If he had done the deal in a foreign currency, in gold, or for modern art, they'd still seize all of that, regardless of its current value. Bitcoins are no different, even if you're considering them a proxy for real dollars.
Bitcoins are no different, even if you're considering them a proxy for real dollars.
As mentioned in the article, even after acquiring the wallet file, the FBI is still unable to perform transactions with that BTC. There's no bank they can order to transfer it into their account, no briefcase full of cash they can deposit, etc. As I understand it, the only way they're able to deprive Ulbricht of them is by not letting him keep a copy of the file. With the "brain wallet" strategy (not sure how viable that really is), they wouldn't even have been able to get this far.
Bitcoins are different in that they weigh nothing and you can keep the fact you have them secret and plausibly deniable until they develop FMRI techniques to retrieve passwords or the location where you geocached memory cards with the wallet data.
