not really? presumably many people transfer via platforms like Coinbase that use a shared wallet system. You can't just "send the money back where it came from" as those wallets might not actually be controlled by the funds owner.
Even if the victims get their money back it would only account for 25% or so because the price of BTC has moved so far since they lost it. (I think many victims will successfully petition for their money back)
Because they bought Bitcoin and gave it to the scammer, and that Bitcoin is even worth more now, so that’s the ‘most fair’ recompense.
After all, if someone stole $1k of gold from someone a decade ago, is giving them (now deflated) $1k USD fair, or is giving them the same physical amount (now worth) $3k in gold fairer? Even if they bought the gold because the scammer asked them too.
The ‘fair enough’ treatment would be to give them the dollar equivalent at the time they gave the bitcoin to the scammer, and the rest goes… to the gov’t? As ‘payment’ for recovering it all and making the payment happen? Or to penalize the scammers? But actually the victims lost a lot of monetary value due to inflation, and lost gains from bitcoin price increasing.
The ‘meh, won’t get anyone run out of town with pitchforks’ is the gov’t seizes the bitcoin, punishes the offenders (how?), and somehow gives warm fuzzies to the victims without actually giving them anything to make their financial pain any better. Aka business as usual. Bonus points if you make them give more money to another party to do it (aka the ‘class action shuffle’ that has gotten popular in the last few decades).
> After all, if someone stole $1k of gold from someone a decade ago, is giving them (now deflated) $1k USD fair, or is giving them the same physical amount (now worth) $3k in gold fairer? Even if they bought the gold because the scammer asked them too.
I think that's an important difference. The fair thing is to "make them whole", to restore them to as if they'd never met the scammer. If they had a stash of gold that got stolen, the fair thing is to give them back that gold or the nearest equivalent. If they had a bunch of money that they sent to the scammer, the fair thing is to give them their money back; if they bought $50k in iTunes gift cards to send to the scammer we should be giving them back $50k, not 5,000,000 iTunes points. I don't see how that's any different for Bitcoin.
They'll get back the value of their loss (at the time) in $. The us government is not going to send them bitcoin like some crypto bro, and anyway they've already proven they are not to be trusted around digital assets.
Probably what will happen again and again. If they can do this, why stop at Cambodia? Watch as DOJ begins seizing more and more Bitcoin from everywhere.
How about cash it out and trickle it down to us... or is all that just gonna magically disappear?