5 ms·

I'd be hoping for the safety of a prison cell if I were Karpeles. I'd imagine the security situation is very bad for them right now. It seems like the BTC are t

by Aqueous 13y ago

I'd be hoping for the safety of a prison cell if I were Karpeles. I'd imagine the security situation is very bad for them right now. It seems like the BTC are there, though, especially if Gox was following even rudimentary security procedures... BitCoin just got very serious and much less fun. I guess that's what happens when it suddenly accounts for real, actual money and real actual livelihoods. I sincerely hope everyone gets through safely. I use CoinBase which (seems like it) is slightly more reputable. Edit: Madoff was much more. Still, this would be significant.

maxerickson 13y ago
Madoff was at least $10 billion. Gox never had that much of anything.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rdl 13y ago
  It's way safer to rob Jewish charities and retirees (mainly) vs. drug dealers and libertarians.
miles 13y ago
If those BTC are gone, this is either the largest-scale loss of money in history or the largest scale theft of money, dwarfing even Madoff. 12,437,700 bitcoins have been mined, with a market cap today of around $7.4B [1]. Madoff scammed investors to the tune of around $50B [2], so even if MtGox owned every bitcoin ever mined, they would have a bit of catching up to do. [1] http://bitcoinwatch.com/ http://bitcoinwatch.com/ [2] http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii-in_rl_1212croesus_inl.html http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii-in...
- GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
  That's fiat money tho.
- saalweachter 13y ago
  The final tally of Madoff's scam was $57 billion, but that number is based off the fictional account balances, including both fictional profits and reinvestments of fictional profits. Apparently about $36 billion was paid in, and $18 billion paid out, and about $10 billion recovered, leaving about $8 billion(!) "missing". All the numbers are still bigger than both BTC and Gox, though. Although, didn't the US literally lose something like $10 billion in cash in Iraq/Afghanistan?
Danieru 13y ago
I hope when you said your BTC are in CoinBase you do not mean you're using an exchange as a wallet. There are worse pseudo wallets, like dice sites and mining pools, but it is still a bad idea.
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  Coinbase is not actually an exchange, and in fact markets themselves as a wallet: "Coinbase is an international digital wallet that allows you to securely buy, use, and accept bitcoin currency" It really comes down to whether you trust Coinbase (equivalent of a bank, albeit a startup bank) or yourself (equivalent of putting cash in your mattress) to securely store your money.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    It's not really anything like putting cash in your mattress. With Bitcoin, you can even store it in your brain, not to mention any place where you can store a piece of paper or a string of digits. You can even trust a regular bank, by putting the key in their safe. And if it's encrypted, you don't even need to trust them to not abuse it. And using something like ssss[1], you could also store it in a lot of places at once, without any single one having enough info to use your coins. [1] http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/ http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/
    - tlrobinson 13y ago
      Ok, it's like keeping cash in your mattress, safe, safety deposit box, wallet, personal vault, whatever. The point is it's your responsibility to secure it, and if you think you can do that properly then great. I can do it, but I don't think it's easy enough that most "normal" people can do it properly yet.
      - VMG 13y ago
        You being responsible for the security of your assets is the price you pay for having total control and ownership, just like with everything else. Putting money in the bank or PayPal reduces the risk of theft but increases the risk of bail-ins and account freeze. There is always a tradeoff. Bitcoin offers a lot of security mechanism that are not available with traditional asserts, like m-of-n-keys etc. Insured online wallets will become available as well.
