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Fourth Ethereum Platform Hacked This Month: Hacker Steals $8.4 Million From Veritaseum Platform (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the here-we-go-again dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "Veritaseum has confirmed today that a hacker stole $8.4 million from the platform's ICO on Sunday, July 23," reports Bleeping Computer. "This is the second ICO hack in the last week and the fourth hack of an Ethereum platform this month. An ICO (Initial Coin Offering) is similar to a classic IPO (Initial Public Offering), but instead of stocks in a company, buyers get tokens in an online platform. Users can keep tokens until the issuing company decides to buy them back, or they can sell the tokens to other users for Ethereum. Veritaseum was holding its ICO over the weekend, allowing users to buy VERI tokens for a product the company was preparing to launch in the realm of financial services." The hacker breached its systems, stole VERI tokens and immediately dumped them on the market due to the high-demand. The hacker made $8.4 million from the token sale, which he immediately started to launder. In a post-mortem announcement, Middleton posted online today, the Veritaseum CEO said "the amount stolen was miniscule (less than 00.07%) although the dollar amount was quite material." The CEO also suspects that "at least one corporate partner that may have dropped the ball and [might] be liable." Previous Ethereum services hacks include Parity, CoinDash, and Classic Ether Wallet.

99 comments

  1. Thing to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Business model: 1. Start a coin exchange. 2. "Get hacked" 3. Profit!! 4. Start a coin exchange...

    1. Re:Thing to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everyone and their cat is now thinking I should start a coin exchange

    2. Re:Thing to do? by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Is Ethereum really worth billions?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re: Thing to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, itâ(TM)s not.
      It's only worth what can be bought with it, which isn't much at all.

    4. Re:Thing to do? by sheramil · · Score: 1

      Is Ethereum really worth billions?

      How much advertising money is there in alarmist headlines?

    5. Re:Thing to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      $8.4 millon * ( 100 / 0.07% ) = $12 billions
      Easy money.

    6. Re:Thing to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. It's some vague sort of crime, but I think I'll save my tears for people who don't have the money to invest in this dipshittery.

    7. Re:Thing to do? by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

      $8.4 millon * ( 100 / 0.07% ) = $12 billions

      Easy money.

      Yes, but what Reggie Middleton said, the $8.4m could become $0 in a blink because what they were trading were VERI tokens...

      Without the Veritaseum team, the tokens are literally wortheless! If someone were to someone confiscate 100% of the available tokens, all we need to do is refuse to stand behind them and recreate the token under a new contract.

    8. Re:Thing to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Without the Veritaseum team, the tokens are literally wortheless! If someone were to someone confiscate 100% of the available tokens, all we need to do is refuse to stand behind them and recreate the token under a new contract.

      "Uh yeah, we're not going to honor that contract. How about you buy into this contract instead." might not be the best business decision for a "company ... preparing to launch in the realm of financial services."

      Just saying.

    9. Re: Thing to do? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bitcoin can be bought with it which can be used to buy dollars which can be used to buy?

    10. Re:Thing to do? by codebonobo · · Score: 1

      No, market cap in general is a worthless number and this is made far worse because most of ethereum was premined unlike bitcoin.

  2. So you're saying... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you are willing to trade actual cash money for ethereum... you are an idiot.

    1. Re: So you're saying... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tezos will solve all Ethereum problems.

  3. And this is what happens... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When you attribute real value to something that really has no right to have any value, something you didn't even work for.

    1. Re:And this is what happens... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes put your money in stocks listed on the Dow and NASDAQ.
      They work for your money with -
            Bundled loans
            Credit default swaps
            Toxic Securities
            Collateralized debt obligations

      and lots of high frequency trades.

      That's good old American short term value.

    2. Re: And this is what happens... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone is showing their ignorance. Those things you all list were done by banks, not by the stock market

    3. Re:And this is what happens... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure that your post actually refutes the parent - just reinforces the point that too much of the economy is tied up in casino capitalism. Absolutely nothing has been learned from 2008, except how to better avoid scrutiny.

