The biggest heist of the 21st century

This isn't justice by any means. They've managed to reclaim those stolen funds, but it’s not just this case, it’s happened a lot. No criminals have faced arrest or punishment. The actual holders don’t see their money returned. So tell me, how is this not just a government-approved heist dressed up like Robin Hood?

Why surprised? when the US first began bitcoin support through trump did they ever make plans of buying? of course not they only when ahead to hold the seized funds of people where scam related or mixer related frozen cryptos, so if they forfeit now it's not a new step you don't own anything in the US as long as you have them in a centralised system where they can seize it, so decentralisation and privacy beats them over this that's why they hate privacy coins or whatever that has to do with it.

Why are we even surprised? We're talking about the U.S, they've seized a great amount of Bitcoin, either from mixers or darknet markets. This money is going straight to their Bitcoin reserve (or their pockets, most likely) and of course wouldn't be released back to the original owners. Mixers have been blamed for transacting with malicious funds even if that's true (which is plausible and a likely scenario for a decent percentage of coins going through such services), it shows how vulnerable you can be when you're using such services, and anything that's centralised.

Every time you reflect on actions of governments, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand them in the first place. Money seized from criminals should either be given back to the rightful people or sent to a burn address for the case of Bitcoin. Why keep stolen funds in your pockets? It's like seizing cocaine or illegal guns and then keeping them for your use. What then is the difference between you, the so-called law enforcer, and the criminals?

I don't think they are going to do that to send seized coin into a burn address. I heard that even if they sent it to a burn address, they still have control over that burn address, meaning they can later transfer it to another wallet. However, they still calling the rightful owners to claim those coins and removed them from the blacklisted the rest will still stay in the government wallet, which they fully control.

It's a mixer, it will be hard to trace the rightful owner unless they can actually trace the funds to an entity, to another entity, and so on before it eventually reaches the rightful owner. That depends on how the owner lost his coins, btw. How many wallets will they start tracing just to give the rightful owner back their funds? It's quite a lot. Not saying they can't do it, but it's a mixer at the same time. What I would have thought is putting it into aid and help programmes. There are lots of camps, homeless, less privileged, and displaced people who would actually need it.

That's what governments always do. "Hey, that's wrong! Give it to me." And then it's theirs. "Hey, that's dirty money! I've got to seize it!" And then they're keeping it. If it's money they label dirty, it shouldn't be in the hands of anybody else but theirs. They can do whatever they want with dirty Bitcoin. They can use it as a reserve asset. They can even auction it off back to the public. Doesn't it reek with double standard? If somebody who's not a criminal or involved in any illegal transaction is keeping what's labeled as dirty coins, the coins will be confiscated. But the owner could have them back if he's buying it from the very government that seized them for being dirty. Isn't that a joke?

It is not strange with government seizures against Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mixers. It has happened many times in history and I recall that they have never announced that mixer users can contact governments for any refund. If you know any refund from mixer seizures by governments, please share it here with me and forum members. Honestly, I have never known any refund like this so far. At the end of the public report from the US Department of Justice, there is an interesting information about refund from Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS)

I remember the (German) feds did the same thing with ChipMixer when its servers were seized: the site owner had kept the private keys of chips and the feds emptied everyone's unspent chips, lol. Yes, it is a kind of theft but when done by the government under the guise of law, its almost impossible to stop. A lawyer trying to make a name for themselves could attempt to lead some kind of class action lawsuit against the government, but that would require the claimants identifying themselves, their BTC addresses, etc.

When it's impossible to determine who owns the funds, sending them to a burn address is indeed the best option,  However, governments view Bitcoin as an asset, like gold, unlike cocaine and guns.

This is understandable within the framework of the "stationary bandit" theory. The state is such a stationary bandit. And the victims should be glad that the stationary bandit punished the "wandering bandit" (any ordinary criminal) by taking money from him and taking it for himself. This is the justice of the stationary bandit. For the citizens of such a state, there is no difference between ordinary criminals and government authorities. Citizens exist to feed a stationary bandit who will take care of them no more than pets, and only in his own interests. In general, all states are like that...

