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Fraud, Not Hackers, Took Most of Mt. Gox's Missing Bitcoins
itwbennett writes Nearly all of the roughly $370 million in bitcoin that disappeared in the February 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox probably vanished due to fraudulent transactions, with only 1 percent taken by yet-to-be-identified hackers, according to a report in Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, citing sources close to a Tokyo police probe. The disclosure follows months of investigations by police and others into the tangled mess surrounding the disappearance of the 650,000 bit coins.
What do you think those funny little rectangles of material we all carry around with us all the time to exchange for goods and services are inherently worth?
There's nothing subjective about the fact that you could, as some particular time not specified by the summary, exchange those 650,000 bitcoins (not "bit coins" as the summary would have it) for $370m.
Nobody should have lost any money unless you were dumb enough to buy Bitcoins.
Yeah, yeah, we're all bitter about not getting in on the ground floor too. Let it go.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You can't defraud a digital currency without some form of hacking.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
With bitcoin, the only thing you are trading is the knowledge that somebody wasted a shitload of electricity.
Yeah, yeah, we're all bitter about not getting in on the ground floor too. Let it go.
The most common comment on stock trading forums discussing speculative stocks. And bitcoin has so far behaved very similar to speculative and gamed stock trading.
There's nothing subjective about the fact that you could, as some particular time not specified by the summary, exchange those 650,000 bitcoins (not "bit coins" as the summary would have it) for $370m.
No, there was never such a time. When MtGox collapsed there was less than 13 million bitcoins total, most of which is being hoarded. Looking at the exchange trade volume there's maybe $5-10 million dollar daily liquidity. In order to sell out without the market crashing you probably couldn't sell more than 10% of that so it'd take years to cash out. And that's assuming you don't overdo it and spook the herd so they all cash out too.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
With bitcoin, the only thing you are trading is the knowledge that somebody wasted a shitload of electricity.
The technical term would be 'seigniorage'.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
the proper answer is that they are worth whatever you can get for them. Aluminum was once a precious metal worth more than gold.
At least my shit can be used to fertilize something.
Maybe it's time for me to stop buying organic fruits & veggies at the grocery store.
lucm, indeed.
trading gold is nothing more than trading the energy consumed in mining it.
Gold comes from mines? I always believed it came from pawn shops and elderly relatives.
lucm, indeed.
$370 million is subjective. 650,000 inherently worthless pieces of information went missing.
One of the principals of economy is that everything is worth what somebody is willing to give you for it. The 650,000 bitcoins were worth $370 million because somebody would have been willing to give that much money for them. Of course they are inherently worthless, just like every other piece of matter or information or string of bits. Nothing has intrinsic worth. It only has the worth of what someone is willing to give you in trade for it.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Yeah, yeah, we're all bitter about not getting in on the ground floor too. Let it go.
The most common comment on stock trading forums discussing speculative stocks. And bitcoin has so far behaved very similar to speculative and gamed stock trading.
Wish I could mod the parent up. Exactly right.
trading gold is nothing more than trading the energy consumed in mining it.
Gold comes from mines? I always believed it came from pawn shops and elderly relatives.
Well, the generation of that gold probably occurred in a process even more energy intensive than bitcoin mining, such as a very large star going out with a bang. After that it's just been transferred around.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
Why do people make so many errors when putting the name of the Magic The Gathering Online eXchange in a news story?
It's almost like it isn't still a hobby site.
You are trying to have a rational discussion with a bitcoin fanboy. It is like talking to a HFT proponent about the benefits of increased liquidity in the market via millisecond trades of already liquid stock.
Don't get me wrong, I am sure there are plenty of people dealing with bitcoin for what it is. A speculate "stock" with limited daily volume. But they don't go round ranting about it much.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
What I don't understand is this: Bitcoin is a distributed network. We know (or can know) which bitcoins were "lost" in MtGox. What is "true" in the Bitcoin world is determined by the "opinion" of the network.
So couldn't the top 5 or 10 players in the network, who collectively have something like 75% of the computing power, collude and simply invalidate the transactions out of MtGox?
No, the top largest mining pools cannot because:
1) A 51% attack doesn't change the blockchain history or allow one to steal funds out of existing accounts. If this even ever did occur(unlikely) they could simply either temporarily deny new transactions from being processed or make 1-3 double spends before being noticed and stopped.
2) The miners in the mining pools can instantly switch pools if their trust is misplaced by the pool operators with no effort and have done so repeatedly in the past where top mining pools have gone out of favor
3) The true power of the direction of the Bitcoin protocol lies within the "Full nodes" which is any user who chooses a wallet that downloads the full blockchain and not a SPV or thin wallet.
4) Fungibility is an important concept that many in the community hold as sacrosanct and choose to respect. Their are certain fundamental principles which define bitcoin that we agree upon for the most part and one of them is the fact that all coins are equal and blacklisting will not be instituted