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Comment on Germany's biggest Bitcoin exchange surrenders user data to the policeparent

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A warrant possibly means that they go out of business, because the servers are physically seized

Why would the police be interested in destroying a legitimate business just because they want data for 8 users?

They can just as well get the warrant and then get the data the same way they did now.

Why would the police be interested in destroying a legitimate business

Lavabit comes to mind. I'm sure there are other examples too.

Some police forces just don't give a shit about what they take, from whom and for how long, see my other comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14919912

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14836358

They may not be explicitly interested in destroying a business, but they may be very interested in seizing equipment and not particularly caring that you don't have a backup strategy.

If the investigators think that you are withholding data or harboring criminals, they can take the equipment. Bitcoins generally don't have the best reputation and they're a small company, so it's more likely they'll get treated roughly be the law if they don't cooperate.

Probably not because of one user, but when the cases pile up there's a good chance it'll raise questions about the legitimacy of their service.

When you earn your money by running said service, you are likely going to want to avoid that.

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