Online Cash Bitcoin Could Challenge Governments, Banks

Chasing the DAO Attacker’s Wake

-- Tom

 

Bitcoin rival Ethereum fights for its survival after $50 million heist

-- Tom

 

Ethereum Blockchain Forks to Return Stolen Funds

Previously published: "Hard Fork" Coming to Restore Ethereum Funds to Investors of Hacked DAO dated 19 Jul 2016

-- Tom

 

"Bitcoin Price Crashes After Exchange Admits Security Breach, Over $60 Million Stolen

Bitcoin prices are crashing on extremely heavy volume - down over 30% in the last 2 days - after Hong Kong-bassed Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex halted all trading after it discovered a security breach. As CryptoCoinsNews reports, the theft of 119,756 bitcoins has now been conclusively confirmed which makes it the largest theft in bitcoin’s space since MT Gox."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-02/bitcoin-crashes-after-exchange-admits-security-breach

Is this the same 60 MIL USD that lotusclat79's post above is referencing? Or do cyber-criminals just have a fondness for stealingf $60 MIL USD at a time?

 

Bitcoin worth $72 million stolen from Bitfinex exchange in Hong Kong

-- Tom

 

Anyone reading the links on the two posts above this needs to know this is NOT a design flaw in the BTC blockchain. Pure and simple; someone within the exchange screwed up security.

I keep asking myself why someone would leave their assets in an online exchange when a hardware wallet removes virtually 100 % of loss risks. Less then 100 bucks and a few hours of reading and you couldn't get any safer. Amazed but not surprised. Just like conventional online security, most users are just too lazy to learn the basics and then they get "blasted".

 

Bitcoin not money, judge rules in victory for backers

-- Tom

 

The Bank of England has created its own version of Bitcoin

-- Tom

 

I can only stress the importance of confirming download signatures against pgp/gpg signatures. CA (certificates) are no longer an acceptable means of authenticating a positive connection. At state level, they fake a bunch of stuff and only a positive ID of the signed file should be accepted.

The mathematics of Bitcoin has never been "hit". All these exchanges getting whacked have absolutely NOTHING to do with Bitcoin math. Its solid, or has never been breached in any way.

 

Ronjor,

This is so frustrating to seasoned collectors or early adopters. General trust of the blockchain and crypto technologies is what is impeding growth in activity. Those that study these hacks know the math is solid and its operator errors that allow this to happen. We now have another option entering the USA, which is subject to the same issues. Due to recent court outcomes there is a company in USA that is being allowed to offer Bitcoin IRA's with all the tax advantages of a normal IRA. Of course like all IRA's there must be a custodian and you don't get to control the coins in your own wallet. I hesitate to mention the url here. If someone is interested you can google it and read about it. Impressive staff. To function as a legal custodian the Gov will likely be watching this company more closely than the other exchanges that handle coins. I am torn on this. I read about it over at a few bitcoin forums. If solid I would be interested in deflecting some of my IRA to coins. Not everything by a long shot, but a bit anyway.

I'll mention the url and if a Mod wants to pull it down I am good with that. I am NOT promoting this as safe. In fact its more risky than most of my portfolio will ever be. But its legal and another way to speculate in the markets while getting a tax advantage during the process. Proceed at your own risk. Enough disclaimers? bitcoinira dot com.

 

There seems to be an underlying exponential increase in Bitcoin price. Since at least 2012. The bubbles in 2013-2015 were presumably caused by Mt Gox and/or its hacker. I'm not sure what drove the last one. China? But the underlying trend seems clear. So what does that represent? Is it just decreasing rate of production?

 

It looks like production is slower than increase of demand.

 

When I looked at this in early 2015, a single exponential accounted for the entire lower envelope. Let's say that's still the case. It puzzles me that behavior would be that consistent, long term.

 

I could be totally wrong here , but my understanding of the mining algorithm was that it was designed from the start
to create a steady decrease in the rate of new bitcoins mined .

Just so - classical economic theory of supply and demand ( as seen in the gold market , for example )
Without some constraints on the supply side , surely the result would be constant devaluation ?

" Just speculating on a hypothesis here "

 

@quietman - Looking at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply I don't see why Bitcoin production rate is declining. To prevent inflation, I guess. But then we have the risk of deflation. Which does seem to be the long term trend. What still surprises me is how steady that long term trend has been. But maybe it's just an illusion.

 

Wider usage of bitcoins (higher demand) can also create deflation, not just decrease in production rate.

(my bold).

 

I take your point , clearly we are in a new situation with Bitcoin and other virtual currencies
.
This is a "quasi-convertible" currency that is not connected to any previous notions of "value " .
And to risk stating the obvious , it exists far apart from nation states , a GDP , state-held assets , or anything else traditionally deemed to be a " good " .

For myself , I still think the gold market is the nearest economic concept for comparison to Bitcoin .
The widely held view is that the amount of currently available gold is close to the theoretical maximum .
This very week there is a case before South African courts attempting to prevent the mass closure of unprofitable mines , which will lead to massive job losses.

It's no illusion , viewed collectively , global debt greatly exceeds global productivity , and that gap widens daily , hourly .
And that is the long term trend, and in this respect Bitcoin is not apart from it , but quite probably is driven by it .

There is an old saying - " Buy land , they are not making any more of it . "
And it's my feeling that Bitcoin will have a similar future.

I believe that the total number of new Bitcoins created should decline exponentially

 

The mathematics is convincingly clear. There will NEVER be more than 21,000,000 bitcoins (I rounded the exact number as defined by the math). We just recently had another halving on the blockchain. This means that miners now receive half for mining a block compared to before crossing the halving. It will be some time until we reach the next halving but the same thing will occur when that happens. Currently we are at approximately ~15 million bitcoins with many YEARS before we hit 21 million. Bitcoins were first publicly circulated in Jan 2009 and in 7 years, give or take, we made it to 15 million coins. The remaining 6 million coins should take many times that amount of time to be generated. Its math on this, and math is math! If you have read around bitcoin forums you might have noticed the 21 club. Among investors/collectors a goal is to have 21 Bitcoins so that you will always control/own at least one millionth of the bitcoin blockchain. At the current time you actually only need to have 15 bitcoins to be in the one/millionth club, but 21 stands as the goal since we are mathematically positive that no more than 21 million can ever exist.

It would only stand to reason that IF demand and usage of the crypto currency increases at a rate faster than production of new coins, the price will go up and quickly. That is the hope of investors, which brings me back to the pain of personally considering a bitcoin IRA. Reading daily.

 

A statist Chinese researcher

 

It could also be a miner that was marginally profitable and after the "halving" recently, is printing RED INK and now is at a loss for where to go. Reminding readers, that miners are now getting half for mining a block as compared to a few months ago.

 

Federal judge says Bitcoin is money in case connected to JP Morgan hack

-- Tom