Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I am sorry, Terry, but some of you're assumptions are incorrect. There is no way to 'fork' a wallet. If you have a private key to a bitcoin address, then the only way to 'fork' that address is to copy it and give it to someone else. Not even the public key to a bitcoin address actually goes on the block chain until bitcoins, which have already been sent to that address, are then subsequently spent from that address. And the popular Bitcoin wallet used to be Bitcoin-qt, which also downloaded the entire block chain. It is the original software from which the Litecoin wallet is now compiled and running. Bitcoin users abandoned it about a year ago because the block chain became too large. Litecoin users will have to do the same if Litecoin becomes popular. Craig On 03/01/2014 01:58 AM, Terry Blanton wrote: I don't think litecoin will suffer the errors of bitcoin. With litecoin, the entire blockchain exists in every wallet. Mind you, this is a huge database and can take days to create a wallet unless you order the blockchain on DVD. Bitcoin only links resident coins to the blockchain along with the local code of the wallet. Forking will work with bitcoin; but, I don't see how it can work with litecoin. The other advantage of litecoin is transaction time. With the resident blockchain, transactions are almost instantaneous; whereas, bitcoin transactions can take up to an hour depending on market activity. Problem is, you can't buy much with litecoin, except bitcoin. :-)
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
You can fork the wallet if you have total control over the generation of the wallet such as the exchanges did. You then hide the cloned wallet behind a firewall in which you control the gate. I think we will find that MtGox work involved insiders or at least those IT folks who ran their servers. Regardless, this will all come out in the end. On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: I am sorry, Terry, but some of you're assumptions are incorrect. There is no way to 'fork' a wallet. If you have a private key to a bitcoin address, then the only way to 'fork' that address is to copy it and give it to someone else. Not even the public key to a bitcoin address actually goes on the block chain until bitcoins, which have already been sent to that address, are then subsequently spent from that address. And the popular Bitcoin wallet used to be Bitcoin-qt, which also downloaded the entire block chain. It is the original software from which the Litecoin wallet is now compiled and running. Bitcoin users abandoned it about a year ago because the block chain became too large. Litecoin users will have to do the same if Litecoin becomes popular. Craig On 03/01/2014 01:58 AM, Terry Blanton wrote: I don't think litecoin will suffer the errors of bitcoin. With litecoin, the entire blockchain exists in every wallet. Mind you, this is a huge database and can take days to create a wallet unless you order the blockchain on DVD. Bitcoin only links resident coins to the blockchain along with the local code of the wallet. Forking will work with bitcoin; but, I don't see how it can work with litecoin. The other advantage of litecoin is transaction time. With the resident blockchain, transactions are almost instantaneous; whereas, bitcoin transactions can take up to an hour depending on market activity. Problem is, you can't buy much with litecoin, except bitcoin. :-)
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Here is Forbes' explanation: http://www.forbes.com/sites/investopedia/2014/02/28/bitcoin-mass-hysteria-the-disaster-that-brought-down-mt-gox/ The thief changed the transaction id and placed it ahead of MtGox's transaction and the thief then claimed the transaction never occurred according to this explanation.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Terry-- Sounds like a good idea for the thief--steal the bitcoins, destroy them and increase the worth of the ones you have in another exchange. The ones that remain may be worth a lot more, or maybe nothing. It will be interesting to see what happens to bitcoin mining activity. Bob - Original Message - From: Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2014 9:59 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing Here is Forbes' explanation: http://www.forbes.com/sites/investopedia/2014/02/28/bitcoin-mass-hysteria-the-disaster-that-brought-down-mt-gox/ The thief changed the transaction id and placed it ahead of MtGox's transaction and the thief then claimed the transaction never occurred according to this explanation.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
The Forbes article concludes: *The Bottom Line* Mt. Gox is an exchange created in the early days of Bitcoin that is run by inexperienced management. Its likely insolvency and seemingly imminent demise is something that has been long expected by many in the community, and while it is quite a tarnish on the industry to have the once largest exchange go under, Mt. Gox's demise does not point to the failure of Bitcoin, and the rest of the industry is eager to move past the Mt. Gox debacle. *Disclosure: The author owns some Bitcoin. . . .* This is the largest bank robbery in history. Countless people must have lost fortunes, perhaps their life savings. These people expect they can move past this event? That's crazy. Bank regulators and police investigators in Japan, the U.S. and all other countries are going to be all over these people from now on. There will be legislative investigations and new laws regulating them. I see the arrogance of youth at play here. Naivete mixed with know-it-all bravado. Mark Karpeles is in his 20s. He reminds me of young people in the 1960s who were out to remake the world. Wordsworth described such people in his poem about the French Revolution: Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in romance! . . . Libertarians are, at heart, romantics. Especially the Ayn Rand ones who imagine themselves lone heros transcending their era and society, beyond the rules. They wanted money that was not controlled by governments. They wanted money that cannot be tracked or accounted for. They got it. They did not realize that you need governments to protect you against criminals and hackers. However imperfect this protection is, it beats no protection at all. Japanese government officials have already washed their hands of this, saying, these people wanted a totally unregulated system with no government oversight, so we have no plans to reimburse anyone for their losses. I am confident they will put in place regulations. The Wild West days are over. Be careful what you wish for. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On 03/01/2014 02:27 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: This is the largest bank robbery in history. Countless people must have lost fortunes, perhaps their life savings. These people expect they can move past this event? That's crazy. Bank regulators and police investigators in Japan, the U.S. and all other countries are going to be all over these people from now on. There will be legislative investigations and new laws regulating them. I think what a lot of people are missing, is that the people who have been using MtGox, are people who had accounts set up there from over a year ago. [They are the 'old-timers' of Bitcoin, because in the Bitcoin world, a month is an eternity]. Here are a couple of points that have probably been missed, and they apply to most of the people who've used MtGox, because no one can speak for everyone. 1) MtGox has been delaying withdrawals now for over 6 months. So, for the past 6 months, just about everyone knew that they were having liquidity problems, and rumors were wide that MtGox would probably go under. Yet, for the past 6 months, anyone could take money out of MtGox who wanted to. They just had to wait a few weeks. 2) Most of the people who continued to trade on MtGox were doing so with the knowledge that MtGox was having liquidity problems and might go under. The incentive to continue trading with MtGox, was the profit that could be made through the arbitrage opportunity that this presented. 3) The 744,000 coins that MtGox lost, were, (far more than likely), made back in 2010 and 2011 when MtGox sold Bitcoins for pennies each. They didn't lose $500 million in active accounts, but rather, coins which were backing up accounts of those who have been trading at MtGox with the risks understood, or of those accounts which were set up in days gone by, but abandoned long ago when Bitcoin was thought to be worthless. Personally, I don't think very many people lost a lot of money at MtGox, who didn't intentionally take those risks in recent months. The older accounts had long been forgotten. MtGox has also made several mistakes in the past two years which have turned a lot of their strongest supporters against them. They say things which demonstrate incompetence, or which do not make sense. A few things here: 1) They rewrote code designed to send transactions to the block chain, to accommodate their own needs, without adequate understanding and testing. This resulted in a loss in October 2011 of several thousand bitcoins when they incorrectly created a transaction, in error, which sent the bitcoins into oblivion. 2) They had $10 million in USD seized by the US government earlier this year, when they were operating as an exchange in the US without registering with Fincen and securing the required money transmitter licenses. 3) The transaction malleability anomaly which they are blaming for having lost the 744,000 is almost unbelievable. They are claiming that transactions which they submitted to the block chain were modified by a third party in such a way that DID NOTHING to prevent the transactions from being placed on the block chain, but rather only modified the transaction ID, such that their own software would then automatically try to resend the bitcoins when it could not identify the transaction on the block chain, by its ID. Again, for about two years, people have known that the transaction ID does not represent the absolute identity of the transaction. They should have indexed and used any of the inputs from their transactions as identifiers, as does everyone else. 4) They claimed that most of these 744,000 coins were in cold storage. Well, if they were in cold storage, then someone would have had to physically remove them from cold storage to create transactions with them, to then subsequently transfer them. If this was even possible, then those coins were never in cold storage, or they don't know what the term means. I don't think very many Bitcoin aficionados, (if any), are taking a loss with this. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Jed, I think you nailed it. However, I should like to add that the way our government handles our dollars (or Euros or . . ) gives incentive for the Bitcoin type ventures. Examples are obvious but bail outs of too large to fail, inflation not counting food, etc. etc. Just like the French revolution it was a legitimate protest just the means were less than smart and the negative infliction of the revolution was causing as much harm as the problem it set out to solve. I think we are at the same junction. A growing irritation over manipulation by those set to protect us. Government does not see there first task to protect the people, they see themselves as protector of the society - status quo. (as did Louis once upon a time) I think that a smart government should support building of a bitcoin venture and provide the expertise required then they probably would support LENR as well.:) Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 6140 Horseshoe Bar Road Suite G, Loomis CA 95650 Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. PJM On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: The Forbes article concludes: *The Bottom Line* Mt. Gox is an exchange created in the early days of Bitcoin that is run by inexperienced management. Its likely insolvency and seemingly imminent demise is something that has been long expected by many in the community, and while it is quite a tarnish on the industry to have the once largest exchange go under, Mt. Gox's demise does not point to the failure of Bitcoin, and the rest of the industry is eager to move past the Mt. Gox debacle. *Disclosure: The author owns some Bitcoin. . . .* This is the largest bank robbery in history. Countless people must have lost fortunes, perhaps their life savings. These people expect they can move past this event? That's crazy. Bank regulators and police investigators in Japan, the U.S. and all other countries are going to be all over these people from now on. There will be legislative investigations and new laws regulating them. I see the arrogance of youth at play here. Naivete mixed with know-it-all bravado. Mark Karpeles is in his 20s. He reminds me of young people in the 1960s who were out to remake the world. Wordsworth described such people in his poem about the French Revolution: Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in romance! . . . Libertarians are, at heart, romantics. Especially the Ayn Rand ones who imagine themselves lone heros transcending their era and society, beyond the rules. They wanted money that was not controlled by governments. They wanted money that cannot be tracked or accounted for. They got it. They did not realize that you need governments to protect you against criminals and hackers. However imperfect this protection is, it beats no protection at all. Japanese government officials have already washed their hands of this, saying, these people wanted a totally unregulated system with no government oversight, so we have no plans to reimburse anyone for their losses. I am confident they will put in place regulations. The Wild West days are over. Be careful what you wish for. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
If an attempt is made to regulate cryptocurrencies themselves (ie: the proof of work type transmission/public ledger systems upon which all cryptocurrencies are based) in addition to the financial services atop them, it will simply drive more of the economy underground. The main problem with the exchanges is that they are prone to centralization via the network effect. That's what made MtGox dominant and such a juicy target for underworld agencies -- including clandestine sovereign agencies. What I expect to happen next is a new cryptocurrency protocol will be put in place that distributes the network effect along with the underlying cryptocurrency protocol. At that point it is going to be impossible to regulate without driving ever more of the cyber economy underground and expanding the black markets. On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 2:07 PM, Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.comwrote: Jed, I think you nailed it. However, I should like to add that the way our government handles our dollars (or Euros or . . ) gives incentive for the Bitcoin type ventures. Examples are obvious but bail outs of too large to fail, inflation not counting food, etc. etc. Just like the French revolution it was a legitimate protest just the means were less than smart and the negative infliction of the revolution was causing as much harm as the problem it set out to solve. I think we are at the same junction. A growing irritation over manipulation by those set to protect us. Government does not see there first task to protect the people, they see themselves as protector of the society - status quo. (as did Louis once upon a time) I think that a smart government should support building of a bitcoin venture and provide the expertise required then they probably would support LENR as well.:) Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 6140 Horseshoe Bar Road Suite G, Loomis CA 95650 Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. PJM On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: The Forbes article concludes: *The Bottom Line* Mt. Gox is an exchange created in the early days of Bitcoin that is run by inexperienced management. Its likely insolvency and seemingly imminent demise is something that has been long expected by many in the community, and while it is quite a tarnish on the industry to have the once largest exchange go under, Mt. Gox's demise does not point to the failure of Bitcoin, and the rest of the industry is eager to move past the Mt. Gox debacle. *Disclosure: The author owns some Bitcoin. . . .