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

ChuckNasty
Don't see how this is stealing.

A virtual currency that really has no value, other than what people are willing to pay for it, still has zero real value.

Since it isn't legal tender...the guy should only be jailed for possible hacking and/or tax evasion.


Kinda like stealing 1Billion WoW gold... Police won't give a care...unless you hacked the account.

Nothing is of any more value than someone is willing to pay for it. BTC is valuable because it is money, and money is very valuable. We all need money and use it, we conveniently store the products of our labor and exchange them with others in the most convenient way. The costs of barter are huge, which is why money is a vastly more efficient way of exchanging and storing the products of labor. The more effective money is at doing these jobs, the more it is in demand - and the higher it will be valued.

BTC allows remote electronic payments with low fee's, it has all the properties of money in spades, it has the potential to be the best form of money the world has ever seen - the only question remains is, how good is it as a store of value? That means how durable, how resistant to counterfeit, how resistant to monopoly? Time will tell, but it is doing very well so far.

Amagnon

ChuckNasty
Don't see how this is stealing.

A virtual currency that really has no value, other than what people are willing to pay for it, still has zero real value.

Since it isn't legal tender...the guy should only be jailed for possible hacking and/or tax evasion.


Kinda like stealing 1Billion WoW gold... Police won't give a care...unless you hacked the account.

Nothing is of any more value than someone is willing to pay for it. BTC is valuable because it is money, and money is very valuable. We all need money and use it, we conveniently store the products of our labor and exchange them with others in the most convenient way. The costs of barter are huge, which is why money is a vastly more efficient way of exchanging and storing the products of labor. The more effective money is at doing these jobs, the more it is in demand - and the higher it will be valued.

BTC allows remote electronic payments with low fee's, it has all the properties of money in spades, it has the potential to be the best form of money the world has ever seen - the only question remains is, how good is it as a store of value? That means how durable, how resistant to counterfeit, how resistant to monopoly? Time will tell, but it is doing very well so far.

I think there is a lot of knee jerk reacting going here.

People equating BTC for digitized dollars.

Im interested in this resource could someone who knows how I can set a mining machine up private message me please?

Morning,

I hear people saying that "if you don't like the government then bitcoin is the way to go" but you're overlooking something.
Digital currency is EXACTLY what the state WANTS.
It WANTS to track your every purchase.
It WANTS to tax you more effectively.
It WANTS to scrutinize what you bought and how many of them you get.
It WANTS to know where you were when you bought it.
It WANTS to be certain that if you misbehave, you can have your digital dollars taken from you instantly...such as in the moment they suspect you of a crime or not paying a bill, levy, fine, ticket, citation or contract.
With fiat money they already print 90% out of thin air vis-a-vis fractional reserve banking. You want to give them a foolproofed way to easily invent the other 10%?
It occurs to me that digital currency would be the way to go to accomplish such a task.
It's not in a form the government wants yet (tracable, trackable, seizable) but this is the direction it's heading in IMO.
Use these things while they still have value and there's still electricity/wi-fi.
Buy land with them.
Buy PM's with them.
Buy a home with them.
Get something substancial and tangible with them while they still have value.
I don't do online commerce so bitcoin serve no purpose for me.
They are unable to cover my rent...landlord's funny like that.
They can't buy my groceries...I goto farmer's markets.
They won't pay my internet provider...they only take dinero.
They don't afford me peace of mind...that's what shotguns are for.
I hope those who have them make all the digital cheddar their hard drives can hold.
Just be sure to get something useful with them before the bottom drops out.

-Peace-

Bitcoin are only 0's & 1's and therefore have no real value..
they exist in the twilight world of computer code, stored in
magnetic non volatile drives or some other device.

Without electric power Bitcoin cease to exist, if anyone thinks this will ever replace
hard currency, then they are living in fantasy land..

For now Bitcoin is being used only for speculative profit and nothing more.

It will fade into history..

Without electric power Bitcoin cease to exist, if anyone thinks this will ever replace hard currency, then they are living in fantasy land..

I dont think any expects it to replace fiat currency but like credit card there is certainly room for it in the existing system. Credit cards need electricity to work as well.

rigel4
For now Bitcoin is being used only for speculative profit and nothing more.

It will fade into history..

Not true , there are 1000's of places that accept bitcoin for goods , food , travel ,services and computer code now.

