It describes the legal status of stolen cryptocurrency changing after the first sale. This HN story is about stolen cryptocurrency. In particular:
> The wallet has sold around $200 million worth of stETH so far
If some of those sales took place within jurisdiction of a U.S. state that has ratified UCC Article 12, then the buyer of the stolen cryptocurrency is now the new legal owner.
.. “take free” regime introduced by the 2022 UCC Amendments for these assets. Under these rules, a person who acquires a CER for value, in good faith and without notice of any conflicting property claims, is deemed a “qualifying purchaser” and, as such, takes it free from any preexisting property claims.
The 2022 UCC Amendments draw heavily from the UCC Article 3 provisions for negotiable instruments, and these provisions have the effect of making CERs negotiable. It follows that if a secured creditor obtained a security interest in CER inventory and only perfected by filing, that creditor would be at risk of the debtor disposing of the collateral and transferring control to a qualifying purchaser that would take it free from any competing claim.
I think you're saying this is different to theft-of-car. A stolen car could be sold/bought a number of times, but any amount of years later the car belatedly identified as the one stolen from the rightful owner means it is returned. A fraudulently created title isn't enough to protect the bagholder from having to return the car.
It is important everyone is thinking real hard about how this is different from traditional theft: there is no way to actually prove the operators didn't just steal everything themselves vs actual real hack theft.