* This is the largest bank robbery in history. Countless people must have lost fortunes, perhaps their life savings. These people expect they can move past this event? That's crazy. Bank regulators and police investigators in Japan, the U.S. and all other countries are going to be all over these people from now on. There will be legislative investigations and new laws regulating them. I see the arrogance of youth at play here. Naivete mixed with know-it-all bravado. Mark Karpeles is in his 20s. He reminds me of young people in the 1960s who were out to remake the world. Wordsworth described such people in his poem about the French Revolution: Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in romance! . . . Libertarians are, at heart, romantics. Especially the Ayn Rand ones who imagine themselves lone heros transcending their era and society, beyond the rules. They wanted money that was not controlled by governments. They wanted money that cannot be tracked or accounted for. They got it. They did not realize that you need governments to protect you against criminals and hackers. However imperfect this protection is, it beats no protection at all. Japanese government officials have already washed their hands of this, saying, these people wanted a totally unregulated system with no government oversight, so we have no plans to reimburse anyone for their losses. I am confident they will put in place regulations. The Wild West days are over. Be careful what you wish for. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Mark Karpeles interviewed in a chat, using the handle MagicalTux: [12:01] MagicalTux ... any BTC I own personally were on MtGox [12:02] JonWickedFire How much did you lose yourself? [12:04] MagicalTux Well, technically speaking it's not lost just yet, just temporarily unavailable http://www.wickedfire.com/shooting-shit/179038-my-conversation-mark-karpeles-mtgox-2.html#post2164682 Heh... whatever he's talking about here makes far more sense than saying that 744,000 bitcoins were stolen from cold storage, over a term of years, without anyone noticing. I don't think we've heard the true story yet. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Mark Karpeles interviewed in a chat, using the handle MagicalTux: [12:01] MagicalTux ... any BTC I own personally were on MtGox [12:02] JonWickedFire How much did you lose yourself? [12:04] MagicalTux Well, technically speaking it's not lost just yet, just temporarily unavailable http://www.wickedfire.com/shooting-shit/179038-my-conversation-mark-karpeles-mtgox-2.html#post2164682 Heh... whatever he's talking about here makes far more sense than saying that 744,000 bitcoins were stolen from cold storage, over a term of years, without anyone noticing. I don't think we've heard the true story yet. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: What I expect to happen next is a new cryptocurrency protocol will be put in place that distributes the network effect along with the underlying cryptocurrency protocol. So not only will be it be God-knows-what algorithm, it will be stored God-only-knows where. My guess? The servers will all be found in Russia. Bitcoin was developed by a person (or group of people) named Satoshi Nakamoto. No one has met him. It is probably a pseudonym. I suppose the code is in the public domain, but seriously, why would anyone trust a system developed by someone who wants to remain anonymous?!? It seems like the extreme opposite of what you look for when you want to entrust large sums of money to an institution. At that point it is going to be impossible to regulate without driving ever more of the cyber economy underground and expanding the black markets. So, more fools will parted from their money. If people want to put their money into fake banks, or cash stored under the mattress, that's their business. As long as they do not demand the government reimburse them it is okay with me. You can also cut out the middleman, go to a Los Vegas casino, and hand your money to the criminals directly. There are plenty of ways to throw away money, hide money, or evade taxes already. I don't see why we need a new one. This does not seem to be more of a threat to the establishment than previous versions. It does seem to be more idiotic than most Ponzi schemes. It has set a new record for bank robbery, as I said. It combines the greater fool theory with amateur, do-it-yourself banking and cybersecurity, and the most tempting target for criminals ever devised: huge sums of money that no one can trace. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Just to be clear... On 03/01/2014 04:19 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com mailto:jabow...@gmail.com wrote: What I expect to happen next is a new cryptocurrency protocol will be put in place that distributes the network effect along with the underlying cryptocurrency protocol. So not only will be it be God-knows-what algorithm, it will be stored God-only-knows where. My guess? The servers will all be found in Russia. You realize that the servers running the bitcoin network exist everywhere, right? There are hundreds of thousands of them. And that the entire bitcoin project is open-source? All the code is available for everyone to review, modify, and run? So distributed networks use algorithms which are known-by-all, running everywhere. Bitcoin was developed by a person (or group of people) named Satoshi Nakamoto. No one has met him. It is probably a pseudonym. I suppose the code is in the public domain, but seriously, why would anyone trust a system developed by someone who wants to remain anonymous?!? It seems like the extreme opposite of what you look for when you want to entrust large sums of money to an institution. There's no reason to trust Satoshi Nakamoto. It doesn't matter who he is, or what his character is like; for the same reason it would not matter who Jonas Salk was, or what his character was like, or whether you could trust him. Bitcoin is trusted for the same reason that Salk's vaccine is trusted -- because it presents a solution to a problem. It's the open source solution that's trusted; not the man. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: What I expect to happen next is a new cryptocurrency protocol will be put in place that distributes the network effect along with the underlying cryptocurrency protocol. So not only will be it be God-knows-what algorithm, it will be stored God-only-knows where. My guess? The servers will all be found in Russia. You misunderstand the nature of the cryptocurrency public ledger perhaps because you don't understand the word distributes in this context. There would be no servers at all. The public ledger of a cryptocurrency is not resident anywhere. It is replicated everywhere. That's what I mean by distributed. Likewise, the bids/asks of a distribute exchange would be replicated everywhere and resident nowhere, with a similar public ledger backed by proof of work. The cyptocurrency public ledger system follows what I called The Primary Discipline when I was designing the network architecture of the first electronic newspaper for the Knight Ridder chain of newspapers in 1981 and was responsible for the cryptographic electronic commerce programming of the terminals: The terminal is the host computer nearest the user. In other words, the primary discipline I declared way back then was that there were to be no fundamental distinctions between personal computers (at that time, terminals were in a position to supplant the entire PC era because they had microprocessors in them and we were attempting to jumpstart the Internet 15 years earlier) and servers. The TCP/UDP protocol actually allowed for this but, not the first web browsers, unfortunately. With some of the newer web browsers, however, we're starting to see what is called P2P or peer to peer communications protocols put in place -- so many some of the damage done by the initial WWW browsers will be undone.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin is trusted for the same reason that Salk's vaccine is trusted -- because it presents a solution to a problem. It's the open source solution that's trusted; not the man. Ummm . . . You do realize it failed catastrophically? There are 12.5 million bitcoins in circulation. 0.8 million of them were stolen, and are now presumably in the hands of criminals. That cannot inspire confidence or stability. What other banking system is known to be 1/13 controlled by criminals? If this is a solution that is trusted, I would hate to see a dodgy one. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 1:19 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: It does seem to be more idiotic than most Ponzi schemes. It has set a new record for bank robbery, as I said. It combines the greater fool theory with amateur, do-it-yourself banking and cybersecurity, and the most tempting target for criminals ever devised: huge sums of money that no one can trace. I think the robbery conclusion is premature. Everyone is still scratching their heads, wondering what happened. This is because important information has been withheld by Mt. Gox and some hand-waving provided instead. Eventually what actually happened will come to light, and the question of tracing who was involved, what they did and how they did it will become tractable. The main foolishing thing that third parties did in this instance was to entrust Mt. Gox with so much money; those same people are now dependent upon Mt. Gox giving sufficient information on what happened to make sense of things. No doubt they were nearly all of them speculators in the midst of a speculation frenzy. It is still the wild west. I can only assume that checks and balances will be put in place to limit this kind of vulnerability in the future, if only to keep cryptocurrencies viable. This will all be independent of government regulation (I say this as someone who is a fan of smart government regulation); government attempts to regulate what are fundamentally decentralized currencies will face the same challenges they face trying to regulate the drug trade or the Internet. There are surely pressure points, but it's also a game of whack-a-mole. I am not an advocate for bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. But I think it's a mistake to underestimate the impact of this new development or to extrapolate too far from a single data point. Eric
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I should have said: What other banking system ASSETS ARE known to be 1/13 controlled by criminals? It is like Las Vegas in the 1970s, or Atlantic City during the Prohibition. The criminals are not officially in control, although in the case of Mt. Gox they sure were. I would not bet that an unorganized bunch of open-source libertarian programmers can outwit the Russian Mafia. I have converted LENR-CANR.org to open source WordPress software. I agree it has a broad range of capabilities, but it is amateur and full of holes. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On 03/01/2014 04:52 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com mailto:cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin is trusted for the same reason that Salk's vaccine is trusted -- because it presents a solution to a problem. It's the open source solution that's trusted; not the man. Ummm . . . You do realize it failed catastrophically? Excuse me?? Heh, failure is the last thing that crossed my mind. :) Funny you believe otherwise. Bitcoin is, and will continue to become, a revolutionary success. The number of businesses accepting Bitcoin are growing at about 10% per month. Borders are opening up as people are now able to trade with each other without the expensive exchange rate tax, which every merchant in every third-world country experiences when he tries to compete with countries which do not want his government's currency. No longer need people be burdened by expensive transaction fees which can cost upwards of $50, and a day's time, to send money to some other part of the world. Bitcoin will be to money, what email is to the telephone, and what the telephone is to mail: Revolutionary! Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: Borders are opening up as people are now able to trade with each other without the expensive exchange rate tax, which every merchant in every third-world country experiences when he tries to compete with countries which do not want his government's currency. Surely we can find a solution to that problem that does not involve a ponzi-scheme currency that fluctuates in value by hundreds of dollars a day, and that is wide open to the largest theft in the history of banking. No longer need people be burdened by expensive transaction fees which can cost upwards of $50, and a day's time, to send money to some other part of the world. I often buy things in Japan with a credit card, such as books from Amazon.com Japan. It takes no time at all. It is no different from buying things from a U.S. vendor. The bank charges a little extra for the currency conversion. You can send money to people in Japan with PayPal, I believe. Maybe this is not an option in the third world, but I suppose it could be. I have seen web sites in Guatemala recently that take credit cards. I will grant, buying with a credit card is not an anonymous, untraceable transaction. I know that libertarians and drug dealers want it it be anonymous and untraceable, but I don't care about that, and I suppose most people do not care. Bitcoin will be to money, what email is to the telephone, and what the telephone is to mail: Revolutionary! Bitcoin is to the telephone as the burner throw-away cell phones are to regular cell phones: an ideal way to conduct criminal activities. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 10:39 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: I doubt any exchanges were involved in Silk Road assets. The advantage of VCs is that you can make transactions between individuals without any bank or exchange involved. Silk Road held their assets in their own wallet. When busted by the FBI, it took that agency several days to access the wallet information. Silk Road may have had their assets in their own wallet. But they were just intermediaries for the people selling the drugs. Those people all had bitcoin as well. They could no doubt have kept their proceeds in their own wallets as well. But it seems to me that in order for them to do anything with their proceeds, they would eventually have to exchange it with people who were willing to accept it in return for something else (e.g., cash). To do that, they would either have to go back to an exchange or find a counterparty willing to deal with them in private. I'm guessing that their confidence in their anonymity and their desire to seem like normal folk doing normal things with their bitcoin would have led them back to the exchanges. And Mt. Gox was the biggest at one point. Eric
