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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the keep-your-private-keys-offline dept.

There's a new contender for the largest theft of cryptocurrency ever:

A Japanese cryptocurrency exchange announced the theft Friday of $400 million in digital currency. Some estimates put the loss at the Coincheck exchange at over $520 million.

The stolen assets were stored in the cryptocurrency NEM, one of hundreds of digital currencies created in recent years. Bitcoin, the most well-known cryptocurrency, dropped precipitously on news of the hack but has since regained much of its value.

The incident could be one of the largest single losses of cryptocurrency ever, rivaling only the 2014 hack of online exchange Mt. Gox. Reports at the time put Mt. Gox's losses at over $400 million.

Coincheck says 500 million digital coins were lost. According to Cointelgraph, hackers stole the private key protecting access to Coincheck's accounts.

Does it matter that it was a $400 million theft if the value is going to collapse anyway?

Meanwhile, a stock trading app called Robinhood plans to allow users to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum without any transaction fees.


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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:20AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:20AM (#629371)

    ... then it's someone else's gold.

    I gave it a good try. It's too difficult to comment on this website; life is too short to be re-submitting a simple comment 16 times before it's allowed through; you script kiddie assholes can have your echo chamber. I'm outta here.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:30AM (9 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:30AM (#629375) Journal

      If you gave it a great try you could have made an account.

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      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:31AM (8 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:31AM (#629392)

        What's wrong with posting anonymously?

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:36AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:36AM (#629393)

          When you have an account, there is literally a checkbox that says "Post Anonymously".

          -- posted anonymously from my registered account

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:38AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:38AM (#629394)

            You can keep that checkbox checked by default too.

        • (Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:30PM (5 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:30PM (#629454)

          What's not anonymous about a pseudonym that traces back to a throwaway e-mail account?

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:25PM (4 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @06:25PM (#629527)

            You're identifying a corpus of data to process.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:42PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:42PM (#629551)

              "Anonymous", You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.

              (signed, the successful submitter at first attempt anon)

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:59PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:59PM (#629557)

              and your ip is stored in a hash the server tracks, so unless you are proxying in a way that can not be easily traced back to you then you're still identifiable to some degree within the SN database. You're only anonymous to most users reading the page.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @08:41PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @08:41PM (#629566)

                You said it yourself.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:06PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:06PM (#629604)
              If you want to play games, you can script your throwaway signin process and give misleading groups of data to look at.

              Or, you can use the Anonymous button when posting and trust the Buzzard et.al. have better things to do than de-anonymize your posts for pattern recognition analysis.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:26AM (21 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:26AM (#629373)

    From a financial perspective stolen crypto money is money that has its intrinsic value reduced to 0, immediately. For cryptos to become a serious alternative to government backed money the crypto community has to prevent these kinds of thefts to a minimum.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:31AM (9 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:31AM (#629376) Journal

      Are you telling me nobody has ever sold or traded "stolen Bitcoins"?

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      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:38AM (4 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:38AM (#629377) Journal

        Are you telling me nobody has ever sold or traded "stolen Bitcoins"?

        No, takyon, he is telling you that no one should be able to. I know you are a fictional sub-atomic particle, but do try to be less dense, please?

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:44AM (3 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:44AM (#629379) Journal

          It would be nice if all paper money transactions were traceable too. Down with anonymity!

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          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:52AM (1 child)

            by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:52AM (#629383) Journal

            Block-chained to your actual identity? Yeah, so now we see where the entire basis for crypto-currency lies: Train-robbery like the James Gang, with gold instead of paper with numbers on it. Ref:Season One, Episode one, "Firefly". This food-stuff is molecularly tagged, so you can't sell it to any one but crazy ladies on moons who tried to kill you before. Or, possibly, khallow?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @03:58PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @03:58PM (#629840)

              Are you saying khallow isn't a crazy lady on the moon that wants to kill us?

          • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday January 29 2018, @12:57AM

            by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Monday January 29 2018, @12:57AM (#629656) Homepage Journal

            I guess you've never seen our American money, our beautiful Greenbacks. Every one has a VERY SPECIAL number, they call it a serial number. If our money ever gets stolen, very easy to trace that number. And GRAB, GRAB, GRAB that money. When President Lincoln invented Greenbacks, it was hard to trace. But he knew that the age of computer, the age of robot, would come. Very smart guy!

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:50AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:50AM (#629382)

        Of course not. With trading intrinsic value is increased (if the traded value gets lower than purchase price, people have less incentive to sell as nobody wants to loose money), because money is stolen the purchase price is 0, so there is an incentive to sell at any price available (no loss in the first place). Of course, this is not the best strategy, but stolen coins can get too hot to hold (and of course the thieves want cold hard cash instead of cryptos).

        My point is the exact opposite. Thieves most likely want to get rid of them asap and dump at any price, this reduces value stored previously that was build up by trading. The same point why "HODL" is a bad strategy for a coin to build up value and increases volatility.

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:57AM (2 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:57AM (#629384) Journal

          Thanks! That makes sense.

          SODL

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          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:00AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:00AM (#629386)

            More like "cryptocoins have to roll!"

            • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:17PM

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:17PM (#629469) Homepage
              Get with the porgram - they have to RLOL!
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:32PM (5 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:32PM (#629455)

      From a financial perspective stolen crypto money is money that has its intrinsic value reduced to 0, immediately.

      Um... no, stolen crypto money is money that has had its marketable value transferred to another owner against the previous owner's will - invalidating the central principle of crypto money: only you can spend your digital cash.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:31PM (4 children)

        by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:31PM (#629547) Journal

        As a person who never got into cryptocurrency, here is what I don't get about stealing bitcoins -- as I understand it, the blockchain is supposed to record every transaction, so if a thief transfers the coin after it is stolen, or the transfer is itself the theft, then that transaction should be recorded and all future users should know the coin was stolen. I get that a pseudonym can be used for identity, but eventually, if you want anything of value out of the coin you are going to have to engage in behavior that risks revealing who you are when the thief exchanges it for goods or services.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:04PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:04PM (#629603)

          Uh, yeah, I tried debating that point ~8-10 years ago and was roundly shouted out of the room by people who wanted to astroturf the perception that it is a securely anonymous system (Silk Road vendors and their like, I would guess), and for ~7 years most people seemed to believe the astroturfers. Only lately, when the Wall Street analysts have really started to dig in, have I seen this "it can't ever be truly anonymous, because traceability is a core design component" logic come up to a level where average users are starting to believe it.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday January 29 2018, @02:16PM (2 children)

          by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday January 29 2018, @02:16PM (#629805) Journal

          I believe it is just as possible to launder crypto, similar to but with slightly different methods than cash. As a person who has just barely gotten into cryptocurrency for fun, but not as an investor and not as a purchaser of goods, I think the breakdown of the system would lie like this:

          1) Stolen amount is transferred to a particular wallet.
          2) Amounts from that stolen wallet are shell-game transferred into different accounts, perhaps with multiple leaps. (Transfer 1 to wallet X, Transfer 2 to wallet Y1 and Y2, Transfer 3 to wallet Z... Z1... Z2.... Z3).
          Those different subsidiary wallets are either :
          3) Funneled into exchanges in countries with loose banking (the governments turn a blind eye, or regulators aren't very interested,) and then exchanged for cash/gold/whatever and cashed out under fictitious (or stolen) identities. OR
          3) Goods and services are indeed purchased with them, again to a fictitiously created identity. Wallet Z3, by the way, has been used dozens upon dozens of times for all sorts of transfer activity. So if traced back to owner Z3 at address A (and for that kind of money you can do all sorts of 1 month rentals of places that are empty and abandoned), but Z3 still has plausible deniability that he got the bitcoin from Y2 for selling Y2 his ________, and my account also has A1/B1/C3 transactions. Prove that it wasn't in good faith, copper!
          3) From the exchange rule above, the thief is well connected in that jurisdiction such that you can forget about getting him by anything less than extraordinary rendition.

