Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Banks
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
|
|
Miners mine where electricity is cheap and abundant. No one is taking electricity away from people in need.
2 Billion people worldwide are unbanked. In the good old US of A, there are 9 million households without a bank account. 24.5 million more households are underbanked. Seems like the current financial system isn't doing so well.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
Bitcoin electrical consumption isn’t relevant?
Reuters:
Canada's Quebec halts crypto mining projects, may raise fees
By Allison Lampert | MONTREAL
Canada's Quebec province said on Thursday it has halted approvals for new digital currency mining projects to give it time to consider restrictions on their operations and raising the rates they pay for power.
The provincial government announced the move as state-owned power generator Hydro Quebec said it has asked the province to limit total power available to all digital currency miners to a block of 500 megawatts. That is about enough energy to run a single aluminum smelting plant, or a fraction of the 17,000 megawatts in capacity requested so far by miners looking to operate in Quebec.
Hmmmm... provide electricity for jobs and meaningful things or give it away so criminals can launder their ill gotten gains?
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
|
Sep 15, 2018 - 09:43pm PT
|
Here's a really insightful discussion on cryptocurrency, bitcoin and digital financial services, or so I thought, between Sean Carroll (Caltech) and Neha Narula (MIT). She's so clear. I wish somehow I could've heard this very same talk back in 2013 or so.
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2018/09/10/episode-13-neha-narula-on-blockchain-cryptocurrency-and-the-future-of-the-internet/
One reason among others I wanted to listen to this was for more discussion on money as a "made-up" convention/invention we trust in (Harari's "fiction" or "story" we believe in). Thought one or two here might enjoy for any of several reasons. What a charming, pleasant voice she's got too.
I'm willing to bet cryptocurrency acquires a better name - digital something or other, perhaps - as this evolutionary development continues. We'll see.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Oct 10, 2018 - 09:07am PT
|
Teuters:
Cryptocurrency theft hits nearly $1 billion in first nine months: report
Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Theft of cryptocurrencies through hacking of exchanges and trading platforms soared to $927 million in the first nine months of the year, up nearly 250 percent from the level seen in 2017, according to a report from U.S.-based cyber security firm CipherTrace released on Wednesday.
The report, which looks at criminal activity and money laundering in the digital currency market, also showed a steadily growing number of smaller thefts in the $20-60 million range, totaling $173 million in the third quarter.
Digital currencies stolen from exchanges in 2017 totaled just $266 million, according to a previous report from CipherTrace.
Bitcoin’s popularity and the emergence of more than 1,600 other digital coins or tokens have drawn more hackers into the cryptocurrency space, expanding opportunities for crime and fraud.
“The regulators are still a couple of years behind because there are only a few countries that have really applied strong anti-money laundering laws,” Dave Jevans, chief executive officer of CipherTrace, told Reuters in an interview.
Jevans is also the chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a global organization that aims to help solve cyber crime.
He said there are likely 50 percent more criminal transactions than those that were traced for this report. For instance, CipherTrace is aware of more than $60 million in cryptocurrency that was stolen but not reported.
The data also showed that the world’s top cryptocurrency exchanges from countries with weak anti-money laundering regulations (AML) have been used to launder $2.5 billion worth of bitcoins since 2009. The top 20 virtual currency exchanges in terms of volume were analyzed for the report.
The CipherTrace report declined to name those exchanges.
These money-laundered funds represent transactions that CipherTrace was able to directly monitor and designate as criminal or highly suspect.
In estimating the $2.5 billion, CipherTrace looked at about 350 million transactions from the 20 exchanges and found 100 million of those with counterparties. From there, the firm was able to cross-check the 100 million transactions with its own data on criminal activity.
At the same time, these exchanges have also been used to purchase 236,979 bitcoins worth of criminal services, equivalent to approximately $1.5 billion at current prices, the report showed.
“All exchanges get these money-laundered funds. You really can’t stop them,” said Jevans.
“And here’s the reason why. We learn about the criminal stuff often times after it actually happened. So there’s no way to know in real time. You can know 80-90 percent of the time, but it’s impossible to know 100 percent,” he added.
Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Andrea Ricci
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Yeah, Bitcoin is da bomb!
|
|
Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
|
|
|
Oct 11, 2018 - 07:48am PT
|
Despite losses from delinquent accounts and fraud, credit cards are highly profitable, returning 4%. Retail banking returns 1.4%. Retail banking is like selling gas, the real money is in the mini-mart junk fod and drink. In banking the real money is in the "junk" (credit cards and other products)
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Oct 11, 2018 - 08:19am PT
|
That $927 million in stolen cryptos is actually closer to 4% of cryptos’ market cap. That ain’t chopped liver and I rather doubt that 3% credit card loss figure that was tossed out as credit card companies do a much better job these days of stopping suspected fraudulent payments. With so much business being online now ‘stuff’ doesn’t go out the door before the dirty deed gets found out.
|
|
Banks
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
|
|
|
Oct 11, 2018 - 02:50pm PT
|
The current market cap of cryptos is 200 Billion, so that 927 million dollar figure represents .5%, not 4%.