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Jed-- Who makes the 1% or more mark up on foreign currency exchanges anyway? Why is it not an exchange based on the current international rate with no markup for the common trader? It seems there may be a monopoly in that currency exchange business. Bob Cook - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2014 2:26 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: Borders are opening up as people are now able to trade with each other without the expensive exchange rate tax, which every merchant in every third-world country experiences when he tries to compete with countries which do not want his government's currency. Surely we can find a solution to that problem that does not involve a ponzi-scheme currency that fluctuates in value by hundreds of dollars a day, and that is wide open to the largest theft in the history of banking. No longer need people be burdened by expensive transaction fees which can cost upwards of $50, and a day's time, to send money to some other part of the world. I often buy things in Japan with a credit card, such as books from Amazon.com Japan. It takes no time at all. It is no different from buying things from a U.S. vendor. The bank charges a little extra for the currency conversion. You can send money to people in Japan with PayPal, I believe. Maybe this is not an option in the third world, but I suppose it could be. I have seen web sites in Guatemala recently that take credit cards. I will grant, buying with a credit card is not an anonymous, untraceable transaction. I know that libertarians and drug dealers want it it be anonymous and untraceable, but I don't care about that, and I suppose most people do not care. Bitcoin will be to money, what email is to the telephone, and what the telephone is to mail: Revolutionary! Bitcoin is to the telephone as the burner throw-away cell phones are to regular cell phones: an ideal way to conduct criminal activities. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 4:26 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin is to the telephone as the burner throw-away cell phones are to regular cell phones: an ideal way to conduct criminal activities. The US government didn't need Bitcoin to turn its population into a href= http://business.time.com/2014/02/26/student-loans-are-ruining-your-life-now-theyre-ruining-the-economy-too/;a nation of paupers threatened with debtors prisons if they tried to acquire enough education to achieve a middle class income/a and we're not talking a mere half billion dollars in theft -- we're talking a trillion in student loans that violate the most fundamental principles of bankruptcy and progress out of slavery.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On 03/01/2014 05:26 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com mailto:cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: Borders are opening up as people are now able to trade with each other without the expensive exchange rate tax, which every merchant in every third-world country experiences when he tries to compete with countries which do not want his government's currency. Surely we can find a solution to that problem that does not involve a ponzi-scheme currency that fluctuates in value by hundreds of dollars a day, and that is wide open to the largest theft in the history of banking. There's no incentive to try. We don't have competition in the currency business. The legal tender laws, and expensive banking regulations, effectively prevent that; and any time someone has tried to come up with something innovative and interesting, outside the banking industry, it's been closed down. I followed e-gold closely, from 1999 until 2006 when their servers were seized. In 1999 - 2000, I bought and sold e-gold for about a year as an independent agent. Doug Jackson had the vision to use gold as a form of currency, which could be sent through the internet with immediate settlement, and which would serve as the foundation for other forms of money. He started the company in 1996, and grew it to over $200 million in gold bullion by the time they shut it down. In fact, e-gold was superior to Bitcoin for these reasons: 1) It offered immediate settlement. Bitcoin settlement occurs when a transaction is added to the block chain, which takes about 10 minutes on average, but can take up to an hour or more; and if the transaction fee is too low, it can take up to 48 hours. 2) e-Gold offered potential justice to those defrauded, and a complete trail for law enforcement when they had a court order. Law enforcement frequently used e-gold to find criminals. While e-gold, itself, could be used without an identifying account, all exchange services required identification for those sending money into the e-gold system, and those taking money out of the e-gold system. The fact that all transactions were centralized made law enforcement much easier than it had been previously when most of the types of scams that were being used with e-gold, were replacing scams which were being used by Western Union payments and other types of payments like this, which were, effectively, completely anonymous. (and still are). 3) e-Gold offered price stability, because gold has a far, far larger market cap than Bitcoin. 4) e-Gold accepted technical responsibility for the operation of the e-gold system; whereas with Bitcoin, there is nothing that can be done when you create a transaction with a valid, but unowned output, as MtGox discovered in Oct, 2011. With e-gold, there was always someone to call when something went wrong. People have told me that Bitcoin is kharma for e-gold, because they could close down e-gold, but they can't close Bitcoin. [But I have no doubt that they can push Bitcoin completely underground in many places.] No longer need people be burdened by expensive transaction fees which can cost upwards of $50, and a day's time, to send money to some other part of the world. I often buy things in Japan with a credit card, such as books from Amazon.com Japan. It takes no time at all. It is no different from buying things from a U.S. vendor. The bank charges a little extra for the currency conversion. You can send money to people in Japan with PayPal, I believe. But Paypal is not money, because it is reversible. Businesses will never negotiate for Paypal. Nothing with a low markup will ever be sold for Paypal. People have used e-gold to buy houses, cars, boats, real estate, and airplanes; but Paypal can never be used for anything like this, because Paypal dollars can be taken away, even months after they've been placed in your account. To be a true international currency, you've got to start with something for a monetary base. It has to be: 1) tangible; 2) fungible; 3) auditable; 4) portable; 5) scarce; 6) stable [which Bitcoin hasn't yet achieve]; 7) recognizable; 8) reliable; and 9) acceptable. Paypal dollars fail several of these because of this fatal flaw: they are built upon credit. But to really get the vision as to what people are trying to do with such a currency like Bitcoin, you have to think of it as cash, and you have to treat it like cash. With a solid foundation, from a non-reversible currency, you can then build an infrastructure on top of it that has all the bells, whistles, and security that you want to see. So while Bitcoin is not as good as e-gold once was, the infrastructure which can be built on top of it, can be everything that e-gold once was, and very much more; because Bitcoin can satisfy all the requirements of a monetary base upon which entire capital markets, credit markets, clearing houses, payment
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 5:26 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: Silk Road may have had their assets in their own wallet. How the FBI took down the proprietor of Silk Road (they got lucky): http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-took-down-the-dread-pirate-roberts/
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
TOKYO (AP) ― The Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in Tokyo filed for bankruptcy protection Friday and its chief executive said 850,000 bitcoins, worth several hundred million dollars, are unaccounted for. The exchange's CEO Mark Karpeles appeared before Japanese TV news cameras, bowing deeply. He said a weakness in the exchange's systems was behind a massive loss of the virtual currency involving 750,000 bitcoins from users and 100,000 of the company's own bitcoins. That would amount to about $425 million at recent prices. more http://news.yahoo.com/tokyo-bitcoin-exchange-files-bankruptcy-102841684--finance.html On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: Can you spell “Yakuza”? I can’t, but my spell-checker helps J やくざnowadays, but supposedly it comes from 八九三 which are the numbers 8, 9 and 3. (That would be yatsu, ku, san but it could ya-ku-zan or za in card-shark lingo, as 2 in English is deuce.) Apparently there was a card game similar to blackjack, only the object was get 19. If you were dealt an 8, a 9 and then a 3 that's 20 and you were wiped out. So it means a bad hand, or useless, or garbage. It is probably a folk etymology but the sentiments are real enough. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: The exchange's CEO Mark Karpeles appeared before Japanese TV news cameras, bowing deeply. He said a weakness in the exchange's systems was behind a massive loss of the virtual currency . . . That should be the top story on NHK 7 o'clock news. I think I saw that guy yesterday. He speaks very good Japanese. These corporate bozos are always bowing deeply and apologizing to the public on NHK. Then when the police haul them away, the perps cover their heads with jackets. If they are so mortified, why do they do whatever it is they do anyway? It is usually something foolish. I get it when someone is caught stealing money, but the typical Japanese mass media story is about some two-bit nitwit. Like that guy Samuragochi who pretended he was deaf and he was composing music. It turns out he can hear and someone else was composing the music. Or the architect Aneha who build several apartment buildings and hotels with nowhere near enough steel in the concrete. They had to be torn down. Or some old biddy running a prestigious 5th generation food company in Osaka, who was repeatedly caught adulterating food and selling expired food. Ridiculous flim-flam artists thrive in Japan. I guess because people take things so seriously, they are wide open to grifters and phonies. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Ridiculous flim-flam artists thrive in Japan. I guess because people take things so seriously, they are wide open to grifters and phonies. I don't know how it is now; but, when I was working with Mitsubishi in the 80s, Face was still very important in business. The value of Face to the culture is so embedded that they expect others to believe the same. The idea of grifting is so foreign to their society that it makes them vulnerable targets. Do you know anything about bankruptcy laws in Japan? I had no coins there but I know some who did. Do they divide up any assets to pay off debtors?
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Coinbase isn't an exchange, but rather a market maker for Bitcoin. You buy and sell bitcoins from them at agreed-upon rates; unlike an exchange where you place 'buy' or 'sell' orders against other account holders' orders. Here is Coinbase's method of keeping Bitcoins in cold storage; which is what MtGox claims to have failed at providing. http://blog.coinbase.com/post/33197656699/coinbase-now-storing-87-of-customer-funds-offline Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I do not know anything about bankruptcy laws in Japan. As I expected, this was the lead story on NHK news, with Mark Karpeles bowing. He seemed to smirking too, oddly enough. His Japanese is not as good as I thought, but I guess he is stressed. Here is Reuters' take on the story: Feb 28 (Reuters) - Close to half a billion dollars worth of the bitcoin virtual currency has gone missing from an exchange in Tokyo - in what is either the bank heist of the century or a sloppy glitch, or a combination of the two. Mark Karpeles, the 28-year-old French CEO of Mt. Gox, which once handled around 80 percent of the world's bitcoin trades, filed for bankruptcy at a Tokyo District Court late on Friday. His lawyer said that nearly all the bitcoins in the exchange's possession - 850,000 of them - were missing. Karpeles blamed hackers. . . .
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
What is the Bitcoin missing were actually seized by the US government in the ongoing investigation of Silk Road and Karpales cannot say because of a gag order? On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 9:49 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I do not know anything about bankruptcy laws in Japan. As I expected, this was the lead story on NHK news, with Mark Karpeles bowing. He seemed to smirking too, oddly enough. His Japanese is not as good as I thought, but I guess he is stressed. Here is Reuters' take on the story: Feb 28 (Reuters) - Close to half a billion dollars worth of the bitcoin virtual currency has gone missing from an exchange in Tokyo - in what is either the bank heist of the century or a sloppy glitch, or a combination of the two. Mark Karpeles, the 28-year-old French CEO of Mt. Gox, which once handled around 80 percent of the world's bitcoin trades, filed for bankruptcy at a Tokyo District Court late on Friday. His lawyer said that nearly all the bitcoins in the exchange's possession - 850,000 of them - were missing. Karpeles blamed hackers. . . .
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 8:23 PM, Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.comwrote: What is the Bitcoin missing were actually seized by the US government in the ongoing investigation of Silk Road and Karpales cannot say because of a gag order? Good call. As it was once the largest bitcoin exchange, it will no doubt have hosted a significant amount of the Silk Road bitcoin at one point. Eric
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I doubt any exchanges were involved in Silk Road assets. The advantage of VCs is that you can make transactions between individuals without any bank or exchange involved. Silk Road held their assets in their own wallet. When busted by the FBI, it took that agency several days to access the wallet information. Besides, it was the bust of Silk Road which proceeded the huge rise in BC values, IIRC. The loss at MtGox was likely the result of something called forking, the duplication of internal wallets of clients. Once the wallets existed in duality, the controlling entity of the cloned wallet was able to move the funds to other locations. It's like keeping two sets of books, one for the IRS and one for your records.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
proceeded=preceded Interesting error, eh? On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 1:39 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: I doubt any exchanges were involved in Silk Road assets. The advantage of VCs is that you can make transactions between individuals without any bank or exchange involved. Silk Road held their assets in their own wallet. When busted by the FBI, it took that agency several days to access the wallet information. Besides, it was the bust of Silk Road which proceeded the huge rise in BC values, IIRC. The loss at MtGox was likely the result of something called forking, the duplication of internal wallets of clients. Once the wallets existed in duality, the controlling entity of the cloned wallet was able to move the funds to other locations. It's like keeping two sets of books, one for the IRS and one for your records.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I don't think litecoin will suffer the errors of bitcoin. With litecoin, the entire blockchain exists in every wallet. Mind you, this is a huge database and can take days to create a wallet unless you order the blockchain on DVD. Bitcoin only links resident coins to the blockchain along with the local code of the wallet. Forking will work with bitcoin; but, I don't see how it can work with litecoin. The other advantage of litecoin is transaction time. With the resident blockchain, transactions are almost instantaneous; whereas, bitcoin transactions can take up to an hour depending on market activity. Problem is, you can't buy much with litecoin, except bitcoin. :-) On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 1:44 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: proceeded=preceded Interesting error, eh? On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 1:39 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: I doubt any exchanges were involved in Silk Road assets. The advantage of VCs is that you can make transactions between individuals without any bank or exchange involved. Silk Road held their assets in their own wallet. When busted by the FBI, it took that agency several days to access the wallet information. Besides, it was the bust of Silk Road which proceeded the huge rise in BC values, IIRC. The loss at MtGox was likely the result of something called forking, the duplication of internal wallets of clients. Once the wallets existed in duality, the controlling entity of the cloned wallet was able to move the funds to other locations. It's like keeping two sets of books, one for the IRS and one for your records.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 8:43 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: I wrote: Some important details: - There's no hard evidence at any point that anyone has lost their bitcoins. ... The details that are coming to light are somewhat different than I had understood them. I now read in the New York Times that Mt. Gox is suspected to have had 744,000 bitcoins quietly stolen from them over a period of years [1]. As I previously pointed out, all of the news ruckus is based on an anonymously posted document, the veracity of which is in doubt -- not the least reason being that the document states the losses represented 99.7% of their total Bitcoin assets and that this loss occurred over a number of years without anyone noticing. If Karpeles didn't notice something was going wrong when 50% of his Bitcoin assets were gone -- which should by extrapolation been at least a year ago -- then he wasn't the one running the show. I suspect foul play by some outside agency that saw Karpeles as a central point of control in the exchange market place and also as a soft target.