          I know from my experience that I did have to provide a copy of my ID card and a photo of my face (IIRC) to open a trading account at Coinbase. But all it would take is a photocopy of a driver's license (you don't even have to "steal" it permanently - probably better that way). And you're already dealing with criminals - I'm sure they would go through less effort than I would to launder it because connections.

          This is the positive ethical side of why groups like FINCEN want to have all these stupid and chilling rules about monitoring all financial activity. Unless they can trace every step of a process they will get lost in the middlemen.

          At any rate, this is also proof of something very fundamental to working with cryptocurrency: You NEVER leave a negotiable amount in a trading account of exchange. Get it, shift it to a paper wallet, then reshift from paper back into the exchange when you're ready to cash out. Count the fees you'll pay as necessary costs of doing business in crypto, for the sake of security. That is, if you're doing anything but day trading it.... and anybody day (or second) trading had better be prepared to kiss the whole amount away in an instant for reasons other than hacking. Exchanges AIN'T banks, generally, and are always risky.

          --
          This sig for rent.
          • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:13AM (1 child)

            by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:13AM (#630833) Journal

            It seems to me that since all transactions are recorded, a coin could be reported stolen via some method [insert magic that makes it reliable and accurate] and thus marked. Could not future transactions be checked against the stolen list and thereby aborted? This would render stolen coins worthless until returned to the last valid owner.

            • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday January 31 2018, @03:41PM

              by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday January 31 2018, @03:41PM (#630980) Journal

              Interesting. Is it technically possible to tag things this way? A system could probably be designed that way. (Or "disputed" coin, perhaps). One would record a ledger entry this way.... the technical challenge being, what is the balance of the respective owner(s) while the dispute is ongoing? Do you take the balance away from the wallet so it can't be retransferred? Or are the next transfers out of that wallet to that amount marked as disputed and the new receiver carries the risk / or do you not permit any balance transfers from an account that is disputed?

              But aside from that, here's why it won't work in most public cryptos: Cryptocurrency has NO true central authority once the system is rolling - it only has the collectivity of the miners. So who allows a dispute to be "valid"? Can I just say, "Hey, I never got my stuff! Freeze those coins!" Literally nobody exists to judge the validity of such a claim, let alone rule on it. The proposal I had above for reversing a huge theft requires concurrency of enough of the blockchain creators (the miners) to all agree that a particular transaction is invalid. Last I heard, for Bitcoin, there were about 10,000 mining entities. A lot of those entities are collectives, maybe with a central dictator for any single entity but maybe not. Even without considering that, you're asking 5,001 people/groups to come to agreement that one single transaction should be changed. Will you do that for $500 million? Yeah, maybe. Will you do it for $100, EVERY time someone screams? Doubtful. But that's the ONLY method to reverse a transaction.

              And since cryptocurrency has something of a Libertarian bent, you're going to get a whole lot of those 10,000 saying, "too bad, so sad, thanks for playing." The system is designed with criteria in mind that every actor - the miners, the purchasers/transferrers, the exchanges, all of them have no reason to trust each other. Their validity comes from sharing agreement on the record of all previous transactions. And acknowledging a certain transaction is bad requires trust. (Not just emotionally, but the actual process of accepting that things should be different because X). They all only collectively agree on what is good, by the cementing of the blockchain with future blocks that incorporate all previous ones. It is a sort of technological Tower of Babel... and asking them to dismantle and reassemble the last X floors takes a tremendous effort. This decentralization is baked into the very core of what cryptocurrency is and why it is different from other systems.

