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1 wheat-dogghazi  Tue, Feb 11, 2014 9:50:49pm

Many of the exchanges are suffering from DDOS attacks now. The attackers hope to find a chink in the wall to grab some bitcoins for free. Nevertheless, the BTC-USD exchange rate now is holding around $660.

Someone at reddit posted a link to this video to explain the problem in the Bitcoin protocol.
Youtube Video

A hacker can basically trick an exchange into delivering the same Bitcoin to two different people , if he can get his withdrawal request in fast enough. It’s like a teller making an exact duplicate of a $100 bill, slipping it into a bank’s cash drawer, and making sure he gives the real bill to an accomplice while keeping the fake one in the till.

2 jogiff  Wed, Feb 12, 2014 3:51:27am

I don’t understand how Bitcoin isn’t a Ponzi scheme. Obviously Bitcoin isn’t creating value so all value increase is coming from late investors.

I’ve heard that it’s not a Ponzi scheme because investors are investing in the technology, not for the Bitcoins themselves. But it’s open source and I don’t think that any new advances have been made in the fundamental workings of Bitcoin, so how are the investors supposed to benefit from the Bitcoin if not through speculation?

3 Chrysicat  Wed, Feb 12, 2014 5:14:39am

re: #2 jogiff

I don’t understand how Bitcoin isn’t a Ponzi scheme. Obviously Bitcoin isn’t creating value so all value increase is coming from late investors.

I’ve heard that it’s not a Ponzi scheme because investors are investing in the technology, not for the Bitcoins themselves. But it’s open source and I don’t think that any new advances have been made in the fundamental workings of Bitcoin, so how are the investors supposed to benefit from the Bitcoin if not through speculation?

Now that objection to it I don’t understand. If Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, then so is gold. Both have finite supplies and had to be mined out of dross (though admittedly only gold can still be mined, since I think I heard that the very last Bitcoin has already been claimed), both are accepted as payment in various areas that ‘don’t like’ fiat currency, and both are damn hard to destroy (short of wiping the drive of the server it’s held on for Bitcoin, while gold, being the most nearly-noble of the metals, typically stays gold even when alloyed) and annoyingly easy to steal. Object to it for the reason that it makes committing cyber-crime a whole lot easier and it’s almost impossible to keep one of the damn things from being stolen? Sure. But not ‘it’s a pyramid and it’ll inevitably come crashing down on someone’.

4 BusyMonster  Wed, Feb 12, 2014 5:37:06am

re: #3 Chrysicat

. Both have finite supplies

No, that is the problem with Bitcoin, is that the supply is potentially infinite, and from the sound of it, no-one can truly verify the integrity of it at all times.

5 Eclectic Cyborg  Wed, Feb 12, 2014 9:29:30am

re: #4 BusyMonster

No, that is the problem with Bitcoin, is that the supply is potentially infinite, and from the sound of it, no-one can truly verify the integrity of it at all times.

Actually it’s not infinite. The system is set up so that bitcoins will become harder and harder to “mine” over time.


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