RE: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
From: James Bowery If Karpeles didn't notice something was going wrong when 50% of his Bitcoin assets were gone -- which should by extrapolation been at least a year ago -- then he wasn't the one running the show. I suspect foul play by some outside agency that saw Karpeles as a central point of control in the exchange market place and also as a soft target. Can you spell Yakuza? I can't, but my spell-checker helps :-) This scenario is now looking like it has organized crime written all over it. The best hope for recovering anything is to sell the film rights. Along with built-in deflation, this is looking like a big drawback since the bulls-eye is now on the exchanges - and that could be another systemic weakness of the basic scheme. Something similar to this heist, if that is what it is, could happen to any private exchange which has little access to Police protection ... (meaning they will have to cooperate with the FBI and IRS to get help, which is what their customers dread). Probably most of them will be targets of the mafia, of whatever country they are located in - since the word-on-the-street of a successful multimillion dollar heist spreads faster in the underworld than the STDs. It would not surprise me if Terry and Blaze are out there selling Bitcoins short. as we speak.
RE: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
For conspiracy enthusiasts, it sounds as if it was the NSA deliberately trying to discredit cryptocurrency ( but it will fail at that. ). Hoyt From: Jones Beene [mailto:jone...@pacbell.net] Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2014 8:40 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: RE: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing From: James Bowery If Karpeles didn't notice something was going wrong when 50% of his Bitcoin assets were gone -- which should by ... --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
This is one of the better insights I've read about cryptocurrency on vortex-l -- in part because it is so obvious that the Japanese mafia are the prime suspects; although they could be doing the dirty work of powerful allies in the US -- allies to whom a billion dollars are crumbs they leave behind. It wouldn't be the first the organized crime partnered with powerful legitimate interests. On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 9:39 AM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: *From:* James Bowery If Karpeles didn't notice something was going wrong when 50% of his Bitcoin assets were gone -- which should by extrapolation been at least a year ago -- then he wasn't the one running the show. I suspect foul play by some outside agency that saw Karpeles as a central point of control in the exchange market place and also as a soft target. Can you spell Yakuza? I can't, but my spell-checker helps J This scenario is now looking like it has organized crime written all over it. The best hope for recovering anything is to sell the film rights. Along with built-in deflation, this is looking like a big drawback since the bulls-eye is now on the exchanges - and that could be another systemic weakness of the basic scheme. Something similar to this heist, if that is what it is, could happen to any private exchange which has little access to Police protection ... (meaning they will have to cooperate with the FBI and IRS to get help, which is what their customers dread). Probably most of them will be targets of the mafia, of whatever country they are located in - since the word-on-the-street of a successful multimillion dollar heist spreads faster in the underworld than the STDs. It would not surprise me if Terry and Blaze are out there selling Bitcoins short... as we speak.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I can't find a futures market for bitcoin. ;-) Yakuza might be the tool but the operators are the Rothchilds since VCs would wrench control of humanity from their tight grip. As will FE.
RE: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I'd say the same thing about socialism or fascism: Wouldn't it be nice if human nature were different than it is, then this would work. The trouble is it isn't and isn't changeable either. From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 7:56 PM Libertarianism is like Leninism: a fascinating, internally consistent political theory with some good underlying points that, regrettably, makes prescriptions about how to run human society that can only work if we replace real messy human beings with frictionless spherical humanoids of uniform density (because it relies on simplifying assumptions about human behaviour which are unfortunately wrong). - Jed --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 11:54 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: Yakuza might be the tool but the operators are the Rothchilds since VCs would wrench control of humanity from their tight grip. A suspect has been identified http://imgur.com/6m1Nocw .
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
for people interested there is a french (and italian translated) book by a famous architect Yona Firedman : feasible utopia http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ensl=autotl=enu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.esprit68.org%2Futopies.htmlsandbox=1 http://www.esprit68.org/utopies.html one key analysis is that the size of a group that can organize correctkly is limited by human capacity to communicate efficiently... maybe any method (communism, socialism, libertarianism, aristocracy) can work in small group and allow good adaptation and happiness... as the group get bigger, either it have to split, or it fall in sclerosis. This is what seems to be the case in western countries... this books should be translated in english... the network discussion seems strange to me (have to read slowly), but many ideas match the observation.. I did not read the solution part yet, it may be bad... bu the diagnostic match what I observe at many scales, in many domaine including politics, science, business, computers. 2014-02-27 17:57 GMT+01:00 Hoyt A. Stearns Jr. hoyt-stea...@cox.net: I'd say the same thing about socialism or fascism: Wouldn't it be nice if human nature were different than it is, then this would work. The trouble is it isn't and isn't changeable either. *From:* Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] *Sent:* Tuesday, February 25, 2014 7:56 PM Libertarianism is like Leninism: a fascinating, internally consistent political theory with some good underlying points that, regrettably, makes prescriptions about how to run human society that can only work if we replace real messy human beings with frictionless spherical humanoids of uniform density (because it relies on simplifying assumptions about human behaviour which are unfortunately wrong). - Jed -- http://www.avast.com/ This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirushttp://www.avast.com/protection is active.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: Can you spell “Yakuza”? I can’t, but my spell-checker helps J やくざnowadays, but supposedly it comes from 八九三 which are the numbers 8, 9 and 3. (That would be yatsu, ku, san but it could ya-ku-zan or za in card-shark lingo, as 2 in English is deuce.) Apparently there was a card game similar to blackjack, only the object was get 19. If you were dealt an 8, a 9 and then a 3 that's 20 and you were wiped out. So it means a bad hand, or useless, or garbage. It is probably a folk etymology but the sentiments are real enough. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
many interesting points. Bitcoin interesrt beside being anonymous like coins and bills. Some people like libertarians and gold lovers loke bitcoins because they think the quantity of physicical bitcons, like gold (but more predictably than gold) cannot be fudged by central banks. In fact it is false, like for gold. like there is tons of paper-gold, ther will be (or there is) ton sof paper-bitcoind... banks can invent bitcoins by makein loans (the basic of monetary creation).. in some US prisons, since cigarettes get banned, the currency is fishcans... using shells is no better than gold, bitcoins, or banknotes... as soon at it is trusted, some actor may make loan, based on deposits, or sell insurance contractes (derivated products)... best way is to understand what is finance, and prevent too-big-to-fail, and people with no flesh in the game... 2014-02-26 7:58 GMT+01:00 Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com: It is not possible. Bitcoin network itself is not hackable as credit cards are. The vulnerabilities are in centralized places like exchanges that do not take precautions to protect customers accounts (as cold wallets). A network is very resistant to attacks like this. Look what is happening to Bitcoin, even a disastrous event like what happened with MtGox created some turmoil but not the end of Bitcoin. In fact price is bouncing back. Bitcoin is going to be the future of money. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
@Terry Don't forget freicoin, my favourite. Anti banker by design. http://freico.in/ 2014-02-26 13:28 GMT+01:00 Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com: many interesting points. Bitcoin interesrt beside being anonymous like coins and bills. Some people like libertarians and gold lovers loke bitcoins because they think the quantity of physicical bitcons, like gold (but more predictably than gold) cannot be fudged by central banks. In fact it is false, like for gold. like there is tons of paper-gold, ther will be (or there is) ton sof paper-bitcoind... banks can invent bitcoins by makein loans (the basic of monetary creation).. in some US prisons, since cigarettes get banned, the currency is fishcans... using shells is no better than gold, bitcoins, or banknotes... as soon at it is trusted, some actor may make loan, based on deposits, or sell insurance contractes (derivated products)... best way is to understand what is finance, and prevent too-big-to-fail, and people with no flesh in the game... 2014-02-26 7:58 GMT+01:00 Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com: It is not possible. Bitcoin network itself is not hackable as credit cards are. The vulnerabilities are in centralized places like exchanges that do not take precautions to protect customers accounts (as cold wallets). A network is very resistant to attacks like this. Look what is happening to Bitcoin, even a disastrous event like what happened with MtGox created some turmoil but not the end of Bitcoin. In fact price is bouncing back. Bitcoin is going to be the future of money. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Alain, what you are talking about are what I previously called the exchange layer of cryptocurrency infrastructure. That layer of the infrastructure is not necessary. Cryptocurrency differs from gold in that the safest place to keep it is not in a central location but in your own electronic wallet which is part of the highy vetted electronic-wire/public ledger infrastructure. Yes there are, and always will be, a lot of people offering financial services of all kinds -- what I'm subsuming under my term exchanges -- and I expect as things progress much of this infrastructure will be absorbed by the current financial institutions that offer services of proven value. But the basis is actually better than gold in the absence of an EMP event. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.comwrote: many interesting points. Bitcoin interesrt beside being anonymous like coins and bills. Some people like libertarians and gold lovers loke bitcoins because they think the quantity of physicical bitcons, like gold (but more predictably than gold) cannot be fudged by central banks. In fact it is false, like for gold. like there is tons of paper-gold, ther will be (or there is) ton sof paper-bitcoind... banks can invent bitcoins by makein loans (the basic of monetary creation).. in some US prisons, since cigarettes get banned, the currency is fishcans... using shells is no better than gold, bitcoins, or banknotes... as soon at it is trusted, some actor may make loan, based on deposits, or sell insurance contractes (derivated products)... best way is to understand what is finance, and prevent too-big-to-fail, and people with no flesh in the game... 2014-02-26 7:58 GMT+01:00 Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com: It is not possible. Bitcoin network itself is not hackable as credit cards are. The vulnerabilities are in centralized places like exchanges that do not take precautions to protect customers accounts (as cold wallets). A network is very resistant to attacks like this. Look what is happening to Bitcoin, even a disastrous event like what happened with MtGox created some turmoil but not the end of Bitcoin. In fact price is bouncing back. Bitcoin is going to be the future of money. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Edison's Renegade Currency: http://pro.moneymappress.com/NVXBITCOIN49/WNVXQ116/
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I have been following this discussion with interest because I bought a bitcoin. As best as I can tell, the personal wallet that contains my coin is located at and is under the control of an exchange, such as MtGov. This is no different from the money in my account at the bank. If the exchange goes bust, as apparently is happening with MtGov, I lose my coin. If the bank goes bust, I would lose my money unless the government steps in to replace it. In both cases, the money is in digital form and can be transferred using the computer. The only difference is that transfer of bitcoins is outside of the normal system. In addition, when I transfer a dollar, a dollar gets moved. When I transfer a bitcoin, the dollar amount is variable depend on which day I make the transfer. As for a EMP event, that would wipe out the money in my bank because all record of its existence would be lost, unless the paper record was accepted. Of course, I have a paper record of my bitcoin as well, which may or may not be accepted. So, as for safety of money, it seems we are at the mercy of the location where the money is stored. That is why the mattress is looking better all the time. Ed Storms On Feb 26, 2014, at 9:41 AM, James Bowery wrote: Alain, what you are talking about are what I previously called the exchange layer of cryptocurrency infrastructure. That layer of the infrastructure is not necessary. Cryptocurrency differs from gold in that the safest place to keep it is not in a central location but in your own electronic wallet which is part of the highy vetted electronic-wire/public ledger infrastructure. Yes there are, and always will be, a lot of people offering financial services of all kinds -- what I'm subsuming under my term exchanges -- and I expect as things progress much of this infrastructure will be absorbed by the current financial institutions that offer services of proven value. But the basis is actually better than gold in the absence of an EMP event. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: many interesting points. Bitcoin interesrt beside being anonymous like coins and bills. Some people like libertarians and gold lovers loke bitcoins because they think the quantity of physicical bitcons, like gold (but more predictably than gold) cannot be fudged by central banks. In fact it is false, like for gold. like there is tons of paper-gold, ther will be (or there is) ton sof paper-bitcoind... banks can invent bitcoins by makein loans (the basic of monetary creation).. in some US prisons, since cigarettes get banned, the currency is fishcans... using shells is no better than gold, bitcoins, or banknotes... as soon at it is trusted, some actor may make loan, based on deposits, or sell insurance contractes (derivated products)... best way is to understand what is finance, and prevent too-big-to-fail, and people with no flesh in the game... 2014-02-26 7:58 GMT+01:00 Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com: It is not possible. Bitcoin network itself is not hackable as credit cards are. The vulnerabilities are in centralized places like exchanges that do not take precautions to protect customers accounts (as cold wallets). A network is very resistant to attacks like this. Look what is happening to Bitcoin, even a disastrous event like what happened with MtGox created some turmoil but not the end of Bitcoin. In fact price is bouncing back. Bitcoin is going to be the future of money. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
-Original Message- From: Terry Blanton Edison's Renegade Currency: http://pro.moneymappress.com/NVXBITCOIN49/WNVXQ116/ Here's the vid- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPM3OKFYH-o However, if anyone can do this kind of thing - then thousands of entrepreneurs will be tempted. Everyone will want to get in on the first round of the newest issue, so the old Bitcoins will fade in favor of the latest and greatest... at least that is possible and even likely. Who wants to buy a coin that is now worth 1000 times what the first buyer paid? It is ludicrous to believe that any software solution is foolproof, based on someone's assertion - and especially is that someone has a financial interest in the outcome - and that includes any layer of Bitcoin. PGP encryption, as we now learn was hacked by NSA from day one. Fools rush in ...