              In private cryptos, where there is one agency at work who IS a central authority figure - yes.... that's possible. In fact, it would be interesting to find out from the big-bank (and other big business) players inventing their own cryptosystems what they do with such a thing. Because a bank must be able to admit it is wrong and reverse transactions.

              --
              This sig for rent.
    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:14PM (3 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:14PM (#629468) Homepage
      From any perspective, all crypto money is money that has intrinsic value always at 0.

      It's the ultimate fiat - it's even fiat without any actual fiat!
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:54PM (1 child)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:54PM (#629478)

        Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi would have wept tears of joy at the beauty of it:

        No central owner / top of the pyramid to villify and convict.

        All "potential victims" are willfully buying into something that clearly advertises no intrinsic value.

        Once "in" the only way "out" for investors of cash or effort is to find another investor to exchange cash for "secret" numbers in a computer.

        Unlimited inventory, sure the "algorithm" drives a sense of scarcity that inflates the perceived value, but the whole scheme can be "warehoused" on a tiny little disc drive.

        Open source, others are freely copying the scheme, diluting attention and making enforcement of any yet-to-be conceived regulations more challenging.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday January 29 2018, @12:40AM

          by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Monday January 29 2018, @12:40AM (#629654) Homepage Journal

          They call it distributed. Our Federal Reserve System is distributed too. Little Rocket Man nukes San Francisco, nukes Los Angeles, nukes Chicago, nukes New York City, it's no problem for our Federal Reserve. Because that leaves 8 banks. Beautiful system!!!!

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday January 29 2018, @02:35PM

        by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday January 29 2018, @02:35PM (#629809) Journal

        Depends on your definition of fiat, and whether it requires a government. I'd rather think of it as the purest form of pure fiat - something intrinsically useless that neverthess holds value as a medium of exchange.

        And it's not from "any" perspective it has zero intrinsic value. From the perspective of finance, intrinsic value is a present discounted realization of future value. With crypto, I think someone is insane to believe they can predict future value of it... but people do try. From a physical medium perspective, do you think the intrinsic worth of the paper of your dollar bills has anything to do with its value? Does your bank balance carry an intrinsic value different from crypto, and if so why or why not? Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that from the perspective you're advancing, every fiat currency on earth therefore has an intrinsic value of 0.

        --
        This sig for rent.
    • (Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:45PM

      by tftp (806) on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:45PM (#629620) Homepage

      From a financial perspective stolen crypto money is money that has its intrinsic value reduced to 0, immediately.

      Even if you guarantee that the stolen coins will not be accepted by the system - though I haven't heard of such mechanism, as it can be used to rob people of their holdings - they will be gladly accepted by the place from which they had been stolen. At a fee that will be much smaller, but delivered in a briefcase full of cash.

      Alternatively, all the stolen coins are sent to a mixer - a dozen times.

  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:41AM (10 children)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:41AM (#629395) Journal

    the exchange is refunding the money.
    Now.. how do you prove it is yours!

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/28/japan-cryptocurrency-exchange-coincheck-refund-stolen-nem [theguardian.com]

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:24PM (3 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:24PM (#629471) Homepage
      And what have they done to the recipients of the stolen coins, who bought them cheap when they were hot? (See A/C's comment upthread about how ditching these as quickly as possible at any price was probably the best thing to do (as a Nash equilibrium)). If the powers that be have the ability to undo those transactions, then they can undo any transaction, and no transaction can be trusted. If they have the ability to force the stolen money out of your account, then no money is safe in your account. If they just have to simultaniously leave it in your hands and give it back to the original owners, then they've magicked new money out of thin air. All of these things are things that cryptos were supposed to prevent, or at least perceived problems with the current financial systems that the cryptos were supposed to help with.

      The Crypto Emperor yet again appears to have no clothes, but hodlers gotta hodl.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday January 28 2018, @05:23PM (1 child)

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday January 28 2018, @05:23PM (#629508) Journal

        If the powers that be have the ability to undo those transactions

        From the article linked from the post you replied to; emphasis by me:

        Coincheck said it would use its cash to reimburse about 46.3bn yen to the 260,000 people who lost their holdings of NEM, the world’s 10th-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation.

