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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.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:14PM (3 children)
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)
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
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
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.