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I do not argue that they're competent because they're important. I argue that they are competent because there is a multi-billion dollar pile of cash that they'
by ufmace 7y ago
I do not argue that they're competent because they're important. I argue that they are competent because there is a multi-billion dollar pile of cash that they're guarding. If they aren't competent, how come nobody has stolen it all yet?
Look at the efforts spent hacking Bitcoin exchanges and identified large holders. Lots and lots of money being taken there. Look at the efforts made to hack much less important things. How come no big banks have suffered a serious compromise leading to the loss of 9-figure plus amounts of money yet?
- syrrim 7y agoBanks normally don't actually transfer any money. There's a funny story from the 1920s of the Bank of England pushing money across the vault floor to indicate a transfer to France, who held an account with them. The money doesn't actually go anywhere, it just says so on the balance sheet. If someone "steals" 1 billion dollars by making the system think they took it, someone will eventually notice, then they'll send somebody down to the vault to push it back to the other side. Bitcoin is very different: when the bitcoin blockchain says someone else has your money, they have it. Imagine someone had heard that Ethereum had suffered no major attacks on exchanges, but hadn't heard of the DAO attack. They must think that Ethereum is extremely secure. Actually, Ethereum is very insecure, but a large enough target will get special treatment. Bitcoin doesn't have the same tendency as Ethereum (and real life) towards hard forks, so of course it will have more attacks on it. But this doesn't imply that anyone will hard fork when you get hacked, nor will the banks necessarily reverse the transaction when someone guesses your password.