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[Leafsnail]

I don't think Bitcoin is easy to hack because it's "just computer code", I think it's easy to hack because people lose thousands of Bitcoins to hacks (or "hacks") on a regular basis.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0

e: This doesn't include the most recent theft of 96,000 bitcoins from Sheep.

[Darvi]

Literal sheep?

[Leafsnail]

Sheep Marketplace is the new Silk Road, basically.

[Darvi]

That sounds a lot less interesting and funny :/

[mainiac]

I also want to say that arguments along the line of "it's small and unstable and thus can't be trusted as a 'real' currency" are just plain wrong. Every currency you come across had at one point been just as unstable and untrusted.

Unstable, untrusted... and required to pay your taxes.  Oh and probably backed by gold at the time of introduction, unless it's more recent than the 1970s in which case it was probably backed on introduction by holdings in other currencies and backing from international trade organizations.

This is an error about on the level of saying that your car is unpowered if you overlook the tank full of gas and the fully charged battery.

I don't think Bitcoin is easy to hack because it's "just computer code", I think it's easy to hack because people lose thousands of Bitcoins to hacks (or "hacks") on a regular basis.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0

e: This doesn't include the most recent theft of 96,000 bitcoins from Sheep.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that would represent about .8% of all existing bitcoins being stolen at once?

[10ebbor10]

On a side note, this is not IIRC, in fact, the bitcoin being hacked, but a result of the way their security system works. Because all the security measures lag down transactions so much, many people leave their bitcoins on online wallet sites, which are often hacked.

[alway]

On a side note, this is not IIRC, in fact, the bitcoin being hacked, but a result of the way their security system works. Because all the security measures lag down transactions so much, many people leave their bitcoins on online wallet sites, which are often hacked.

This. From a technical standpoint, all the crypto-currencies are pretty solid outside of a few minor issues that arise from time to time. The problems relate to economics and the extra burden of time and effort they cost the user. Bitcoin users are the ideal mark for a thief or conman, thanks to how the system itself is set up. The deflationary speculation combined with the security issues preventing it from being commonly used will be what brings bitcoin to its knees.

[lue]

Unstable, untrusted... and required to pay your taxes.  Oh and probably backed by gold at the time of introduction, unless it's more recent than the 1970s in which case it was probably backed on introduction by holdings in other currencies and backing from international trade organizations.

You still had to believe that the promise of gold was trustworthy in the early days of any gold-standard-era currency (post gold standard, the trustworthiness of being supposedly backed by an established currency or trade organization). They're used to pay taxes because they were able to earn that trust .

My point is that arguing against Bitcoin on the basis of "it's not stable and trustworthy, therefore it's a bad currency" is fallacious, because many of the world's most prized currencies had at one point, for however brief a time, been just as untrustable and unstable.

[Leafsnail]

Correct me if I'm wrong but that would represent about .8% of all existing bitcoins being stolen at once?

Yeah.  It's such a ridiculous amount that it will be very difficult to launder - you can basically "follow" it around the blockchain.  Not that that means there's any prospect of actually getting it back.

On a side note, this is not IIRC, in fact, the bitcoin being hacked, but a result of the way their security system works. Because all the security measures lag down transactions so much, many people leave their bitcoins on online wallet sites, which are often hacked.

A lot of the "hacks" are probably just the people running the wallets stealing the bitcoins.  But this is a fundamental weakness of Bitcoins - if they're in a state where they're remotely usable as a currency, they're extremely insecure.  It's no use having a 10 inch thick titanium front door if your windows don't lock.

[Bauglir]

It's no use having a 10 inch thick titanium front door if your windows don't lock.

Well, I was stockpiling titanium anyway, and I figured I'd put it to good use.

Or... was that not literal? It probably wasn't. Now I just look foolish.

[Elephant Parade]

Posting to watch.

[mainiac]

You still had to believe that the promise of gold was trustworthy in the early days of any gold-standard-era currency

1) You are talking about pre-history here.  All of recorded history, gold has been a commodity and it was one of the oldest, if not the oldest commodity ever (Asimov has some interesting non-fiction on this subject.)
2) Recent scholarship (Debt the first 6000 years by Gruber) gives us good reason to suspect that early coinage was not based on the commodity value of the currency.  Rather coins indicated a promise by states to fulfill obligations that states already had the intention to fulfill.

[misko27]

Unstable, untrusted... and required to pay your taxes.  Oh and probably backed by gold at the time of introduction, unless it's more recent than the 1970s in which case it was probably backed on introduction by holdings in other currencies and backing from international trade organizations.

You still had to believe that the promise of gold was trustworthy in the early days of any gold-standard-era currency (post gold standard, the trustworthiness of being supposedly backed by an established currency or trade organization). They're used to pay taxes because they were able to earn that trust .

My point is that arguing against Bitcoin on the basis of "it's not stable and trustworthy, therefore it's a bad currency" is fallacious, because many of the world's most prized currencies had at one point, for however brief a time, been just as untrustable and unstable.

That is a false argument though, because while everyone was untrustworthy, that doesn't make the new things any less trustworthy, it just proves that it needs to work to prove itself. All the currencies were untrustworthy yes, but they proved themselves. It is healthy, reasonable suspicion to distrust something new when many, many fail.


I don't assume you can do a job just because people doubted once I could do a job. I believe you can do a job when you prove you can do the job, up until then, it's all a guess based on what you show us. Bitcoin, so far, not doing the job.

[miauw62]

dogecoin

I'm actually in the same channel as the guy who made dogecoin popular with a /g/ thread. So yeah, dogecoin is now a thing. There's even a subreddit dedicated to it and you can buy terrario for 5 kilodoge and gmod for 10 kilodoge.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is getting out of hand.