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
So, as for safety of money, it seems we are at the mercy of the location where the money is stored. That is why the mattress is looking better all the time. Because Bitcoin is digital, you can also store your bitcoins on your personal computer, or print out your private key and store it in a filing cabinet. No need to keep it in an exchange. Craig On 02/26/2014 12:01 PM, Edmund Storms wrote: I have been following this discussion with interest because I bought a bitcoin. As best as I can tell, the personal wallet that contains my coin is located at and is under the control of an exchange, such as MtGov. This is no different from the money in my account at the bank. If the exchange goes bust, as apparently is happening with MtGov, I lose my coin. If the bank goes bust, I would lose my money unless the government steps in to replace it. In both cases, the money is in digital form and can be transferred using the computer. The only difference is that transfer of bitcoins is outside of the normal system. In addition, when I transfer a dollar, a dollar gets moved. When I transfer a bitcoin, the dollar amount is variable depend on which day I make the transfer. As for a EMP event, that would wipe out the money in my bank because all record of its existence would be lost, unless the paper record was accepted. Of course, I have a paper record of my bitcoin as well, which may or may not be accepted. So, as for safety of money, it seems we are at the mercy of the location where the money is stored. That is why the mattress is looking better all the time. Ed Storms On Feb 26, 2014, at 9:41 AM, James Bowery wrote: Alain, what you are talking about are what I previously called the exchange layer of cryptocurrency infrastructure. That layer of the infrastructure is not necessary. Cryptocurrency differs from gold in that the safest place to keep it is not in a central location but in your own electronic wallet which is part of the highy vetted electronic-wire/public ledger infrastructure. Yes there are, and always will be, a lot of people offering financial services of all kinds -- what I'm subsuming under my term exchanges -- and I expect as things progress much of this infrastructure will be absorbed by the current financial institutions that offer services of proven value. But the basis is actually better than gold in the absence of an EMP event. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com mailto:alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: many interesting points. Bitcoin interesrt beside being anonymous like coins and bills. Some people like libertarians and gold lovers loke bitcoins because they think the quantity of physicical bitcons, like gold (but more predictably than gold) cannot be fudged by central banks. In fact it is false, like for gold. like there is tons of paper-gold, ther will be (or there is) ton sof paper-bitcoind... banks can invent bitcoins by makein loans (the basic of monetary creation).. in some US prisons, since cigarettes get banned, the currency is fishcans... using shells is no better than gold, bitcoins, or banknotes... as soon at it is trusted, some actor may make loan, based on deposits, or sell insurance contractes (derivated products)... best way is to understand what is finance, and prevent too-big-to-fail, and people with no flesh in the game... 2014-02-26 7:58 GMT+01:00 Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com mailto:gsantost...@gmail.com: It is not possible. Bitcoin network itself is not hackable as credit cards are. The vulnerabilities are in centralized places like exchanges that do not take precautions to protect customers accounts (as cold wallets). A network is very resistant to attacks like this. Look what is happening to Bitcoin, even a disastrous event like what happened with MtGox created some turmoil but not the end of Bitcoin. In fact price is bouncing back. Bitcoin is going to be the future of money. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com mailto:gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
In the event of EMP all bets are off. The only community I know that has taken my advice regarding preparation for a post-EMP america is an Assembly of God congregation run by a childhood friend of mine. They'll have a local economy based on a monetary system I designed as well as EMP-hardened electronics infrastructure including computers and wireless internet. The scale will be about a county in the agricultural midwest. Having said that, you're confused about the wallet. There is only one deciding factor of ownership of cryptocurrency and that is possession of the private key. Anyone who possesses the private key owns the associated cryptocurrency. In fact, all a wallet ultimately consists of is the private key. The core cryptocurrency infrastructure is based on a client program that runs on your own computer where, assuming you have follows appropriate security procedures, you have complete control over the private key. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 11:01 AM, Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.comwrote: I have been following this discussion with interest because I bought a bitcoin. As best as I can tell, the personal wallet that contains my coin is located at and is under the control of an exchange, such as MtGov. This is no different from the money in my account at the bank. If the exchange goes bust, as apparently is happening with MtGov, I lose my coin. If the bank goes bust, I would lose my money unless the government steps in to replace it. In both cases, the money is in digital form and can be transferred using the computer. The only difference is that transfer of bitcoins is outside of the normal system. In addition, when I transfer a dollar, a dollar gets moved. When I transfer a bitcoin, the dollar amount is variable depend on which day I make the transfer. As for a EMP event, that would wipe out the money in my bank because all record of its existence would be lost, unless the paper record was accepted. Of course, I have a paper record of my bitcoin as well, which may or may not be accepted. So, as for safety of money, it seems we are at the mercy of the location where the money is stored. That is why the mattress is looking better all the time. Ed Storms On Feb 26, 2014, at 9:41 AM, James Bowery wrote: Alain, what you are talking about are what I previously called the exchange layer of cryptocurrency infrastructure. That layer of the infrastructure is not necessary. Cryptocurrency differs from gold in that the safest place to keep it is not in a central location but in your own electronic wallet which is part of the highy vetted electronic-wire/public ledger infrastructure. Yes there are, and always will be, a lot of people offering financial services of all kinds -- what I'm subsuming under my term exchanges -- and I expect as things progress much of this infrastructure will be absorbed by the current financial institutions that offer services of proven value. But the basis is actually better than gold in the absence of an EMP event. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.comwrote: many interesting points. Bitcoin interesrt beside being anonymous like coins and bills. Some people like libertarians and gold lovers loke bitcoins because they think the quantity of physicical bitcons, like gold (but more predictably than gold) cannot be fudged by central banks. In fact it is false, like for gold. like there is tons of paper-gold, ther will be (or there is) ton sof paper-bitcoind... banks can invent bitcoins by makein loans (the basic of monetary creation).. in some US prisons, since cigarettes get banned, the currency is fishcans... using shells is no better than gold, bitcoins, or banknotes... as soon at it is trusted, some actor may make loan, based on deposits, or sell insurance contractes (derivated products)... best way is to understand what is finance, and prevent too-big-to-fail, and people with no flesh in the game... 2014-02-26 7:58 GMT+01:00 Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com: It is not possible. Bitcoin network itself is not hackable as credit cards are. The vulnerabilities are in centralized places like exchanges that do not take precautions to protect customers accounts (as cold wallets). A network is very resistant to attacks like this. Look what is happening to Bitcoin, even a disastrous event like what happened with MtGox created some turmoil but not the end of Bitcoin. In fact price is bouncing back. Bitcoin is going to be the future of money. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 12:08 PM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: -Original Message- From: Terry Blanton Edison's Renegade Currency: http://pro.moneymappress.com/NVXBITCOIN49/WNVXQ116/ Here's the vid- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPM3OKFYH-o However, if anyone can do this kind of thing - then thousands of entrepreneurs will be tempted. Thanks! This http://coinmarketcap.com/ tracks about 140. I had a wallet at MtGox but no coin in it. I keep my coin in my home computer wallet. You can have many wallets. I have one at CampBX.com which is a local exchange based in Alpharetta. I have been considering mining Litecoin. The complexity is so low that you can still make a profit using graphic cards. But the bloody cards are becoming hard to find. I also have a Litecoin wallet on my PC. Litecoin gives you more control in that you set your code by a unique phrase. Also, the entire blockchain is kept up to date on your PC. Transactions are verified much quicker. Problem is, it's hard to spend litecoin.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
as far as I understood, a bit coin is just an elliptic curve (a numeric key like RSA key is), which allow you to sign transactions on the account it represent. if I understand well, it is not a balance, but simply a key. you can store it as printed paper, but the community store the history of the transactions, thus the balance. you can participate (exchange balance with peer) by using the secret key. 2014-02-26 18:30 GMT+01:00 Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com: So, as for safety of money, it seems we are at the mercy of the location where the money is stored. That is why the mattress is looking better all the time. Because Bitcoin is digital, you can also store your bitcoins on your personal computer, or print out your private key and store it in a filing cabinet. No need to keep it in an exchange. Craig On 02/26/2014 12:01 PM, Edmund Storms wrote: I have been following this discussion with interest because I bought a bitcoin. As best as I can tell, the personal wallet that contains my coin is located at and is under the control of an exchange, such as MtGov. This is no different from the money in my account at the bank. If the exchange goes bust, as apparently is happening with MtGov, I lose my coin. If the bank goes bust, I would lose my money unless the government steps in to replace it. In both cases, the money is in digital form and can be transferred using the computer. The only difference is that transfer of bitcoins is outside of the normal system. In addition, when I transfer a dollar, a dollar gets moved. When I transfer a bitcoin, the dollar amount is variable depend on which day I make the transfer. As for a EMP event, that would wipe out the money in my bank because all record of its existence would be lost, unless the paper record was accepted. Of course, I have a paper record of my bitcoin as well, which may or may not be accepted. So, as for safety of money, it seems we are at the mercy of the location where the money is stored. That is why the mattress is looking better all the time. Ed Storms On Feb 26, 2014, at 9:41 AM, James Bowery wrote: Alain, what you are talking about are what I previously called the exchange layer of cryptocurrency infrastructure. That layer of the infrastructure is not necessary. Cryptocurrency differs from gold in that the safest place to keep it is not in a central location but in your own electronic wallet which is part of the highy vetted electronic-wire/public ledger infrastructure. Yes there are, and always will be, a lot of people offering financial services of all kinds -- what I'm subsuming under my term exchanges -- and I expect as things progress much of this infrastructure will be absorbed by the current financial institutions that offer services of proven value. But the basis is actually better than gold in the absence of an EMP event. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.commailto: alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: many interesting points. Bitcoin interesrt beside being anonymous like coins and bills. Some people like libertarians and gold lovers loke bitcoins because they think the quantity of physicical bitcons, like gold (but more predictably than gold) cannot be fudged by central banks. In fact it is false, like for gold. like there is tons of paper-gold, ther will be (or there is) ton sof paper-bitcoind... banks can invent bitcoins by makein loans (the basic of monetary creation).. in some US prisons, since cigarettes get banned, the currency is fishcans... using shells is no better than gold, bitcoins, or banknotes... as soon at it is trusted, some actor may make loan, based on deposits, or sell insurance contractes (derivated products)... best way is to understand what is finance, and prevent too-big-to-fail, and people with no flesh in the game... 2014-02-26 7:58 GMT+01:00 Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com mailto:gsantost...@gmail.com: It is not possible. Bitcoin network itself is not hackable as credit cards are. The vulnerabilities are in centralized places like exchanges that do not take precautions to protect customers accounts (as cold wallets). A network is very resistant to attacks like this. Look what is happening to Bitcoin, even a disastrous event like what happened with MtGox created some turmoil but not the end of Bitcoin. In fact price is bouncing back. Bitcoin is going to be the future of money. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com mailto:gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