BTCWebhost.com - BTC Web Host is not just another fly by night web hosting company. We created BTC Web
ModifiedController.com - Modified Xbox controllers.
Pocket Artillery - Miniature REAL Cannons ***BOOM***
Alpaca Products for Bitcoins - alpaca socks
Babbletees - Design Savvy Science/Academic Based T-Shirts. Bitcoin accepted at checkout.
Heatslingers.com - 100% Authentic Nike Dunk SB, Air Force 1's, Air Jordans and Clothing. Accepts Bitcoin
R-Shirt - Accepts Bitcoins for geeky pirate R-Shirts.
7Del.net - Electronic Cigarettes
Pirates of Savannah - Website for historical adventure novel - ebooks and audio books for sale
Video Seconds - New DVD concerts, movies, select CD's and misc eclectic products. Ships International
posters of paintings - Artist Stefan Burger, Academic Painter, Nuremberg, Germany The paintings by the ge
Memory Dealers - Cisco Routers, Switches, Optical Transceivers, Memory, Networking Hardware & Cabl
bitcoinauction.us - Bid bitcoins to get some more bitcoins as a prize.
Happy Tree Cosmetics - Natural hand made cosmetics. Bitcoins are accepted on the main business page for gift
ottonormalo - we offer premium postcard, audio books and outstanding photography. German
cryptoanarchy.com - We sell embroidered polo shirts, bumper stickers, magnets and some computer component
TizzyTazzy - We are dedicated to providing high quality and affordable web hosting solutions world
CRON-O-Meter - CRON-O-Meter is a premium web application for tracking your nutrition and health data
camoList - VPN and SSH Tunnel provider accepting bitcoins via Mt.Gox. US and UK servers, no logs
bitmit - Biggest bitcoin user to user shopping marketplace (auction house and buy now)
FUSA - FUSA offers dedicated servers, virtual private servers and colocation for a competive
BTCInstant.com - We provide instant Virtual Master Cards sent to your email .
txt4coins.net - Worldwide SMS service. No registration, pay-per-use, bulk messages supported, full AP
MiniBits - Buy mini (micro) Bitcoins with PayPal. No fees to the buyer!
Mybitcointrade.com - The Bitcoin stock market On mybitcointrade.com... you can register for free
NESTORGAMES - NESTORGAMES manufactures and sells physical board games worldwide in a nice portable
Shire Silver - Shire Silver makes physical precious metal easy to trade and handle. Embedding pure s
Stomp Romp Guitars - Stomp Romp is a pedalcentric guitar store in New Hampshire, USA. We ship worldwide.
Anonymous Ads - Unusual and transparent advertising network that doesn't collect personal data about
Stateless Sweets - Delectable homemade, all real ingredient candy, delivered to your home as a treat or
BitLasers - We sell handheld lasers and accessories for bitcoin.
Online-Tipjar - Find the project that you like and give it a tip/donation. Like Flattr but with Bitco
George's Famous Baklava - George's Famous Baklava has been baking and shipping baklava online since 2009. Avail
Coinabul - Coinabul - The first Gold to Bitcoin marketplace. We sell gold and silver for Bitcoin

Places to spend bitcoin

The list goes on and on and on..

This story has nothing to do with bitcoin vulnerability but the vulnerability of a particular user using bitcoins.

Let me give another example:

I have two gold coins and I leave them in a glass container outside. Someone steals them during the night. It is not the gold coins at fault but rather my way of housing them.

This story just sounds like either propaganda hodwash to make people lose faith in bitcoin currency or it was genuinely just a really dumb person that hopefully have learned their lesson. Maybe he was hired by the same people that upkeeps Yahoomail are they? That would explain the security holes.

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.

Consortiums have been set up to mine bitcoins - they get paid bitcoins to process a fixed number of transactions. They either use GPU's or custom ASIC's (custom silicon chips in a USB module or PC board) to do the processing.

Regardless of the size of encryption key, you could always just try random bit patterns until you hit lucky.

This gives a description.

bitcoin.org...

Either someone manged to flood the system with transactions such that they owned a segment of the entire block chain for a short period of time. That would explain why so many bitcoins were stolen.

rigel4
Bitcoin are only 0's & 1's and therefore have no real value..
they exist in the twilight world of computer code, stored in
magnetic non volatile drives or some other device.

Without electric power Bitcoin cease to exist, if anyone thinks this will ever replace
hard currency, then they are living in fantasy land..

For now Bitcoin is being used only for speculative profit and nothing more.

It will fade into history..

