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Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

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Re: Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

#52
post #34
post #4

> As Bitfinex has become more and more desperate, they have listed more and more crypto-currencies of questionable value, such as EOS/IOTA/ETP and so on. As per coinmarketcap.com: EOS is ranked 19, 442 million in marketcap IOTA is ranked 11, 950 million in marketcap ETP is ranked 70, 73 million in marketcap Anyone can throw some light on what these coins really are? Additionally, BTC markets: https://coinmarketcap.co…

The FUD against EOS is really strong. It is interesting that despite the FUD, its valuation is very big too. The FUD is mostly about the business behind EOS, as a technical project is solid C++ code with well thought out architecture. In fact this is the kind of project where as I got deeper into it I believe that it can work. In case of most other projects when I dig deeper, I become more and more sceptic. The reaso…

Multiple downvotes on my comment proves my point. There is serious hate on the EOS project. No matter how much you downvote me, EOS is still doing one of the most promising research and development on how to improve crpyto network throughput and latency. Ethereum research on sharding is also interesting, but seemingly there are extremely hard problems to be solveed there with way more complex software than EOS.

Re: Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

#53
post #46

I really wish that HN had a rule where it would be mandatory for commenters to disclose their holdings in any cryptocurrency threads. This would make it easier to flag comments that look like they're just pumping a coin to improve its search engine status. If you're praising Bitcoin, EOS, IOTA or whatever FooBarToken, please add a short note at the end to explain what you stand to gain. Either: "I'm long IOTA", or "I…

It's not unreasonable to ask but it's completely unreasonable to expect that anyone pumping a coin on HN would have even the slightest inclination to be truthful about their position.

Re: Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

#54
post #40

Reading this article made me wonder - how much of the bitcoin rally is due to counterparty risks? If I remember correctly the last ramp up happened during Mt. Gox era. They were having USD withdrawal issues which resulted in BTC prices being very high on the exchange. But it din't deter them from publishing prices and making markets. Now is the case of Bitfinex suffered from a hack like Mt. Gox and are trying to stay…

There were no hardware wallets in the days of MtGox, which meant that it was extremely hard to secure Bitcoins. It got easier since then, and many people learned from MtGox (though many people haven't). Also companies take bigger care of securing their cold wallets. I would never recommend BitFinex to anyone though (GDAX and BitStamp have VC money / long history)

No hardware wallets? I thought pen and paper were invented a long time ago.

Re: Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

#55
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their claim of 0 fees will not last. It means DDOSing will be trivial, and their network will be crippled.

You have to do PoW when submitting a transaction. So DDOSing will not be trivial.

But the PoW is for small IOT devices right? Or at any case it is for regular users, and does not take them minutes to compute. I cannot see how that is resistant to an adversary with dedicated hardware.

Re: Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

#56
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify, since I misread your quote and think others might as well: > "The replacement Kerl hash function is unmodified KECCAK-384 that only converts its input and output from/to 243 trits to 48 bytes using basic two’s complement. KECCAK-384 is well vetted and researched." "Replacement" really does mean replacement, i.e. what they substituted in after the researchers successfully attacked their original hash…

This is a common misunderstanding. IOTA never deployed a vulnerable hashfunction. They had precautionary measures in place and thus had Curl there to test it out, which worked out brilliantly. Keep in mind that IOTA asked the team to attack Curl, not the other way around. This was planned. Curl is meant to be a lightweight crypto for IOT, a field of very active research. None of this is controversial to anyone that i…

> Keep in mind that IOTA asked the team to attack Curl, not the other way around. This was planned.

This seems to contradict the researcher's own post [1]:

> We discovered a vulnerability in IOTA after reviewing their code on GitHub in July. We disclosed what we found to the IOTA team on July 14th, and have been in contact with them since then as we discovered new issues and exploits.

Finally, even if Curl is meant as a new, lightweight hash function, it was broken by differential cryptanalysis, not some novel, exotic attack vector. Sounds like it needs a lot of work before it's fit for purpose.

[1] https://medium.com/@neha/cryptographic-vulnerabilities-in-io...

Re: Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common misunderstanding. IOTA never deployed a vulnerable hashfunction. They had precautionary measures in place and thus had Curl there to test it out, which worked out brilliantly. Keep in mind that IOTA asked the team to attack Curl, not the other way around. This was planned. Curl is meant to be a lightweight crypto for IOT, a field of very active research. None of this is controversial to anyone that i…

> Keep in mind that IOTA asked the team to attack Curl, not the other way around. This was planned. This seems to contradict the researcher's own post [1]: > We discovered a vulnerability in IOTA after reviewing their code on GitHub in July. We disclosed what we found to the IOTA team on July 14th, and have been in contact with them since then as we discovered new issues and exploits. Finally, even if Curl is meant a…

Yes, Ethan was then forced to admit that the IOTA team actually approached him in May.

Re: Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

#58

Lots of bullshit. Just a few points: A) Iota is a legit currency trying to do something new in the crypto space. B) The listing Bitcoin gold did not 'create' 2 bn usd - if you tried to liquidate even a fraction of that, you would drive the price to 0. There was significant demand from trader and speculators for its listing (not that I agree with it, but anyway). C) Saying that a company that generates 30 mil. usd in…

IOTA made their own crypto, then when got called on it they denied it mattered at first. Then they backed down and said it was intentional! So that they could destroy anyone else using their open source code. When pressed to promise that they had not left more backdoors in, they refused. Of course they had to refuse, these were accidental bugs rolling their own stuff.

That looks totally incompetent to me. Then mention centralized coordinator and they throw fits. Refuse to discuss it because it is only temporary.

But judge for yourselves. Look at this nice comment by Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum) and the childish retorts from the IOTA people: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/72l7kp/why_...

Re: Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep in mind that IOTA asked the team to attack Curl, not the other way around. This was planned. This seems to contradict the researcher's own post [1]: > We discovered a vulnerability in IOTA after reviewing their code on GitHub in July. We disclosed what we found to the IOTA team on July 14th, and have been in contact with them since then as we discovered new issues and exploits. Finally, even if Curl is meant a…

Yes, Ethan was then forced to admit that the IOTA team actually approached him in May.

Can you provide a link please? All I see in the comments to the researcher's piece is an IOTA advisor threatening a libel suit - a really good sign that they "really care" about their technical issues.

Re: Bitfinex never ‘repaid’ their tokens, they started a ponzi scheme

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Ethan was then forced to admit that the IOTA team actually approached him in May.

Can you provide a link please? All I see in the comments to the researcher's piece is an IOTA advisor threatening a libel suit - a really good sign that they "really care" about their technical issues.

I highly suggest you read

https://blog.iota.org/curl-disclosure-beyond-the-headline-18...

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