The value of money is predicated on trust. If people loss trust in the system that defines the value of money, money loses all its value. For example, is the U.S. government does not back its currency, the U.S, dollar is worthless. This is the reason why a default in the US debt commitment will be the end of dollar based civilization as we know it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic Trust in the currency backed by the Weimar Republic lost its value in the 1920s. This produced a hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic. There was a three-year period of hyperinflation in Germany (the Weimar Republic) between June 1921 and January 1924.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
OK Craig, if the bitcoin can be stored in a person's computer, why are people upset that they lost money from MtGov. How is that loss possible? Did they fail to transfer the coin to themselves? In any case, for me to sell my coin, I need an exchange that has money and access to my bank account. Are you saying that I can give any of the exchanges my private key and have them convert the bitcoin into money that appears in my bank account? Ed On Feb 26, 2014, at 10:30 AM, Craig wrote: So, as for safety of money, it seems we are at the mercy of the location where the money is stored. That is why the mattress is looking better all the time. Because Bitcoin is digital, you can also store your bitcoins on your personal computer, or print out your private key and store it in a filing cabinet. No need to keep it in an exchange. Craig On 02/26/2014 12:01 PM, Edmund Storms wrote: I have been following this discussion with interest because I bought a bitcoin. As best as I can tell, the personal wallet that contains my coin is located at and is under the control of an exchange, such as MtGov. This is no different from the money in my account at the bank. If the exchange goes bust, as apparently is happening with MtGov, I lose my coin. If the bank goes bust, I would lose my money unless the government steps in to replace it. In both cases, the money is in digital form and can be transferred using the computer. The only difference is that transfer of bitcoins is outside of the normal system. In addition, when I transfer a dollar, a dollar gets moved. When I transfer a bitcoin, the dollar amount is variable depend on which day I make the transfer. As for a EMP event, that would wipe out the money in my bank because all record of its existence would be lost, unless the paper record was accepted. Of course, I have a paper record of my bitcoin as well, which may or may not be accepted. So, as for safety of money, it seems we are at the mercy of the location where the money is stored. That is why the mattress is looking better all the time. Ed Storms On Feb 26, 2014, at 9:41 AM, James Bowery wrote: Alain, what you are talking about are what I previously called the exchange layer of cryptocurrency infrastructure. That layer of the infrastructure is not necessary. Cryptocurrency differs from gold in that the safest place to keep it is not in a central location but in your own electronic wallet which is part of the highy vetted electronic-wire/public ledger infrastructure. Yes there are, and always will be, a lot of people offering financial services of all kinds -- what I'm subsuming under my term exchanges -- and I expect as things progress much of this infrastructure will be absorbed by the current financial institutions that offer services of proven value. But the basis is actually better than gold in the absence of an EMP event. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Alain Sepeda alain.sep...@gmail.com mailto:alain.sep...@gmail.com wrote: many interesting points. Bitcoin interesrt beside being anonymous like coins and bills. Some people like libertarians and gold lovers loke bitcoins because they think the quantity of physicical bitcons, like gold (but more predictably than gold) cannot be fudged by central banks. In fact it is false, like for gold. like there is tons of paper-gold, ther will be (or there is) ton sof paper-bitcoind... banks can invent bitcoins by makein loans (the basic of monetary creation).. in some US prisons, since cigarettes get banned, the currency is fishcans... using shells is no better than gold, bitcoins, or banknotes... as soon at it is trusted, some actor may make loan, based on deposits, or sell insurance contractes (derivated products)... best way is to understand what is finance, and prevent too-big-to-fail, and people with no flesh in the game... 2014-02-26 7:58 GMT+01:00 Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com mailto:gsantost...@gmail.com: It is not possible. Bitcoin network itself is not hackable as credit cards are. The vulnerabilities are in centralized places like exchanges that do not take precautions to protect customers accounts (as cold wallets). A network is very resistant to attacks like this. Look what is happening to Bitcoin, even a disastrous event like what happened with MtGox created some turmoil but not the end of Bitcoin. In fact price is bouncing back. Bitcoin is going to be the future of money. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com mailto:gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
You can store them on your droid: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet Some people keep them with the exchange because of the transaction lag time. They can reside in only one wallet, however.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
BTW, if you want to sell your coin, I'll buy it. I'll send you my wallet address and when the transaction is complete, I'll send cash to your paypal account. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: You can store them on your droid: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet Some people keep them with the exchange because of the transaction lag time. They can reside in only one wallet, however.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On 02/26/2014 03:38 PM, Edmund Storms wrote: OK Craig, if the bitcoin can be stored in a person's computer, why are people upset that they lost money from MtGov. How is that loss possible? Did they fail to transfer the coin to themselves? In any case, for me to sell my coin, I need an exchange that has money and access to my bank account. Are you saying that I can give any of the exchanges my private key and have them convert the bitcoin into money that appears in my bank account? Right, the people who lost bitcoins on MtGox were people who kept those bitcoins in a MtGox account, generally for the purpose of trading them on MtGox' exchange. MtGox was an exchange where bitcoins could be bought and sold for various currencies, including other crypto-currencies. Never give anyone your private key. When you want to sell your bitcoins, you send them to an account maintained by the exchange. Then you can trade the bitcoins for money, and then withdraw the money. Generally, an exchange will not wire you money until you verify your identity, in line with the know your customer rules. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Well, they can reside wherever the private key is. That's the problem: Some people entrusted their private key to a third party (the exchange) and the third party did not engage in best practices. The transaction time is no different for a private key on your personal computer -- the transaction time is determined by the hash rate of all the computers in the cryptocurrency network and a difficulty parameter that is set by majority vote of all of the computers. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 2:54 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: You can store them on your droid: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet Some people keep them with the exchange because of the transaction lag time. They can reside in only one wallet, however.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
That is essentially correct. A couple of nitpicks: 1) MtGox traded in only one cryptocurrency Bitcoin. It had multiple sovereign currences against which Bitcoins could be traded. There were continual rumors that MtGox was going to expand its cryptocurrency offerings to, say, Litecoine, but that never happened. 2) The exchange to ask you for your private key when they create your wallet. They create their own private key and you trust them to wire cryptocurrency from that wallet to your wallet (your private key) at your request. Until that transfer is done you don't really possess the privatekey.. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On 02/26/2014 03:38 PM, Edmund Storms wrote: OK Craig, if the bitcoin can be stored in a person's computer, why are people upset that they lost money from MtGov. How is that loss possible? Did they fail to transfer the coin to themselves? In any case, for me to sell my coin, I need an exchange that has money and access to my bank account. Are you saying that I can give any of the exchanges my private key and have them convert the bitcoin into money that appears in my bank account? Right, the people who lost bitcoins on MtGox were people who kept those bitcoins in a MtGox account, generally for the purpose of trading them on MtGox' exchange. MtGox was an exchange where bitcoins could be bought and sold for various currencies, including other crypto-currencies. Never give anyone your private key. When you want to sell your bitcoins, you send them to an account maintained by the exchange. Then you can trade the bitcoins for money, and then withdraw the money. Generally, an exchange will not wire you money until you verify your identity, in line with the know your customer rules. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Errata: Litecone - Litecooin The exchange to ask - The exchange doesn't ask possess the privatekey - possess the cryptocoin On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 4:13 PM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: That is essentially correct. A couple of nitpicks: 1) MtGox traded in only one cryptocurrency Bitcoin. It had multiple sovereign currences against which Bitcoins could be traded. There were continual rumors that MtGox was going to expand its cryptocurrency offerings to, say, Litecoine, but that never happened. 2) The exchange to ask you for your private key when they create your wallet. They create their own private key and you trust them to wire cryptocurrency from that wallet to your wallet (your private key) at your request. Until that transfer is done you don't really possess the privatekey.. On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On 02/26/2014 03:38 PM, Edmund Storms wrote: OK Craig, if the bitcoin can be stored in a person's computer, why are people upset that they lost money from MtGov. How is that loss possible? Did they fail to transfer the coin to themselves? In any case, for me to sell my coin, I need an exchange that has money and access to my bank account. Are you saying that I can give any of the exchanges my private key and have them convert the bitcoin into money that appears in my bank account? Right, the people who lost bitcoins on MtGox were people who kept those bitcoins in a MtGox account, generally for the purpose of trading them on MtGox' exchange. MtGox was an exchange where bitcoins could be bought and sold for various currencies, including other crypto-currencies. Never give anyone your private key. When you want to sell your bitcoins, you send them to an account maintained by the exchange. Then you can trade the bitcoins for money, and then withdraw the money. Generally, an exchange will not wire you money until you verify your identity, in line with the know your customer rules. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I wrote: Some important details: - There's no hard evidence at any point that anyone has lost their bitcoins. ... The details that are coming to light are somewhat different than I had understood them. I now read in the New York Times that Mt. Gox is suspected to have had 744,000 bitcoins quietly stolen from them over a period of years [1]. This seems to be in addition to their technical challenges relating to transaction malleability, i.e., their misinterpretation of how to implement the bitcoin protocol, which has possibly led to their paying out money to people who did not hold bitcoins with them (or something like that). Multiply 750K by 400-1000 USD to get a sense of the loss this potentially represents. That amounts to about six percent of all bitcoins outstanding. It's interesting to keep in mind that early on, 744,000 in bitcoin would not have been nearly as much as it has become. Mt. Gox is apparently filing for bankruptcy. Assuming Mt. Gox were not the ones behind the theft, I imagine that at some point when they realized they were improperly doing their accounting and were being attacked, they went back and tried to see how their accounts balanced, doing things the way they should have been doing them all along. It was probably a stomach churning moment for the developers when they took a look at the number that popped up in their terminals. Eric [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/business/apparent-theft-at-mt-gox-shakes-bitcoin-world.html?_r=0
[Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
From Japanese exchange MtGox, now closed. No guarantees, no insurance. Someones are out half a billion bucks. One of the largest thefts in history (excluding congressional thefts).
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
To be clear, the source of this news was a document that apparently was forged. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/25/bitcoin-exchange-mtgox-offline-amid-rumours-of-theft On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: From Japanese exchange MtGox, now closed. No guarantees, no insurance. Someones are out half a billion bucks. One of the largest thefts in history (excluding congressional thefts).
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
What are you talking about? On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 2:37 PM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: To be clear, the source of this news was a document that apparently was forged. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/25/bitcoin-exchange-mtgox-offline-amid-rumours-of-theft On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: From Japanese exchange MtGox, now closed. No guarantees, no insurance. Someones are out half a billion bucks. One of the largest thefts in history (excluding congressional thefts).
