Every new day seems to bring another new Bitcoin scandal -- whether it's a hacked exchange, stolen wallets, frozen funds, collapsed Ponzi schemes, arrested illegal-market operators, or who knows what else.<p>Yet, despite all this, Bitcoin keeps appreciating, recently reaching an all-time high.[1]<p>--<p>[1] <a href="https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all" rel="nofollow">https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all</a>
It might be interesting to note that someone in the discussion under the original article (an unregistered user going by the name 'The one who knows') claims that "the admin of bitcash.cz Carlos upset the czech hacker comunity SooM.cz and accordingly to Blockchain (<a href="https://blockchain.info/tx/44f66e60460926d1ac75667ce3060429000f7cbd30e9afe5a1f3af62cae7727f" rel="nofollow">https://blockchain.info/tx/44f66e60460926d1ac75667ce30604290...</a>) it looks like those hackers donated all the BTC that was on bitcash.cz to wikileaks".
Please. Please. For the love of god please. <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_secure_offline_savings_wallet" rel="nofollow">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_secure_offline_sa...</a>
I'm getting somewhat tired of these kinds of stories, the stories <i>and</i> the responses here both follow identical patterns.<p>1) Security is compromised at an entity that deals somehow with bitcoins. The security of the blockchain remains unimpacted, it is as relevant to the fundamentals of the currency as much as someone getting robbed is relevant to the fundamentals of the fiat currency they were robbed in.<p>2) Much whining and gnashing of teeth ensues as to how bitcoin is going to collapse any second now because clearly it is just some crazy snake oil and look at the rash of compromises as evidence, and by the way it also happens I disapprove of it because it goes against my views on what a currency needs to be.<p>3) People respond much along the lines I'm responding now.<p>4) It devolves into an ideological argument along the lines of the characteristics of the currency itself and the potential death of fiat money and its implications.<p>Conclusion; Some people are fundamentally ideologically opposed to bitcoin and will use whatever they can to drag it through the mud at every opportunity.<p>Compromising the blockchain or the fundamentals of bitcoin itself is news, even when it's overblown or exaggerated like the recent Cornell findings, some venture getting owned because they failed to adequately secure their place of business is par for the course and barely a footnote at this point in time.<p>For the first time in normal everyday business history, security <i>really matters</i> now. You can't just put up a banner with the legal penalties for acting against corporate policy and actually expect to hold people accountable via the legal system for ignoring your banner, the new rules are that you need <i>real</i> security.<p>Frankly I think that's a good thing and something that is far overdue, the swiss cheese state of general security practices coupled with the apathy and ignorance of general computer users has gone on for far too long, but because the individuals in question were never held personally to account there was never the motivation to really fix the problem.<p>Now there is, people need to accept this new paradigm if they want to deal in this space.
This is the third story in two weeks. Either the hacking attempts are increasing or the site owners are cashing out. Either way it's bad news. Anyone with bitcoins must use an offline wallet.
I'd love to say there's some more nefarious work going on, like governments trying to quash Bitcoin and executing these hacks...<p>But my guess is it comes down to poor security.