
They'll soon get bored with all this
and move into Umbrella companies instead.
Another week, another crypto upstart admitting its lax security has been exploited and parties unknown have made off with millions. But this time there's a twist: the crypto upstart has appealed for the return of its assets by appealing to the thieves' consciences. The crypto concern is Qubit Finance – an outfit that offers …
Given historical returns of bitcoin (nobody has ever lost money if they held bitcoin for four years or more, even if they bought in at at an all-time high price) compared to the performance of cash, stocks, and gold in recent years, if you actually understand blockchain and cryptocurrencies, how do you justify not having a portion of your portfolio as bitcoin?
And in light of the fact that the likes of Tesla, Square, Microstrategy, JP Morgan and a whole long list of institutions with very high-powered economists at their disposal are heavily invested in bitcoin, perhaps you could share some insight as to why you're qualified to know better than them?
> how do you justify not having a portion of your portfolio as bitcoin?
Because I don't want my meagre wealth to be gained at the cost of destroying the planet faster. Because I don't want some of it to have come from theft, extorsion, ransomware, money laundering, people trafficking or any of the other things that Bitcoin is mostly used for.
My qualifications for knowing better than Tesla, Square, Microstrategy and JP Morgan is I'm a human being, not a cold blooded lizard.
Because I don't want my meagre wealth to be gained at the cost of destroying the planet faster.
A worthy sentiment. However the issue of cryptocurrency energy use is basically a solved problem. Ethereum, the second biggest blockchain after bitcoin, is in the process of shifting to a proof-of-stake model that requires no energy-intensive mining. Bitcoin itself could theoretically switch to proof-of-stake, but likely won't, however as its dominance continues to fall over time, that becomes less of an issue - it will probably be overtaken by Ethereum eventually. In any case, lower-power miners are becoming available (Intel just released one, they know where it's at). And mining is increasing done in environmentally-friendly ways. For example gas that was uneconomic to recover and was previously flared off is being used to mine bitcoin in several places actually reducing the carbon footprint.
Because I don't want some of it to have come from theft, extorsion, ransomware, money laundering, people trafficking or any of the other things that Bitcoin is mostly used for.
Again, a fine sentiment, however based on a common misconception. The proportion of cryptocurrency connected to crime is actually less than the proportion of global GDP connected to crime. So if anything, that's a reason to start using crypto, rather than to avoid it.
> In any case, lower-power miners are becoming available (Intel just released one, they know where it's at).
This just means more will be mined for the same amount of power. Proof of work systems will always expand to use as much energy as possible while remaining profitable.
Anyway - the elephant in the room.
Why?
I have yet to be given a single convincing (and legal) use case for cryptocurrencies. People harp on about decentralisation, but my very much centralised bank allows me to make an instant (for all intents and purposes) NFC payment on the other side of the world with 0% FX fee, upto £85k government protected savings, and fraud protection. It seems like a classic case of a solution to problems that don't, or barely, exist.
Fiat currencies are a Ponzy scheme, they are only worth what you allow them to be.
The USD and GBP, along with BTC, ETH et. all are Fiat currencies
The pound left the gold standard in 1931 followed by the dollar in 1971 since then they have been fiat currencies
One of the clearest signs that somebody has no idea what they are doing in crypto is when they refer to fiat currencies as if that were a killing blow.
Maybe you should not be speculating in crypto when you don't even understand why traditional currencies have value?
What a ridiculous statement. Given that the majority of the "all-time high prices" have happened in the last two or so years, your arbitrary timeframe of having held bitcoin for four years nicely - for you - eliminates all those who bought at those prices in the last two years from your consideration.
Come back in two years time and let's see what's happened then. Not saying you wont still be right, but show me any single share price chart and I can find an arbitrary but retrospectively-looking statement of how you couldn't fail to have lost money - if only along the lines of "buy in [insert-random-month-here] and sell in [insert-other-random-month-here]".
Given that the majority of the "all-time high prices" have happened in the last two or so years, your arbitrary timeframe of having held bitcoin for four years nicely
Maybe I assumed too much in terms of general subject knowledge or common sense. Bitcoin has a four-year halving cycle - the interval at which the mining block reward is halved - and this is generally considered to be the driving factor behind the overall market cycles. Thus the choice of a four-year period was anything but arbitrary - over a four-year period, the price at the start and end of the period are approximately the same time delta from the last halving. Any other period and you would be comparing prices at different points in the market cycle, which would be less meaningful.
I look forward to the crying from all the stupids who put most of their net worth into bitcoin and will simply watch it fall, believing that because it has always rebounded in the past it will do so again.
The fact it started falling when the stock market started falling exposes that it is an asset bubble made possible by easy money, and as interest rates rise and money supply tightens it will continue to fall more rapidly than other less "frothy" assets.
Anyone who equates blockchain and Bitcoin doesn't understand blockchain.
Bitcoin may rely on the blockchain but so do many other things. There's a reason smart contracts based on the blockchain are of growing interest to companies. There's a reason countries are exploring blockchain based currencies. There's a reason stable coins are gaining popularity.
As far as investing in Bitcoin at this stage, it's speculative. Then again, so is the stock market and the commodities market. Never forget that “What’s good for General Motors is good for America” was accepted right until GM went bankrupt.
Speaking as a successful investor and not as a financial analyst, unless your investments run to 6 figures, I wouldn't recommend cryptocurrencies. Even then, I would recommend investing in a trust that holds the cryptocurrency. For, myself, I have a small investment in a trust that holds a basket of cryptocurrencies. If you wanted to speculate on a single one, I'd pick Ethereum.
