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Mark Cuban loses $870K in hot wallet hack
- sacnoradhq 3y agoI don't understand storing crypto in an online wallets or exchange. To me, it's the equivalent of keeping gold bricks in your car in a public parking lot. Exchanges and online mixing/wallet points should only be used for ephemerally for transactions. Generate your own wallet and keep it completely offline.
- Alabamayeehaw 3y ago[dead]
- jqpabc123 3y agoSo either Mark Cuban is dumber than the Average Joe or ... the Average Joe probably isn't any more capable of handling a crypto wallet and would be better saved by a fiat bank account.
- baby 3y agoThis exists in cryptoland and these are called custodians. Banks are here to stay, even in crypto imo
- arbuge 3y agoAt that point, what's the purpose oF crypto then? Wasn't decentralized supposed to be the benefit of it?
- baby 3y agoTo paraphrase the first episode of https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/two-and-a-half-coins/id1642630194 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/two-and-a-half-coins/i... the banking world was already decentralized, so much that it’s inefficient and insecure. Crypto, at least part of the technology, is about simulating some sort of centralization by using a distributed database (which is resilient to byzantine faults). So banks can switch backbone for a more efficient and secure one, users don’t have to know or care about it.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoExactly. Crypto enthusiasts are slowly building up the traditional banking system, a couple million-dollar hacks at a time.
- andrewmutz 3y ago> At that point, what's the purpose oF crypto then? Rugpulls and ponzi schemes
- 6D794163636F756 3y agoI'm sure there are other types of scams too right?
- martin8412 3y agoFront running
- johnyzee 3y agoThat you can choose.
- lxgr 3y agoWhat would be the benefit of crypto over the current monetary and financial system in that scenario?
- baby 3y agoFaster, more secure, easier to use without being a bank, programmable, some add some level of privacy, etc.
- cypress66 3y agoSupply is limited (for something like bitcoin), cheaper, faster settlement and less burocracy when sending money abroad (instead of the awful SWIFT)
- arlcode 3y agoI see this as a great opportunity to learn the next few lessons of traditional Finance system that lead to them not being finite and only driven by market forces. Crypto really feels like a speed run of human monetary history.
- baby 3y agoNot all crypto are finite
- everfree 3y ago> only driven by market forces Which money are you talking about? Most monies are driven substantially by monetary policy and other direct government intervention. The very reason fiat is no longer finite is due to government intervention in the 1930s (going off the gold standard). Bitcoin (e.g.) is actually much more like gold in that the amount of it in circulation isn't determined by any law, policy or intervention.
- tsimionescu 3y agoThe amount of bitcoin in circulation is very much determined by policies - the software of the bitcoin clients and servers. It is quite possible that mining rewards will be altered in the future as the amount dries up.
- fbdab103 3y ago"Crypto Custodian" Prime Trust just "lost" their keys[0] to customer money. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37268750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37268750
- Tenoke 3y agoOr Mark Cuban is a way bigger target and has more attack vectors due to much wider and higher usage than Average Joe.
- jqpabc123 3y agoSorry, this is just a variation of security by obscurity. "Be a small target and hope for the best" is about the weakest form of security and does not instill a lot of comfort or confidence.
- woodruffw 3y agoThis doesn’t feel right to me: Mark Cuban is obviously a general target because he’s rich, but there are probably (tens of?) thousands of people not as rich as him who keep similar amounts of cryptocurrency in hot wallets. That’s all that matters to these specific attackers.
- akira2501 3y agoSo, if you end up with a lot of money, it wouldn't be wise to keep most of it in a crypto wallet. Crypto, perfect, as long as you don't have too much money.
- elorant 3y agoWhy would you target a high wealth individual who has the resources to hunt you down?
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoBank robber Willie Sutton was once asked by a reporter why he robbed banks.
- jqpabc123 3y agoYes, and he was in custody at the time ... where he spent half of his adult life.
- 3y ago
- mvdtnz 3y agoBoth of those are in fact true.
