16 ms·
Amusingly enough, this isn't even an uncommon occurrence in the Bitcoin world. Either compromises or shady actors seem to take down a large portion of their ser
by nwh 13y ago
Amusingly enough, this isn't even an uncommon occurrence in the Bitcoin world. Either compromises or shady actors seem to take down a large portion of their services, usually taking large sums of money with them.
It does look like a similar case to inputs.io and a few other sites too, people "invest" or store large amounts of money with a person despite the community making every attempt to warn people that it is a terrible, awful, terrible idea to do so.
- dualogy 13y agoAll these incidents give more weight to the conspiracy theory that Bitcoin is a govt. or central-bank project. "See? This is what happens without central authority. Now go back to trusting our currency. While we don't guarantee decades of stable purchasing-power preservation, we're not as volatile and our banks don't just appropriate your deposits outright.." ;) They wouldn't even have to be behind every exchange and instead could let stuff like this (and off-shoots like LiteCoin etc.) happen quite organically and still prove their point, as clearly visible..
- sanskritabelt 13y agoCan bitcoin guarantee weeks of "stable purchasing-power preservation"?
- dualogy 13y agoAnd how does that question in any way relate to my little digression?
- sanskritabelt 13y agoYou brought up the failure to guarantee "decades of stable purchasing-power" as a failure of g.v.rnm.nt and actual money, which is a claim that you think this is a problem solved by bitcoin.
- dragontamer 13y agoThey'll need to choose a government to blame, before just generically blaming "some government" before I start listening. Last week it was Britain, the week before that it was the US Government. Today, its the Chinese Government???
- sliverstorm 13y agoIn what way do the incidents substantiate a conspiracy? This is exactly what I would expect to happen; electronic scams are older than the internet. Unless I misunderstand, your "evidence" is like saying "the moon landing is bulletproof, impossible to disprove- which is proof they faked it, because if they faked it they would make it as real as possible"
- nwh 13y agoIf a government produced Bitcoin, they probably would have made it work before they announced it. The original Bitcoin was awful. You could spend /anybodies/ coins! The fact that it gained a community is pure luck.
- dcc1 13y agoWhat are you talking about?
- jusben1369 13y agoNo they don't. People who are predisposed to conspiracy theories will view this as some sort of data point. But given their mind is already made up they don't need more weight.
- anigbrowl 13y agoOh please. Every anti-government ideologue I've ever met seems to think that absent government humanity is made up of angels or Rousseau-style noble primitives. There are plenty of scumbags to go round, always have been.
- 001sky 13y agoEvery anti-government ideologue I've ever met seems to think that absent government humanity is made up of angels or Rousseau-style noble primitives. The 'noble savage' [edit:absent government humanity is made up of angels meme] is more a favored construct of the left wing. See, for example the art of Gaugain, Picasso and early modernism. Unless your liberterian ideaolagues acquantences were closest cubists or something.
- tptacek 13y agoThis is like something out of a Markov generator. 'anigbrowl mentions "Rousseau" and here come "noble savages", Gaugain, Picasso, modernism, cubism, and "the left wing". Huh?
- 001sky 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitivism also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir
- vbuterin 13y agoThe anti-government ideologues I talk to recognize this perfectly well; in fact, it's a core part of their philosophy. They argue that any center of power will actually serve as a magnet for sociopaths and eventually become infested by them, thereby empowering scumbags more than it controls them in the long term.
- sliverstorm 13y agoA specious argument if I ever heard one. For starters, what's with conflating sociopaths with scumbags? Sociopathy doesn't make you a criminal.
- dualogy 13y agoWow! Well I didn't say I subscribe to that conspiracy theory and didn't mean to peddle it either. Just that these incidents work in its favour.. funny how emotional everyone is getting here immediately! :D
- verroq 13y agoFrom a game theoretic perspective where no parties can be held accountable, being a scammer or hacker will always yield higher pay-offs. This is why Bitcoin will tear itself apart.
- sneak 13y agoThe same problem applies to cash. Your argument does not support your conclusion.
- l0gicpath 13y agoCash on the other hand falls under institutionalized regulations that are backed up by legislations and law enforcement.
- tptacek 13y agoI don't understand. Who still makes significant purchases using cash? People buy McDonalds hamburgers with credit cards.
- voltagex_ 13y agoHere in Australia, we still have numerous retailers who don't accept credit cards or have minimum purchase amounts - due to, I presume, the cost of accepting credit and debit cards here.
- nopassrecover 13y agoI don't know whether costs are reduced for PayPass (tap to pay), but it seems anecdotally that any place supporting PayPass has removed credit card minimums.
- XorNot 13y agoI haven't carried cash in months due to PayPass (and discovering my debit card actually had it). I still don't like the "always on NFC" nature of it (I want a button on the card to turn it on), but it's quick and seems to go through a lot faster then the old PIN systems.
- kerkeslager 13y agoYou have so many options for storing your Bitcoins which don't even involve trusting that your own internet connection is secure, let alone trusting someone else with your Bitcoins. We need trustworthy exchanges for buying and selling BTC, but once you have BTC I am not sure why anyone would trust someone else to store them long-term.
- kybernetikos 13y agoBecause they don't trust themselves and their equipment not to lose their private key.
- iSnow 13y agoThat's toothing troubles. Smarter people store their coins offline or on a secure laptop only they control. Some years down the road, maybe we'll see large corporations offering exchange, escrow and hosted wallet services. Currently it's the wild west.