9 ms·

Blockchain Graveyard

177 points by jordigh 10y ago

ryanmarsh 10y ago
Was relieved to not find Coinbase on the list.
- amenghra 10y ago
  He's the former security director at Coinbase. There could be NDA issues, or maybe not.
Animats 10y ago
Only two marked "insider"? There have been more than that. There were several incidents where the insiders initially claimed they were robbed, but that didn't hold up upon closer examination. In the altcoin world, "take the money and run" is almost standard operating procedure. Remember Paycoin?
orbitingpluto 10y ago
This just in, thieves steal cryptocurrency just like real currency. The "protocol related" is by far the most concerning of course.
- croon 10y ago
  Indeed. It's called "wallet" for a reason. If you don't protect it, it gets stolen.
kang 10y ago
There were around 40 cryptocurrency exchanges till early 2013, which were studied for causes of their failure. http://tylermoore.ens.utulsa.edu/fc13.pdf http://tylermoore.ens.utulsa.edu/fc13.pdf
deftnerd 10y ago
A bit off topic, but I found that page theme and layout very enjoyable to read. Good design
- symmetricsaurus 10y ago
  Except that the text gets cut off on a 4 inch iPhone in portrait mode.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Switching orientation to landscape and back fits it properly to the viewport. That this should be necessary is vaguely silly, but at least it works.
nextstep 10y ago
Some of these incidents didn't completely destroy the company or cryptocurrency. For instance ShapeShift.io is on the list but they recovered from their theft incident and are now going strong.
nness 10y ago
I hadn't realised there were so many institutions and so many breaches...
- Uptrenda 10y ago
  Trust me, there's even more than the OP listed. This post gives a good history to some of the older thefts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0
- blacklively 10y ago
  Too many to name and to hard to locate.
Uptrenda 10y ago
Friendly reminder that people still aren't using decentralized exchanges in 2016 even though Coinffeine (Crypto / USD), Bitsquare (Crypto / Bank), and Bithalo (Crypto / Crypto) exist which are all quite mature now. Technically we've had the smart contracts to solve these trust problems since 2013 but still nobody is using them. Mostly the problem is these projects haven't received the funding (or attention) they need so there's no money to build momentum and overcome the initial brutal networking effect. It's also surprisingly hard to bootstrap an exchange, much less a next generation exchange using smart contracts (first hand experience) because of the serious engineering required, especially when you can probably make far more money with a traditional exchange by cutting corners. I think there will eventually be a legitimate VC backed company who fixes this horrible security mess but for now we're forced to watch history repeat itself. Sorry for the rambling post hacker news, but as a guy who tried to fix these problems myself after Mtgox was hacked and failed for non-technical reasons, it's depressing to keep seeing the same hacks and thefts in the news. Startups in the FinTech space really need to stop being such hypocrites and learn what Bitcoin has to teach us. Protip: Bitcoin is a lot deeper than a currency or consensus system. It can also be used as a general purpose philosophy for designing high security systems in general.
- HappyTypist 10y ago
  I think the reality is that most people want a directly responsible entity to whom they can get support from.
  - riprowan 10y ago
    ... and since the premise of Bitcoin was to free users from precisely these third-parties, it seems that Bitcoin is a bad use-case for these people.
    - Steltek 10y ago
      But "these people" are also "most people". "Most people" also don't use PGP, for many reasons, but IMO chiefly that it's hard to manage keys without outside (centralized) help. If Google managed PGP keys for you, there'd be little problem with muggles sending and receiving encrypted (albeit insecure) email. Since Bitcoin needs a critical mass to be successful, centralized exchanges and wallets are needed to build it up so it's generally useful.
herbst 10y ago
Pretty sure Mintpal was a exit scam and not only a hack.
- xorcist 10y ago
  Very likely, along with many others. The official SR2.0 explanation doesn't make sense, for example. Many of the early online wallets were set up completely anonymously. Maybe they were not set up to be scams but the temptation must be considerable when no one knows who you are.
fbuilesv 10y ago
Funny, after reading the article I decided to go to Coinbase to see the Bitcoin prices, and this is what I find: We have reason to believe you reside in a country in which Coinbase is prohibited by law from doing business (Iran, Islamic Republic Of) per the sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to close your Coinbase account. I'm not Iranian and I'll comply with their KYC requests, but every day Coinbase feels more and more like PayPal. I thought this is what we were trying to avoid in the first place. PS: Happily, I had no funds on the account. I hope this helps as a reminder to others: keep your money in your own private wallets.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  > I thought this is what we were trying to avoid in the first place. Well, yes. Doing anything with USD (or most other currencies) is a complete nightmare, especially including converting them to other currencies. The goal is that eventually you might want to accept some or all of your pay as bitcoin, which would've been paid to your employer as bitcoin, and thus the loop is closed and nobody has to implement any KYC procedures. Converting from <currency> to bitcoin to pay somebody for them to turn it back into <currency> suffers from all the legal issues that affect <currency> - which should be obvious. Also obvious is that this will pretty much never happen on any large scale, rendering bitcoin near-worthless for most people.
  - riprowan 10y ago
    > Also obvious is that this will pretty much never happen on any large scale Not obvious to me, if the timescale is expanded sufficiently.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      The issue is that you need a large amount of people to be using bitcoin - enough that some significant amount of them will pay your company in bitcoin - before you can start offering to pay your employees in the bitcoin you receive... and significant amounts of people are unlikely to use bitcoin until they're being paid in it.
hellomoto998 10y ago
Paypal is wretched. Edit: It seems, more often than not, that HN has become astroturfed.
- joosters 10y ago
  Do you seriously believe that Paypal are attacking HN with pro-PP messages?
- pjc50 10y ago
  Paypal is often bad, but things like KYC/AML are not something they have control over. That was my point.
- dang 10y ago
  Accusations of astroturfing without evidence are not allowed on Hacker News. Please don't do this again. Also, you've been posting quite a few unsubstantive comments. Please don't do that; it's not what this site is for. If you read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html, you'll get a better idea of what we're looking for here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12070518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12070518 and marked it off-topic.
blubb-fish 10y ago
Yesterday I noticed that blockchain.info wallet now asks for an E-Mail address and features a JS based UI which doesn't render properly in Tor Browser. At least not from scratch. Anyway - just would like to state that I am actually using BTC as a currency - to buy stuff :)