I thought the code was supposed to be the contract, and if the code says you get $78bn, and if the code says you get $78bn if you do whatever they did, then they are acting exactly in accordance with the agreement, even if it wasn't what the authors of the code intended?
creating a website on which they can download records of their holdings being stolen, for presentation to police
Just been reading that the police are now only solving about 3% of burglaries - a crime where a real person breaks in to someone's home and steals something real. What do you think the police are going to be able to do about theft of made up virtual scam coins?
Just been reading that the police are now only solving about 3% of burglaries
That's because they are very busy on Twitter "checking peoples thinking" as they openly admit.
This is where you tweet something. Someone doesn't like it so goes crying to the police. Rather than say "get a grip", the police spot an opportunity to avoid doing any real work (which let's face it is hard and dangerous) and pop around to "have a word" even though no crime has been committed.
Google "Harry Miller" and see if I'm right.
Notice the CoA slapped the police down, and they are STILL doing it.
And wasting millions on pointless investigation into someone saying the wrong word which upsets some Guardian reader.
Or a pretent investigation into no 10 - I will put money on the result being: ''we thoroughly investigated the evidence but did not find enough to warrant a case'' - even though nothing bigger than a mouse can get into and out of the place without CCTV or logging in/out and photography / ID logging etc.
And that it will be released the day when there is another bit of bad news to hide behind. I have half suspected that the SG report was held back hoping that Russia would have invaded Ukraine by now so a great time to release..
I am afraid our government or the current alternatives are not fit for purpose and the police, of which the vast majority of hard working, dedicated officers fighting against the scum and the guidelines, are also run by people who are more concerned about political correctness, thought crime and box ticking.
How have we arrived at a point where a crime against someone can be dismissed while the same crime against someone else is a ''hate crime''.
To badly paraphrase Gene Hunt - a hate crime, as opposed to one of those friendly murders.
The human race needs wiping out in general but some poeple, even more so.
@druck
Oh they will do plenty. And make plenty of noise about what they are doing and how great and clever they are.
After all, tracking down bitcoin "thefts" is far more sexy than visiting a burglary victim, taking a statement, issuing a crime number and then they forget about it.
Would you agree?
Did I miss the bleedin' obvious here?
Criminals, repeat "criminals", lifted $80m and you're offering $2m if they return it? Hmmm, I'm all for the positive attitude and belief in the goodness of people but people are generally greedy sods and if one number is bigger than the other to this magnitude I think it's pretty much gone.
If they take the $2mn, that's legal and they can put it in a bank, so to speak. They can also stop looking over their shoulder.
No laundering, no potential prison time, etc.
That $78m isn't $78m they can spend. They'll have to find a way to get it into fiat currency and launder it.
You'd guess they have a plan, but who knows?
"If they take the $2mn, that's legal and they can put it in a bank, so to speak. They can also stop looking over their shoulder."
Nope, a crime doesn't stop being a crime just because you change your mind and try to undo it later. If I break into your house and steal your TV, I'm still guilty of burglary if I return it next week. There may be less motivation to actually hunt me down since there is no longer anything to be recovered and limited resources may be better spent elsewhere, but the crime was still committed.
Ah, crypto coins, a scandal in waiting. Many know it's a scandal but still have a vested interest.
I'd go to sleep at night wondering if my 'investment' is where I left it, or if someone has secreted it away...... but I know I wouldn't sleep, which is why I don't have any, and never have.
A friend of mine, who got involved in the very early days mining (rather than buying) made a shitload. So, you can sit on the fence of the morals of selling his coins that essentially cost him nothing, to people who potentially knew no better. There's a big but though, many of those buyers are fellow techies who couldn't see any failure, or refuse to believe there will be a failure.
He is actively warning people not to go in now, because it some point it'll all just disappear and you're left holding an empty bag.... that will happen IMO.
Anyone investing in a company that uses a tagline so puke inducing that even a detergent manufacturer wouldn't use the fucking thing, indeed it is borderline "yuppie" in its awfulness, deserves all they get.
I give you "Lend to ascend – Borrow for tomorrow".
And, all hope died...
I am gobsmacked..... how could code be used in unintended ways? As in a bug/unintended feature?
<QUOTE>
Last Friday Qubit admitted one of its protocols had been exploited in unintended ways, with the result that attackers made off with $80 million of crypto assets.
<END QUOTE>
I've been involved in hardware and software since the early 70's.... and I have yet to see a perfect implementation of any system..
As one of my professors once said.. The only Code that is bug free is a 'RESET' instruction as the first instruction to be executed on a reset... and just about as useful..... and then there will probably be a hardware fault.
The concept of 'smart contracts' is brilliant... the implementation is a nightmare... Bug Free? Hell.. I know of no bug free code in existence.... (that happens to be useful)
The reason that major stock markets have a T+3 Settlement date officially is to allow 'errors' to be unwound.. Dangerous consequences for high frequency traders as institutions found out in the flash crash as they bought very very low and sold higher..... to find out that they did sell higher.. but did not buy low..... and in fact had lost a great deal, or open stop loss orders were executed.
Over 21,000 trades were invalidated.. ( https://archive.boston.com/business/markets/articles/2010/05/21/sec_eyes_new_rules_in_wake_of_flash_crash/ ) not so simple to do with a 'smart contract' that 'may/probably' has bugs...
so.. waiting for my education to begin to help me understand why the 'smart contract' approach has a chance of success...