WTF News stories

[Sinfire Titan]

'super evil flaming douche bag'

Nicholas Cage?

[altpersona]

'super evil flaming douche bag'

Nicholas Cage?

Axel Rose

[bhu]

http://valleywag.gawker.com/bitcoin-kingpin-admits-everyones-money-is-gone-1533315083

[X-Codes]

Now is the true test of cryptocurrency.  Will any appropriate authorities be able to track the thieves and reclaim the stolen loot, or will the ledger that claims to be THE reason to use Bitcoin prove to be useless in this case?

Failure could set back crytocurrency technology by a couple decades, easy, if not kill the idea outright.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

F -  - ing Ukraine situation.

(click to show/hide)

I'd say more, but hackers would shut down mmx.

[bhu]

F -  - ing Ukraine situation.

(click to show/hide)

I'd say more, but hackers would shut down mmx.

How did we find out our hackers ethnicity?

[oslecamo]

Now is the true test of cryptocurrency.  Will any appropriate authorities be able to track the thieves and reclaim the stolen loot, or will the ledger that claims to be THE reason to use Bitcoin prove to be useless in this case?

Failure could set back crytocurrency technology by a couple decades, easy, if not kill the idea outright.

It should die now and remain dead, otherwise this would've happenned when a lot more people had been fooled up by it, and the results would be much more disastrous when their purely virtual investments just poofed out like this. Hackers gonna hack, and you can't properly track down something that never really existed.

[X-Codes]

It should die now and remain dead, otherwise this would've happenned when a lot more people had been fooled up by it, and the results would be much more disastrous when their purely virtual investments just poofed out like this. Hackers gonna hack, and you can't properly track down something that never really existed.

The idea that cryptocurrencies are somehow fake or don't exist is, frankly, bullshit.  Coin miners are, in fact, writing a massive ledger that catalogs each acquisition and transfer of their respective currencies.

[oslecamo]

Thing is, Mt Gox doesn't even know if their bitcoins were stolen or not. It could've been hackers. It could've been a computer code error.

So basically as "real" as a poof of smoke. Very tecnically they exist for a moment, but somebody blows hard/clicks a button, and they're gone whitout trace.

Can't wait until those catalogs start getting hacked/corrupted as well.

[X-Codes]

The issue I take with your statement is that no money is all that real, anymore.  What would you rather have, an opaque bank telling you that you possess X amount of value because of bits on their computer, or a heavily encrypted ledger that is virtually impossible to forge unless you possess a ridiculous amount of computing power?

This seems to stem from an outmoded ideology that the Internet is somehow pretend world and doesn't exist in reality when, in fact, every bit of evidence on the matter says otherwise.

[Jackinthegreen]

Mormon President ordered to appear in British court for fraud charges.

This will definitely be...  Interesting.

[X-Codes]

The Mormon Church is a scam.  Who knew?

Oh, right.  Everyone.

[dman11235]

The issue I take with your statement is that no money is all that real, anymore.  What would you rather have, an opaque bank telling you that you possess X amount of value because of bits on their computer, or a heavily encrypted ledger that is virtually impossible to forge unless you possess a ridiculous amount of computing power?

This seems to stem from an outmoded ideology that the Internet is somehow pretend world and doesn't exist in reality when, in fact, every bit of evidence on the matter says otherwise.

Cryptocurrencies are not backed by anything other than a popular belief in them.  Real world currencies are backed by people with authority and a popular belief in them.  That's the difference.  Real currencies have a trade that back them.  In reality, a cryptocurrency is not a currency, but a valuable object.

[Raineh Daze]

The issue I take with your statement is that no money is all that real, anymore.  What would you rather have, an opaque bank telling you that you possess X amount of value because of bits on their computer, or a heavily encrypted ledger that is virtually impossible to forge unless you possess a ridiculous amount of computing power?

This seems to stem from an outmoded ideology that the Internet is somehow pretend world and doesn't exist in reality when, in fact, every bit of evidence on the matter says otherwise.

Cryptocurrencies are not backed by anything other than a popular belief in them.  Real world currencies are backed by people with authority and a popular belief in them.  That's the difference.  Real currencies have a trade that back them.  In reality, a cryptocurrency is not a currency, but a valuable object.

So we're back to how currencies started?

[dman11235]

It has very little to do with how they got started.  If a cryptocurrency became backed by a legitimate economic organization, then it would be a regular currency.  But none of them are.  And none of them are regularly accepted as payment.  That's not a currency, it's bartering.  Simply calling something money doesn't make it money.  The fact that it's backed by a legitimate economic organization (like a nation) and is accepted as currency within that organization widely, makes it a currency.