    4. Re: And this is what happens... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that is called dollars

  4. apparently.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...the infrastructure and security firms trying to get involved in everybody's business have no business doing business. Or is Ethereum just too smart for the average coder?

    Let's face it, most people have issues putting their socks on in the morning, much less developing and maintaining a cryptocurrency. That being said, despite the setbacks, I think we're on the right track. Still waiting for my flying car, though.

    1. Re:apparently.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      actually if you did deep into the news articles, a lot of these hacks are done on exploits in the website serving the company and/or the ICO. in other words, i haven't heard of too many hacks of the ether software itself. even the DAO farce was a hack of the DAO code iirc. please, anyone with examples of ether software hacks should share....

  5. And again. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yawn.

  6. Ethereum by turkeydance · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Tralfamadore wins

  7. ICO? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know what ICO stands for and I know roughly how it works, but... what do you actually get when you buy tokens in an ICO? Do you actually get a stake in the company, or do you get coins in a cryptocurrency that may or may not appreciate if the "backing" company does well? If it's the former, how does that sit with the SEC or its equivalents? And if it's the latter, how is this any different from an ITO (Initial Tulip Offering)?

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    1. Re:ICO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You get "coins in a cryptocurrency that may or may not appreciate if the "backing" company does well".

      Most have a line like "The EOS Tokens do not have any rights, uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features, express or implied, including, without limitation, any uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features on the EOS Platform."

      The title ICO is more like buying a gift card for a shop that doesn't exist

      "Purchaser understands that there is no warranty whatsoever on Veritas, express or implied, to the extent permitted by law, and that Veritas are purchased on an “as is” basis.". I don't really know what as is basis is when it comes to electronic tokens though.

      > And if it's the latter, how is this any different from an ITO (Initial Tulip Offering)?

      Good question.

    2. Re:ICO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In this case, it feels more like stock shares.

    3. Re:ICO? by PatientZero · · Score: 1

      TFS makes it sound like you pay cash to buy tokens which you may hold or sell yourself for Ethereum, and at some point in the future, the company that sold them originally may decide to buy them back for Ethereum. Hold them if you think the company will go up in value faster than Ethereum or cash (and that the company won't let them get stolen); otherwise, sell them for Ethereum.

      I agree that the SEC probably should be involved here.

      --
      Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
      I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
    4. Re:ICO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      The latter, that is "coins in a cryptocurrency that may or may not appreciate". I read a nice essay recently discussing this and comparing it to the dot com bubble which points out how ICOs are mostly dumb even if they aren't a complete scam:

    5. Re:ICO? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Except they are a complete scam.
      I doubt they were even hacked.

    6. Re:ICO? by Kjella · · Score: 5, Interesting

      From what I understand it's essentially like a theme park where you must buy everything with funny money. The investors buy funny money on the theory that if the park is successful lots of people will want funny money and the value will rise. If it flops, tough. First issue is that they can just burn through the money and fold, people have no ownership and unlike Kickstarter they haven't been "promised" any product or service. You're an investor, the investment failed, too bad. The executive strategy session was a blast though. The real problem though is it if you actually struck gold it would be trivial for the owners to turn your funny money into nearly worthless money and pocket pretty much all the profit themselves. It's a heads I win, tails you lose proposition.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re:ICO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you still consider bitcoin as "funny money"?

    8. Re:ICO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, with bitcoin, I can't refer to it as money of any form, the volatility of it is way too high to be considered "currency" in any form. The best thing I could liken it to would be something like a collectible. Be it art, cars, stamps, coins or anything else that people collect, the value of bitcoin varies wildly and erratically with really no rhyme or reason.

    9. Re: ICO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oftn times tou actually get debt. Many who buy into coins set up arrangements using their credit cards whereby they inherit the losses if trade so they leqve with less than they went in with. But in all honesty it does appear that its the mist lucrative and indeed legal ponzi ever devised. Many have done very very well from it. Th kind of people wjo make a killing in the 3rd world are the kind that do well in coins - hustlers with a bit of luck

    10. Re: ICO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Print your own tokens. Set a value on them. "Steal" them from yourselfand sell them. Thats "almost" exactly what happened the time before tis. The hacker cashed into dollars immediately. Theft laundry complete.

