541–550 of 553 posts
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For the effect on a person, yes. For the implications for the platform, no.
Well you said "I" so that's what I assumed you meant. For the effect on you.
I lost my USDs from a mugging. Therefore, the USD is a failure.
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This is so very true, OpenSSH is probably one of the most secure pieces of software around. It has extremely high value to attackers, yet has had extremely few remote security holes in its lifetime. They've invested years and many talented people in developing such a piece of software. If you want to write your own ssh server in php, you should probably consider your motivation and how you can re-use their code or op…
Yeah, thats what I thought too, until I read this little gem, suggesting that OpenSSL was written by monkeys: http://www.peereboom.us/assl/assl/html/openssl.html Its kinda hard to disagree with that conclusion.
I can't say those difficulties he had in using the library were put there on purpose to keep people like him out, but it seems to be a good effect here.
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MtGox was usually advertising the highest exchange value for Bitcoins, and it most recently was advertising fire sale level exchange rates on Bitcoins. Once they severely restricted/shut off withdrawals, they were no longer an "exchange". People were no longer investing in Bitcoins facilitated through an exchange, they were investing in the exchange allowing withdrawals and making good on the promised high Bitcoin to…
Yes, fraud is likely, no one is disputing that. Fraud != Ponzi scheme.
Perfect example of the mentality of a new investor at MtGox can be found on this reddit comment: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1yw9vj/how_i_nearly...
I'll admit that not all the facts are known, and my conclusion above is essentially hypothetical based on the information known at this time. Perhaps when if we ever get access to internal communications within MtGox, we'll know the truth. Even pleading incompetence does not mean that the operators weren't unknowingly running a Ponzi scheme.
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> Gold as in Au does not need any third party. Even that generally needs a third party, unless you happen to be one of the world's experts in distinguishing counterfeit coin or bullion from gold of a certified purity.
Ok, but Bitcoin doesn't need an expert to do that, just widely available open source software that's already been vetted by thousands of developers.
Just ask the MtGox users about how completely ironclad that trust is. Sure, "transaction malleability" was identified in 2011, but that didn't help the users of MtGox, and the other exchanges had to take corrective action in 2014 as well.
If anything Bitcoin is even worse for the normal user; physical security is much much easier for most of us to grasp and implement. Is Aunt Tillie going to be able to ensure that she never gets too rich, so as to entice a cyberattack to steal all her Bitcoin wealth?
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Putting on my Lean Startup hat for a sec, I would even say that the M could allow for losing money. If it's early on and your customers are all in the 2 1/2% of innovators, they will put up with a little of that. Certainly if you make them whole, but probably even without. That said, "flawless accounting" would be very high up on my feature list. I think the failure here isn't launching without perfection; it's opera…
I've been wondering whether the "M" in "MVP" is for minimum quality, or minimum feature scope. I think minimum feature scope doesn't necessitate poor-quality software, just solutions that don't do everything for everybody. It's much better to ship a small feature set with very high quality, IMO, than a big feature set with low quality.
In the Lean Startup sense, the M is about minimum effort, and the V is about viability with customers. You're basically playing Battleship trying to discover where those two Venn circles overlap.
Different aspects of quality map to both those circles. There's build quality, which relates to the sustainability of the code base. There, you have to consider both short- and long-term quality. [1]
There's also quality as users perceive it. That varies widely by domain by market, and by how far you are along the adopter curve.
My general answer is the same as yours: minimal features with highly sustainable code. But for experiments, I think you can get away with terrible code as long as you a) throw it away quickly, and b) you are on it so even if you have a bad MTBF, your MTTR is really good.
I also think that you can tactically discard certain kinds of user-side quality. E.g., if I'm making a product for early-adopter financial traders, I'm not going to worry about quality of visual design, and I might inflict hard-to-learn interfaces on them. But I'd be rigorous about accounting and about UI issues that might lead to mistaken trades.
[1] I wrote some about that here: http://agilefocus.com/2009/06/22/the-3-kinds-of-code/
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What I wonder is this: Were any bitcoins actually lost during the meltdown? I mean in the sense that nobody can get at them any more. The blockchain should, sooner or later, allow the tracing of some of the coins, right? So if somebody still has access to them, there might be a chance to find out who? Or am I misunderstanding something here?
No man. The blockchain man, the blockchain. It's out there. We got this. The question could be that once they find out the who or who's, and those people are riding pitchfork style, around Bittown, who's going to be in charge of liqudating assets and sending pennies on the dollar back to all those quasi-anonymous folks saying the fiat is theirs? Oh, and what about when we find out that suspect 1 might not actually be…
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If you're talking about banks, they're insured and if the bank fails you still get your money back though.
You mean with that $25B that FDIC has to insure $10T of deposits? That insurance? http://www.occ.gov/topics/capital-markets/financial-markets/...
But, yes, because it's pretty unlikely that all banks will fail at once, it's not necessary for the FDIC to have on hand a sum matching all insured US bank deposits.
There are also limits on coverage. If you keep $1 million in your savings account, you won't get all of it if the bank goes under.
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Were you that guy in 1989? "My schadenfreude is for all of the people who smugly told us for years that ARPANET is superior to our 'legacy' post office and ham radio in every way"
People in 1989 didn't exhibit a nearly religious devotion to ARPANET as perfect in every way, going so far as to say things like "Bitcoin cannot fail, it can only be failed" (do people realize how absurd this sounds?) When every one of Bitcoin's characteristics (deflationary money supply, irreversibility of transactions, completely public record) is touted as an unmitigated advantage, it is irritating to those of us…
I actually agree with you, but if you're talking about me, I was being wildly sarcastic and riffing off of an old Communist slogan. I'm not aware of anyone who's ever said that sincerely, but if someone did it would be hilarious.
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Not loudly enough. I remember reading lots of stuff about how Mt. Gox was where it's at.
Did you really? I literally don't think I've ever seen anyone recommend MtGox outside of mass media reports, but I might be wrong. I remember seeing online conversations (I think it was either a forum or IRC) from 3 or 4 years ago where the people making MtGox were basically bragging about how incompetent they are, and everyone else was doing a collective facepalm. As far as I can tell, they got a first-mover advanta…
How could MtGox have been so big if everybody already knew for years that it was crap? The community failed to inform the new users about this very real danger.
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And that is the point. Bitcoin as an open system means we are ALL the regulators. Issue is we cant see their FIAT.
If we can regulate them, so can the government. AFAIU Bitcoin is designed to prevent exactly that, at least in general. Fully resolving their books would require knowing identities of those entitled to receive Bitcoin from an exchange, as only one example, as otherwise an exchange could simply transfer the right amount to an account under their control and use those Silk Road-style money laundering schemes to transfe…
Even if we can't, the government still can if it really wants to. They can still demand access to the software, the wallets, and they can fine or imprison people.