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On 02/25/2014 02:59 PM, Terry Blanton wrote: What are you talking about? Bitcoins are an international crypto-currency which exist solely in a decentralized fashion on the internet. They allow people to send and receive bitcoins, as money, from anywhere in the world, with almost immediate settlement. The largest exchange for this currency was a company named MtGox. They have been delaying the delivery of cash to customers, when bitcoins were sold, for about 6 months now; and now they've gone offline completely. There's a rumor that they've lost 744,000 bitcoins, which is about $500 million dollars, give or take. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Just one word: FUD. I don't think it is true that many BTC are missing. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 2:23 PM, Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On 02/25/2014 02:59 PM, Terry Blanton wrote: What are you talking about? Bitcoins are an international crypto-currency which exist solely in a decentralized fashion on the internet. They allow people to send and receive bitcoins, as money, from anywhere in the world, with almost immediate settlement. The largest exchange for this currency was a company named MtGox. They have been delaying the delivery of cash to customers, when bitcoins were sold, for about 6 months now; and now they've gone offline completely. There's a rumor that they've lost 744,000 bitcoins, which is about $500 million dollars, give or take. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On 02/25/2014 02:59 PM, Terry Blanton wrote: What are you talking about? Bitcoins are an international crypto-currency which exist solely in a decentralized fashion on the internet. They allow people to send and receive bitcoins, as money, from anywhere in the world, with almost immediate settlement.. . . So I've heard. Ummm . . . What was that again are you talking about? I still don't get it. I have heard it is evil but I wouldn't know. See: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil/ - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
744,408 missing coins. I understand how it works. I was asking James why he said something about a forged document? I read nothing about any forged documents. There are rumors of money laundering. This comes on the heels of JP Morgan announcing their intent to launch a virtual (read anonymous) currency which could easily cause the likes of bitcoin, litecoin, feathercoin to lose value. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 3:23 PM, Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: On 02/25/2014 02:59 PM, Terry Blanton wrote: What are you talking about? Bitcoins are an international crypto-currency which exist solely in a decentralized fashion on the internet. They allow people to send and receive bitcoins, as money, from anywhere in the world, with almost immediate settlement. The largest exchange for this currency was a company named MtGox. They have been delaying the delivery of cash to customers, when bitcoins were sold, for about 6 months now; and now they've gone offline completely. There's a rumor that they've lost 744,000 bitcoins, which is about $500 million dollars, give or take. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Recently posted by the Chinese bitcoin exchange btc-e.com : BTC-e Statement regarding MtGox possible insolvency 25.02.14 17:31 from admin Dear BTC-e.com participants, We are concerned by MtGox shutdown and would like to assure you that: 1. MtGox losses do not affect account balances or the operation of BTC-e in any way. 2. We confirm the Bitcoin system operation and its exciting prospects, and MtGox bankruptcy has not been caused by any underlying technical problems of Bitcoin. Bitcoin international peer-to-peer network and cryptocurrency are independent of actions of a single market participant. Bitcoin protocol continues to function exactly as it should. The cryptocurrency maintains its stability and the network will continue to develop and exist as long as required by its users. 3. At BTC-e we are constantly monitoring Bitcoin accounts and FIAT reserves. At BTC-e we continue to maintain all clients' assets in full - both Bitcoin and FIAT. 4. BTC-е has no vulnerabilities during client transactions as we use safe and proven transaction protocols. All transaction issues reported by our clients undergo a thorough check. The safety of client funds and transactions is of ultimate importance for the company, and this is the reason why we have been an industry leader for the last three years. 1. BTC-е is at its peak of financial strength with the record levels of clients and capital adequacy. The company plans to start publishing financial statements, verified by an external audit, on a regular basis. 2. The highest levels of security are already in place at BTC-e, and the company regularly uses external professional advice to further increase the security of our clients. 3. BTC-e is the only exchange to offer a modern trading platform, MetaTrader 4, to its clients, and many other exciting projects and further upgrades are in the pipeline. The company plans to soon begin to publish publicly available statements certified by external auditors. end quote Bitcoin is presently trading at $516 from recent highs around $800.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Today's ruckus started with the anonymous posting of this document: http://www.scribd.com/doc/209050732/MtGox-Situation-Crisis-Strategy-Draft The veracity of the document has not been established and there are reasons to believe it is not authentic. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 1:59 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: What are you talking about? On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 2:37 PM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: To be clear, the source of this news was a document that apparently was forged. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/25/bitcoin-exchange-mtgox-offline-amid-rumours-of-theft On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: From Japanese exchange MtGox, now closed. No guarantees, no insurance. Someones are out half a billion bucks. One of the largest thefts in history (excluding congressional thefts).
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On 02/25/2014 03:47 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: So I've heard. Ummm . . . What was that again are you talking about? I still don't get it. I have heard it is evil but I wouldn't know. See: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil/ - Jed Well, it's a political issue to call it evil. Some people think it's one of the greatest monetary inventions. Ironically, in that Krugman article, he's not really calling it evil. He's basically saying that he is having second thoughts about it, and may reconsider his original negative attitude toward it. But if you still don't get it, then imagine a paypal application on your Android phone; only instead of the Paypal account holding US dollars, it holds bitcoins. You can send or receive bitcoins from anyone, anywhere, at any time, though a decentralized network of bitcoin nodes. Settlement occurs in about 10 minutes, on average. Bitcoins can be exchange for dollars, and all other international currencies, though local exchanges, like MtGox, which had the lion's share of the business, until recently. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
My take on the document is that it makes no sense for the following simple reason: If you take a look at the page that says Financial Assets and Liabilities, they list their Bitcoin assets as 2,000 and the Bitcoin liabilities as 744,408 all of which they count as theft that took place over a 5 year period. That means that over a period of 5 years, they lost 99.7% of their Bitcoins and didn't notice it until recently. Think about that for a microsecond. OK, take your time if it doesn't sink in that fast. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 3:00 PM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Today's ruckus started with the anonymous posting of this document: http://www.scribd.com/doc/209050732/MtGox-Situation-Crisis-Strategy-Draft The veracity of the document has not been established and there are reasons to believe it is not authentic. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 1:59 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: What are you talking about? On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 2:37 PM, James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: To be clear, the source of this news was a document that apparently was forged. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/25/bitcoin-exchange-mtgox-offline-amid-rumours-of-theft On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: From Japanese exchange MtGox, now closed. No guarantees, no insurance. Someones are out half a billion bucks. One of the largest thefts in history (excluding congressional thefts).
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: My take on the document is that it makes no sense for the following simple reason: If you take a look at the page that says Financial Assets and Liabilities, they list their Bitcoin assets as 2,000 and the Bitcoin liabilities as 744,408 all of which they count as theft that took place over a 5 year period. That means that over a period of 5 years, they lost 99.7% of their Bitcoins and didn't notice it until recently. What does not make sense about that? People often make stupid mistakes and lose vast sums of money. See Wall Street 1929, 2008. Back in the 1980s, medium sized companies went out of business because they had large computer systems crash without a backup. - - - - - - - - - Assuming this document is legitimate, whoever wrote it seems stupid to me. It says: At this 744,408 BTC are missing due to malleability-related theft which went unnoticed for several years. The cold storage has been wiped out due to a leak in the hot wallet. . . . We believe in the value of the coin, its potential to change the world, and its principles of transparency . . . I do not know what cold storage or a hot wallet means, but evidently they are cybernetic. They are virtual entities. Clearly, if this is true they don't work well. They are unreliable. So why does this author believe in the value of them? What is transparent about a software system the hides the theft of 700,000 units? That would be opaque. This makes no sense to me. If you put your money in a bank vault and come back a week later to find the money is gone, why would you continue to believe the vault is a safe place to put your money? - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
What is sensible about not noticing that you were being robbed of a significant portion of your assets for years on end? The Wall Street debacles were nothing like this. Those were market bubbles. While there may be a market bubble popped by this the thing popping it is this theft. Perhaps they meant that the theft occurred all at once. If so it is more believable but still, from what I know about cold vs hotstorage, it doesn't work that way. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 4:36 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: My take on the document is that it makes no sense for the following simple reason: If you take a look at the page that says Financial Assets and Liabilities, they list their Bitcoin assets as 2,000 and the Bitcoin liabilities as 744,408 all of which they count as theft that took place over a 5 year period. That means that over a period of 5 years, they lost 99.7% of their Bitcoins and didn't notice it until recently. What does not make sense about that? People often make stupid mistakes and lose vast sums of money. See Wall Street 1929, 2008. Back in the 1980s, medium sized companies went out of business because they had large computer systems crash without a backup. - - - - - - - - - Assuming this document is legitimate, whoever wrote it seems stupid to me. It says: At this 744,408 BTC are missing due to malleability-related theft which went unnoticed for several years. The cold storage has been wiped out due to a leak in the hot wallet. . . . We believe in the value of the coin, its potential to change the world, and its principles of transparency . . . I do not know what cold storage or a hot wallet means, but evidently they are cybernetic. They are virtual entities. Clearly, if this is true they don't work well. They are unreliable. So why does this author believe in the value of them? What is transparent about a software system the hides the theft of 700,000 units? That would be opaque. This makes no sense to me. If you put your money in a bank vault and come back a week later to find the money is gone, why would you continue to believe the vault is a safe place to put your money? - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
BTC-e is not chines but Bulgarian. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 2:57 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: Recently posted by the Chinese bitcoin exchange btc-e.com : BTC-e Statement regarding MtGox possible insolvency 25.02.14 17:31 from admin Dear BTC-e.com participants, We are concerned by MtGox shutdown and would like to assure you that: 1. MtGox losses do not affect account balances or the operation of BTC-e in any way. 2. We confirm the Bitcoin system operation and its exciting prospects, and MtGox bankruptcy has not been caused by any underlying technical problems of Bitcoin. Bitcoin international peer-to-peer network and cryptocurrency are independent of actions of a single market participant. Bitcoin protocol continues to function exactly as it should. The cryptocurrency maintains its stability and the network will continue to develop and exist as long as required by its users. 3. At BTC-e we are constantly monitoring Bitcoin accounts and FIAT reserves. At BTC-e we continue to maintain all clients' assets in full - both Bitcoin and FIAT. 4. BTC-е has no vulnerabilities during client transactions as we use safe and proven transaction protocols. All transaction issues reported by our clients undergo a thorough check. The safety of client funds and transactions is of ultimate importance for the company, and this is the reason why we have been an industry leader for the last three years. 1. BTC-е is at its peak of financial strength with the record levels of clients and capital adequacy. The company plans to start publishing financial statements, verified by an external audit, on a regular basis. 2. The highest levels of security are already in place at BTC-e, and the company regularly uses external professional advice to further increase the security of our clients. 3. BTC-e is the only exchange to offer a modern trading platform, MetaTrader 4, to its clients, and many other exciting projects and further upgrades are in the pipeline. The company plans to soon begin to publish publicly available statements certified by external auditors. end quote Bitcoin is presently trading at $516 from recent highs around $800.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. And it is not evil. It is a revolutionary technology. Look it up. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.comwrote: BTC-e is not chines but Bulgarian. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 2:57 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: Recently posted by the Chinese bitcoin exchange btc-e.com : BTC-e Statement regarding MtGox possible insolvency 25.02.14 17:31 from admin Dear BTC-e.com participants, We are concerned by MtGox shutdown and would like to assure you that: 1. MtGox losses do not affect account balances or the operation of BTC-e in any way. 2. We confirm the Bitcoin system operation and its exciting prospects, and MtGox bankruptcy has not been caused by any underlying technical problems of Bitcoin. Bitcoin international peer-to-peer network and cryptocurrency are independent of actions of a single market participant. Bitcoin protocol continues to function exactly as it should. The cryptocurrency maintains its stability and the network will continue to develop and exist as long as required by its users. 3. At BTC-e we are constantly monitoring Bitcoin accounts and FIAT reserves. At BTC-e we continue to maintain all clients' assets in full - both Bitcoin and FIAT. 4. BTC-е has no vulnerabilities during client transactions as we use safe and proven transaction protocols. All transaction issues reported by our clients undergo a thorough check. The safety of client funds and transactions is of ultimate importance for the company, and this is the reason why we have been an industry leader for the last three years. 1. BTC-е is at its peak of financial strength with the record levels of clients and capital adequacy. The company plans to start publishing financial statements, verified by an external audit, on a regular basis. 2. The highest levels of security are already in place at BTC-e, and the company regularly uses external professional advice to further increase the security of our clients. 3. BTC-e is the only exchange to offer a modern trading platform, MetaTrader 4, to its clients, and many other exciting projects and further upgrades are in the pipeline. The company plans to soon begin to publish publicly available statements certified by external auditors. end quote Bitcoin is presently trading at $516 from recent highs around $800.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
