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$300m in Cryptocurrency Accidentally Lost Forever Due to Bug

posted by takyon on Thursday November 09 2017, @02:54PM   
from the you've-never-seen-1000-tonnes-of-gold-instantly-evaporate dept.

FatPhil writes:

User mistakenly takes control of hundreds of wallets containing cryptocurrency Ether, destroying them in a panic while trying to give them back

Unlike most cryptocurrency hacks, however, the money wasn't deliberately taken: it was effectively destroyed by accident. The lost money was in the form of Ether, the tradable currency that fuels the Ethereum distributed app platform, and was kept in digital multi-signature wallets built by a developer called Parity. These wallets require more than one user to enter their key before funds can be transferred.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/cryptocurrency-300m-dollars-stolen-bug-ether

This is less than 1% of the entirety of the total value of Ethereum (as perceived by speculators). One must remember that the national debts of issuers of some fiat currencies could effectively destroy 100% of those currencies, so is it appropriate for dollar users (which indirectly is all of us) to sneer at cryptocurrency users for this apparent weakness which will, presumably, be fixed and never happen again?

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Original Submission

• Re:Nice soapbox there, but you are still dirty Re:Nice soapbox there, but you are still dirty (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:11PM (3 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:11PM (#594621)

  Green site editorializing would be anti-crypto. Their owner, BizX, runs a digital currency which is directly threatened by decentralized digital currency. They print half a dozen anti-crypto articles a day. This one is at the top of their feed.

  https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/11/09/1317254/the-bitcoin-bubble [slashdot.org]

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  Starting Score:	0		points
  Moderation		+4
  Insightful=1, Informative=3, Total=4
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  Total Score:		4

• Re:Nice soapbox there, but you are still dirty Re:Nice soapbox there, but you are still dirty (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:33PM (1 child)

  by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:33PM (#594636) Homepage

  I'm now curious. From my commentary above alone (takyon didn't add that, he's not guilty, he merely did the necessary cosmetics/link-checking/etc.), do you perceive me as being pro- or anti- crypto-currencies?

  --
  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

  Parent

  • Re:Nice soapbox there, but you are still dirty (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:41PM (#594645)

    The editorializing leads me to believe you're more anti-fiat than pro-crypto, but you're still attracted to crypto as a result. If so, I fall into the same boat.

    Parent

• Re:Nice soapbox there, but you are still dirty (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:18PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:18PM (#594710)

  Partial corroboration of the parent post can be found at https://www.sdbj.com/news/2016/jan/28/slashdot-media-acquired-bizx-undisclosed-price/ [sdbj.com] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BizX [wikipedia.org].

  Parent