177 points by jordigh 10y ago

ryanmarsh 10y ago

Was relieved to not find Coinbase on the list.

amenghra 10y ago
He's the former security director at Coinbase. There could be NDA issues, or maybe not.

Animats 10y ago

Only two marked "insider"? There have been more than that. There were several incidents where the insiders initially claimed they were robbed, but that didn't hold up upon closer examination. In the altcoin world, "take the money and run" is almost standard operating procedure. Remember Paycoin?

orbitingpluto 10y ago

This just in, thieves steal cryptocurrency just like real currency. The "protocol related" is by far the most concerning of course.

croon 10y ago
Indeed. It's called "wallet" for a reason. If you don't protect it, it gets stolen.

kang 10y ago

There were around 40 cryptocurrency exchanges till early 2013, which were studied for causes of their failure. http://tylermoore.ens.utulsa.edu/fc13.pdf http://tylermoore.ens.utulsa.edu/fc13.pdf

deftnerd 10y ago

A bit off topic, but I found that page theme and layout very enjoyable to read. Good design

symmetricsaurus 10y ago
Except that the text gets cut off on a 4 inch iPhone in portrait mode.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Switching orientation to landscape and back fits it properly to the viewport. That this should be necessary is vaguely silly, but at least it works.

nextstep 10y ago

Some of these incidents didn't completely destroy the company or cryptocurrency. For instance ShapeShift.io is on the list but they recovered from their theft incident and are now going strong.

nness 10y ago

I hadn't realised there were so many institutions and so many breaches...

Uptrenda 10y ago
Trust me, there's even more than the OP listed. This post gives a good history to some of the older thefts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0
blacklively 10y ago
Too many to name and to hard to locate.