Very simple solution to the theft problem......Don't leave your bitcoin/crypto on sketchy exchanges! And if you really really need to keep some on an exchange, use a U.S. based one.
|
|
Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
|
|
|
Oct 11, 2018 - 03:54pm PT
|
With so much business being online now ‘stuff’ doesn’t go out the door before the dirty deed gets found out.
and the credit card companies delay payment to give themselves time to figure out if a transaction is fraudulent. My credit card is constantly asking me to verify transactions.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Oct 12, 2018 - 08:46am PT
|
Banks, thank you. That’s why I’m typing this in the sponging-house.
Basic math does lay me by the lee at times. 🤡
Jon, yes, our card has an app which notifies us of every charge within seconds. It does make it hard to surprise the wifey. On the other hand just a few weeks ago we were able to deny payment to some trendy online boutique in Spain.
ps
And for those that think cryptos are significant compare the total market cap of all cryptos,
currently in low $200 billion range, to the daily FOREX volume of $5 TRILLION!!!
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Oct 18, 2018 - 09:34am PT
|
Reuters:
Hacked, scammed and on your own: navigating cryptocurrency 'wild west'
Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - When Peggy and Marco Lachmann-Anke learned in January that hackers cracked a 40-character password and cleaned out their cryptocurrency wallet, they did not go to the police or alert the tokens’ issuer, the Berlin-based technology group IOTA.
They bought more coins.
The Cyprus-based German couple, who describe themselves as financial educators, figured they had no chance of recovering the coins and it was not even clear who might take up their case. Yet they took the roughly $14,000 loss in stride - something that comes with the territory when one bets on a new, exciting technology in a yet unregulated market.
“We really believe in cryptocurrencies. We have studied this for about a year before investing, so we are aware of the risks,” Peggy Lachmann-Anke said. “There was nothing we could do.”
Far from unusual, the episode is emblematic for a market where few rules apply and where investors’ faith in the blockchain technology goes hand in hand with the belief that it also helps criminals cover their tracks so well that trying to catch them is a fool’s errand.
Patrick Wyman, FBI supervisory special agent at the financial crimes section of the agency’s anti-money laundering unit acknowledges cryptocurrencies pose some unique challenges.
“A decentralized currency system like bitcoin, or another form of virtual currency is not governed by any entity, suspicious reporting activity, and any anti-money laundering compliance,” Wyman told Reuters.
Various estimates show cryptocurrency crime is on the rise, keeping pace with the market’s rapid growth. That forces investigators to focus on high-profile cases, security professionals and officials say, effectively leaving small investors to their own devices.
“We do not pretend that every law enforcement agency is devoting resources to every single crime. That would not be possible,” said Jaroslav Jakubcek, an analyst at Europol, which serves as a center for the European Union’s law enforcement cooperation, expertise and intelligence.
UNREPORTED CASES
Officials still encourage people to report cryptocurrency theft to local police like any other crime, saying failing to do so only emboldens criminals.
Yet because many victims simply do not see the point, cryptocurrency theft is far more common than any published estimates suggest, security professionals say.
According to financial research firm Autonomous NEXT and Crypto Aware, which works with investors affected by crypto scams, about 15 percent of cryptocurrencies have been stolen between 2012 and the first half of 2018, representing a cumulative $1.7 billion in value at the time of the theft and with a rising tendency. In the first half of this year alone, more than $800 million has already been stolen, according to the data. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2Nq3ngy)
Yet Lex Sokolin, a partner and global director of fintech strategy at the firm, estimates that as much as 85 percent of crimes go unreported and says the published statistics only represent publicly reported heists.
Reuters interviews with half a dozen victims paint a similar picture. Out of that group only two reported their losses to the authorities and one soured on cryptocurrency investments.
Armin Fischer, a Vienna-based IT specialist said he lost about $5,300 in ether coins in a phishing scam in the summer of 2017 and immediately alerted the local police just to find out that the duty officer had no idea what he was talking about.
He said it took many months of knocking on doors to get his case ultimately taken up by Vienna prosecutors’ office, but it is still pending. Fisher says by now he has had enough.
“I have seen firsthand how big the security leaks are.”
Others are more philosophical.
Dave Appleton, a blockchain developer for HelloGold, a gold trading app company in Kuala Lumpur, said he lost about $3,000 of ether coins when scammed by a fake site touting a startup’s token pre-sale. He said he just moved on, glad he did not lose more.
“The point is there’s no one to report the crime to,” Appleton said. “I am not sure what country or jurisdiction it would come under.”
According ICO tracker Coinschedule a record $21.3 billion flowed into new tokens so far this year as investors keep snapping up “initial coin offerings,” undeterred by high-profile heists, bitcoin’s and other currencies’ slide from late 2017 peaks, and government warnings of widespread fraud and theft.
MILLIONS AT STAKE
David Jevans, chief executive of cybersecurity firm CipherTrace in Menlo Park, California, estimates that even when exchanges or trading platforms get hacked, perhaps only a fifth of stolen coins is recovered because of the ease with which digital tokens can move across several borders.
