6 ms·

I have an ignorant question, which will demonstrate my ignorance of both crypto and fiat. Was money "Stolen", or "additional tokens generated"? What I mean by

I have an ignorant question, which will demonstrate my ignorance of both crypto and fiat. Was money "Stolen", or "additional tokens generated"? What I mean by that is: If I have a chair, and you come and take my chair, you've stolen my chair. If I am carrying $200 in cash, and you take my $200 in cash, you've stolen my cash. (if I write a nice piece of music, and you copy it, you've performed "copyright infringement" and we can discuss whether that is "theft" or not in legal vs semantic / colloquial terms) In this particular case, were specific tokens/crypto/something taken out of someone's wallet, OR were additional seemingly-valid tokens generated "out of thin" air? Was it a transfer or generation issue? Was some entity directly negatively affected through a specific loss, or were many entities affected by subsequent inflation due to tokens being generated? Does my question make sense to anybody but me? :)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MerelyMortal 4y ago
I haven't read the article, so I don't know if it's out-right theft or theft due to inflation (devaluation of legitimate tokens). Traditionally, scarcity of digital music does not give it value, whereas scarcity of digital tokens does give it value. Are you asking at what point does inflation start to hurt others?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > scarcity of digital music does not give it value, whereas scarcity of digital tokens does give it value They're both scarce in the same way.
  - MerelyMortal 4y ago
    > They're both scarce in the same way. No, they are not.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  Thanks - no, my question was in this instance specifically, were existing tokens moved out of specific wallets thus immediatelly injuring specific entities, or were they generated and thus in a more diffused and deferred way hurt entire ecosystem.
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  > I haven't read the article, Might what possible value your comment might have, then?
nemomarx 4y ago
In these cases, stolen usually means that existing tokens were moved around in some way. In this case, it looks like they hacked a bridge connecting one tokens protocol to another 'chain' and redirected tokens there - not sure if they were swiping them out of a wallet at rest or redirecting trades people were doing.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
Here is the only part of the article that matters: > The hack was caused by a bug in the bridge’s smart contract that allowed hackers to forge transactions and send money back to their crypto wallet The bridge is BSC Token Hub: https://www.bscscan.com/address/0x0000000000000000000000000000000000001004 https://www.bscscan.com/address/0x00000000000000000000000000... This smart contract holds coins. A bug allowed someone to forge transactions with the result that they could move coins off of the contract and into to wallets that they control.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  Code is law. There are no such things as bugs in smart contracts. Just unforeseen implications of the chosen contract.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    No, those are definitely bugs. The program was obviously not intented to allow forged transactions, just like so many I/O layers were not intended to incorrectly accept malformed malicious input. Even actual human laws have bugs and exploitable vulnerabilities. We simply call them loopholes instead. There's even a very lucrative market for them, dominated by professionals like lawyers and accountants.
    - tootie 4y ago
      I think that was OP's point. The code is the contract and bugs are just loopholes. Anything the code allows for is by definition part of the contract.
    - parkingrift 4y ago
      So you’re saying you want a… oracle? Perhaps a human one? For this decentralized peer to peer future of finance with no overlords? Come now. Surely you jest.
  - icambron 4y ago
    I’d say a bug is behavior not intended by the contract’s author. Laws can have bugs too. What I do think is that you can’t really call it “forgery” or “stealing”, just like using a loophole in a law isn’t illegal.
finnh 4y ago
The term you are looking for is "rivalrous good".
palata 4y ago
Question makes perfect sense. My understanding is that hackers could forge transactions and send money to their wallet. So they took the money from many wallets and moved it to one (or many) of their wallets. Nobody can cancel those transactions, even if everyone can see them. That's by design (and that's what makes it great for criminal use-cases, among other things).
- palata 4y ago
  Wait, maybe not. Seems like it was taken from the BNB chain. Not sure if that's "created out of thin air", though... maybe closer to printing money from the central bank? Not sure xD
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

MerelyMortal 4y ago

I haven't read the article, so I don't know if it's out-right theft or theft due to inflation (devaluation of legitimate tokens). Traditionally, scarcity of digital music does not give it value, whereas scarcity of digital tokens does give it value. Are you asking at what point does inflation start to hurt others?

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> scarcity of digital music does not give it value, whereas scarcity of digital tokens does give it value They're both scarce in the same way.
- MerelyMortal 4y ago
  > They're both scarce in the same way. No, they are not.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
Thanks - no, my question was in this instance specifically, were existing tokens moved out of specific wallets thus immediatelly injuring specific entities, or were they generated and thus in a more diffused and deferred way hurt entire ecosystem.
TomSwirly 4y ago
> I haven't read the article, Might what possible value your comment might have, then?

nemomarx 4y ago

In these cases, stolen usually means that existing tokens were moved around in some way. In this case, it looks like they hacked a bridge connecting one tokens protocol to another 'chain' and redirected tokens there - not sure if they were swiping them out of a wallet at rest or redirecting trades people were doing.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

Here is the only part of the article that matters: > The hack was caused by a bug in the bridge’s smart contract that allowed hackers to forge transactions and send money back to their crypto wallet The bridge is BSC Token Hub: https://www.bscscan.com/address/0x0000000000000000000000000000000000001004 https://www.bscscan.com/address/0x00000000000000000000000000... This smart contract holds coins. A bug allowed someone to forge transactions with the result that they could move coins off of the contract and into to wallets that they control.

cwkoss 4y ago
Code is law. There are no such things as bugs in smart contracts. Just unforeseen implications of the chosen contract.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  No, those are definitely bugs. The program was obviously not intented to allow forged transactions, just like so many I/O layers were not intended to incorrectly accept malformed malicious input. Even actual human laws have bugs and exploitable vulnerabilities. We simply call them loopholes instead. There's even a very lucrative market for them, dominated by professionals like lawyers and accountants.
  - tootie 4y ago
    I think that was OP's point. The code is the contract and bugs are just loopholes. Anything the code allows for is by definition part of the contract.
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    So you’re saying you want a… oracle? Perhaps a human one? For this decentralized peer to peer future of finance with no overlords? Come now. Surely you jest.
- icambron 4y ago
  I’d say a bug is behavior not intended by the contract’s author. Laws can have bugs too. What I do think is that you can’t really call it “forgery” or “stealing”, just like using a loophole in a law isn’t illegal.

finnh 4y ago

The term you are looking for is "rivalrous good".

palata 4y ago

Question makes perfect sense. My understanding is that hackers could forge transactions and send money to their wallet. So they took the money from many wallets and moved it to one (or many) of their wallets. Nobody can cancel those transactions, even if everyone can see them. That's by design (and that's what makes it great for criminal use-cases, among other things).

palata 4y ago
Wait, maybe not. Seems like it was taken from the BNB chain. Not sure if that's "created out of thin air", though... maybe closer to printing money from the central bank? Not sure xD
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]