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Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

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Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#231

Post by FireBeyond »

troupo wrote: post #169
justajot wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's frustrating, I agree. People are obviously going to continue being people with pyramid schemes and the like. At the same time, there are enough who also agree that it's a mess, have closely studied the successes and mistakes of the past, and are building a solid foundation for doing this right. I mean, what we're really talking about here is creating a fundamentally new system for which the financial system oper…

> there are enough who also agree that it's a mess, have closely studied the successes and mistakes of the past, and are building a solid foundation for doing this right. People who "closely study mistakes and successes of the past" are in a very rare supply in the crypto space, and for a good reason: because people who actually closely study mistakes and successes of the past don't want to touch that space even with…

> People who "closely study mistakes and successes of the past" are in a very rare supply in the crypto space

Unless you're talking about people who are studying the mistakes and successes of crypto scams, and are working to refine them (the scams), then you can find a few.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#232

Post by FireBeyond »

joncrocks wrote: post #175
lottin wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The base rule in crypto has always been “not your keys, not your coins” This is because blockchains have no way of enforcing laws, including property rights. Therefore it comes down to this. Imagine that whoever got hold of your car keys, automatically became the owner. This is what "not your keys, not your coins" means.

It's a bit more like 'possession is 9/10 of the law'. The "not your keys, not your coins" is more the fact that someone else holding your stuff happen to them and your stuff goes away. Or they never had it to start with. i.e. Counterparty risk. `Cash` doesn't inherently have any mechanism for enforcing rights either. The difference is that real-world identities are easier to establish in situations where cash transac…

> It's a bit more like 'possession is 9/10 of the law'.

Common mistake. The original saying was "Possession is nine points of the law". Over time it's been bastardized to "nine-tenths".

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#233

Post by nradov »

cassepipe wrote: post #209
wenebego wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great idea, but its inconvenient when you need liquidity but the bank doesnt have it. We should let the bank lend out more money than they actually have, and if there's a run the public can just bail them out

Ok I am triggered. I am rather ignorant on the matter but indeed I don't like that some things/people are too big too fail in the system. On the other hand, isn't that established that banks being allowed to issue more money than what is backed by their assets is universally recognized as "good" as in allowing for previously unseen economic development that benefits everyone (but not equally...) ?

In banking terms, the main assets are the outstanding loans. Fractional reserves (deposits as a percentage of loan balances) are no longer very relevant to modern banking. The limit in the USA was cut to zero in 2020.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm

The focus is now more on capital for assessing bank health.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#234

Post by shuntress »

mistercheph wrote: post #109
shuntress wrote: post #17

If only there were some kind of system or network of long-standing institutions with a deep commitment to paper-trails and accountability that was overseen by some kind of community-managed regulation to control this type of thing.

I feel the same exact way whenever I see a car crash: "If only there was a mode or system of human transportation backed by long-standing institutions with a deep commitment to dirt trails and rideability that occurred at speeds which were safe for this type of thing." *spits into spittoon*

I don't know what dirt trails and slow speeds have to do with trains and trolleys but I agree with you that we could drastically reduce motor vehicle accidents by re-building our systems of public transportation and walkable neighborhoods.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#235

Post by shuntress »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #30
shuntress wrote: post #17

If only there were some kind of system or network of long-standing institutions with a deep commitment to paper-trails and accountability that was overseen by some kind of community-managed regulation to control this type of thing.

Glad I'm not the only one who is thoroughly tired of this second coming of the financial system except with bonus insane energy waste and an absolute obliteration of consumer protections at seemingly every tier. A security product built by people who have zero understanding of actual financial security and how financial crimes actually happen. Truly astonishing.

It turns out that with "electronic cash", the same as with physical cash, you do actually still need the banking system. Wow! Who could have ever guessed?

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#236

Post by louwrentius »

TimeBearingDown wrote: post #57
nradov wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far more regular people use other cryptography tools and protocols like full disk encryption, TLS, end-to-end encrypted messaging, etc. All of those are secure and easy to use.

Regular people don’t need to manage private keys for those, but there are a lot of weaknesses around the Trusted Platform Module managing said key for disk encryption. The “end-to-end” encrypted messaging also hides the fact that the keys are accessible by the platform operator in most cases, whether through iCloud Backup or otherwise. This is a decent middle ground if you can completely trust your provider, but obfu…

The truth is that it’s all good enough and all of this is valuable to people. The currency stuff has a net negative impact on our society.