There are two layers to the Bitcoin infrastructure: The wire-transfer/public ledgers. The exchanges. The wire-transfer/public ledger software is compact and highly vetted. The exchanges are just websites. The exchanges are not necessary. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On 02/25/2014 07:46 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com mailto:gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed There is no bank. There are over 100,000 nodes maintaining a shared public ledger as to who owns what. Every time a transaction is made, it goes into the public ledger. To hack Bitcoin, you need a majority of the entire system's processing power, (or someone could break sha256 encryption, which would bring a lot of other things down, too). There is no central location or authority. Craig
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: There is no bank. There are over 100,000 nodes maintaining a shared public ledger as to who owns what. Every time a transaction is made, it goes into the public ledger. Whatever there is or is not, someone walked off with 700,000 units of it, if this report is accurate. That's worth $70 million, or maybe it is worth $7 million, or maybe it is worth nothing. People do not rob banks electronically nowadays. They used to, back in the 1960s and 70s, when computers were new. I have some amusing old books describing the techniques. They would never work nowadays. A typical one was the salami technique, combined with the Zzubrinski deposit. You take small amounts or rounding errors out of accounts and stuff them into the last account listed alphabetically, which is a dummy account that you opened with a fake name. Account holders who spot errors of a few cents are not going to complain. They figure someone had difficulty reading the check. In a large bank that piles up pretty quickly. As Krugman says, To be successful, money must be both a medium of exchange and a reasonably stable store of value. BitCoins fail #2 because the value fluctuates and also, apparently, because they are not secure against theft. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Whatever there is or is not, someone walked off with 700,000 units of it, if this report is accurate. That's worth $70 million, or maybe it is worth $7 million, or maybe it is worth nothing. Go to btc-e.com. Currently trading at $554.81 per unit.or $388,000,000 and change.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
According to the current blockchain https://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins there are 12,400,000 units in circulation representing a lot of money. Google mining bitcoins. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:04 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Whatever there is or is not, someone walked off with 700,000 units of it, if this report is accurate. That's worth $70 million, or maybe it is worth $7 million, or maybe it is worth nothing. Go to btc-e.com. Currently trading at $554.81 per unit.or $388,000,000 and change.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
You can mine your own bitcoins using an application specific integrated circuits http://www.amazon.com/ASICMiner-Block-Erupter-USB-Sapphire/dp/B00CUJT7TO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8qid=1393380571sr=8-2keywords=bitcoin+asics You should really study this Jed. It's sorta free money. Next we will talk about litecoin. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:09 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: According to the current blockchain https://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins there are 12,400,000 units in circulation representing a lot of money. Google mining bitcoins. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:04 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Whatever there is or is not, someone walked off with 700,000 units of it, if this report is accurate. That's worth $70 million, or maybe it is worth $7 million, or maybe it is worth nothing. Go to btc-e.com. Currently trading at $554.81 per unit.or $388,000,000 and change.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Litecoin is an improvement over bitcoin. Every holder of a litecoin wallet maps the blockchain. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:11 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: You can mine your own bitcoins using an application specific integrated circuits http://www.amazon.com/ASICMiner-Block-Erupter-USB-Sapphire/dp/B00CUJT7TO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8qid=1393380571sr=8-2keywords=bitcoin+asics You should really study this Jed. It's sorta free money. Next we will talk about litecoin. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:09 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: According to the current blockchain https://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins there are 12,400,000 units in circulation representing a lot of money. Google mining bitcoins. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:04 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Whatever there is or is not, someone walked off with 700,000 units of it, if this report is accurate. That's worth $70 million, or maybe it is worth $7 million, or maybe it is worth nothing. Go to btc-e.com. Currently trading at $554.81 per unit.or $388,000,000 and change.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
That's $6.9B in mined bitcoins. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:09 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: According to the current blockchain https://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins there are 12,400,000 units in circulation representing a lot of money. Google mining bitcoins. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:04 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Whatever there is or is not, someone walked off with 700,000 units of it, if this report is accurate. That's worth $70 million, or maybe it is worth $7 million, or maybe it is worth nothing. Go to btc-e.com. Currently trading at $554.81 per unit.or $388,000,000 and change.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
I've studied bitcoin and litecoin for several months now. Both have wiki articles which take a while to understand what's going on. You create the coins by solving encryption puzzles. As more coins are mined, the puzzles get more complex. Bitcoin has been around for a while and are very difficult to mine. Look at some of these bitcoin mining setups: https://www.google.com/search?q=bitcoin+mining+rigssource=lnmstbm=ischsa=Xei=clANU7fzMILQsQTVuYEwved=0CAgQ_AUoAgbiw=854bih=578
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On 02/25/2014 08:58 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: As Krugman says, To be successful, money must be both a medium of exchange and a reasonably stable store of value. BitCoins fail #2 because the value fluctuates and also, apparently, because they are not secure against theft. - Jed The only thing that bugs me about your statement is that you think bitcoins are not secure against theft. They are, in fact, as secure as you make them. It's not a Bitcoin flaw. It's even possible to put bitcoins on the block chain which require 5 of 9 signatures to access, or something like that. I'm sure that MtGox didn't do this. Craig
RE: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Impressive! It's supposed to be analogous to mining gold. The minimum value is determined by the value of the effort to extract it ( man-hours or power equivalents, etc. ). That's why they call it mining. That sets the lower limit on its value and prevents much inflation -- brilliant. What I like is it keeps the bureaucrats out of free trading among individuals. As far as thefts, it's not much different than physical cash, you just have to keep your coins secure -- it's up to you. Hoyt -Original Message- From: Terry Blanton [mailto:hohlr...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 7:25 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing I've studied bitcoin and litecoin for several months now. Both have wiki articles which take a while to understand what's going on. You create the coins by solving encryption puzzles. As more coins are mined, the puzzles get more complex. Bitcoin has been around for a while and are very difficult to mine. Look at some of these bitcoin mining setups: https://www.google.com/search?q=bitcoin+mining+rigssource=lnmstbm=ischsa= Xei=clANU7fzMILQsQTVuYEwved=0CAgQ_AUoAgbiw=854bih=578 --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Craig cchayniepub...@gmail.com wrote: The only thing that bugs me about your statement is that you think bitcoins are not secure against theft. They are, in fact, as secure as you make them. It's not a Bitcoin flaw. Oh yes it is. The problem is built into the BitCoin origin in Libertarianism. I know nothing about BitCoin software, but I do know about banking, ATMs, credit card transactions and so on. Long ago I wrote software manuals in those apps, just after the Wild West days when programmers could steal money by reprogramming the software in the salami technique, or printing checks with one number in machine readable form, and another in human readable form. (Those were the days!) Here's the thing. Real money, in real banks, is nowadays tied up in many meters of red tape. There are laws, regulations and standards galore protecting electronic assets. Banks in all countries get together with big software companies and government regulators. They pound out huge standards documents regulating every single aspect of it. The system may resemble a battleship in motion with its complexity and overhead . . . but it works. Banks are very secure. Credit card transactions . . . not so much. A lot of problems there, as everyone knows. You said: as you make it . . . My point is, you don't make it in a bank. You follow elaborate rules or they arrest you and close down the bank. BitCoin was designed to give the finger to big government. Quote: BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind--to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-want-bitcoin-to-die-in-a.html That is the agenda. I am familiar with it. This sure looks like something put together by oh-so-clever people working outside the system. I doubt they have approval or a shelf full of standards reviewed by drones and detail obsessed programmers in every major government bank regulator's office in the world. If you do not have that level of security, you are vulnerable to organizations such as the Russian Mafia and the Japanese gangsters, because those people have money and talent. They can outwit any collection of Ayn Rand devotees. They are in a different league. By the way, I agree with that author, and this statement: Libertarianism is like Leninism: a fascinating, internally consistent political theory with some good underlying points that, regrettably, makes prescriptions about how to run human society that can only work if we replace real messy human beings with frictionless spherical humanoids of uniform density (because it relies on simplifying assumptions about human behaviour which are unfortunately wrong). - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Well, I can tell you that the Bilderbergers DO NOT LIKE BITCOIN. LOL!
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:44 PM, Hoyt A. Stearns Jr. hoyt-stea...@cox.net wrote: Impressive! Virtual Currencies (VC) allow anonymous transactions. Look up Silk Road. People were buying drugs of all sorts. Today people have bought houses with bitcoin. Banking hates it. China banned bitcoin transactions within the country some time ago.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
Hoyt A. Stearns Jr. hoyt-stea...@cox.net wrote: It's supposed to be analogous to mining gold. The minimum value is determined by the value of the effort to extract it ( man-hours or power equivalents, etc. ). That's why they call it mining. That sets the lower limit on its value and prevents much inflation -- brilliant. No, it does not set the lower limit. The value does not depend only on the difficulty of digital mining. If no one trusts them, no one will want them, and the value will be nil. If there was no way to protect gold, no one would want it no matter how hard (or easy) it is to get the stuff. DeLong describes the ceiling and floor for gold and for money, and then writes: Placing a ceiling on the value of gold is mining technology, and the prospect that if its price gets out of whack for long on the upside a great deal more of it will be created. Placing a ceiling on the value of the dollar is the Federal Reserve's role as actual dollar source, and its commitment not to allow deflation to happen. Placing a ceiling on the value of bitcoins is computer technology and the form of the hash function... until the limit of 21 million bitcoins is reached. Placing a floor on the value of bitcoins is... what, exactly? Since the supply of BitCoins is limited, it will be deflationary, like 19th century gold-based money. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
The recent Mt. Gox development is fascinating to watch. Some important details: - There's no hard evidence at any point that anyone has lost their bitcoins. Bitcoin transactions are permanently recorded in a distributed ledger, whose distributed character makes it quite difficult to forge transactions. - What Mt. Gox has done is to take customers' hard cash and give them units of bitcoin in exchange. Those transactions were presumably permanently recorded in the ledger as a transfer. Then, as far as we know, there was a distributed attack that made use of a misunderstanding on Mt. Gox's part about how a quirk in the bitcoin protocol works to trick Mt. Gox into giving away part of its capital reserves to people who did not actually hold bitcoin with Mt. Gox. In practical terms, that appears to mean that Mt. Gox has given away money and is now undercapitalized (i.e., it cannot redeem the withdrawal requests of all of its account holders, taken together). - To the best of my knowledge, Mt. Gox may still have a significant portion of the capital amount still in its possession, and therefore would be able to redeem part of peoples' requests for withdrawal. Out of the estimated 400,000,000 USD in bitcoin managed by Mt. Gox, I have heard that somewhere on the order of 40,000,000 dollars were incorrectly disbursed, as a result of this attack. - Right now Mt. Gox appears to be in bunker mode, trying to figure out how to next proceed in what must be an incredibly tense situation for everyone involved. I have not been following the details closely, and all of this should be vetted. Please correct anything I might have gotten wrong. I'm no big fan of Bitcoin, but what this vulnerability seems to demonstrate is not a weakness in cryptocurrencies in general, or even in the core technology in Bitcoin (something that might become apparent at some point later on in the future), but instead a weakness in the implementation of a non-core detail relating to Bitcoin. The Bitcoin ledger itself has not been compromised, so unless we learn otherwise we can assume that all amounts in Bitcoin have been retained by the account holders. What seems to be at stake is whether they will be able to redeem with Mt. Gox and how it's going to unwind its position. Eric
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
It's an exchange. It could be embezzlement.
Re: [Vo]:[OT] 740,000 Bitcoins Missing
It is not possible. Bitcoin network itself is not hackable as credit cards are. The vulnerabilities are in centralized places like exchanges that do not take precautions to protect customers accounts (as cold wallets). A network is very resistant to attacks like this. Look what is happening to Bitcoin, even a disastrous event like what happened with MtGox created some turmoil but not the end of Bitcoin. In fact price is bouncing back. Bitcoin is going to be the future of money. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 6:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.com wrote: Bitcoin will be 1 Million dollars by 2019. Until a 16-year-old Russian Hacker gets into the bank, the way one got into the Target credit files. A week after that, the Bitcoin will be worth $14.38. - Jed
