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Bitcoin Exchange Flexcoin Wiped Out By Theft
mrspoonsi writes "Joining MtGox, Flexcoin today announced they have had their vault wiped out, to the tune of some 896 BTC (about $615,000) by hackers. 'On March 2nd 2014 Flexcoin was attacked and robbed of all coins in the hot wallet. The attacker made off with 896 BTC, dividing them into these two addresses: 1NDkevapt4SWYFEmquCDBSf7DLMTNVggdu [and] 1QFcC5JitGwpFKqRDd9QNH3eGN56dCNgy6. As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately.'"
rocks ... doesn't it.
This is what you wanted right?
Seriously, if you come here to talk about how this isn't a fundamental bitcoin problem, you deserve to have your noise smacked with newspaper like a dog.
The only 'benefit' bitcoin has is that its unregulated and not as well watched by the government ... which means its easy for people to just steal your money and lie about it ... I'm sorry, its easy for someone to setup an exchange and let someone else steal the coins from the 'hot wallet', whatever the fuck that is.
Before you open your mouth to defend bitcoin ....
THIS WHAT WE'VE BEEN TELLING YOUR STUPID DUMB ASSES ABOUT, NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP, ITS A SHITTY IDEA.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
There is another possiblity: that these exchanges are operating as designed.
Who can most easily rob a bank? The people running it, of course.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Well, one issue is how much to the governments actually care? BTC adherents believe they are a huge futuristic threat to the world order and have states quaking in their boots, but as far as I can see, outside worries about money laundering and tax evasion, the various states do not really care all that much.
Control over currency is important, it allows governments to make adjustments based off the needs of the economy, which increases stability. BTC would need to get much, much larger to even make a dent in the overall stability of the economy and THEN states might actually worry, but we are about as close to that as interstellar travel.
This is not a failure of bitcoin. Suppose you had a stack of companies whose purpose is to store your physical gold and prevent it from being stolen and to serve as an exchange allowing customers to trade gold for currency. Then, it turns out that some of them had inadequate security or were outright crooked and the gold they were storing went missing. This would not be a failure of gold itself. Sure, if sufficient quantities of gold were affected, it would affect the price of gold, but it does not change gold itself. This is the same situation.
The real problem here is the notion that bitcoin is a currency. It really isn't. It's a virtual commodity much like gold, with similar properties save for the fact that gold is physical and bitcoin is not. (Sure, the odds that everyone suddenly decides to pack up their toys and ignore bitcoin are much higher, mostly because there are no "real" uses to bitcoin, unlike gold which has actual uses other than being somewhat "rare" and looking pretty.) The same things that make gold less than idea as an actual currency (or a backer to a currency) apply to bitcoin. Sure, you can use either one as a place holder in a transaction if both parties agree, but you could just as easily use a common fiat currency, chickens, or grains of sand.
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
I don't really understand why people are keeping their Bitcoins in these online "bank" accounts. The point of Bitcoin is that it is digital cash. It has the negatives of cash, easily stolen, along with the positives, hard to track. Being a form of cash rather than a credit account allows you to store it on your own hard drive or USB drive. Hell, put it in your Dropbox and it would be safer than having it in one of these online Bitcoin "banks". The money should only be in these online accounts for the time it takes to change it from US$ (or whatever currency you use) to Bitcoins or in reverse. It should be treated as an exchange not a bank account. I don't go to a currency exchange in another country, change my US$ to Pesos (for example) and then leave the money there in the exchange for months at a time.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Yet... Now is probably a good time to start a Flexcoin exchange which you can then "rob" and shut down in a years time for some easy $500,000.
right. fine. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt...but hilariously, all the rabid Bitcoin defenders have all gone away here on /. only to be replaced by its critics.
i can't help but think that some of the posters who are saying "I told you so" were also big time Bitcoin fanbois a few months ago
look at this discussion, from early December, when I **dared** to ask if Bitcoin had peaked: http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
look at the mods...
I want /. to do better on this...MtGox and Bitcoin were hype, and sockpuppets on /. helped build that hype & it pisses me off
real techies should have seen this a mile away! now everyone thinks we're idiots
Thank you Dave Raggett
Why are you assuming the ones who created Stuxnet *aren't* criminals. Government backing does not an honest man make.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
As I said, small potatoes. The magnitude of bitcoin isn't enough to really concern most governments, and certainly not the ones with the resources to do what you suggest.
Sure. Could it be alien space monkeys trying to destabilize our currencies and use us for slaves to harvest tasty bananas? Sure, I guess
There's about as much evidence for either of those, which means there's zero evidence at all.
I generally tend to fall a little on the tinfoil-hat end of the spectrum -- but in the absence of evidence, I fall back to "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
You're well into just claiming it could be a conspiracy, but I just don't see the need. It could be if you want to be paranoid enough. But there's nothing real to suggest it's true, which makes it just pure imagination for the moment.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Why would anyone trust their funds to these people?
Good question. The answer is that they have a poor appreciation of economics and a worse appreciation of risk.
Bitcoin itself is not a shitty idea.
We disagree on that point. I think bitcoin is an idiotic solution in search of a problem. The rather narrow problems it purports to solve (money transfer fees, etc) are done by externalizing a great deal of risk and cost. If you really account for all the costs and all the risks it isn't actually cheaper than currencies like the dollar. In reality it is used mostly by those who are either ideologically motivated or find the idea of it romantic or (unfortunately) by those who are engaging in illegal activities of one sort or another. A lot of people are involved too as a get rich quick scheme.
But to say a system that offers frictionless payments is a shitty idea and should not even be attempted is stupid.
Bitcoin is anything but "frictionless". It carries very real and significant costs including opportunity costs, exchange rate risk, security costs, liquidity problems, volatility costs, and more. It is not widely accepted, requires a computer, has essentially no physical payment infrastructure, etc. Any merchant that accepts bitcoin and doesn't charge some fairly hefty fees to use it is being incredibly irresponsible given the risks involved.
One last thing and more of an open comment to people who have bitcoin. "Don't be a dumbass and let Lenny hold your bag of cash for you!" Geez does it even need saying?
Yes it does unfortunately. Many of the people involved with bitcoin are smart but too many are not financially sophisticated and certainly don't seem to appreciate the risks involved.
That is really the point here - if you destroy a currency the currency is worthless, so why steal it unless you don't care about the value?
1. Steal currency
2. Convert into another currency
3. Time passes
4. People realise that a theft has occurred
5. Currency devalues
6. Theives don't care because they already cashed out in (2).
http://blog.nexusuk.org