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?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:23PM
FTFY. I wouldn't speak of it as unique. There was quite the rat's nest of perverse incentives at play in this crisis.