If you're not using privacy coins, your transactions will be canceled. https://miningpool.observer/ https://github.com/0xB10C/ofac-sanctioned-digital-currency-addresses https://b10c.me/observations/08-missing-sanctioned-transactions @0xB10C My project, miningpool-observer, aims to detect when Bitcoin mining pools are not mining transactions they could have been mining. Over the past few weeks, it detected six missing transactions spending from OFAC-sanctioned addresses. This post examines whether these transactions were intentionally filtered because they spent from OFAC-sanctioned addresses or if there are other possible explanations for these transactions to be missing from blocks. I conclude that four out of six transactions were likely filtered. In September and October 2023, the RSS feed of my miningpool-observer instance reported six blocks missing an OFAC-sanctioned transaction. One block was mined by the ViaBTC mining pool, another by the Foundry USA pool, and four by F2Pool. An OFAC-sanctioned transaction is a transaction spending from or paying to an address sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. I maintain a tool to extract a list of OFAC-sanctioned addresses from the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list published by the OFAC. ​ [–]garloid64 63 points64 points65 points 17 hours ago (3 children) buh buh the byzantine incentive matrix should make this literally impossible! they're losing money by rejecting those transactions the free market does NOT allow it permalink embed save report reply [–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 25 points26 points27 points 17 hours ago* (2 children) They choose not to mess with governments and regulators . They can sacrifice that amount of money for their peace of mind... But how bitcoin looks like then ? permalink embed save parent report reply [–]SinibusUSG 24 points25 points26 points 15 hours ago (0 children) I'm sure the affected parties can lodge protests at the centralized Bitcoin agency. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]otherwisemilkPonzi Schemer 13 points14 points15 points 13 hours ago (0 children) They told me Bitcoin is immune to government control. What gives? permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Nuka-Crapola 48 points49 points50 points 17 hours ago (11 children) I am not knowledgeable enough to evaluate your claims for myself but I am choosing to believe you regardless because this is fucking hilarious. They can’t even do the one thing they said they could do. permalink embed save report reply [–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 38 points39 points40 points 17 hours ago (10 children) It's true. Of course Buttcoiners can claim that "it's manipulation ! They can censor transactions but there always be a miner who will accept restricted transaction ! " Well, it's not that simple. If all significant pools agree to ban transactions of certain type then individual miner will never be able to do that too - because to do that he must mine a block. Comparing hashrates of small miners to pools like ViaBTC or F2pool there is almost zero chance he will win the competition to mine a block. So we can assume if pool decide not to mess with governments and start banning restricted transactions then bitcoin becomes basically a fully censored network - in the similar way like banking system. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]paul__k 29 points30 points31 points 13 hours ago (0 children) This is one of the overlooked flaws of BTC and similar systems: there is no guarantee of service, and there is no way to enforce "neutrality" of the network. Miners are completely free to choose what transactions they will process. Theoretically, they could also form a cartel that blackmails whales by rejecting their transactions unless they pay a ransom first. If they don't, their coins would be virtually useless. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]leducdeguisefakeception intensifies 19 points20 points21 points 16 hours ago (0 children) in the similar way like banking system Minus the positive side of it permalink embed save parent report reply [–]The_Motarp 12 points13 points14 points 11 hours ago (1 child) Even better, the government can threaten to punish miners not just for mining blocks that contain forbidden transactions, but also for building on blocks that contain those transactions. As long as a majority of miners are within reach of the government, any block that contains forbidden transactions can always be superseded by a longer chain that doesn't contain that block, guaranteeing that any miners who don't follow the rules will never get block rewards and will be unable to pay for electricity. As soon as you have an external authority enforcing rules all the fancy game theory about decentralized and uncensorable falls apart. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 4 points5 points6 points 9 hours ago (0 children) Wait until they punish miners for processing blocks where the miner does not have full KYC details for all sending and receiving addresses. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Fearlessthrowaway42 4 points5 points6 points 10 hours ago (2 children) What do you say Bitcoin is actually centralized no way but butters said Bitcoin is decentralized. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 3 points4 points5 points 10 hours ago (1 child) It depends how you define decentralization. It's not under control of one party but it's definitely under control. My theory why this whole business isn't illegal is because many govt. agencies find it useful for it's own purposes and to track people and operations they are interested in. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Fearlessthrowaway42 1 point2 points3 points 10 hours ago (0 children) It's a decentralized scam. I would say Bitcoin is now so big that no government wants to make a black swan event since it would piss off a lot of people. They are butters but butters can still vote. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]marvn23 1 point2 points3 points 11 hours ago (2 children) Do you know if there is a system that is tracking how many blocks were mined by non-pool miners? I wonder if anyone is still trying to mine solo as it's so improbable to actually "strike gold". According to this https://coincodex.com/article/31820/how-long-does-it-take-to-mine-1-bitcoin/, you would need to invest 55M USD to buy 22k antminers to solo mine a single block every day. Also these miners would consume a shy of 72MW of electricity, so it wouldn't be cheap to keep them running. But with enough money and severe lack of judgment, you can still pay your way around of such censorship. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 3 points4 points5 points 11 hours ago (1 child) You can check https://miningpoolstats.stream/bitcoin You can see there which pools mined blocks. It's also visible that 0.1 % of mined blocks founder is defined as UNKNOWN and you can also see two or three addresses there that also have a very small share in blocks finding. This is the percentage share of block mined by something that isn't a known pool (could be solo miners or small private pools). So yes , sometimes you can see a block mined by someone else than one of major pools. Still they must have significant amount of hashpower - this isn't definitely mined on one ASIC maschine in someones garage... permalink embed save parent report reply [–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 2 points3 points4 points 9 hours ago (0 children) If other miners ignore that block and continue to mine off of the previous one, the underdog miner who finally won one will find his block orphaned and his reward will be zero. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]AmericanScream 9 points10 points11 points 15 hours ago* (6 children) Can you tell us more about those transactions? Are the wallet owners identified? How did their fee rate compare with the standard free rate of included transactions? How much were the transactions and where were they going? (Reading some of this blockchain data doesn't always seem intuitive)

From what I see, these transactions also seem to be of trivial amounts, so perhaps they're just test transactions?