    11. Re:ICO? by DuckDodgers · · Score: 1

      So in theory, Ethereum and a few other cryptocurrencies like Safecoin and Storj.io offer a backing value in computing resources you can buy on the mining network itself. I'm excited by this possibility, and will watch it with interest.

      But today, I'd say the value of any such currency is less than 1% based on those computing resources you can buy and more than 99% another form of gambling (or if you prefer, Ponzi schemes). I haven't see any argument that the current price per computing resource unit is cost-effective vs. renting a box on DigitalOcean or using some PaaS.

      I'm at least five years away from investing in any of this. And that's a best case scenario. The technology may never work the way I hope.

    12. Re:ICO? by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      Ha, I think I'll start thinking of cryptocurrencies as beanie baby collections.

    13. Re:ICO? by codebonobo · · Score: 1

      ICO = illegal security and are generally scams = https://www.sec.gov/news/press... You get no stake and their is a strong incentive for the company to fail even if it has the best of intentions

  8. hacker hacked hacking hacks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    says bleepingcomputer.

    Thanks for that very useful reporting, BeauHD.

  9. Units? by msauve · · Score: 1

    "Veritaseum has confirmed today that a hacker stole $8.4 million"

    Ethereum are not USD. Claiming that someone stole $ is intellectually bankrupt. They "stole" some bits arranged in a fashion that some people assign a value to. Try to convert those bits to USD, and watch the exchange price plummet.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re:Units? by BradleyUffner · · Score: 2

      They "stole" some bits arranged in a fashion that some people assign a value to. Try to convert those bits to USD, and watch the exchange price plummet.

      How is that any different than the "money" in your bank account? It isn't like that money physically exists anywhere. Iit is also just an arrangement of bits in a bank's computer system.

    2. Re:Units? by brantondaveperson · · Score: 1

      Money doesn't exist at all.

      What exists are people, and places, and resources, and space, and air, and water, and food and time. Money is a mechanism to permit us to exchange these things, and to compare them to each other in a hopefully meaningful way. Without money, you have to spend enormous amounts of time and effort trying to organise all those things. This is what the Soviet Union tried to do with their Five Year Plans.

      That didn't work out so well for them, and millions of people starved. Red Plenty is a very interesting book to read about this period, but you can imagine what trying to organise the movement of people and resources centrally would end up like. It wasn't pretty.

      But money is imaginary. It always has been, even when we thought that gold and money were equivalent things, it was still an invention. It's a bit like the notion of energy in physics, which also doesn't exist except insofar as things like momentum, and charge, and mass, may be represented in terms of it.

      The trouble is that the whole charade doesn't work if you keep inventing different types of money, and start teaching computers to trade in it, to move it around between systems at the speed of light, give or take a clock cycle or two. The stock market is bad enough, chattering and jittering to itself in silent communication, losing and gaining trillions of dollars in ways that mean nothing whatever in the real world. Digital currencies are even worse.

    3. Re:Units? by exomondo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Veritaseum has confirmed today that a hacker stole $8.4 million"

      TFA: Hacker Steals $8.4 Million Worth of Ethereum

      Ethereum are not USD.

      No but they have a value in USD.

      They "stole" some bits arranged in a fashion that some people assign a value to.

      And you can "steal" some atoms arranged in a fashion that some people assign a value to.

      Try to convert those bits to USD, and watch the exchange price plummet.

      Even if that were the case, who says you have to do it all in one go?

    4. Re:Units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're an idiot. You can convert ETH to $, you shmuck. Stop being a troll.

    5. Re:Units? by msauve · · Score: 1

      "How is that any different than the "money" in your bank account?"

      I'm in the US, so the money in my bank account is directly denominated is USD, not that you show enough knowledge to understand even the distinction between M1 and M2.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    6. Re:Units? by sheramil · · Score: 4, Funny

      They "stole" some bits arranged in a fashion that some people assign a value to. Try to convert those bits to USD, and watch the exchange price plummet.