dogecoinbase 13y ago
> I sincerely hope everyone gets through safely. ... The natural corollary to the Kim Stanley Robinson-ian "That's libertarians for you -- anarchists who call the police to get their Bitcoins back." I hope they get through safely, if they had the foresight to hire a private security firm to protect them?
- icebraining 13y ago
  Even a cursory glance at the Libertarianism page on Wikipedia would've shown you that not all libertarians are anti-State police. But I disagree about your criticism even against those that are. Playing Devil's advocate, if the Mafia took control of your city, and forced you to pay 20% of everything you made (or be taken from your home and family), but offered to "take care" of any other criminals that might bother you, would it be hypocritical of you to not want to get robbed twice, and therefore use the services that you already had been forced to pay for? When you live in a system that is forced upon you, it's not hypocritical to use the benefits of that system, since you're forced to withstand its drawbacks.
  - tlrobinson 13y ago
    Another example would be people calling Ayn Rand a hypocrite for accepting social security. Where do they think that money originally came from?
- calpaterson 13y ago
  Most libertarians are pro-police and pro-state. For a lot of them, the police and the courts are the only government bodies they support
  - darkarmani 13y ago
    The argument being that the state's only function is to enforce property rights (and needs physical force to do so).
wyager 13y ago
>My BTC are in CoinBase Why? There is basically no discernible benefit to keeping your money in an exchange, but there are huge risks associated.
- Aqueous 13y ago
  Assuming i take proper security precautions like 2 factor auth I don't see why it's any more risky than any other cloud service I use. CoinBase is at least backed by people who have a record of knowing what they are doing...
  - intruder 13y ago
    That's the point, don't store your BTC in the cloud.
  - krenoten 13y ago
    It's a horrible idea to keep unencrypted copies of a wallet on any remote server. Or encrypted copies that anyone other than yourself is capable of accessing. It is idiotic to keep coins in a wallet that has been created or been under the control of someone other than yourself. And 2FA is meaningless to any attacker with an exploit.
    - lukeschlather 13y ago
      Basically the entire concept of a Bitcoin wallet is fundamentally flawed from a security perspective. You're one compromised secret away from losing it. Theoretically a 'good' Bitcoin exchange would have insurance and multi-factor auth, and some complicated internal crypto scheme to minimize the scope of breaches. I can't imagine any of the current exchanges are that advanced yet.
      - tlrobinson 13y ago
        "some complicated internal crypto scheme to minimize the scope of breaches" Any half-decent online wallet or exchange keeps the vast majority (typically ~95%) of their funds in "cold storage", usually with an n-of-m encryption scheme, which will minimize the scope of breaches, with an occasional inconvenience when withdrawals exceed projections before they can pull funds from cold storage. Even given the malleability bug (which actually isn't the real problem: http://blog.tlrobinson.net/bitcoin-transaction-malleability-explained http://blog.tlrobinson.net/bitcoin-transaction-malleability-...) if Mt Gox managed to lose more than say 10% of customer funds they were doing something seriously wrong.
viraptor 13y ago
Maybe the coins were there before, but I expect once the news broke out most people did the reasonable thing and bought bitcoins for all the cash that was stuck in mtgox after a day or two. The price was guaranteed to go down in the short term and I woundn't be surprised if mtgox needed 2-3 times more funds now then before closing.

