The US government is holding (hodling?) billions of dollars in seized cryptocurrency assets, and most of these funds just sit there forever.

BrianKrebs

The US government is holding (hodling?) billions of dollars in seized cryptocurrency assets, and most of these funds just sit there forever. But imagine the impact and disruption to cybercrime organizations that could occur if the government was forced to spend just a tiny fraction of their seized currency to fund straight up security research? Or maybe just provide a stipend to people who spend half their lives maintaining important open-source code libraries, or tracking emerging threats in new and useful ways.

I've been thinking a lot about this because I keep talking to researchers who are doing amazing, important work but having to spend increasing amounts of their precious time trying to attract investors, or just keep the lights on. The irony of this is that invariably what happens when they do get investors is the investors say no you can't do that anymore because it makes our lawyers squeamish. So in many ways, I see a market failure here.

If we are serious about making a bigger dent in cybercrime overall and in going after bigger fish, we need to find ways to make sure that these people can focus on their work.

Krypt3ia

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✌︎('ω'✌︎ )

@briankrebs I wonder if they have enough to tank the value of most cryptocurrencies so bad they never recover. If bitcoin and monero suddenly lost 95% of their value, it's almost like stealing that much money from them. Lot of collateral damage though.

Allison Nixon

@briankrebs im not holding my breath that the us government can dole out funds to the correct people (who almost by definition suck at commercialization) before getting swarmed by financial vultures. For someone without pre existing, pre financial motive, social connections, i think it would be nearly impossible to identify and reward the correct people. And even the well connected people will miss a lot of worthy people too.

That said this problem, as you know, dominates my thinking right now and im going to try some things this year. I truly believe these unfunded researchers are money left on the table because most of the people with funding are ignorant.

serious business :donor: :heart_cyber:

@briankrebs

buy my bags, Uncle Sam!

𝙳𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚢 𝙵𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚠𝚛𝚊𝚙

@briankrebs

One can already hear the screams from the P2025-sponsored White House... "Socialism!!"

VessOnSecurity

@briankrebs This probably won't work for the same reason that the "instead of sending billions to Ukraine, use them to help the victims of the L.A. fires" idea can't work.

The government doesn't have an amorphous slush pool of money that it can redirect and send wherever it wants to. There are multiple budget allocations that can be used only for a specific purpose, stated in advance.

Funding security research and open source software development are good ideas but I doubt very much that the funding for that can come from the sale of stolen goods.

RRB

@briankrebs More likely the "government" is thinking of "investing" it in the critical "$Melania" coin reserve.

codesand

@briankrebs who knows how many government employees have embezzled crypto from suspects