11–20 of 104 posts
BTC has some great unique properties as a p2p cryptocurrency - which goes out the window when everything sits in a few exchanges rather than a bunch of wallets.
Looks like the admin stored the wallet.dat and backups on an ec2 instance, and then shut it down while doing a RAM upgrade without realizing he would lose everything on the disk. Translation of post: DECLARATION I hereby inform all users of the service www.bitomat.pl of system failure that occurred on 26 July 2011 and its consequences. At the outset I would like to apologize for such a long delay in publication of th…
There was need to increase the amount of RAM in the server. As a result of that procedure - suddenly all data stored on the server has been lost! [..] the disappearance of the data was the result of the introduction of virtual server settings, which he never would have introduced.
For Amazon persistent storage, you don't just change a setting, you need to pay extra for EBS storage and design your service to use it, so saying the following:
We are constantly trying to determine who made changes to these settings and whether it will be able to recover lost data.
Suggests a continuing lack of understanding, and that makes it seem more likely that the service was built on quicksand and is now sunk. Even if we assume that they did have EBS volumes available and someone had redesigned their service to not use them, that they have no access audits, no regular setup audits, no long term backups, no revision control history, no change procedure and no email records (and nobody who remembers anything about it) to give them a clue what happened, that's pretty damning in itself for a financial service.
Once I realized that I deleted the machine [..] At the moment I am unable to clearly determine the causes of crashes
Maybe an artefact in the translation, but you can't accept that you caused it while also being unable to determine the cause!
I suppose that it is the result of actions of third parties, which are causing the server tried to cancel to hide their illegal activities
If this is a serious admission that their Amazon account was hacked, the assurance that unpaid cash from the sale of bit coins is safe seems a bad idea, and hiding it at the bottom of another announcement is really poor form. If it's not a serious admission then it reeks of pointing the blame anywhere except 'here' and is also poor form.
Is anyone else reminded of Leafyhost about now?
Everyone keeping their bitcoins in exchanges/(think banks, or broker accounts) instead of their own wallets is completely subverting the point of the idea of bitcoin. BTC has some great unique properties as a p2p cryptocurrency - which goes out the window when everything sits in a few exchanges rather than a bunch of wallets.
Next step is to turn the thousand bitcoin idea into an actual reality and get rich.
Was this a relatively young BitCoin exchange? One would hope that the wallet.dat was backed up somewhere else (another EC2 instance, EBS, offline). This doesn't bode well for establishing credibility in BitCoin exchanges and operators. Although nobody necessarily needs to use the exchanges, for better or worse, people use them to establish market values to more easily value their transactions. It's obviously easy to…
They've been around for a few months and were one of the higher volume exchanges. They were doing ~800 BTC in trades/day for the month prior to this, so ~$11k/day with their commission of .006*2 (I think it was .006, and on both sides) they were pulling in ~$130/day.
Only way of profiting legally from the exchange was interest on the capital deposited by users on exchange owners bank account.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Www.bitomat.pl service is on sale for EUR 17,000 BTC What?
That was my reaction as well. Not just the fact that it's ambiguous whether they're trying to sell for 17k EUR or 17k BTC, but the fact that they're even trying to sell it at all, and then the buyer is presumably on the hook for the BTC that were lost as well! I currently had ~13 BTC in my Bitomat account- when I login they correctly show my balance, so I'm slightly confused as apparently their database wasn't lost,…
EUR here is just some strange artifact of google translate
> Serwis www.bitomat.pl zostaje wystawiony na sprzedaż za kwotę 17000 BTC.
translates to:
> Www.bitomat.pl service is on sale for EUR 17,000 BTC.
Sometimes you don't appreciate regulation until it's gone.
This will means that exchanges will tend toward competency rather than incompetency.
Regulations is something that you will have to design first or else you get regulatory capture or "TOO BIG TO FAIL" or some kind of unjust monopoly. Adding a regulator means that we will have to shift our focus in making sure that the regulators are doing its job rather than ruthlessly killing off companies that can't keep customers' money safe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Www.bitomat.pl service is on sale for EUR 17,000 BTC What?
That was my reaction as well. Not just the fact that it's ambiguous whether they're trying to sell for 17k EUR or 17k BTC, but the fact that they're even trying to sell it at all, and then the buyer is presumably on the hook for the BTC that were lost as well! I currently had ~13 BTC in my Bitomat account- when I login they correctly show my balance, so I'm slightly confused as apparently their database wasn't lost,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was my reaction as well. Not just the fact that it's ambiguous whether they're trying to sell for 17k EUR or 17k BTC, but the fact that they're even trying to sell it at all, and then the buyer is presumably on the hook for the BTC that were lost as well! I currently had ~13 BTC in my Bitomat account- when I login they correctly show my balance, so I'm slightly confused as apparently their database wasn't lost,…
Given the price they're selling for I assume they'd use that money to refund the funds from the lost wallet.