And who are "the rightful people"? This is a darknet mixer after all. The people, who were mixing their coins with Hellix aren't completely innocent. Why would you ever use a darknet mixer to hide the origin of your coins, if you aren't doing anything illegal? I like the idea of the US government saying ''hey, let's just send those BTC to a burn address, instead of selling them and using the money for healthcare or building roads". This would never happen in real life. Those Bitcoins have monetary value and no government in the world would ever decide to just throw them away in a burn address.

This is just an excuse, they should work on arresting people who are involved, and through these people they will be able to get the information about where the assets was originally stolen from, it's the Blockchain, everything has a visible strings, they can find the rightful owners if they want. Just like you wrote, this is a very good excuse to avoid rumours from the public, they always have the mixers to blame, the sole reason why they can't find people who owns the stolen assets, for U.S to forcefully take anything is always possible, but to do the needful where they won't benefit from becomes impossible.

It's not the first time that the US did it, so I'm not surprised by it. There were even news that when they captured Maduro, they also seized part of their supposedly Bitcoin holdings. And when Trump was elected, one of his promised is to used Bitcoin as Strategic reserve. But he didn't mentioned if he is going to buy it using US money or this, seizing Bitcoin from every criminals around the world and owning them.

It's not first time and it won't be last time either. I still remember when BTC-e exchange seized, there's no serious attempt returning the confiscated coin to their owner. Do you count wanting privacy as illegal action? If no, see this old article. Unfortunately Chainalysis no longer make/share this kind of analysis since then, probably because government is one of their customer.

Wait, are you just getting this known, it has always been the norms, maybe you can check on US strategic holding and found out that they are all confiscated assets from different heist or scam related activities, those funds were seized and yet couldn't be accountable to how they were being spend or on what purpose they were used, while the affected users are not in any position to receive back their funds, so now tell me, where is regulation here and how relevant has it been.

Lol, it's not as easy as you might think. Firstly, on the d-web, no one knows each other unless it's a family meeting or space. Now, how did you think they got the funds? Obviously, the owner of the mixer (Helix) was arrested. His name is Larry Dean Harmon, and he's been arrested long before his sentencing, which was this year. The case has been going on for years, even before he pleaded guilty in the year 2021. In short, they can only arrest him, there's no way to get identities eben with the trace of what might have been spotted that got him arrestd. Not sure how they can get the right ful owners at the same time , unless they can eventually find the source and origin  that led to money laundering and some other reason for mixing and next, find victims. Just assumptions it's  complicated than that unless large chunk belongs to a single entity and was eventually  recovered.

We know that mixers have already a bad impression to the government. And if it's the US government seizes it, we know that it's going to be theirs. The same goes with the other countries that have seized projects and mixers as well, the Bitcoin that they've taken from those were rightfully theirs based on the law that they apply to it. They're going to add that to their Bitcoin strategic reserve and so, any other country that will do the same will have to copy what they've been doing all of these times. So, they'll have more Bitcoin on their reserve.

We ain't safe in the hands of the government. If the government can seize assets from criminals without disbursing them back to the victims, it shows that one day, our assets can be seized too without any proper accountability. When the victims heard that the government  had successfully retrieved their stolen assets, they must have jumped in excitement thinking that they will be refunded, only to be met with the shock that their assets have been absorbed into government funds. We keep getting reasons why the government shouldn't getting involved in Bitcoin matters

I get what you are saying but they can not burn every Money they take from criminals because if most of the criminals are caught, Money would not exist any more.  The idea is to take that Money and do something for the society or country with it.  For example, take that Money and invest it in education to prevent future crime. It is not right to take the Money from people who put it through Mixers but if the investigation and seized Assets or Service comes from a real fraud or crime, there is little to no way to separate the good from the dirty Money.  It is a dubious thing to debate. My advice would be to NEVER keep your Money on a Private Key you did not generate or on a Wallet you do not have sole ownership of.  If you ever use a Mixer or another Service even such as an Exchange, take the Money out of the said Service as soon as you are done placing and filling the orders.