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So if I put my bitcons on MyBitcoin.com, I'm under the impression that they have complete control over my wallet. Just like if I gave my wallet to someone and a

by lutorm 16y ago

So if I put my bitcons on MyBitcoin.com, I'm under the impression that they have complete control over my wallet. Just like if I gave my wallet to someone and asked them to please accept payments on my behalf. Correct? That's an awful lot of trust to put in a random website. If they decide to run the website until they are sitting on enough coins and then just transfer them to themselves, is any court going to believe me when I claim they stole my money?? The fundamental problem I have with Bitcoin web transactions is that it requires trusting the other party, since I can't exchange the goods at the same time. How do I make that determination and what recourse do I have if I'm defrauded? This would seem to be the fundamental obstacle to adoption to me.

SkyMarshal 16y ago
My understanding is that every bitcoin contains the entire block chain which contains a record of every transaction made in the network. A transaction is basically three pieces of data: private key signature of the sender/payer, public key of the receiver/payee, amount of bitcoins. The blockchain is very difficult to counterfeit, so theoretically a site like MyBitcoin.com can't actually 'control' your wallet or transfer all the bitcoins to themselves, at least without all the private keys of their depositors.