Only 6% of all financial transactions worldwide are performed using real-world metal and paper currency.
Everything else is digital bits like Bitcoin. The main difference is that the financial institions record all transactions and can rollback them in the exact same order that they were made.

stormcell

rigel4
Bitcoin are only 0's & 1's and therefore have no real value..
they exist in the twilight world of computer code, stored in
magnetic non volatile drives or some other device.

Without electric power Bitcoin cease to exist, if anyone thinks this will ever replace
hard currency, then they are living in fantasy land..

For now Bitcoin is being used only for speculative profit and nothing more.

It will fade into history..

Only 6% of all financial transactions worldwide are performed using real-world metal and paper currency.
Everything else is digital bits like Bitcoin. The main difference is that the financial institions record all transactions and can rollback them in the exact same order that they were made.

Yes .. I am well aware of that . but Bitcoin is not backed up by anything else...like gold, or oil,or even the Green back... Bitcoin has nothing of value was my point. it is born and lives as computer generated Hash algorithm.

so at it's most basic ... simply 0's and 1's in digital format..

reply to post by rigel4


What gives Bitcoin value is the fact that it cannot be stolen by someone unless you allow it to be.

That is an element that has never existed with any type of currency either physical or fiat.

Government can steal your fiat USDs and can take your land. They can take physical gold. They can even take YOU. But they cannot take Bitcoin, unless you allow them to.

For me that is the biggest thing backing up Bitcoin.

That and it's open source and open to competitive currencies that run on the same or edited formats. At any point if bitcoin was found to have a hole, someone can create another currency based on the same idea with a fix for the hole.

It's a wonderful thing in my opinion.

OrphanApology
reply to post by rigel4

 

What gives Bitcoin value is the fact that it cannot be stolen by someone unless you allow it to be.

That is an element that has never existed with any type of currency either physical or fiat.

Government can steal your fiat USDs and can take your land. They can take physical gold. They can even take YOU. But they cannot take Bitcoin, unless you allow them to.

For me that is the biggest thing backing up Bitcoin.

That and it's open source and open to competitive currencies that run on the same or edited formats. At any point if bitcoin was found to have a hole, someone can create another currency based on the same idea with a fix for the hole.

It's a wonderful thing in my opinion.

I don't really understand why it has any value at all, you have to mine it, with ever increasing levels of
hashing algorithms, the equipment is expensive and only lasts as long as the current algorithm has coins left to mine. So surely big money and government are already a head of the game, as they have the most wealth to buy or make the mining rigs..

I am surely dumb.. but I cant grasp why this has value.. The dollar is just a promise to pay.. but in principal at least, it is a promise backed by gold of the same value.

Bitcoin has nothing backing it... so the value of it still eludes me.

reply to post by OrphanApology


Come on. If someone can steal an actual piece of gold then surely they can steal your Bitcoins as well? They can steal your computer and passwords, at least. Don't get me wrong, i'm sure Bitcoin has many advantages. But no form of currency is completely safe.

reply to post by rigel4


The dollar hasn't been backed by gold since the seventies. The only thing that gives the dollar value is the acceptance of it to represent either human capital or physical assets.

What gives bitcoin value is the same thing, only instead of being controlled by a central banking cartel such as the federal reserve it is open source.

In regard to government mining bitcoins more than anyone else, it's certainly possible. But, even if that were the case once the coins have reached their limit and say if the government floods the markets with the coins in an attempt to decrease value, once the coins have been sold the government can never get them back and will never have the opportunity to flood again.

This fiat currency is very unique IMO.

reply to post by Subnatural


Stealing computer and passwords is a security issue that I have control over.

Just like I have control over adding bars to my windows and buying a handgun since I live in the middle of a bad neighborhood.

rigel4
I don't really understand why it has any value at all, you have to mine it, with ever increasing levels of
hashing algorithms, the equipment is expensive and only lasts as long as the current algorithm has coins left to mine. So surely big money and government are already a head of the game, as they have the most wealth to buy or make the mining rigs..

I am surely dumb.. but I cant grasp why this has value.. The dollar is just a promise to pay.. but in principal at least, it is a promise backed by gold of the same value.

Bitcoin has nothing backing it... so the value of it still eludes me.

Well you can just buy it as well, you don't have to mine it.

Anyway, what does it actually mean, to have backing for a currency? How is it backed by oil or gold? The governments have oil or gold, they have something of value, and they are willing to exchange Dollars for gold or oil.