permalink embed save report reply [–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 14 points15 points16 points 14 hours ago (5 children) Yes, the wallet owners are identified. The list is updated constantly. For example address 3PKiHs4GY4rFg8dpppNVPXGPqMX6K2cBML is identified as : WANG, Hongfei (Chinese Simplified: 王洪飞), China; DOB 02 Dec 1991; POB Hebei, China; nationality China; Email Address shuokangw@163.com; Gender Male; Digital Currency Address - XBT 3PKiHs4GY4rFg8dpppNVPXGPqMX6K2cBML; Phone Number 8615927270571; alt. Phone Number 8613313017588; alt. Phone Number 8615030111720; National ID No. 13053119911202021X (China) (individual) [ILLICIT-DRUGS-EO14059] (Linked To: WUHAN SHUOKANG BIOLOGICAL TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD; Linked To: YAO, Huatao). permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Stenbuckp***s 23 points24 points25 points 14 hours ago (4 children) Permissionless - oops need permission from the miners Uncensorable - lol guess not Anonymous - rofl the thing is publicly associated with his DOB, email, name, phone number, company and crime. Fast - no Low fees - LOL Decentralized - not in this life Secure - lmao permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 16 points17 points18 points 14 hours ago (3 children) 3PKiHs4GY4rFg8dpppNVPXGPqMX6K2cBML The best thing is : when you buy bitcoins you can receive coins that are connect with restricted addresses in the past and that could result in some serious effects for you. You could be investigated as someone who is involved in "illegal things" ... permalink embed save parent report reply [–]jimicus 7 points8 points9 points 10 hours ago (2 children) Don't even need to do that. You could receive coins that have been through a laundry. At which point you have zero evidence where the money comes from, and any reputable bank will run a mile in the opposite direction because you'll fail anti money-laundering checks. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 2 points3 points4 points 8 hours ago (1 child) It's a bit different but i get your point... Banks doesn't deal with bitcoins they deal only with fiat currencies. It's the crypto exchange that can block your bitcoins cause they will have perfect excuse to steal it - sorry mate , our security systems detected that your bitcoins was processed through mixer and were involved in illegal activity - we will confiscate it till you provide us proof everything is ok (which is obviously impossible so we can keep your bitcoin forever or sold it to another stupid customer) permalink embed save parent report reply [–]jimicus 2 points3 points4 points 7 hours ago (0 children) Which will doubtless lead to cries of "Won't someone regulate the exchanges!" permalink embed save parent report reply [–]inputwtf 7 points8 points9 points 14 hours ago (0 children) You gotta share this with the Crypto Critics Corner podcast permalink embed save report reply [–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 6 points7 points8 points 9 hours ago (0 children) The miners who believe a 20 dollar fee is more valuable to them than avoiding a DOJ raid and corresponding prison sentence sure do have their priorities straight. permalink embed save report reply [–]eigenman 2 points3 points4 points 12 hours ago (0 children) Interesting project. I'll check out your site. permalink embed save report reply [–]CommitteeSalt8099 2 points3 points4 points 11 hours ago (0 children) Doing the lords work! permalink embed save report reply [+]PanneKoppPonzi Schemer 6 points7 points8 points 16 hours ago (0 children) good job permalink embed save report reply [–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 1 point2 points3 points 9 hours ago (2 children) Are these transactions censored indefinitely or did some miner somewhere eventually process them? permalink embed save report reply [–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 1 point2 points3 points 8 hours ago (1 child) I guess as long as they will be in the mempool there is chance that it will processed. It just must wait till the block will be mined by miner that does not censor the transactions. That can take long time. In theory if every miner decide to censor then this transaction will never be processed. permalink embed save parent report reply [–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 0 points1 point2 points 7 hours ago (0 children) Whoever decides to process it becomes an instant target of US authorities, and if authorities know the token transfer is used to finance military conflict against the US then it tends to become a very serious crime. But hey, there is a 5 dollar fee as an incentive. lol permalink embed save parent report reply