Millions of Dogecoin Stolen Over Christmas

Kenseilon writes "The Verge reports that millions of Dogecoins — an alternative cryptocurrency — was stolen after the service DogeWallet was hacked. DogeWallet worked like a bank account for the currency, and the attackers modified it to make sure all transactions ended up in a wallet of their choice. This latest incident is just one in the long (and growing) list of problems that cryptocurrencies are currently facing. It brings to mind the incident where bitcoin exchange service GBL vanished and took a modest amount of Bitcoins with them. While not a similar case, it highlights the difficulties with trusting service provides in this market."

Comments

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares?
Dogecoin was originally a satire "cryptocurrency" anyway, the fact that it got "hacked" just prove the point even more.

Re:What?

[HairyNevus]

Pretty much this. After Bitcoin, it was inevitable that copycats would come about. But a cryptocurrency with only redditors who actually believe in its worth, and 4channers scamming each other as the user base? Come on. This is not news for nerds. This does not matter.

As an aside, Ripple may actually be promising. If cryptocurrency is going to keep being a "thing", there ought to be more than one further down the line.

Re:What?

[viperidaenz]

This isn't about redditors, 4channers or any other human-like creature.

Think of the poor dogs effected by this! They can't exchange currency over the internet any more.

Re:What?

[Lumpy]

Not really, the problem is that it drastically devalues the currency to have thousands of competing currencies. It made it a major PITA in the early colonial days as each colony had it's own currency and even banks had their own. So you would be paid in Bank of Fred Dollars but need to change them to Town of Funnyville dollars to spend them, oh and surprise there is an exchange rate where some of the value disappeared. It makes it trivial to start scamming people left and right as each currency competes.

I honestly don't see any of the current attempts (BitCoin Included) being a stable or viable long term digital underground currency. It's good now, but nobody has any expectations of it being around even 12 months later. It's starting to catch the attention of countries that do not like the competition and will start looking at it as a way to evade taxes and that will suddenly cause acceptance at legitimate traders to be limited.

I wish there was something that could come around, but if it competes with someone else that has a lot of power, it will lose in the end.

Re:What?

[davester666]

Dogs only really value treats, pee and tummy rubs.

Wow

[ljb2of3]

Such theft. Much mad. Very suprise. Wow.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Such theft. Much mad. Very suprise. Wow.

DogeCoin for much funny in case you feel left out of the joke. The whole thing is just another bitcoin clone, with slightly different settings ("very scrypt" like litecoin), which are somewhat intentionally badly chosen to produce "many coin, wow!".

Millions of DogeCoin is still basically worthless. Its just a bunch of crypto currency folks screwing around. Its not a serious alternative to bitcoin. Blocks started with million DogeCoin rewards per block and very low difficulty.

This has been done.

[rmdingler]

Sounds like the electronic equivalent of printing your account number on all the deposit slips at the kiosk inside the bank.

Reductio Ad Absurdum is not a defense

[Rinisari]

All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.

At least this time it's of a currency worth very, very little, so losses aren't that great and there are even more great minds thinking about how to solve cryptocurrency security problems. The end-user human will always be the weakest link, and the trust that the end user places on others always the most vulnerable part.

Haven't people learned by now . . .

[Linsaran]

And as usual, people who trust their Crypto Currency to a web based service (especially one with such a short history to it, and no clearly defined security practices) end up getting their shit stolen. Really now, if you want your crypto coins (be they BTC LTC or whatever) safe keep them in a private wallet and encrypt it, don't load your fortunes onto some website, then complain when they get hacked.

This is kind of like carrying around a giant wad of cash in your pocket and then being mad when someone mugs you, keep a small amount of 'working cash' readily available, and keep the rest of it in a safe place. The same logic that you'd use with real money should apply to virtual money.

Re:Haven't people learned by now . . .

[msobkow]

I'd say it's more like carrying around a wad of cash and getting pissed off because it fell out of your wallet. You have no idea what the qualifications are of the people who design and build these crypto-coin websites. It's not like they have any regulatory and testing requirements you can point to as any assurance that they're at all secure.

The same goes for any black or grey market website. So what if the site uses SSL and is "Verisign Approved" -- that tells you nothing about their back-end security (or lack thereof.)