Uptrenda 10y ago

Friendly reminder that people still aren't using decentralized exchanges in 2016 even though Coinffeine (Crypto / USD), Bitsquare (Crypto / Bank), and Bithalo (Crypto / Crypto) exist which are all quite mature now. Technically we've had the smart contracts to solve these trust problems since 2013 but still nobody is using them. Mostly the problem is these projects haven't received the funding (or attention) they need so there's no money to build momentum and overcome the initial brutal networking effect. It's also surprisingly hard to bootstrap an exchange, much less a next generation exchange using smart contracts (first hand experience) because of the serious engineering required, especially when you can probably make far more money with a traditional exchange by cutting corners. I think there will eventually be a legitimate VC backed company who fixes this horrible security mess but for now we're forced to watch history repeat itself. Sorry for the rambling post hacker news, but as a guy who tried to fix these problems myself after Mtgox was hacked and failed for non-technical reasons, it's depressing to keep seeing the same hacks and thefts in the news. Startups in the FinTech space really need to stop being such hypocrites and learn what Bitcoin has to teach us. Protip: Bitcoin is a lot deeper than a currency or consensus system. It can also be used as a general purpose philosophy for designing high security systems in general.

HappyTypist 10y ago
I think the reality is that most people want a directly responsible entity to whom they can get support from.
- riprowan 10y ago
  ... and since the premise of Bitcoin was to free users from precisely these third-parties, it seems that Bitcoin is a bad use-case for these people.
  - Steltek 10y ago
    But "these people" are also "most people". "Most people" also don't use PGP, for many reasons, but IMO chiefly that it's hard to manage keys without outside (centralized) help. If Google managed PGP keys for you, there'd be little problem with muggles sending and receiving encrypted (albeit insecure) email. Since Bitcoin needs a critical mass to be successful, centralized exchanges and wallets are needed to build it up so it's generally useful.

herbst 10y ago

Pretty sure Mintpal was a exit scam and not only a hack.

xorcist 10y ago
Very likely, along with many others. The official SR2.0 explanation doesn't make sense, for example. Many of the early online wallets were set up completely anonymously. Maybe they were not set up to be scams but the temptation must be considerable when no one knows who you are.

fbuilesv 10y ago

Funny, after reading the article I decided to go to Coinbase to see the Bitcoin prices, and this is what I find: We have reason to believe you reside in a country in which Coinbase is prohibited by law from doing business (Iran, Islamic Republic Of) per the sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to close your Coinbase account. I'm not Iranian and I'll comply with their KYC requests, but every day Coinbase feels more and more like PayPal. I thought this is what we were trying to avoid in the first place. PS: Happily, I had no funds on the account. I hope this helps as a reminder to others: keep your money in your own private wallets.

vertex-four 10y ago
> I thought this is what we were trying to avoid in the first place. Well, yes. Doing anything with USD (or most other currencies) is a complete nightmare, especially including converting them to other currencies. The goal is that eventually you might want to accept some or all of your pay as bitcoin, which would've been paid to your employer as bitcoin, and thus the loop is closed and nobody has to implement any KYC procedures. Converting from <currency> to bitcoin to pay somebody for them to turn it back into <currency> suffers from all the legal issues that affect <currency> - which should be obvious. Also obvious is that this will pretty much never happen on any large scale, rendering bitcoin near-worthless for most people.
- riprowan 10y ago
  > Also obvious is that this will pretty much never happen on any large scale Not obvious to me, if the timescale is expanded sufficiently.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    The issue is that you need a large amount of people to be using bitcoin - enough that some significant amount of them will pay your company in bitcoin - before you can start offering to pay your employees in the bitcoin you receive... and significant amounts of people are unlikely to use bitcoin until they're being paid in it.

hellomoto998 10y ago

Paypal is wretched. Edit: It seems, more often than not, that HN has become astroturfed.

joosters 10y ago
Do you seriously believe that Paypal are attacking HN with pro-PP messages?
pjc50 10y ago
Paypal is often bad, but things like KYC/AML are not something they have control over. That was my point.
dang 10y ago
Accusations of astroturfing without evidence are not allowed on Hacker News. Please don't do this again. Also, you've been posting quite a few unsubstantive comments. Please don't do that; it's not what this site is for. If you read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html, you'll get a better idea of what we're looking for here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12070518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12070518 and marked it off-topic.

blubb-fish 10y ago

Yesterday I noticed that blockchain.info wallet now asks for an E-Mail address and features a JS based UI which doesn't render properly in Tor Browser. At least not from scratch. Anyway - just would like to state that I am actually using BTC as a currency - to buy stuff :)