In the end, societies are build on trust, as you trust your bank not to steal your money. Seems that so many people get so into the technicalities yet don’t understand the larger system.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#237

Post by jakupovic »

troupo wrote: post #217
jakupovic wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. HN is stuck in "CRYPTO BAD BOOO, We don't need no reason. We know", in the voice of HN group think.

No, "crypto bad boo" is precisely because the HN crowd doesn't ignore the history of anything that crypto pretends it's disrupting. Instead all the clueless crypto bros in the crypto space end up slowly, and often painfully, re-discovering all this history and the reasons why things are the way they are.

Let me call you clueless my friend and maybe even other names as you seem to like to.

Things are the way they are because of interests, some people are making money on it. "Crypto bros" aren't rediscovering anything and you seem clueless as to what they want and are repeating old ass tropes you probably learned from others.

I remember only a year or 2 ago when HN was very much against K8S, you probably don't, being of short memory and not learning from others. But, guess what, we are using k8s and crypto and you are stuck and soon will be making apologies for your lack of sense and will be tired of repeating others' lies here.

Sorry but not sorry.

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#238

Post by npoc »

danbruc wrote: post #229
npoc wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this stage bitcoin's main use case is storing large amounts of value for long periods of time. Think of it as an alternative to investing in a house to let out to tenants, but without the inconvenience, risk and cost of buying/selling and owning it.

That sounds potentially problematic in the long run. If Bitcoin is primarily used for long term storage, then you need some [at least] constant flux of people moving money in and out of long term storage, otherwise your stored Bitcoins will depreciate in value. Therefore this is a kind of bet that Bitcoin will remain popular as a long term store or that some other use case emerges and maintains the price. Another fac…

> you need some [at least] constant flux of people moving money in and out of long term storage

This isn't necessary to maintain value (think of a rare painting), but it is important to provide liquidity when you come to sell, so that you don't have to wait weeks for someone to buy your bitcoin. Bitcoin has plenty of liquidity - no shortage of buyer and sellers. Coinbase alone trades ~$1 billion of bitcoin per day.

You're correct that the hash-rate is related to block subsidy + fees, but it's only one of the variables. Cost of energy for miners is an equally import factor (continuously decreasing as miners tap into wasted energy around the earth, and without geographical constraints), along with efficiency of the mining HW.

Bitcoin averages around 2700 transactions per block which currently provides miners with total reward of 6.25 + 0.3 (tx fees) BTC = ~$334,050. If we suddenly went to fees-only today, that would be ~$123 per transaction. Considering that this fee is independent of transaction amount, it is actually very cheap for large values of money (e.g. >$1M) considering it covers the cost of moving the bearer asset around the world within ~30 minutes, and also covers the cost of protecting your value against debasement and theft for however long you had it stored for (often years).

I'm not sure how you came up with a % cost per year - the cost of storage is a one-off tx fee at purchase and sale (just like physical gold, but bitcoin transactions are generally cheaper and independent of the transaction size)

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#239

Post by sjducb »

npoc wrote: post #222
sjducb wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you find products to trust?

You don't really need to trust. For significant amounts of value, a multi-sig setup using a number of different devices means that _all_ the devices could be compromised, but providing they are not compromised by the same attacker your bitcoin is still safe.

What if the multi sig software is compromised?

Re: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490k swindle

#240

Post by woah »

louwrentius wrote: post #236
TimeBearingDown wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regular people don’t need to manage private keys for those, but there are a lot of weaknesses around the Trusted Platform Module managing said key for disk encryption. The “end-to-end” encrypted messaging also hides the fact that the keys are accessible by the platform operator in most cases, whether through iCloud Backup or otherwise. This is a decent middle ground if you can completely trust your provider, but obfu…

The truth is that it’s all good enough and all of this is valuable to people. The currency stuff has a net negative impact on our society. In the end, societies are build on trust, as you trust your bank not to steal your money. Seems that so many people get so into the technicalities yet don’t understand the larger system.

Our current systems for verifying identity are incredibly vulnerable as demonstrated by the huge number of identity theft scams. Pretending that it works well is laughable. Cryptographic signatures have their own issues but they present a way forward. Cryptocurrency is the domain where they are used on a wide scale. Ignoring this because you have an ingroup attachment to bashing cryptocurrency is silly. Sort of like if you willfully ignored the innovation of networked electronic trading systems in the '70s because you thought Wall Street is a scam.
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