Re:Eggs in one basket

[tompaulco]

So they come up with a crypto-currency that makes it where you don't have to trust a bank to keep track of your money. So what is they first thing people do? Put it in a bank, of course. Except, being unrelated, the bank does not have to repay your losses if they get hacked or robbed.
Keep multiple copies of your wallet. Keep them password protected. Keep them in separate physical locations.Keep nothing in a wallet that is not YOUR wallet and which you control.

Internet in a nutshell

[ericloewe]

I still can't tell how much of this is a joke and how much is real...

What's next? Dolancoin, featuring a crudely drawn homicidal duck? Frycoin, urging people to quietly and quickly accept the "money"?

Regardless, any of these is basically the same as Monopoly money. Next, we'll have reports of how a truckload of monopoly money got stolen. It'll be just as relevant, if not more, since something happened to someone (said truck was stolen).

Re:Internet in a nutshell

[gman003]

Bitcoin started as an attempt at an actual currency, the earliest adopters wanted it to become such, and there are a few places now (and many illegal ones) where it can be used to purchase goods. It's spiraled into being mostly speculative - I think if it were only used as a currency it would be trading around $30 - but there's a fundamental element of an actual currency.

Dogecoin started either as a shitty joke, a shitty meme, or an attempt to cash in on the Bitcoin hype bubble. I know of nowhere that actually accepts it, and the only people who have any seem to be people wondering what to do with their now-ineffective GPU Bitcoin mining rigs.

I considered for a bit whether Dogecoin could be used to see how much of Bitcoin's valuation is due to speculation, but there are too many interdependent variables to get any meaningful data out of it. But it isn't even useful for that.

Re:UHH

[dugancent]

I had a fraudulent charge appear on my card this month for $600. Guess how much i'm out, zero. Got my replacement card in two days.

Re:UHH

[dugancent]

That's nice. I don't pay interest charges on credit cards, ever, and the store charges the same price card or cash.

My Plan for Wealth

[SuperKendall]

1) Create Dogecoin miner client.

2) Get other people to install miner

3) Client also secretly finds Bitcoin wallets and sends them to me.

4) Profit? Yes profit!

Re:UHH

[bondsbw]

Adding $100 to circulation makes little difference, because there is over 10 billion times that amount of currency in circulation. So you would expect, of course, prices to go up by around one ten-billionth, much less than noticeable.

The problem is if the government decides to manufacture tons of money. Let's go high for the sake of making a point, say $500 million trillion. So now the government can pay all its bills and then give everyone a billion dollars and we're all happy and rich, right?

Well, if I'm rich, I'm not going to work any more. I don't need no stinkin' job. I'm going to take my billions and grab a few mansions and some awesome cars and tech and maybe an island, right after I get my last Big Mac at Mickey D's.

I pull up to the drive-thru, but nobody is there. Oh, wait, everyone's a billionnaire and doesn't need to work. But who's going to satisfy my cravings for two pieces of meat in thick buns with secret sauce? And then it dawns on me... if I can't get a Big Mac, I can't get a gourmet meal. I can't go into a Best Buy. I can't find a realtor to sell me those mansions. Crap, well this sucks.

But surely everyone has a price, right? I have a lot of money, someone will make me a Big Mac for a million dollars, I'm sure of it. Well, ok, someone takes me up on the offer. And I suppose someone will take time away from their rich lives to be my realtor for 100 million dollars. And the guys down at the local TV store will work for a few million an hour. And it turns out, my billions are draining quickly this way... I guess I need to go back to work, so long as I can make a few million an hour myself.

This is hyperinflation. This is what happens when the government adds money to the economy. Of course, this isn't all that great. Now the $50,000 savings account our family has been working our lives toward is practically worthless, and those who have saved nothing in life, or haven't even attempted to find a job, have as much as we do.

So we can't just pump hundreds of trillions into the economy. If and when the decision is made to manufacture more currency, it will be in much smaller amounts. But the same economic principles hold, just in proportion to the total amount of money in circulation.

Wrong conclusion

[Errol backfiring]

Banks are hacked and abused as well, but this is never published. What happened to Dodgecoin once is probably peanuts when compared to what happens to credit card companies every year.

Just one note

[cshark]

This is not a problem unique to cryptocurrencies. This particular incident is one that can be chocked up to kids not using php properly. Bad website implementation is not the fault of any cryptocurrency, be it one for pomeranians, or human beings.

Re:UHH

[BronsCon]

Anyone not using credit cards has paid for it, too. And gotten nothing in return.