Bitcoin price plunges after cryptocurrency exchange is hacked

[nitpicker]

Source: The Guardian


Bitcoin price plunges after cryptocurrency exchange is hacked

Security fears rise as South Korea’s Coincheck loses about £28m of virtual currency

Julia Kollewe

Mon 11 Jun 2018 09.40 BST Last modified on Mon 11 Jun 2018 09.46 BST

There has been a sharp drop in the price of bitcoin and other virtual currencies after South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinrail was hacked over the weekend. A tweet from Coinrail confirming the cyber-attack sent the price of bitcoin tumbling 10% on Sunday to two-month lows. The world’s best-known cryptocurrency lost $500 (£372) in an hour, dropping to $6,627 on the Luxembourg exchange Bitstamp, while most other digital currencies also recorded large losses.
(snip)

Coinrail later said in a statement on its website that its system was hit by “cyber intrusion” on Sunday, causing a loss for about 30% of the coins traded on the exchange. It did not quantify the value, but local news outlet Yonhap News estimated that about 40 billion won (£27.8m) worth of virtual coins was stolen.

Coinrail said “70% of total coin and token reserves have been confirmed to be safely stored and moved to a cold wallet [not connected to the internet]. Two-thirds of stolen cryptocurrencies were withdrawn or frozen in partnership with related exchanges and coin companies. For the rest, we are looking into it with an investigative agency, related exchanges and coin developers.”

Police have begun an investigation, according to the Korea Herald, which cited a spokesperson as saying: “We secured the access history of Coinrail servers and we are in the process of analysing them.” Bitcoin is now trading at $6,752 – down from an all-time peak of nearly $20,000 in the week before Christmas.
(snip)


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/11/bitcoin-price-cryptocurrency-hacked-south-korea-coincheck

[RandiFan1290]

1. Good time to buy. nt

[moriah]

7. Actually, glad I sold for Christmas spending. ;)

I had like $10 in a Coinbase wallet from several years before. When I saw prices getting so high and just what thaw $10 now was worth...

I got that crap in my bank account! Fast! It left shortly after, but it was nice to give my mother and sister some nice things.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. My momma always told me

never say I told you so.

Currency as ether is safe. Remote computers and servers all over the world decentralized work 24/7 to transfer, count, record transactions, reducing cost of money movement to nearly zero. Governments can't track it or tax it. It's currency without the banks, and it's invisible.

Q: How do I know I own it?

A: It's there.

Q: Can I spend it?

A: If merchants will accept it.

Q: Am I rich yet?

A: Everyone's rich with data mining.

OK. I'll take 3 burgers, 3 large fries, and 2 double lattes.

Cash, check, or credit card?

[7962]

5. Perfect!

[DetlefK]

3. I was being told that cryptocurrencies are the future: convenient and safe...

Are you trying to tell me that the value of a cryptocurrency, and thus what my money is worth, fluctuates wildly with every bank-robbery?

Are you trying to tell me that bank-robbers can now not only rob the money the bank has on hand, but also the money that's tucked away in my bank-account?



How is ordinary money ever supposed to compete with that???

[angrychair]

10. So does your FIAT money...

US dollars, British pounds or whatever can fluctuate wildly depending on trade policies or inflation or any number of things.

When banks and investment companies robbed us blind and forced us into a recession, that created huge and costly fluctuations in currency values, didn’t it? (As in the utility of your money, what it can buy).

For the wealthy money trading can be a very profitable business.

People only think of Crypto in that context because of the stereotypes and that large, bloated and functionally useless crypto like Bitcoin gets a lot of attention because of its massive rise in value.

I am old enough that I remember the days before the Euro and we lived in Italy. Their currency was the Lira. In 1986 is like 2200 Lira to the dollar, essentially 2 to 1. It was an exceptional boon for military families in Europe at the time (the German mark trading at 3 marks to the dollar) so the differences were huge.
Those differences can cost people and nations hundreds of billions of dollars in extra expenses. In 1986 when we bombed the Libyan intelligence HQ, Italy bought like 90% of its oil from Libya at the time. The attack caused a huge spike in demand and price as Italy had to resource. All commodities, like oil, are bought and sold on the International markets in US dollars.
So if your currency is trading at two or three and the price is high than you are paying billions more.

My point is that currency fluctuations and demand/cost of goods and services can be just as volatile and unpredictable as crypto.