        So, no reversal of transaction, nor magical creation of more; rather payment of non-crypto money.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:46PM

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday January 28 2018, @09:46PM (#629591) Homepage
          Whaaaat, they're using that non-crypto stuff? Flicking hypocrites.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday January 29 2018, @02:46PM

        by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday January 29 2018, @02:46PM (#629812) Journal

        They can indeed undo any transaction. IF 51% of all active miners - however that it parsed by the mutually agreed upon rules of the network - agree that a transaction or transaction(s) should be erased from a blockchain, then it is. And then all subsequent transactions (receivers) either A) do not exist/are also rolled back and are likewise purged which screws the buyers, or B) are allowed to debase the system.

        The security of the process is that you must get agreement from over half of the blockchain creators to agree to take out a transaction which was firmed up by subsequent blocks. That's so easy to say, just like "if all the countries in the world would throw away their nukes we'd have a nuke-free world! That's so EASY!" And since every transaction since that also forms part of the hash that verifies the overall blockchain.... not sure what that does but it is interesting.

        This is still more reliable than your bank, which is one entity which can decide if you get to keep your money you have with them or not by the pushing of buttons.

        --
        This sig for rent.
    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:50PM

      by Bot (3902) on Sunday January 28 2018, @07:50PM (#629555) Journal

      it's a good idea actually. Those who have nothing to hide can get refunded. I guess baddies and those who dealt with them are SOL. Which is unfair to those dealing with baddies. Such is life.

      --
      Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:12PM (4 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:12PM (#629606)

      It's a lawsuit dodge: anybody with enough proof to give them trouble in court will be given their money back, probably in proportion with the solidity of that proof.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:30PM (3 children)

        by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:30PM (#629615) Journal

        Interestingly, while wikipedia calls it a cryptocurrency, NEM themselves don't suggest anything about the exchange is private, or anonymous.

        https://nem.io/ [nem.io]

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:00PM (2 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:00PM (#629624)

          Cryptocurrency, at its root, can never be anonymous - otherwise you could double-spend it.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:14PM (1 child)

            by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:14PM (#629627) Journal

            Yes, but it nice, in a way, that these guys don't even pretend.

            --
            "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:27PM

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 28 2018, @11:27PM (#629628)

              I think that crypto pretending to be anonymous went out of fashion within the last year... it's only very recently that I've seen any mainstream media articles that don't call it "anonymous."

              --
              🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:42AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:42AM (#629396)

    Nobody heard of NEM. Now the creator who has "billions of dollars worth" wants to cash out. So they engineer a heist to get into the news and maybe gain interest from some idiots who want to "buy the dip".

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:26PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:26PM (#629472) Homepage
      It was a top-10 crypto (by count of angels dancing on its pinhead). Maybe nobody heard of it in the west (except as yet another meaningless ticker on a trading site), but it was pretty big in the far east.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday January 28 2018, @08:28PM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday January 28 2018, @08:28PM (#629563) Journal

    Meanwhile, a stock trading app called Robinhood plans to allow users to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum without any transaction fees.

    Would you really feel comfortable entrusting your digital money to an app named for someone who got famous for stealing from the rich to give to the poor?

    I mean, if you are trading stock, you probably don't exactly belong to the poor …

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:14PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:14PM (#629609)

      Poor is relative (and don't we all have at least a few poor relatives?)

      The IT guy who traded me a bitcoin for a piece of software back in 2010 ($4.50 nominal value at the time) was mining coins on whatever hardware he could lay his hands on - the company didn't have metered electricity in the lease so nobody cared that the server room was a little warm. I'd guess he was salaried somewhere below $30K per year at the time - not exactly poor, but poor enough to think that Robin Hood might toss him a bone once in awhile.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
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