      How is that any different than the "money" in your bank account?

      I can use the " Money " in "my" bank account to "buy" `food' at the """supermarket""".

    7. Re: Units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are two main differences.
      First, if you steal real money, there are people with guns and tanks and bombs who will wreck yoir shit. We call it a government, and they don't give a fuck about your fedora currency.
      Second, damn near everyone on this planet will accept my USD in return for goods or services. And almost none of them will give you jack shit for your faggotcoin.
      And those are the only things that matter, ever habe mattered, or ever will matter for any sort of currency.

    8. Re:Units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AFAIK none of the Ethereum 'hackers' stole or hacked anything. They used the desired and intended features of the Ethereum software contract system that were even advertised as main advantages.

    9. Re: Units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit. If money doesn't exist then you won't mind giving me all of yours.
      mike Maloney has done a lot of research on money and explains things very clearly, get to chapter 4 for the interesting stuff https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DyV0OfU3-FU

    10. Re:Units? by Bongo · · Score: 1

      Yes, it is conceptual/imaginary AND so long as the concept is used with reference to the real stuff, the real value, then it works, helping individuals and groups exchange according to their own brains and circumstances. I.e. Not centrally planned.

      And at some point people can lose track of the real value and you end up with the subprime crisis and all that. And you end up with "banking" that considered itself an industry in its own right generating actual value like a factory making cars, as opposed to the original point of banking which was to support industry (I'm generalising to make the point).

      I don't know how digital currencies fit in with this. If technically they can make possible more flexibility in financing real value generating endeavours, fine. If they are a thing in themselves, "money", then it's just Monopoly money.

    11. Re:Units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let me guess - you think that 'gold' is real money? Why? It's just an arrangement of atoms with a few limited industrial applications, completely distorted by irrational speculation. But it's shiny, right?

    12. Re:Units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cocaine's a hellava drug. you should lay off it though.

    13. Re: Units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not be a super jerk, but isn't that argument a bit like "it's just someone handing out paper with numbers printed on them, or a little plastic card with numbers printed on them" the difference is who's backing it and your faith in or

    14. Re:Units? by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

      Let me guess - you think that 'gold' is real money? Why? It's just an arrangement of atoms with a few limited industrial applications, completely distorted by irrational speculation. But it's shiny, right?

      To be fair gold has other uses than speculation. ~52% is used for jewelry and another ~12% is used annually for industrial uses.

      Citation: http://www.numbersleuth.org/wo...

    15. Re: Units? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Actually, no. No, they will not accept your physical currency, in many (most?) places. They don't have the expertise to tell if it is legit, they don't know the exchange rate, and they don't know where they can be certain to be able to locally use it.

      Life isn't like the movies.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    16. Re:Units? by BradleyUffner · · Score: 1

      Let me guess - you think that 'gold' is real money? Why? It's just an arrangement of atoms with a few limited industrial applications, completely distorted by irrational speculation. But it's shiny, right?

      No. I think they money in my bank account is real. I'm just saying that it only exists as a pattern of 1s and 0s, in a computer system. I'm saying that isn't fundamentally any different than other digital currency, like BitCoin.

    17. Re: Units? by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      Has anyone you've bought or sold something with on Craigslist specified Bitcoin over cash?

    18. Re: Units? by codebonobo · · Score: 1

      This happens all the time, and many merchants will offer discounts when you buy goods or services in bitcoin because bitcoin is liquid, eliminated merchant processing fees, eliminates charge back risk.

    19. Re: Units? by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      I don't see how any of those are relevant to a cash exchange during a Craigslist transaction.

  10. Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by gweihir · · Score: 2

    Or is it just me and I have overblown expectations?

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      That's the problem. Bitcoin has not been robbed yet through a vulnerability. That is because every user MUST have a local copy of the whole chain for every transaction ever made before he or she can use their wallet. Right now it is over 120 gb.

