several recent attacks on Bitcoin services

Discussion in 'Bullion Investing' started by SilverForLife, Apr 6, 2013.

  1. Juan Blanco

    Juan Blanco New Member

    I don't think ~20 thefts makes BitCoins "unsafe." But the vast majority of these (some disputed) were not individuals suffering loss either. And some BitCoins were recovered and/or some individuals WERE IN FACT reimbursed.
    https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0

    Most of the anti-BitCoin hysteria around theft is disinformation, simply.
     
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  3. Blaubart

    Blaubart Melt Value = 4.50

    Wow! Nice link there Juan. From that link, I added up all the losses and came up with about $112 million. Based on the number of bitcoins stolen and the number of bitcoins currently in circulation, I figure a minimum of 5% of bitcoins have been stolen in the past two years. That percentage is actually a lot higher because there weren't as many bitcoins in circulation two years ago as there are today.

    When you consider that the people who lost their Bitcoins in those incidents have ZERO recourse to recover their assets, I think they might disagree with you on how "safe" bitcoins are.

    ETA: "20 thefts" sounds minimal. But $112 million of a total of what is now $2 billion in total assets, that's a different story. If all the dollars currently deposited in various financial institutions in the US had 5% of their deposits stolen, that would be about $2.5 trillion. Nobody except the government can steal that much money.
     
  4. Juan Blanco

    Juan Blanco New Member

    Sour grapes for missing the best investment of 2013? :D

    Read honestly this time; many of those BitCoins in my link were returned or refunded.

    Among the persistent lies about lost BitCoins:
    1) there is nothing the owner can do
    2) stolen BitCoins cannot ever be recovered
     
  5. Blaubart

    Blaubart Melt Value = 4.50

    Sometimes, with risk comes reward. I'm close enough to retirement that I don't want to be taking any big risks...
     
  6. Juan Blanco

    Juan Blanco New Member

  7. Tyler

    Tyler Active Member

    I'll take my chances with the US giving my bank account a haircut than the BitCoin ponzi.
     
  8. Blaubart

    Blaubart Melt Value = 4.50

    Same here.

    Which brings up yet another issue I have with Bitcoins and what is currently going on with them. Russians hid money in Cyprus, presumably to avoid taxes. When that gig turned sour, they found another place to stash their money. Do I really want to keep that kind of company?

    Also, Bitcoins are often used to buy and sell goods and services under the radar, often in transactions that had they been conducted in USD, they would be subject to taxes, either sales tax, income tax, or capital gains taxes. How many of these transactions are actually being reported for tax purposes? If the usage of Bitcoins grows to the point where the IRS sees they're losing out on a lot of revenue, then anyone dealing in Bitcoins is in for an IRS shakedown sometime in the near future.

    Some people use Bitcoins for the perceived anonymity they offer. However, most of them do not realize that not only is their account stored in the transaction logs, but also in the bitcoin itself. Not quite as anonymous as most people might be led to believe.
     
  9. avr5700

    avr5700 Member

    Sure would be nice if our more common currency weren't also based on computer entries (bits) now... Seriously think about what that means.
     
  10. SilverForLife

    SilverForLife Member

    Great point!:dead-horse:
     
  11. daveydempsey

    daveydempsey Well-Known Member

    If I get Bitcoins certified by PCGS and then get a CAC sticker are they worth more ?
     
  12. Tyler

    Tyler Active Member

    Absolutely but for different reasons than you think. By the time you get the coin back from PCGS the cost of BitCoins will be higher than each day previous to it. Have you seen the charts for BitCoins lately? It can only go up. There is no downside!
     
  13. NorthKorea

    NorthKorea Dealer Member is a made up title...

    Medora, maybe you should have told your nephew to sell 95% (80% is the typical number) of his position. Then tell him, he can use the proceeds to buy something stable. Then, when it goes up another 20% before losing 30%, he can have some to resist the temptation to buy more. When value has retraced to 93% or so, he can opt to buy back in or buy stocks with some of the money.

    (Edit: 93% down from the peak, obviously.)

    As for account hacking... Since bit coins are held in accounts/exchanges, they should be able to identify whose accounts the coins were taken from and simply give them back. Then they could use those accounts to track code to find out if the accounts were hacked by insiders or actual thieves.
     
  14. Revi

    Revi Mildly numismatic

    But if he sells now he won't have any bitcoins to spend in the future. Who takes them as currency now?
     
  15. NorthKorea

    NorthKorea Dealer Member is a made up title...

    Basically, the black market. My understanding is they have (or at least had) escrow exchange services a year or two ago. Beyond that, folks use them to buy illegal things, like drugs or weapons, from other countries.

    Off the exchange, they're impossible to recover, since transfers are generally viewed like Paypal gifts. If you send them out, they're gone.
     
  16. Juan Blanco

    Juan Blanco New Member

  17. SilverForLife

    SilverForLife Member

    That alone tells me its a scam. Every investment has a downside.
     
  18. Juan Blanco

    Juan Blanco New Member

    So if Tyler says it's a "ponzi" it must not be LOL
    Or ... if you cannot grasp that he's being facetious, what does that tell us? :eek:

    You people are too much. Really. Silly geese.

    I'd never "invest" in BitCoins under normal circumstances, but someone w/a cash-frozen Cypriot bank account buying BCs "somehow" did far far better than any paranoid dimwits/clowns here might insist. Just saying. The chart doesn't lie.

    bitcoin.jpg

    And here's the REAL chart to remember, always, for BitCoins, Silver, Gold, BeanieBabies, etc.
    34653c15b6c7c0e315e7ecfb6db8a562-600x389.png
     
  19. cplradar

    cplradar Talmud Chuchum

    Been discussed extensively in Cyprus
     
  20. Juan Blanco

    Juan Blanco New Member

    Obviously. Intelligent minds can easily grasp what happened.
    But smug, complacent and generally uninformed Americans are and will always be the very last to find out, get the memo, or THINK! what it all means.
    Will be interesting to see what happens in the NEXT 'Cyprus' event... when BitCoin surges again.
    Worth watching, maybe playing with a very small, super-aggressive allocation then, too. But NOT buying at current BC price - no way!

    The banksters must hate this 'retail out' available to little savers in confiscation holidays, though.
     
  21. cplradar

    cplradar Talmud Chuchum

    It might be noticed that bitcoins aren't the only currency which has been stolen through a hack. Just ask Bank America and CITIBANK.

    They've suffered in Billions of dollars in stolen funds through hacks....

    Walt
    ~~~~~~~
    Hey Phyllis - was that Mdm Octave?
     
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