Bitcoin site is hacked, with $1million of the virtual currency stolen

The alleged theft is one of the largest since bitcoin was created four years ago.

Bitcoin has no central authority and is not backed by governments or banks.

A bitcoin user who calls himself TradeFortress told ABC more than 4,100 bitcoins worth about $1.1million (£585,000) were stolen from him.

He says he is not much older than 18 and he knows the chances of getting any of the digital currency back is unlikely because all bitcoin transactions cannot be reversed.

As the transactions are all anonymous, speculation has arisen that this was an inside job and TradeFortress took the coins for himself.

However, the young man strenuously denied the allegations - but admitted he was unlikely to report the theft to police.

Bitcoin site is hacked, with $1million of the virtual currency stolen

I just checked the prices of bitcoin today and found they had dropped almost $100 in just 2 days, knowing there was obviously something wrong i went and checked for any bitcoin news and found this.

Its been a total roller coaster ride with bitcoin this last year with prices going from $30 to $300.

Figures. As I said on the other thread I am wondering if people on the inside aren't doing this. They do not see any repercussions.

Well that puts a serious damper on things..... I thought you would need a NSA sized processor farm to do that? Hmmmmm, maybe that's exactly who did it.

reply to post by TKDRL


The reports are that it was an inside job, but at the moment the details are hazy.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


Would be a terribly stupid thing for an insider to do. I am not the smartest guy in the world, even I could see the high possibility of the currency value plummeting to rock bottom when everyone sees the theft.

TKDRL
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

Would be a terribly stupid thing for an insider to do. I am not the smartest guy in the world, even I could see the high possibility of the currency value plummeting to rock bottom when everyone sees the theft.

Maybe he just needed quick money. He just had to sell them before the value plummeted.

Also, if it really is very easy, it was bound to happen sooner or later. And he wanted to do it before anyone else did.

Why am I not terribly surprised? I would not rule out the alphabet agencies too quickly either. Not everyone is all that friendly about new currencies that are not bankster-owned.

reply to post by TKDRL


An insider could just steal it and sell it right away while it was high.

The price is bouncing back a bit now.

I think it's a terrible "coincidence" that Bitcoin "was hacked" at THE VERY SAME DAY when bitcoin reached it's all-time-high of almost $400. This was yesterday!

The same moment someone on FB told me "Wow! Bitcoin reached $400"...news spread about the hack and it fell $100 within less than a day.

Also..the sum of $1M sounds awfully low..it's not a sum which should in any way influence the prices.

This whole bitcoin thing is a scam. Here are some examples that are very hard to prove but do exist:

People that managed to figure out how to mine bitcoin in its early stages reaped the most reward.

Companies that sell high performance mining rigs but don't ship them until most of the profit for that class of mining rig has been taken.

Many people that offer pooled mining, which provides a trickle of fractional coins, often change the users mining software to take a portion of the blocks when the user mines solo.

It seems there would be great difficulty selling the bitcoins for currency and then depositing the currency in a bank since bitcoins are hard to impossible to trace where they came from. Government intervention would ensue causing loss of the currency and possibly jail time for money laundering.

TKDRL
Well that puts a serious damper on things..... I thought you would need a NSA sized processor farm to do that? Hmmmmm, maybe that's exactly who did it.

Most likely was the NSA.. in an attempt to discredit bit-coin.
Questions should be asked even so.. because it demonstrates that bit-coin
is vulnerable.

rigel4

TKDRL
Well that puts a serious damper on things..... I thought you would need a NSA sized processor farm to do that? Hmmmmm, maybe that's exactly who did it.

Most likely was the NSA.. in an attempt to discredit bit-coin.
Questions should be asked even so.. because it demonstrates that bit-coin
is vulnerable.

edit on 10-11-2013 by rigel4 because: (no reason given)

It demonstrates that the site might have been vulnerable IF it was an out side hacker. But if it was an inside job it doesn't demonstrate anything.

Either way it doesnt demonstrate that bitcoin is vulnerable.

PhoenixOD

rigel4

TKDRL
Well that puts a serious damper on things..... I thought you would need a NSA sized processor farm to do that? Hmmmmm, maybe that's exactly who did it.

Most likely was the NSA.. in an attempt to discredit bit-coin.
Questions should be asked even so.. because it demonstrates that bit-coin
is vulnerable.

edit on 10-11-2013 by rigel4 because: (no reason given)

It demonstrates that the site might have been vulnerable IF it was an out side hacker. But if it was an inside job it doesn't demonstrate anything.

Either way it doesnt demonstrate that bitcoin is vulnerable.

How so?
Bitcoin was stolen..so therefore vulnerable!
Explain to me why you think it is not!

Perhaps I'm missing something.

You lose a million from a bank vault ... then that bank is vulnerable... simple logic!

reply to post by rigel4


Usually when people claim 'bitcoin is vulnerable' they are talking about the cryptographic nature of the virtual currency. As you didnt specify exactly how bitcoin was vulnerable there was no way to tell you meant something different.

If thats the logic you are using Bitcoins (plural) are no more vulnerable than anything else in world that can be stolen.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


Whoa, interesting. I just made a thread a few days ago about the first ATM being in my city and have been doing serious consideration into investing. I wonder if this knocked the value down a little. Was $333/coin yesterday.

reply to post by FlySolo


It did knock almost $100 off the value but it seems to be bouncing back slowly.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


Gotta luv a "self-healing" currency lol.

Hola,

I personally don't subscribe to digital currencies.
I never have and never will do financial transactions over the internet for any reason.
If it isn't physically in your hand...you don't own it.
IMO, the only thing a person with a lot of bitcoins should do is buy physical silver, gold, platinum and/or palladium and demand delivery of those assets.
Computerized money is the only thing easier to steal than fiat either by being hacked, betrayed or just having your computer or laptop physically stolen.
At least in a vault (as in the case of PM's) you'd still have it guarded by a man with a gun and a REALLY big metal door. Meanwhile what's protecting your laptop? A cat...a bird...a goldfish...an aloe plant...a roomie with chronic insomnia?
Think I'll just stay with PM's.

-Amitabha-

Erongaricuaro
Why am I not terribly surprised? I would not rule out the alphabet agencies too quickly either. Not everyone is all that friendly about new currencies that are not bankster-owned.

I agree.

Eryiedes
Hola,

I personally don't subscribe to digital currencies.
I never have and never will do financial transactions over the internet for any reason.
If it isn't physically in your hand...you don't own it.
IMO, the only thing a person with a lot of bitcoins should do is buy physical silver, gold, platinum and/or palladium and take demand delivery of those assets.
Computerized money is the only thing easier to steal than fiat either by being hacked, betrayed or just having your computer or laptop physically stolen.
At least in a vault (as in the case of PM's) you'd still have it guarded by a man with a gun and a REALLY big metal door. Meanwhile what's protecting your laptop? A cat...a bird...a goldfish...an aloe plant...a roomie with chronic insomnia?
Think I'll just stay with PM's.

-Amitabha-

Couldn't agree more with you.. Ultimately
Bitcoin relies on good ole electricity to bring it to life!

So after the balloon goes up .. good luck spending it.. Bawaa