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To me this is a serious downside of cryptocurrencies - the fact that criminals have this secure channel of stealing from victims. Besides malware, one can be b

To me this is a serious downside of cryptocurrencies - the fact that criminals have this secure channel of stealing from victims. Besides malware, one can be blackmailed with information disclosure (everyone has secrets), one can be physically bullied into transferring his BTC or forced to pay bribes by police or corrupt authorities. In western countries some of these may seem impossible, but in a lot of places, police or authorities are worse than criminals. And of course good old hacking. It's also a very good incentive for maybe-criminals to actually go and do the crime - because the risks of being caught are very small. One counter argument is that it's possible to steal cash anonymously too, but of course it's not the same thing, just like crypto is not cash. This is serious problem with (anonymous) crypto and it will only grow bigger and bigger as it goes more mainstream..

oleganza 11y ago
If we were running our economy on steam and gold we would have even less problems. Your life expectancy would be 2x lower, but Sherlock Holmes would be able to find the blackmailer. Do you seriously blame the technology and instead of finding a technological solution propose to blame everyone using it for occasional consequences you do not like?
- codeshaman 11y ago
  > If we were running our economy on steam and gold we would have even less problems. Absolutely. I've lost a lot of coins in various hacks so this is experience talking, not theory ;). > propose to blame everyone using it for occasional consequences you do not like. Not blaming anyone and I'm still quite hopeful about crypto (albeit much less now than before), just saying this is a dark side of crypto which people are afraid to look at and it's not going away. You may remember this discussion if god forbid somebody hacks the service were you hold your coins at (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337) or exploits a vulnerability in your OS and steals your wallet OR does the thing in the article. Right, we are literate, we don't keep our wallets online or on our hard drives. For maximum safety we keep our public key pairs on a piece of paper or wood and hide it away in a dark place.

oleganza 11y ago

If we were running our economy on steam and gold we would have even less problems. Your life expectancy would be 2x lower, but Sherlock Holmes would be able to find the blackmailer. Do you seriously blame the technology and instead of finding a technological solution propose to blame everyone using it for occasional consequences you do not like?

codeshaman 11y ago
> If we were running our economy on steam and gold we would have even less problems. Absolutely. I've lost a lot of coins in various hacks so this is experience talking, not theory ;). > propose to blame everyone using it for occasional consequences you do not like. Not blaming anyone and I'm still quite hopeful about crypto (albeit much less now than before), just saying this is a dark side of crypto which people are afraid to look at and it's not going away. You may remember this discussion if god forbid somebody hacks the service were you hold your coins at (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337) or exploits a vulnerability in your OS and steals your wallet OR does the thing in the article. Right, we are literate, we don't keep our wallets online or on our hard drives. For maximum safety we keep our public key pairs on a piece of paper or wood and hide it away in a dark place.