      Ethereum tries to alleviate this problem but it means without a centralized system it is less secure. Wasn't dodgecoin popular and what about litecoin?

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by spagetti_code · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I don't think Etherium and their Smart Contracts may ever be ready for the prime-time, at least not without a major shift in technology.

      The problem is the code that gets written to express a contract. Code *always* has bugs, and it requires a great deal of knowledge and expertise to debug. Often these bugs are just so subtle that they live for years inside code - and often no-one looks.

      How is joe-average supposed to invest in and trust a smart contract - there is no way they can verify that the code is correct. I'm a (hopefully better than average) coder and I didn't spot the issue in the Parity wallet that caused a big loss a few days ago (hint - internal methods accidentally made public). I did look. Ditto for the DAO hack.

      Bitcoin has a steady code base that is moving forward in increments, being written/managed by a small number of experienced people (theoretically anyone could check it, but realistically only a few do). Its in a much steadier state. Smart contracts are made by anyone. Very few people understand the tech well enough to verify. Probably even fewer actually look. There will be bugs.

      Even worse... Etherium devs just keep forking the blockchain each time one of these hacks occurs. I expect they will do the same again. Ick. I suggest avoiding like the plague until they figure out how to remove the chance of bugs in smart contracts.

    3. Re:Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Litecoin is still going strong and Dogecoin is still slowly gaining in value.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    4. Re: Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is quite clear you have no clue what you are talking about. Typical peanut gallery opinions from people who are ill informed yet act like they're experts. To wit: Ethereum, as a platform, has never been hacked. When someone gives up their wallet credentials or writes poor client software then those are what become compromised, not the network itself. Please try to know what you're talking about before you spout nonsense next time.

    5. Re:Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by Interfacer · · Score: 1

      Even worse... Etherium devs just keep forking the blockchain each time one of these hacks occurs. I expect they will do the same again. Ick.
      I suggest avoiding like the plague until they figure out how to remove the chance of bugs in smart contracts.

      You know that's not true, do you?
      It happened once.

      And that time, it was in a pre alpha project where the amount of stolen money was 14% of the total amount. Forking was fairly easy at that stage of the project, and the stakes were very high.
      These days, forking is not trivial anymore with the project being so big, and the amount of money stolen was a paltry couple of million.

    6. Re: Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He hit the nail on the head though.

      I wonder why you're shilling: Are you on the bottom of the food chain and directly losing money in the scheme, or are you paid by this skinny Vitalik guy on the top?

    7. Re:Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by Pete+(big-pete) · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hmm, I really don't know where to start with the misinformation that you're spreading here...

      The DAO issue was early in the lifetime of Ethereum, and indeed was a "bad contract", ETH was forked due to the scale of the hack and that it was still a new usage of the cryptocurrency. This is the only time that Ethereum forked because of a hack. People are a lot more careful about how contracts are written after this.

      The CoinDash ICO hack was caused by someone hacking the site, and replacing the Ethereum address for the ICO - this is like a hacker hacking into a company site and modifying the bank details for payment - customers paid into the wrong "account". This is not a hack of Ethereum, and nothing to do with the way smart contracts work - it can be done with fiat currency by changing bank details, or any other cryptocurrency (including Bitcoin) by changing the wallet address.

      The Parity wallet hack was a sloppy 3rd party wallet implementation - again, if you use 3rd party software for any financial transactions you need to be really sure that you trust the software - this is also not a hack of Ethereum, it was a hack of a 3rd party wallet implemntation - again nothing to do with smart contracts and could have happened for another cryptocurrency wallet (such as a Bitcoin 3rd party wallet).

      The Classic Ether Wallet hack was also a hacker taking control of a 3rd party wallet - the same warnings apply as for the Parity wallet hack - again nothing to do with Ethereum smart contracts.

      The hack under discussion in this article was a hack of Veritaseum - their VERI tokens were stolen, and these were sold for Ethereum - again, nothing to do with any hack on Ethereum, it was just the cyrptocurrency that the hackers exchanged for their stolen property. They could have sold VERI for Bitcoin, USD, or cheese and it wouldn't make this a Bitcoin, USD, or cheese issue...just as this is not an Ethereum issue.