- aergoibqer 3y agoRemember how Cuban made his fortune. He didn't build something great. He built something worthless and pawned it off on the dumbest guys in the room at the peak of the dotcom bubble. Maybe that takes smarts, but not a kind I value.
- silisili 3y agoBut it's pure ROI. Radio Over Internet.
- acover 3y agoDoes anyone know why he had $870 million in a hot wallet?
- next_xibalba 3y agoHe didn’t. It was $870 thousand.
- landemva 3y agoTypically a 'hot wallet' is something connected full time. He had a web browser extension (which turns on and off) and apparently connected it to ... speculating ... sign a transaction which maybe then allowed the draining.
- pers0n 3y agoThat’s like a few pennies to home. He probably spends more to feed his pet Tasmanian dog
- colesantiago 3y ago[flagged]
- frank_bb 3y ago[dead]
- kkielhofner 3y agoI have a very negative view of cryptocurrencies generally but I cannot imagine the anxiety and stress those in cryptocurrencies must feel: - "Not your keys, not your coins" very frequently turns into "your keys, some scammers coins". Or "your keys, not your coins and no ones coins" when you lose access to a wallet by losing the private key, seed phrase, etc. Look around forums, subreddits, twitter, etc... These people expend tremendous amounts of time and energy just trying not to lose everything forever. - Your other option is hosting them with custodians that have frequently proven to be anywhere from incompetent/reckless to outright criminals. Time and time again individuals who are significantly more technical and astute than the general population STILL fall victims to both of these scenarios and many, many more. Almost 15 years after the launch of bitcoin and at least tens of billions of dollars invested in development in the space there is still nowhere on the horizon any of this is ready for anything approaching mass adoption. Other than the basic human trait of greed and gambling, get rich quick schemes, criminal and nefarious purposes, etc I have no idea how any of this is still a "thing".
- everfree 3y ago> Other than the basic human trait of greed and gambling, get rich quick schemes, criminal and nefarious purposes, etc I have no idea how any of this is still a "thing". I think you asked and answered your own question. It's still "a thing" because people still speculate on it. In particular, people gamble on it being more of "a thing" in the future.
- 1970-01-01 3y ago>Almost 15 years after the launch of bitcoin and at least tens of billions of dollars invested in development in the space there is still nowhere on the horizon any of this is ready for anything approaching mass adoption. You hit the nail on the head. Nobody can directly buy water, milk, fuel, transportation, or anything necessary with bitcoin. Its only legitimate use is an exotic and volatile investment vehicle for millionaires to play with.
- ivanmontillam 3y agoIn Venezuela USDT is widely accepted; though not legal tender people use it freely, as a replacement for fiat USD when the cash is short indeed. And yes, I'm talking about using it on the grocery store.
- jt2190 3y agoThis article seems to be rehashing another one at DL News: Mark Cuban loses $870k to a crypto scam: ‘They must have been watching’ https://www.dlnews.com/articles/people-culture/mark-cuban-loses-870k-to-a-crypto-scam/ https://www.dlnews.com/articles/people-culture/mark-cuban-lo...
- boeingUH60 3y ago[flagged]
- everfree 3y agoSWIFT is a decentralized system with irreversible transactions.
- polygamous_bat 3y agoI would bargain, however, that scamming people over SWIFT would swiftly put you into jail.
- everfree 3y agoInternational wire transfer scams are still somewhat common. The amount of convicted perpetrators is surprisingly low. The best tool we have against them is prevention. In practice, this usually means a friendly bank employee refusing to honor a customer's wire transfer. Because once the money is sent, there's no getting it back. In fact, all else equal, I'd rather have crypto stolen by someone else in my home country than to have fiat currency stolen by an international thief. At least with the domestic criminal there's some chance of tracing the theft, tracking them down, and bringing them to justice in my home justice system. With the international thief, there's really zero chance of that.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cko 3y agoRuss Hanneman in the series Silicon Valley, whose character is loosely based on Mark Cuban, also lost a bunch of crypto when his cleaning lady mistakenly threw away his hardware wallet.
- wmf 3y agoA common factor in many of these hacks is Metamask. When do we admit that Metamask is broken?