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Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked, up to 4,000 user wallets emptied

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Re: Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked, up to 4,000 user wallets emptied

#43
post #39
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin continues to appreciate, because positive developments surpass negative ones, by far . In the last week alone: - Winklevosses: Bitcoin worth at least 100 times more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101190181 - Federal Reserve economist says bitcoin is a remarkable technical achievement: http://www.coindesk.com/federal-reserve-economist-says-bitco... - Shopify (70,000 merchants!) accepts Bitcoin: http://thenextweb.com/…

I'm not sure that I'd lead with speculation from the Winklevosses in order to convince a skeptic. Your other three points are much stronger. Also, only the latter two are actual economic developments, rather than analysis. The upcoming Congressional hearings might be newsworthy too.

Their speculation might not be worth much, but if they succeed in setting up a bitcoin ETF it could definitely boost bitcoin's credibility.

Re: Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked, up to 4,000 user wallets emptied

#44
post #22
post #14

It might be interesting to note that someone in the discussion under the original article (an unregistered user going by the name 'The one who knows') claims that "the admin of bitcash.cz Carlos upset the czech hacker comunity SooM.cz and accordingly to Blockchain ( https://blockchain.info/tx/44f66e60460926d1ac75667ce30604290... ) it looks like those hackers donated all the BTC that was on bitcash.cz to wikileaks".

If all BTC are on single place, it could be possible to recover them. Seems like well documented case, both parties are in civilized countries and court could take it. Soom.cz is not very reliable source. Also Czech Linux community does not mention anything. But according to some users it did not even used SSL!!!

> But according to some users it did not even used SSL!!!

It's never going to stop amusing me that Bitcoin's big selling point is how it's this amazing form of applied cryptography... and the people who actually try to do this kind of thing cheerfully neglect security concerns that seem rather basic.

It's not hard to explain this phenomenon, but it's still amusing.

Re: Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked, up to 4,000 user wallets emptied

#45
post #17

Every new day seems to bring another new Bitcoin scandal -- whether it's a hacked exchange, stolen wallets, frozen funds, collapsed Ponzi schemes, arrested illegal-market operators, or who knows what else. Yet, despite all this, Bitcoin keeps appreciating, recently reaching an all-time high.[1] -- [1] https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all

i like my missed opportunities in logarithmic:

https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?showDataPoints=f...

btw, isn't the point of bitcoin system is that all transactions are forever traceable, ie. bitcoins can't just disappear, they only can be moved from one known place to another?

Re: Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked, up to 4,000 user wallets emptied

#46
post #17

Every new day seems to bring another new Bitcoin scandal -- whether it's a hacked exchange, stolen wallets, frozen funds, collapsed Ponzi schemes, arrested illegal-market operators, or who knows what else. Yet, despite all this, Bitcoin keeps appreciating, recently reaching an all-time high.[1] -- [1] https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all

It's important to distinguish the crimes that happen involving theft of bitcoin, from bitcoin as a payment system and protocol. Do you know how many crimes happen per day involving dollars? It's many orders of magnitude more than bitcoin related crimes. Just sayin' edit: a word

> Do you know how many crimes happen per day involving dollars? It's many orders of magnitude more than bitcoin related crimes. Just sayin'

This is true, yet means absolutely nothing. You're using absolutes when you should be using relatives.

If in a pool A of a hundred transactions one is a fraud, and in a pool B of ten thousands transactions a hundred are frauds, both pool present the same risk of a transaction being a fraud despite one having orders of magnitude more frauds than the other.

Re: Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked, up to 4,000 user wallets emptied

#47
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase.com is a YC company that's trustworthy and convenient if you have a US bank account

Eh, I wouldn't recommend Coinbase. They deemed one of my purchases from them as "high-risk" and have been holding my money hostage since. Support team has been taking 3-4 days to reply to each email in the thread.

Sometimes this happens. They deal with purchases every day and can't aid with money laundering.

Re: Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked, up to 4,000 user wallets emptied

#48
post #24
post #17

Every new day seems to bring another new Bitcoin scandal -- whether it's a hacked exchange, stolen wallets, frozen funds, collapsed Ponzi schemes, arrested illegal-market operators, or who knows what else. Yet, despite all this, Bitcoin keeps appreciating, recently reaching an all-time high.[1] -- [1] https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all

These stories of hacks & scandals and your link showing increasing-value only increases my desire to buy bitcoin. Also, this wild story[1] makes me want bitcoin too. What if I just want to buy $500 USD worth of bitcoin and just sit on it? Maybe 10 years from now it'll be worth close to a million, or maybe bitcoin will be shutdown and it'll be worth nothing. I think I can risk it. Who's trust-worthy these days if I wa…

if in 10 years the price fluctuated from say $50 to $1000 and then rested at $500, you gained a huge opportunity cost. You could have shorted $500, played the market, sold early and reap the rewards =P

Re: Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked, up to 4,000 user wallets emptied

#49
post #17

Every new day seems to bring another new Bitcoin scandal -- whether it's a hacked exchange, stolen wallets, frozen funds, collapsed Ponzi schemes, arrested illegal-market operators, or who knows what else. Yet, despite all this, Bitcoin keeps appreciating, recently reaching an all-time high.[1] -- [1] https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all

Because you're not looking at the important metric. The _price_ of BTC is completely irrelevant to its "success". The only people who care about BTC price are speculators who are simply "day-trading" with the newest penny-stock. The real measurement is whether or not people are actually using BTC as a mechanism to transfer wealth between each other. https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions Notice: the number of…

You have to keep in mind that during the course of those six months, Silk Road was taken offline. SR was assumed to be driving most of the non-exchange transaction volume. The fact that its dissolution had no impact on this metric is quite surprising and I'd argue it's an indication that "legitimate" trade activity has actually increased over the last few months.

Re: Czech bitcoin exchange Bitcash.cz hacked, up to 4,000 user wallets emptied

#50
post #17

Every new day seems to bring another new Bitcoin scandal -- whether it's a hacked exchange, stolen wallets, frozen funds, collapsed Ponzi schemes, arrested illegal-market operators, or who knows what else. Yet, despite all this, Bitcoin keeps appreciating, recently reaching an all-time high.[1] -- [1] https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all

It's important to distinguish the crimes that happen involving theft of bitcoin, from bitcoin as a payment system and protocol. Do you know how many crimes happen per day involving dollars? It's many orders of magnitude more than bitcoin related crimes. Just sayin' edit: a word

These crimes don't point to a weakness of technical protocol, but they do point out to a weakness in bitcoin as an unregulated payment system.

If you want to do business in such a system, then you must rely only on yourself and keep in mind the risks from counterparties and intermediaries that are significantly different than for "normal" currencies.

For example, if you want to wire $10 000 to someone, you can basically ignore risks of someone stealing it in the middle; if you want to give someone $10 000 worth of bitcoin - then if any intermediaries are involved, you'd have to check them yourself. If a regulated financial institution holds $10 000 of your money, you can pretty much ignore risks of it going bankrupt; but if an unregulated money transmitter holds your bitcoins or cash in the same amount, and they go insolvent or fraudulent, then your funds are gone.

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