And all this is beside the point.  Bitcoin is insecure, way too susceptible to random fluctuations, and near impossible to enforce the value of it.  It's like a bad stock option.  If you're careful, you can make money with it, but only if you trade it away at the right time.  At this point I would never touch it, or any other cryptocurrency.  And it would take a lot for me to be able to invest any of my wealth in any of them.  Like, being recognized by a nation as a currency.  And a legitimate one, not that one place that's an abandoned oil rig or that other that's half of Pluto, a bit of Mars, and a farm in Montana or whatever.

[X-Codes]

In reality, a cryptocurrency is not a currency, but a valuable object.

Currencies are nothing more than valuable objects whose sole purpose is to have value, and the relative values of all currencies are debated every day.  There's nothing particularly special about a government-backed currency, what's important is that there's something of a consensus as to how much a given currency is worth.  The only problem Bitcoin is having right now is that there are Wall Street interests with money that are warping what the consensus is in order to try and make a quick buck.  Same as damn near everything else they get involved with.

[dman11235]

The special thing about a government backed currency is that it is government backed.  It heightens the trust in the currency so it doesn't just go up and down and disappear without warning.  Bitcoin does all that and more, and it's the MOST stable cryptocurrency.  There is regulation and process with government backed real currencies.  There's fake regulation and imaginary process with cryptocurrencies.  Bit coin is on an ever fluctuating bubble and the only thing that would make it a solid currency is if some stable legitimate economic entity decided to back it.  This does not need to be a nation, although something of equal foundation is necessary.  If the internet weren't a disjointed mess, it might work.  And yes, the internet is a disjointed mess.  Not a bad thing, it just means it isn't a stable reliable source of currency backing....

In order for cryptocurrencies to be taken seriously, they need stability.  Value is NOT stability, and just because bitcoin is worth 98y45967 per coin doesn't mean squat.  It's the difference between a stock and a currency.  Stocks tend to rise and fall at the whims of people, where as currencies tend to stay stable unless something really extreme happens (see: hyperinflation, war, severe depression).  You watch the value of the dollar drop, and it's dropping slowly and steadily.  Well, relatively quickly, but steadily.  It's not going up and down and all around.  Bitcoin goes through booms and busts on an hourly basis.

And finally, the internet gets bored with things.  So what happens when the internet decides its bored with bitcoin?  What happens if it just shuts down?  A real currency can't do that.  It's not that it won't, it just can't.  Cryptos very much can just stop being worth anything.

[X-Codes]

Bitcoins don't disappear without warning.  That is not a thing that happens.  People can lose access to their wallets, but if that happens then the coins just stay in the wallet.  Every bitcoin transaction is recorded in the master ledger, and in order to commit a fraudulent transaction then you need to either hack the wallet password (basically steal it directly from the person) or amass a botnet big enough to control at least half of all the mining activity on the ledger.  This situation looks like the former, someone's password got hacked and the bitcoins were stolen that way.  If that's the case, then the ledger should be able to track where the coins went.  If not, then bitcoin's credibility is in trouble, but the fundamental idea behind cryptocurrencies is not.  We can design a better bitcoin down the line with better security.  Not necessarily ones that prevent the Mt.Gox incident from happening, but ones that allow us to reverse the damage relatively easily.  Hell, bitcoin might have that capability, itself.  Whether or not it does is being tested right now.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

F -  - ing Ukraine situation.

(click to show/hide)

I'd say more, but hackers would shut down mmx.

How did we find out our hackers ethnicity?

Heh no. 
Pick one side, get hacked by the other.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

The issue I take with your statement is that no money is all that real, anymore.  What would you rather have, an opaque bank telling you that you possess X amount of value because of bits on their computer, or a heavily encrypted ledger that is virtually impossible to forge unless you possess a ridiculous amount of computing power?

This seems to stem from an outmoded ideology that the Internet is somehow pretend world and doesn't exist in reality when, in fact, every bit of evidence on the matter says otherwise.

Cryptocurrencies are not backed by anything other than a popular belief in them.  Real world currencies are backed by people with authority and a popular belief in them.  That's the difference.  Real currencies have a trade that back them.  In reality, a cryptocurrency is not a currency, but a valuable object.

Uhh ... I'm hazy about how much Drug Trade gets conducted via Bitcoin.  Except that it happens, and thus floats (some of) the value of the currency.  Other gray market and black market stuff, idk.  Clearly, nasty business like international Prostitution conducts money trades in some fashion.  North Korea perhaps?