“You have to get law enforcement in five countries interested enough, have time enough, and have evidence enough to open a case,” he said. “By the time they agree, get the information, do all the paperwork, the money has been moved.”
Security experts say in most cases millions need to be at stake to justify such an effort.
U.S. entrepreneur and long-time cryptocurrency investor Michael Terpin, who says he got robbed twice, learned firsthand that not all hacks are created equal.
He said first time when criminals accessed his cellphone with stolen SIM card credentials, emptied a wallet connected to it, and tricked his friends into sending money by impersonating him on Skype, he contacted a friend at the FBI.
But once she learned that only $60,000 got stolen, she advised him to file a report via the FBI’s internet crime center website. Terpin said he did, but never heard back.
Then, when last January he lost almost $24 million in tokens from his mobile account, he went straight after the service provider AT&T, filing a $224 million lawsuit accusing it of negligence that allowed “digital identity theft,” a claim AT&T denies.
Undeterred, Terpin says he remains committed to blockchain comparing it to the early days of Amazon.com Inc when the online retailer faced much skepticism and even derision.
“That’s similar to today’s narrative that all ICOs (initial coin offerings) are scams and nothing will ever be developed of value because they’re not already fully deployed,” he said.
Steadfast commitment to the new technology and belief that it gives sophisticated criminals the upper hand mean that even some multimillion heists go unreported.
For example, when hackers stole about $9 million worth of ether tokens from a Zug, Switzerland-based company Swarm City in July 2017, the peer-to-peer digital platform did not report the theft to the police, business leader Bernd Lapp said.
“It’s impossible to track and return the funds. We live and die with this technology.”
Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Tomasz Janowski
|
|
Banks
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
|
|
|
Oct 18, 2018 - 11:59am PT
|
Just another article spreading FUD.
The first couple did something wrong(like expose their password) because 40 character passwords don't get broken. Also, anyone who actually studied crypto for a year, like they said they did, would know better than to invest in IOTA.
The second case was a phishing scam. Happens all over the internet to the tune of billions of dollars a year. Nothing unique to crypto.
The third case is also nothing new. The guy fell for a fake site. Next.
In the last case, its a split between the guy being a moron and ATT being negligent. Only an idiot would keep 24 million on a mobile wallet for the exact reason of what happened. Phone got stolen, thieves conned an ATT employee to change the SIM. Coins gone.
This isn't rocket science. Keep any substantial amount of money off line in cold storage. If you need to keep an amount on an exchange for trading purposes, use a US based exchange, not some sketchy overseas exchange.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2018 - 09:17am PT
|
Bitcoin payment usage has dropped 75% in the last year.
Not exactly the definition of a ‘currency’.
|
|
Moof
Big Wall climber
Orygun
|
|
|
Nov 25, 2018 - 11:02am PT
|
19k peak is down to the 3.7k, so the price is down over 75% as well. Burn baby burn and good riddens. Etherium is down over 90% from ~1400 to 108. Took longer than I expected, but still quite glad I steared well clear of the whole dumpster fire.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Nov 26, 2018 - 11:35am PT
|
Bitcoin fell to as low as $3,519.94 on the Bitstamp platform, after earlier falling to a 14-month trough of $3,462,57, and was last down 12.6 percent. It has lost 74 percent of its value so far this year, after hitting nearly $20,000 in December last year.
Other digital currencies also fell sharply, with Ethereum’s ether down 7 percent at $106.69 and Ripple’s XRP falling 5.6 percent to 34 U.S. cents.
Cryptocurrency market capitalization plummeted to $122.3 billion on Monday, down 85 percent from its peak of nearly $800 billion hit in early January this year.
Mainstream investors have stayed clear of bitcoin, with concerns over scant regulatory oversight and undeveloped market infrastructure compounded by frequent swings in price.
|
|
Bargainhunter
climber
|
|
|
Nov 26, 2018 - 12:37pm PT
|
Bitcoin is a trash can that your tech savvy friends delusionally tell will double your money in no time. Their confidence and glittering eyes seduce you, until the garbage truck comes and your money disappears.
|
|
Banks
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
|
|
|
Nov 26, 2018 - 01:14pm PT
|
Just another market cycle for Bitcoin....
June 2011 $30 Nov. 2011 $2 -93%
April 2013 $230 July 2013 $67 -71%
Nov. 2013 $1,147 Jan. 2015 $180 -85%
Dec. 2017 $19, 535 Nov. 2018 $3,448 -85%
People have been predicting and celebrating Bitcoins' demise for 10 years but it keeps on chugging along and going up. If you bought at 19k you are a moron. If you blindly bought into other cryptocurrencies last year, you are a moron. 99.99% of cryptocurrencies are either scams, bad ideas, or good ideas with poor management/execution. But some will survive with Bitcoin leading the way. This bear market has been a blessing in that it has given time to build out the necessary infrastructure to handle increased adoption. The dumpster fire you should be worried about is the central banking system and its fiat printing machine. The looming debt bubble is going to unleash the pain like never before.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!