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Though bitcoin exchanges being hacked seem common, it sounds like this one did a good job with layered security. Though we don't know what the damages total is
by nerdy 11y ago
Though bitcoin exchanges being hacked seem common, it sounds like this one did a good job with layered security.
Though we don't know what the damages total is yet, at least it isn't a complete loss.
- ryan-c 11y agoMaybe the post was edited, but I see "Although this incident is unfortunate, its scale is small and will be fully absorbed by the company." there currently. Hopefully it's true.
- ikeboy 11y agoTraced to https://blockchain.info/address/17owg8RWb73qfE5HeQk6gg6RAgEUfxPXks https://blockchain.info/address/17owg8RWb73qfE5HeQk6gg6RAgEU... 1581 BTC currently, or around $370,000.
- EGreg 11y agoI remember Bitfinex really stood outamong the other exchanes for its approach to technology and simplicity.
- the_mitsuhiko 11y ago[citation needed]
- chisleu 11y ago95% of the BTC aren't online, by their admission, which means 95% of the BTC might not even bet there. They could be using a 5% fractional reserve banking method and we wouldn't know unless everyone withdraws for a few days or so.
- brink 11y ago99.5%
- ikeboy 11y agoThat's every exchange, pretty much. Even if 100% of BTC are online, you usually have no way of verifying that. Cold wallets are considered essential for security, though.
- imaginenore 11y agoVerifying whether someone has bitcoins or not is trivial - all they have to do is sign a message with the wallet's private key. That functionality is included in the standard wallet software.
- ikeboy 11y agoYes, but most exchanges don't do that. The ones that do can do it with cold storage as well; it's orthogonal to where they are stored.
- kens 11y agoWhat do you mean by "fractional reserve"? I get the impression that the Bitcoin world means something different by that term than the banking world. Edit: I think some people are confusing fractional reserve (where reserves are less than deposits due to loans) with insolvency (where assets are less than liabilities). MtGox's problem was insolvency, not fractional reserve.
- ikeboy 11y agoThey mean that the company holds less bitcoins than the sum of their deposits. See MtGox for an example of when that went horribly wrong.
- tptacek 11y agoThe fact that people can be saying encouraging things about the technical design or security of Bitfinex should tell you a lot about how seriously to take message boards on this topic. Bitfinex was, according to reports I've read, derived from the source code for Bitcoinica, which was an exchange written by a 17 year old most famous for its spectacular security failures.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoDo you know anything about the current state of their security?
- tptacek 11y agoI won't do security work for companies like these.
- yellowapple 11y agoSo the answer, in other words, is "no".
- tedunangst 11y agoMaybe 2015 will be "year of the secure Bitcoin exchange".
- nerdy 11y agoMy comment was without any kind of adjudication about the hot wallet breach itself, just a friendly reminder that there's a lesson hidden here: situations where something "shouldn't ever happen" need to be considered in the context of our systems and businesses. It isn't a panacea but while $332k is a lot of money, $66.4M is a lot more.
- jedunnigan 11y ago>Bitcoinica They partnered with Alpha Point some time ago. A cursory google search will confirm that.
- alvarosm 11y agoThey should have stopped using that hot wallet immediately as soon as transfers not authorized by them happened. They detected that manually after a few hours, not automatically. There's still much to be improved in terms of security in Bitcoin exchanges.