      -- Pete.

      --
      Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
    8. Re:Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What good does forking the blockchain do? Said hacker probably immediately sold all the proceeds for some other more reliable coin. By forking it they're doing is causing regular users to lose money (ie. the people that unknowingly bought the stolen coins).

      Dumbest coin ever. Burn this thing already.

    9. Re:Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Joe average is not supposed to trust anything, he rarely does. It's not about trust.

      Microsoft made buggy, bloated, unstable, and eventually privacy-invading software for years, and consumers threw billions of dollars at them.

      you may be smart enough to demand trust before using a technology, but the average consumer isn't. look at snapshat...all they had to do was SAY their photos disappeared and everybody ate it up. as soon as news came out that they didn't technically delete all copies forever of every picture...very few users jumped ship.

    10. Re:Seems to be not quite ready for prime-time by slashways · · Score: 1

      Litecoin and Dogecoin are not premined cryptocurrencies; At least this reduces the risk of pump and dump scheme; This is what we see a lot of the time for the last few years when the 'ICO' concept is involve...

  11. Another ethereum story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not arguing if this belongs on Slashdot, but is the story even real? I mean, I don't like people who see conspiracy theories everywhere, but all we have for "proof" is a few forum posts on bitcointalk as evidence. I searched for the word "hack" on the site veritas.veritaseum.com through Google and no related article came up. This stream of stories about the latest digital currency really looks like an attempt to drive interest about it and raise its value.

  12. Drain the Swamp by nicoleb_x · · Score: 0

    I wouldn't be surprised if the "Establishment" is funding/encouraging these hacks. I have no proof, just vague motive, so that makes me equal with AP, CNN and NYT.

    Seriously, it's not the CIA/NSA/MI6 types. The last thing they want to do is expose a potential exploit. So it's probably scum bags from Rostov.

    1. Re:Drain the Swamp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You clearly want to make a point offtopic.
      "I have no proof, just vague motive, so that makes me equal with AP, CNN and NYT."

      Is there some claim mainstream media has made that hasn't turned out true? Even confirmed by emails from DT Jnr himself. Turns out its all true and they really do have intelligence sources.

      "So it's probably scum bags from Rostov."
      It usually is Russian hackers, because the lawless culture and corruption leads to this result. But that's speculation from me and indicated as such.

  13. STOP!! My RX 470 is for sale by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    Please wait until after I have a purchaser before hacking so I can get my free GTX 1080 please?

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
    1. Re:STOP!! My RX 470 is for sale by sexconker · · Score: 1

      I have two RX 470s. The best ones, actually. The Sapphire RX 470 Nitro+ with 8 GB of (Samsung) memory clocked at 2000 MHz by default.
      If you want to buy from Billy G over here, hit me up first. I'll undercut that bitch.

  14. Etherium delerium? Tedium! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When will we all admit that this crypto-currency crap is all just a pipe dream for some, and a scam for others? Worthless crap.

    1. Re:Etherium delerium? Tedium! by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      My 100K Dogecoins beg to differ. You may laugh at their combined value now, but in a few years you'll be laughing even more.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:Etherium delerium? Tedium! by sheramil · · Score: 1

      When will we all admit that this crypto-currency crap is all just a pipe dream for some, and a scam for others? Worthless crap.

      I have to disagree. It's a pipe dream for some, and a scam for everybody.

    3. Re:Etherium delerium? Tedium! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know this is sarcastic, but I would actually feel ashamed to become wealthy through a scheme like this - as if wealth is a virtue in itself. I'm sure I could live with it, but I'd never feel any sense of pride in having produced real wealth for society on the way to becoming wealthy myself. Odds are I'll never be super-rich, but if it happened this way, it would be a hollow victory. Being a billionaire with a business that has employed thousands, given them the means to buy a home, live a comfortable life, and hopefully, give their kids even more opportunities, would be worth more to me than the zeroes on the bank statements. And, yeah, I'd be happy to pay a shitload more tax for a healthier and happier population who then have the basic physical security and a fertile social climate to take a shot.

