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Cybercriminals are increasingly moving away from bitcoin as their preferred digital currency in favor of lesser-known cryptocurrencies because of prolonged transaction delays, surging transaction costs and general market volatility, experts tell CyberScoop.
Although cybercriminals have been slowly moving away from bitcoin for months, researchers say a noticeable shift towards alternative coins — such as Monero, Dash and ZCash — occurred when bitcoin's value skyrocketed over $19,000 for one bitcoin in mid-December. The price has drastically fluctuated between $12,000 and roughly $19,000 since then.
"Many cybercriminals emulate the operational best practices of legitimate businesses in order to minimize their overhead costs and maximize returns, and in the case of high transaction costs with bitcoin, it makes perfect sense to look at other coins with smaller overheads," said Richard Henderson, a global security strategist with endpoint cybersecurity firm Absolute.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday January 05 2018, @09:07PM (1 child)
"the dollar's value isn't just "based on faith." It's based on taxation"
Um...this would be the government that spends far more than its income, by something north of $500 billion per year? The government with acknowledged debts exceeding the annual GDP of the entire country, and unfunded liabilities at least 10 times that? The US will never be able to pay back its debts, except by borrowing money from someone else. Eventually, that carousel is going to stop, and the result will be financial carnage.
BitCoin, or Monero, or whatever: they work through a combination of enforced scarcity plus the fact that people are willing to trade things for them. That's pretty much the practical definition of a currency. There is no cloud of debt hanging over them. The current volatility is due to the fact that they haven't yet found their permanent role in society, and is unfortunately magnified by speculation. Over time, left to develop, they will stabilize.
The danger to digital currencies is that governments will try to strangle them in the crib. Governments are jealous of their power, and much of that power is tied to their currencies. This is especially true of countries whose financial foundations are shakier than publicly acknowledged: mainly the US, Japan, most members of the EU, and possibly China. I expect to see these countries try to outlaw or co-opt digital currencies in the course of the next year or two. How successful such efforts might be, well, it's hard to predict.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday January 06 2018, @03:19AM
Short reply: government budgets don't work like your household budget. Nor like corporations. Government budgets that are sovereign in their own currency creation work differently from government budgets that aren't (e.g. state governments, EU member states). Government debt denominated in the sovereign currency is very different from government debt denominated in foreign currencies.
Read a macroeconomics textbook. Yes, all governments will eventually collapse... Yes. But worrying about debt in the way you're framing it just doesn't take into account the way money creation and dynamics work with sovereign governments in the real world.
As for the digital currencies... Maybe one or more will eventually stabilize. But right now they are better seen as volatile investment vehicles. I sincerely doubt Bitcoin is ever going to be the answer, even if we settle on a digital currency decades into the future. And the scarcity thing in Bitcoin right now is a positive for investors but will eventually cause major deflation which is an economic disaster long-term if it were actually adopted as primary currency.