Bitcoin is backed by people who are willing to exchange goods for Bitcoin. It's that simple, the way I see it.

Obviously the Dollar is much more stable and reliable, it is backed by all the might of America and all those corporations etc. But it's only a difference of degree, not kind.

I think this might be worth a read to anyone interested in why bitcoin will fail.

Link

Governments aren’t going to allow this to happen. Nor should they. While the libertarian streak in me makes me sympathetic to bitcoin’s objectives, the fact of the matter is that bitcoin, if it is allowed to continue and grow, will promote a massive global expansion of very bad stuff: from child pornography to hard drugs to terrorism to contract killings. We may be willing to wink and nod about people that shave their taxes by taking their pay in cash. But there’s no reason we should countenance an “innovation” that sharply reduces the transactions costs of engaging in activities that virtually all of us agree are bad if not horrible. I think there are two realistic directions the bitcoin ecosystem could go in. First, it could just implode and disappear if governments decide that virtual currencies cause too much harm and are too hard to regulate. Long-term investments in bitcoin would then go up in smoke. Second, it could continue as a virtual currency that is only used on the dark web with exchanges that are run by people willing to break the laws. The value of bitcoin would decline to whatever the illegal sector could support; regular investors wouldn’t be able to get their value from bitcoin unless they cashed it in with someone who wanted to do bad things. In theory, bitcoin could become a lawful virtual currency if the bitcoin community gave up anonymity and therefore incorporated the identities of bitcoin senders and receivers as part of the currency. But that would eliminate the cash-like feature that makes bitcoin attractive and vastly decrease the demand for bitcoin. That does not seem like a viable path forward. The FBI’s bust of the founder of the Silk Road should be a wake up call to those who have bought into the bitcoin hype. That website is one of many popping up that are trying to become the criminal versions of Amazon. They depend on bitcoin—or other virtual currencies with the same features—to survive. It is very hard to see how governments that make it illegal for people to transport large sums of cash across borders are going to permit a vast global payment system that can easily circumvent anti-terrorism, money laundering and other laws that protect people.

reply to post by rigel4


That website is one that makes it's profit from selling advertising to companies that deal in payment systems. Considering that a Bitcoin transaction of the equivalent of a million dollars USD was done for around six cents, not exactly the best type of site to cite in an argument against something.

Edit: Also, if you can't detect the obvious bias/propaganda in the the quote you stated then I don't know what to say. Bitcoin is used for far more and for far different reasons than just child pornography and criminal activities.

rigel4
Bitcoin are only 0's & 1's and therefore have no real value..
they exist in the twilight world of computer code, stored in
magnetic non volatile drives or some other device.

Without electric power Bitcoin cease to exist, if anyone thinks this will ever replace
hard currency, then they are living in fantasy land..

For now Bitcoin is being used only for speculative profit and nothing more.

It will fade into history..

Guess what, so is 95% of every single currency in circulation. Your bank account is nothing but 0's and 1's that exist in the twilight world of computer code. They only have value because someone is willing to exchange that code for paper currency. The same thing people are willing to do with Bitcoin.

reply to post by Amagnon

Wrong on some levels.

BTC isn't money. BTC is power against the established banking system. People give it power through what they are willing to trade conventional money for it. It is a beeny baby, a tickle me Elmo, cabbage patch kid...but in a digital only form.

Without it being traded into real world currencies, it is totally worthless. When it first came out, did people really care about BTC? The answer is a simple no. The real world value of a single bit coin was pennies vs USD. Before BTC took off, people were giving it away for promoting their Onion site. Miners produced coins with ease, due to how it is mined. Not so much now.

But...since people give BTC value through trade, it should be treated and recognized as a currency right? Once it is recognized by banks/govts, it will be taxed and regulated like any other currency. It won't get to that point because it is a MEGA pump and dump scheme. Reminds me of the eGold stuff....which is being disputed in courts now - if you had eGold, you got the letter I did.

BTC is worthless, let us keep it that way.

But just like everything else, people will F it up and ruin a good thing.

Sell your BTC now if you actually purchased it with cash...you may never get your REAL cash back.

....once that happens, no one will care. Not insured, not recognized, not currency.

But....if you made out, congrats! You will be telling that story to your great grand kids.

reply to post by ChuckNasty

BTC is worthless, let us keep it that way.

If anyone is willing to swap anything for bitcoin then it has value / worth. Its the very definition of worth.

On the other hand worth is not dependent on taxation.