[DetlefK]

11. Qualitatively. But if you look at the actual numbers, fiat money is superior.

The value of the Euro has changed by 50% in 15 years, with yearly fluctuations up and down of about 10%.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_bitcoin

In the last 18 months alone, the value of Bitcoin has fluctuated by up to 1000%.

[DetlefK]

12. If you don't like Bitcoin, which cryptocurency DO you like?

[angrychair]

13. Bitcoin is definitely trash

It has the virtue of being first and that massive and unearned growth you mentioned which unfortunately set the tone and expectation for crypto.

The only coin with real world potential is Tronix (TRX).

No comparison
BTC - 3-9 (26 in network) TPS (transactions per second)
TRX - 3000+ TPS

BTC - High transactional cost
TRX - none

It’s also the only China-based crypto and it was created by a protege of Jack Ma (Alibaba) - meaning the market potential is significant

In short it has significant utility with real world use cases.

[DetlefK]

14. And how much does its value fluctuate? More or less than a fiat currency?

And out of all possible evil corporations on this planet, you pick a cryptocurrency connected to Alibaba?????????????

[angrychair]

20. Well no

First, I should clarify that it’s not really associated with Alibaba directly more it has some indirect associations: the founder of Tron, Justin Sun, graduated from a university started by Jack Ma and Jack Ma has been mentoring him. Tron Foundation’s CTO and several of the lead development ppl came from Alibaba. There is no business partnership or direct monetary ties to the foundation itself. I wish there was though.

Why?

I don’t view crypto as way to stick it to corporations or governments because if a platform, the coin, is to have buy-in, to have true utility and currency stabilization, it will need their adoption and support.

My interest in crypto is one of technology and innovation not counter-culture anarchy. It is the currency of the future but it’s in its infancy and most people don’t know what to do with it besides leverage it like a penny stock to make quick money from it.

Right now there are like ~900 crypto-currencies out there. Vast majority, like 80%, use one of three platforms for their code, it’s either Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum. Very few platforms with unique code. If coding used to create crypto-currency interest you the website GitHub is where all crypto-currency code can be found.

As far as Tron valuation has gone, It’s value spiked from its ICO (initial coin offering) of .0002 of a cent in November of 2017 to stabilize at about 6 cents a coin currently. It gets converted to its own coding (transition away from being an ECR-20 -ethereum base code- coin) on June 25. After that the value is likely to spike again but only to “right-size” to its true perceived value versus its value as an ECR-20 coin.

So yes, I grant you that crypto has huge valuation spikes and valleys but that’s because change is hard and we have to get through this development phase and start reshaping our concepts of money and value and come to terms with how we are buying and selling things and how that will work and look like in the future.

[yurbud]

15. The primary value of cryptocurrencies is depriving banks of our business

But as far as the "safe" part goes...it probably depends on the exchange you're using and whether you leave your money there after the transaction or move it to an off site wallet or even a flash drive.

[angrychair]

21. Well, I wouldn't necessarily agree with all that

I think there is this anarchy counter-culture perspective that wants to cut out big banks and/or corporations and so on from all this and I get it but it’s more about technology and innovation for me. It’s about changing how we do things. It’s about a cheaper way to do business.

I do agree with the concept of using cold wallets or just keeping it in an exchange account. That decision should be predicated on how much you have invested and how much you can afford to lose.

[yurbud]

22. I agree with the last part.

[DetlefK]

4. Btw, there's an ad for cryptocurrency right next to the OP. :D :D :D :D

"Blockchain's first crypto-location oracle network (XYO) goes live"

[Tarc]

6. Hipster ether money turns out to be unreliable. Shocker.

[yurbud]

16. When it becomes convenient for banks to turn on hyperinflation here, traditional money

won't look that good either.

[jmowreader]

8. So you're telling me...

Money backed by the full faith and credit of some random stranger might not be reliable?

[IronLionZion]

9. I would encourage the Trumps to invest their money in cryptocurrency

all of it

[yurbud]

17. anything based on abstract notions is beyond their grasp.

[Blue_Tires]

18. What's the benefit of this again? Why do people use it?

I mean, aside from the people buying black market human organs or whatever...

[jmowreader]

23. Bitcoin is used to Stick It To The Evil Government

Of course, the evil government's money is used to buy, set the value of and sell Bitcoin.

Other than that...yeah, about all it's good for is buying illegal items.

[hunter]

19. The per transaction energy cost of crypto currencies is obscene.

Burning coal and fracked natural gas to support the greatest Ponzi-pyrimid schemes ever is insane.

I have a similar low opinion of gold mining and hoarding.

Speculating in these markets does not make the world a better place.