sue for a fraction of the paycheck. You can't really hide that very well. A judge might decide that deliberately hidng net worth is just cause for grabbing other assets instead.
It also helps to know before tying the knot if the fiance is an asshole or not.
Crypto! Crypto! Crypto! Blah (Score:2)
a pusher owns /. (Score:2)
so it's going to stop any time soon, unless they realize they've wasted their money and sell again; I guess. [bizx.com]
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Thank you, I was curious what other connection there was between /. and crypto in general. If you look who they follow on their Twitter account [twitter.com] you can see at least some people are all onboard the crypto train. (Also guys maybe try and show even some attempt of pretense of impartiality on your official feeds, this is rookie stuff)
Oh hey, haven't we seen this before. (Score:1)
Who remembers Beanie Babies?
Place your bets on how long it is until a judge makes some couple pick hard drives off a court room floor.
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I had forgotten that story. [reddit.com]
I’ve got em’! (Score:2)
Or perhaps it’s the legal requirements of exchanges to gather info and this is what’s exploited rather than the veracity of a public ledger.
Nope (Score:3)