    4. Re: Etherium delerium? Tedium! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I would actually feel ashamed to become wealthy through a scheme like this"

      There would be no need to feel ashamed, provided you put the money you receive to good use. Use the money to start a business, employ people, etc. if you find value and worth in that. Many paths can lead to the same destination.

    5. Re:Etherium delerium? Tedium! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Laugh? Not at all, friend. Here, I will offer you these tulip bulbs for your Dogecoins. It's the next big thing, I guarantee!

    6. Re:Etherium delerium? Tedium! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      guess you're not a stockbroker then. they do the same thing.

      you know, i wasted a lot of time looking for the "noble" startup idea.

      later i realized, just get something going. find an idea with legs, one that sticks...something useful, something fun...something cool. nurture that invention. it doesn't matter if it saves the world from hunger or war.

      then take the money you made selling nothing/scams/dreams, and do something good with it. see Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

    7. Re:Etherium delerium? Tedium! by tomuo · · Score: 1

      If you read "The Madness of Crowds", Tulip mania is even closer to cyrptocurrencies. At the height of the Tulip bubble, people were trading pieces of paper that "promised future delivery of a Tulip". The good tulips themselves were time consuming items to cultivate, so "exchanges" were set up at street corners to trade the paper promising future tulips. No-one verified that any particular piece of paper was tied to a real tulip, so the last person holding it eventually found it worthless. Everyone agreed that having pretty colored tulips in your home would be nice (i.e. ICO promises), but in the meantime just trading the paper gave you a profit. The actual value of the tulips was small.

  15. It's like by fredrated · · Score: 1

    money out of thin air!

  16. Lord I hope you two are joking by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    but right now it does looks like CPUs and graphics cards are being scalped.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  17. lulzogreedtwits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1849.

  18. This is what you are buying at a ICO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is what the founder of Veritaseum says:

    Another point that I would like to make clear is that Veritaseum tokens are software that represent our knowledge, advisory and consulting skills, products and capabilities. Without the Veritaseum team, the tokens are literally wortheless! ...all we need to do is refuse to stand behind them and recreate the token under a new contract...

    You are buying absolutely nothing of value. They can, at any time, for any reason, move on and declare the tokens as worthless. The tokens have no value beyond today's hype. They are not backed by assets or hedging or anything.

    1. Re:This is what you are buying at a ICO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So instead of brave new trustless automated self-robbing currency, we (as usual) have to trust a central organisation. Why bother with the self-robbing part if the rest isn't reliable?

  19. scam by D,Petkow · · Score: 1

    3 big hacks in a month, seems legit.

  20. "Hacked" ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6p7mel/veritaseum_ico_gets_hacked_and_loses_45m_usd/

    Apparently they were "hacked" because the CEO decided he was going to exit scam and decided that "hacked" was the best way to try and cover his tracks.

  21. ICO Platform Hacked, not Ethereum Platform by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

    Calling this an "ethereum platform hack" is not just an inaccurate statement, it is a bald-faced lie.

    What was hacked was this company's ICO platform, and TOKENS were stolen, NOT ETHER.

    Can we please, please, pretty please with sugar on top, do at least a TINY bit of fact-checking and editorial review here?

    Oh wait, this is slashdot... nevermind.

    1. Re:ICO Platform Hacked, not Ethereum Platform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry....
      Didn't mean to offend you or your love of PedoPesos.

  22. Micky Mouse Accounting by ITMagic · · Score: 1

    Statement of "0.07% was lost". This netted a value of $8.4m. Is someone honestly trying to suggest that the total offering is worth $12bn ?
    For what???

    I obviously know nothing at all about cryptocurrencies...

  23. Legal, unregulated ponzi schemes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No different than madoff

  24. This logic is brilliant. If you have ETH - SELL. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This logic is brilliant.

    Anyone who has ETH, SELL.

    GET OUT NOW.

    Before the value goes to zero.

  25. Re: You know what else gets hacked? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Won't someone think of the balls.