8 ms·

Let me get this straight. Zerocoin has a bug, money gets stolen, the bug is fixed. Everyone in the comments lose their shit and call doom and gloom for all cr

Let me get this straight. Zerocoin has a bug, money gets stolen, the bug is fixed. Everyone in the comments lose their shit and call doom and gloom for all cryptocurrencies. The experiment is failed, centralization was right all along! Meanwhile, centralized systems like credit cards are stolen en masse, identity theft abounds, anybody can file your taxes with the IRS and collect your refund, and an ACH can be initiated against your bank account using all the information helpfully printed on every check you hand to strangers... and no one bats an eye? I don't get it.

wmf 10y ago
There is an excess of schadenfreude here, but people are only judging cryptocurrencies against their own inflated claims.
- drcode 10y ago
  Not really sure where the "shadenfreude" comes in if ethereum was originally sold for 30 cents per ether and is now about 13 dollars an ether.
kentonv 10y ago
Stating the obvious here, but... Fiat financial security is based on monitoring, paper trails, and legal consequences for fraud. Yes, you can initiate a fraudulent ACH knowing only the numbers printed on a check you received, but you'll probably end up in jail for it. It's far from perfect but it mostly works. Cryptocurrency intentionally doesn't have any paper trails. Anonymity is the selling point. If you find a bug in the code and exploit it, the anonymity protects you and you likely won't be caught. That means that security depends entirely on the code (and the theory!) being correct. So yes, when bugs in fact lead to massive amounts of money being lost... some point are going to argue that cryptocurrency may not be a good idea. (Note: My personal opinion is mixed.) > Zerocoin has a bug, money gets stolen, the bug is fixed. You say this as if it isn't a big deal. Sure, the bug is fixed, but the attacker essentially stole 25% of everyone else's zcoin (via inflation), and fixing the bug doesn't bring any of it back. That seems like a big deal to me.
- tdfx 10y ago
  Actually the whole point of the distributed blockchain is that there's a very public paper trail. The only hope for anonymity is obfuscating the movement of value through the blockchain, which can be accomplished to varying degrees depending on the sophistication of who is trying to track you. If your theft is high profile enough then you'll have a good deal of trouble liquidating your funds anonymously.
  - wmf 10y ago
    That's how Bitcoin works, but some newer cryptocurrencies like Monero, Zerocoin, and ZCash have no such paper trail.
  - rtpg 10y ago
    it's the ultimate irony. It feels like anonymity because you decouple the "get a bunch of BTC" from "cash out to USD", so it's the worst of both worlds. It's anonymous at first, so fraud can't easily be reversed. But it's "eventually completely public", so people who might want to use it for anonymity are sitting on a ticking time bomb. Eventually, their identities will be revealed.
    - blunte 10y ago
      Indeed, but people just don't seem to get this. As long as people are converting fiat to crypto at the front end, and then crypto back to another fiat at the back end, then there is no anonymity. There may be a lot of obfuscation in the middle, but ultimately the guy who converts back to fiat will be asked the question by his government, "Where did this money come from?" Then he needs a provable paper trail. Maybe someday enough goods and services will be available to be purchased by cryptocurrency that fiat use will be diminished or eliminated. But at that point, the companies that are accepting cryptocurrency as payment for services will have to keep their own accounting in order to show their governments where their money is coming from. And then again the anonymity breaks down. The customer records, with email, ip, and shipping addresses are part of the audit trail.
erikpukinskis 10y ago
[unusual activity] leads to [bad outcome] -> Unusual activity causes problems and you smell! [normal activity] leads to [bad outcome] -> Well you must've cocked it up. See: vegan cooking, meat cooking

wmf 10y ago

There is an excess of schadenfreude here, but people are only judging cryptocurrencies against their own inflated claims.

drcode 10y ago
Not really sure where the "shadenfreude" comes in if ethereum was originally sold for 30 cents per ether and is now about 13 dollars an ether.

kentonv 10y ago

Stating the obvious here, but... Fiat financial security is based on monitoring, paper trails, and legal consequences for fraud. Yes, you can initiate a fraudulent ACH knowing only the numbers printed on a check you received, but you'll probably end up in jail for it. It's far from perfect but it mostly works. Cryptocurrency intentionally doesn't have any paper trails. Anonymity is the selling point. If you find a bug in the code and exploit it, the anonymity protects you and you likely won't be caught. That means that security depends entirely on the code (and the theory!) being correct. So yes, when bugs in fact lead to massive amounts of money being lost... some point are going to argue that cryptocurrency may not be a good idea. (Note: My personal opinion is mixed.) > Zerocoin has a bug, money gets stolen, the bug is fixed. You say this as if it isn't a big deal. Sure, the bug is fixed, but the attacker essentially stole 25% of everyone else's zcoin (via inflation), and fixing the bug doesn't bring any of it back. That seems like a big deal to me.

tdfx 10y ago
Actually the whole point of the distributed blockchain is that there's a very public paper trail. The only hope for anonymity is obfuscating the movement of value through the blockchain, which can be accomplished to varying degrees depending on the sophistication of who is trying to track you. If your theft is high profile enough then you'll have a good deal of trouble liquidating your funds anonymously.
- wmf 10y ago
  That's how Bitcoin works, but some newer cryptocurrencies like Monero, Zerocoin, and ZCash have no such paper trail.
- rtpg 10y ago
  it's the ultimate irony. It feels like anonymity because you decouple the "get a bunch of BTC" from "cash out to USD", so it's the worst of both worlds. It's anonymous at first, so fraud can't easily be reversed. But it's "eventually completely public", so people who might want to use it for anonymity are sitting on a ticking time bomb. Eventually, their identities will be revealed.
  - blunte 10y ago
    Indeed, but people just don't seem to get this. As long as people are converting fiat to crypto at the front end, and then crypto back to another fiat at the back end, then there is no anonymity. There may be a lot of obfuscation in the middle, but ultimately the guy who converts back to fiat will be asked the question by his government, "Where did this money come from?" Then he needs a provable paper trail. Maybe someday enough goods and services will be available to be purchased by cryptocurrency that fiat use will be diminished or eliminated. But at that point, the companies that are accepting cryptocurrency as payment for services will have to keep their own accounting in order to show their governments where their money is coming from. And then again the anonymity breaks down. The customer records, with email, ip, and shipping addresses are part of the audit trail.

erikpukinskis 10y ago

[unusual activity] leads to [bad outcome] -> Unusual activity causes problems and you smell! [normal activity] leads to [bad outcome] -> Well you must've cocked it up. See: vegan cooking, meat cooking