by Aqueous 13y ago

maxerickson 13y ago

Madoff was at least $10 billion. Gox never had that much of anything.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rdl 13y ago
It's way safer to rob Jewish charities and retirees (mainly) vs. drug dealers and libertarians.

miles 13y ago

If those BTC are gone, this is either the largest-scale loss of money in history or the largest scale theft of money, dwarfing even Madoff. 12,437,700 bitcoins have been mined, with a market cap today of around $7.4B [1]. Madoff scammed investors to the tune of around $50B [2], so even if MtGox owned every bitcoin ever mined, they would have a bit of catching up to do. [1] http://bitcoinwatch.com/ http://bitcoinwatch.com/ [2] http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii-in_rl_1212croesus_inl.html http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/12/madoff-ponzi-hedge-pf-ii-in...

GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
That's fiat money tho.
saalweachter 13y ago
The final tally of Madoff's scam was $57 billion, but that number is based off the fictional account balances, including both fictional profits and reinvestments of fictional profits. Apparently about $36 billion was paid in, and $18 billion paid out, and about $10 billion recovered, leaving about $8 billion(!) "missing". All the numbers are still bigger than both BTC and Gox, though. Although, didn't the US literally lose something like $10 billion in cash in Iraq/Afghanistan?

Danieru 13y ago

I hope when you said your BTC are in CoinBase you do not mean you're using an exchange as a wallet. There are worse pseudo wallets, like dice sites and mining pools, but it is still a bad idea.

tlrobinson 13y ago
Coinbase is not actually an exchange, and in fact markets themselves as a wallet: "Coinbase is an international digital wallet that allows you to securely buy, use, and accept bitcoin currency" It really comes down to whether you trust Coinbase (equivalent of a bank, albeit a startup bank) or yourself (equivalent of putting cash in your mattress) to securely store your money.
- icebraining 13y ago
  It's not really anything like putting cash in your mattress. With Bitcoin, you can even store it in your brain, not to mention any place where you can store a piece of paper or a string of digits. You can even trust a regular bank, by putting the key in their safe. And if it's encrypted, you don't even need to trust them to not abuse it. And using something like ssss[1], you could also store it in a lot of places at once, without any single one having enough info to use your coins. [1] http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/ http://point-at-infinity.org/ssss/
  - tlrobinson 13y ago
    Ok, it's like keeping cash in your mattress, safe, safety deposit box, wallet, personal vault, whatever. The point is it's your responsibility to secure it, and if you think you can do that properly then great. I can do it, but I don't think it's easy enough that most "normal" people can do it properly yet.
    - VMG 13y ago
      You being responsible for the security of your assets is the price you pay for having total control and ownership, just like with everything else. Putting money in the bank or PayPal reduces the risk of theft but increases the risk of bail-ins and account freeze. There is always a tradeoff. Bitcoin offers a lot of security mechanism that are not available with traditional asserts, like m-of-n-keys etc. Insured online wallets will become available as well.

dogecoinbase 13y ago

> I sincerely hope everyone gets through safely. ... The natural corollary to the Kim Stanley Robinson-ian "That's libertarians for you -- anarchists who call the police to get their Bitcoins back." I hope they get through safely, if they had the foresight to hire a private security firm to protect them?

icebraining 13y ago
Even a cursory glance at the Libertarianism page on Wikipedia would've shown you that not all libertarians are anti-State police. But I disagree about your criticism even against those that are. Playing Devil's advocate, if the Mafia took control of your city, and forced you to pay 20% of everything you made (or be taken from your home and family), but offered to "take care" of any other criminals that might bother you, would it be hypocritical of you to not want to get robbed twice, and therefore use the services that you already had been forced to pay for? When you live in a system that is forced upon you, it's not hypocritical to use the benefits of that system, since you're forced to withstand its drawbacks.
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  Another example would be people calling Ayn Rand a hypocrite for accepting social security. Where do they think that money originally came from?
calpaterson 13y ago
Most libertarians are pro-police and pro-state. For a lot of them, the police and the courts are the only government bodies they support
- darkarmani 13y ago
  The argument being that the state's only function is to enforce property rights (and needs physical force to do so).

wyager 13y ago

>My BTC are in CoinBase Why? There is basically no discernible benefit to keeping your money in an exchange, but there are huge risks associated.

Aqueous 13y ago
Assuming i take proper security precautions like 2 factor auth I don't see why it's any more risky than any other cloud service I use. CoinBase is at least backed by people who have a record of knowing what they are doing...
- intruder 13y ago
  That's the point, don't store your BTC in the cloud.
- krenoten 13y ago
  It's a horrible idea to keep unencrypted copies of a wallet on any remote server. Or encrypted copies that anyone other than yourself is capable of accessing. It is idiotic to keep coins in a wallet that has been created or been under the control of someone other than yourself. And 2FA is meaningless to any attacker with an exploit.
  - lukeschlather 13y ago
    Basically the entire concept of a Bitcoin wallet is fundamentally flawed from a security perspective. You're one compromised secret away from losing it. Theoretically a 'good' Bitcoin exchange would have insurance and multi-factor auth, and some complicated internal crypto scheme to minimize the scope of breaches. I can't imagine any of the current exchanges are that advanced yet.
    - tlrobinson 13y ago
      "some complicated internal crypto scheme to minimize the scope of breaches" Any half-decent online wallet or exchange keeps the vast majority (typically ~95%) of their funds in "cold storage", usually with an n-of-m encryption scheme, which will minimize the scope of breaches, with an occasional inconvenience when withdrawals exceed projections before they can pull funds from cold storage. Even given the malleability bug (which actually isn't the real problem: http://blog.tlrobinson.net/bitcoin-transaction-malleability-explained http://blog.tlrobinson.net/bitcoin-transaction-malleability-...) if Mt Gox managed to lose more than say 10% of customer funds they were doing something seriously wrong.

viraptor 13y ago

Maybe the coins were there before, but I expect once the news broke out most people did the reasonable thing and bought bitcoins for all the cash that was stuck in mtgox after a day or two. The price was guaranteed to go down in the short term and I woundn't be surprised if mtgox needed 2-3 times more funds now then before closing.