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> In June 2016, attackers exploited a vulnerability to steal 3.6 million ETH (then about $50 million) of the project’s 11.5 million ETH (about $160 million). P

> In June 2016, attackers exploited a vulnerability to steal 3.6 million ETH (then about $50 million) of the project’s 11.5 million ETH (about $160 million). People love to tout this example, I did too, until that realized that one a one off event. There are regularly significantly more larger thefts of crypto currencies these days[1] and nobody is even willing to discuss a hard fork. I now chalk this up as growing mistakes which every project makes in early stages. I'm still not into this whole idea of crypto currencies, but don't think we can use this point fairly any more. [1] https://rekt.news/leaderboard/ https://rekt.news/leaderboard/

buttpie 5y ago
e1g 5y ago
Another informative and entertaining place to read about the nearly-daily rug pulls is https://web3isgoinggreat.com https://web3isgoinggreat.com
- spiralx 5y ago
  Isn't that from the same person?
FabHK 5y ago
Yes. Similarly, you can totally rely on your gold or fiat money being yours. Ok, there was this small incidence in 1933 where the US government took most of your gold, but that was a one off event [1]. And then during the hyperinflation in Germany your money actually became worthless, but that was a growing mistake. Of course, that was multiple generations ago, not a few years. Conclusion: On the dimension of reliability and censor resistance, crypto might be as good as gold or fiat (while on all other axes it remains much worse). [1] Executive Order 6102 required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve in exchange for $20.67 (equivalent to $413 in 2020)[5] per troy ounce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
- notahacker 5y ago
  This. Ultimately the defence blockchain has against hard forks is exactly the same as the defence other monetary systems have against things like hyperinflation and mass asset seizure which cryptoenthusiasts worry about: generally the people with the [hash]power have strong incentives not to do so. Except when those incentives change. In both cases, how much confidence you can place in that theoretical incentive structure protecting you varies widely according to who and why (you can be pretty confident that your US dollars won't be hyperinflated, the contents of your Swiss bank account won't be seized to balance another government's books and nobody with significant hashpower cares that you scammed Joe Sixpack out of BTC. You can't be so confident your Venezuelan Bolivars or shitcoins won't become worthless next month or that you'll get to spend gains from a heist against an Ethereum Foundation or US government flagship project.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
- newswasboring 5y ago
  > On the dimension of reliability and censor resistance, crypto might be as good as gold or fiat (while on all other axes it remains much worse). I completely agree. My only point was its bizarre that people choose the DAO incident to bash crypto people. They have plenty of evidence that the community learned from the incident.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
> I now chalk this up as growing mistakes which every project makes in early stages. Except it's not new at all; regular banks and the fiat money they have been handling have been dealing with these things for literally centuries. But the cryptobros decided they could do better, converting their PHP Magic the Gathering trading platform to a Bitcoin trading platform and thinking yeah, that's good enough for handling billions. To name but one example.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
- cinntaile 5y ago
  Exploiting smart contracts is new and how the crypto community deals with that is new as well, which is what he meant.
- newswasboring 5y ago
  That is quite a uncharitable read. I understand they made mistakes, but so does every technology in the beginning. They also had the unenviable task of coming up with how to behave in a community. They are trying to do something new, and had some failures which are obvious in hindsight. But that should not be used to bash in their heads on each instance. Especially because they have shown consistently now that they understand the mistake and have not repeated it.
cblconfederate 5y ago
I don't trust ETH for this reason, and it seems eth people have not taken measures to prevent this from happening again -- probably they will not hesitate to do it again. Thankfully there is more to crypto than eth
- newswasboring 5y ago
  All chains can do this though. We have to remember crypto is inter-subjective. A chain only has value when other people agree it has value. Eth Classic still exists, it even has some value for whatever reason. Block chains are about crowd consensus, and any block chain community can decide to hard fork. I don't think its possible to prevent that on a block chain.

buttpie 5y ago

e1g 5y ago

Another informative and entertaining place to read about the nearly-daily rug pulls is https://web3isgoinggreat.com https://web3isgoinggreat.com

spiralx 5y ago
Isn't that from the same person?

FabHK 5y ago

Yes. Similarly, you can totally rely on your gold or fiat money being yours. Ok, there was this small incidence in 1933 where the US government took most of your gold, but that was a one off event [1]. And then during the hyperinflation in Germany your money actually became worthless, but that was a growing mistake. Of course, that was multiple generations ago, not a few years. Conclusion: On the dimension of reliability and censor resistance, crypto might be as good as gold or fiat (while on all other axes it remains much worse). [1] Executive Order 6102 required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve in exchange for $20.67 (equivalent to $413 in 2020)[5] per troy ounce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

notahacker 5y ago
This. Ultimately the defence blockchain has against hard forks is exactly the same as the defence other monetary systems have against things like hyperinflation and mass asset seizure which cryptoenthusiasts worry about: generally the people with the [hash]power have strong incentives not to do so. Except when those incentives change. In both cases, how much confidence you can place in that theoretical incentive structure protecting you varies widely according to who and why (you can be pretty confident that your US dollars won't be hyperinflated, the contents of your Swiss bank account won't be seized to balance another government's books and nobody with significant hashpower cares that you scammed Joe Sixpack out of BTC. You can't be so confident your Venezuelan Bolivars or shitcoins won't become worthless next month or that you'll get to spend gains from a heist against an Ethereum Foundation or US government flagship project.
alisonkisk 5y ago
newswasboring 5y ago
> On the dimension of reliability and censor resistance, crypto might be as good as gold or fiat (while on all other axes it remains much worse). I completely agree. My only point was its bizarre that people choose the DAO incident to bash crypto people. They have plenty of evidence that the community learned from the incident.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

> I now chalk this up as growing mistakes which every project makes in early stages. Except it's not new at all; regular banks and the fiat money they have been handling have been dealing with these things for literally centuries. But the cryptobros decided they could do better, converting their PHP Magic the Gathering trading platform to a Bitcoin trading platform and thinking yeah, that's good enough for handling billions. To name but one example.

alisonkisk 5y ago
cinntaile 5y ago
Exploiting smart contracts is new and how the crypto community deals with that is new as well, which is what he meant.
newswasboring 5y ago
That is quite a uncharitable read. I understand they made mistakes, but so does every technology in the beginning. They also had the unenviable task of coming up with how to behave in a community. They are trying to do something new, and had some failures which are obvious in hindsight. But that should not be used to bash in their heads on each instance. Especially because they have shown consistently now that they understand the mistake and have not repeated it.

cblconfederate 5y ago

I don't trust ETH for this reason, and it seems eth people have not taken measures to prevent this from happening again -- probably they will not hesitate to do it again. Thankfully there is more to crypto than eth

newswasboring 5y ago
All chains can do this though. We have to remember crypto is inter-subjective. A chain only has value when other people agree it has value. Eth Classic still exists, it even has some value for whatever reason. Block chains are about crowd consensus, and any block chain community can decide to hard fork. I don't think its possible to prevent that on a block chain.