Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
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Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
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Re: Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
#2This reminds me of a similar error from 2005[1] where a trader mistook the "price" and "quantity" fields of the trading software. Instead of selling 1 share for 610,000 yen, 610,000 shares were sold for 1 yen.
The mistake cost around $225 million.
[1] http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/12/09/typing-error-causes-...
Re: Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
#3I'd definitely keep that amount if I won it through mining. It's really hard swapping `amount` to `fee`, in coding, so I bet that this was a human mistake on sending btc, not coding mistake...
Re: Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
#4> Remember that time when you tried to transfer your life savings from one bank account to another for a small fee, but swapped the fee field with the total transfer amount field, and ended up losing all your life savings? Of course you don't. There are safeguards to catch and prevent these kinds of errors.
>
> But this is a common occurrence in Bitcoin-land.
This mistake is difficult, if not impossible, to make with standard Bitcoin software. The fee field is usually pre-filled and somewhat tricky to change, and newer versions of bitcoin-core will block transactions like this as obviously wrong. It should also be noted the bitcoin fees are implicit in transactions - a transaction will have some amount of funds going in, and some amount going out, and anything left over is the fee. Usually these types of mistakes actually happen when someone manually crafts a transaction and forgets that they need to make a change output for themselves.
It is obviously still possible to create transactions like this, but it currently requires using advanced interfaces and deliberately bypassing safety measures.
Re: Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
#5Thanks for the post, I enjoyed the read (haven't read much about bitcoin laundering).
One small nitpick:
> My payment is going to be with newly mined coins, the Bitcoin equivalent of fresh, crisp dollar bills straight from the Mint.
Coins are minted, bills are printed, so only coins come from the U.S. Mint. Paper bank notes and stamps come straight from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (way less fun to say though!).
Re: Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
#6> Remember that time when you tried to transfer your life savings from one bank account to another for a small fee, but swapped the fee field with the total transfer amount field, and ended up losing all your life savings? Of course you don't. There are safeguards to catch and prevent these kinds of errors. > > But this is a common occurrence in Bitcoin-land. This mistake is difficult, if not impossible, to make with…
The author(s) theory is that the mistake was made by a bitcoin laundering script.
Re: Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
#7Obviously I am missing something on this. How do you direct the transaction fee to a specific miner? I thought it just went out there for anyone to process. If you can, why don't people just direct all their transaction fees at their own mining operation or a friend they trust?
Re: Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
#8You can see a half-dozen of "mega-fees" on this graph[0]. The public nature of bitcoin transactions is very interesting.
[0] https://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees?timespan=all...
Re: Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
#9This reminds me of a similar error from 2005[1] where a trader mistook the "price" and "quantity" fields of the trading software. Instead of selling 1 share for 610,000 yen, 610,000 shares were sold for 1 yen. The mistake cost around $225 million. [1] http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/12/09/typing-error-causes-...
Damn that's huge. You'd assume that the software checks the dollar amount and asks for a confirmation, or better yet permission from a higher up, if it exceeds some value.
Re: Bitcoin's $137k Jackpot
#10Thanks for the post, I enjoyed the read (haven't read much about bitcoin laundering). One small nitpick: > My payment is going to be with newly mined coins, the Bitcoin equivalent of fresh, crisp dollar bills straight from the Mint. Coins are minted, bills are printed, so only coins come from the U.S. Mint. Paper bank notes and stamps come straight from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (way less fun to say though…
Also, you wouldn't want money coming straight from the Bureau because I'm sure the serial numbers would be so incredibly easy to track. For example, your bills have sequential serial numbers, or are clearly from the same batch. Better to have them straight from the Panama Papers.