Bitcoin Forum

This isnt a FUD post.

I am genuinely concerned about things like this happening. Bitcoin has to become more robust or at least the people who are supposedly leading the way.

I use blockchain for my hot wallet, a very small amount in there but once again I cant access my BTC. It is all getting very tiresome.

I have been with my fiat bank for 30 odd years, I have ALWAYS been able to access my money.

BTC isnt a valid currency still.

I thought with blockchain.info you got to keep your private key.

Even bank websites go down, give them a little time. They have a high rate of up-time. Considering the amounts of new wallets they get on a daily basis, I'd say they're doing a great job.

You do, and I have added it to my wallet on my PC. So that is indeed a plus point. However if I were out and about I use my Android phone and the blockchain app.

My point is that infrastructure isnt up to the standards you would expect when dealing with millions of $. No one will take BTC seriously who doesnt fully understand its potential.

For all I know Blockchain.info could be running on an old 486 in someone's bedroom, well OK that is an exaggeration, probably its a P3 with 256k Ram.

Ive run a very busy website for the last 15 years, it has a massive database, I run it on a shoestring really and its been down once due to a hacking attempt for about 4 hours and that happened 3 years ago.

I'm no expert, those guys are supposed to be.

Maybe you should move your BTC to your website.

Ive moved it to my own machine :)

So, you want me to believe that you have since 15 years a high traffic website which was online one time down...

You want us to believe you are running since 1998 a website with DB and you did not changed it since that?
No maintance, no upgrade?

You are running the same script without a change? Same layout?

Yeah sure...

Please troll somewhere else.

You are right that service infrastructure isn't very mature. That is only going to come with time and increasing adoption.

You only have to peruse the threads in this Service Discussion forum to realise that several services that are dealing with other people's money on a daily basis are developed and operated by first time PHP coders who should not be trusted to publish a blog about their cat.

It is a risk you have to factor in right now. Do your due diligence and avoid those with a poor track record.

You have done the right thing by keeping your secret keys secret. That way, assuming no other breach of your security, you cannot be "goxxed". It doesn't matter that much to you if blockchain.info goes away. Your coins are safe. Worst case for you is that transacting becomes awkward for a time.

Your comment that no one will take bitcoin seriously is off the mark, as many retailers clearly do already take bitcoin seriously. As the bitcoin economy grows the infrastructure will improve. If the bitcoin economy dies then the infrastructure is irrelevant.

Do I believe this blah-blah?

Or their realistic explanation?

https://blog.blockchain.com/2014/03/17/current-service-outage/

Tough decision.  ::)

Btw my fiat bank account was frozen and closed for no reason, and I am not the only one. I have a hard time believing you are 30 years old for that matter  :D

I dont really care what you believe I'm not trolling.

I have upgraded the website several times. I have updated the forums many times, I did it last week.

The site is updated and tested in the background and when it is ready I switch the URL to the new site. The forum which forms the largest part of the site is backed up first then stopped for the 5 minutes it takes to update it. The main databse backs up 4 times a day automatically and is checked after each backup.

How I run my website isnt the issue, my concerns are for Bitcoins future.

There has been no really good news of late. I want something good to happen, I'm getting frustrated with all the things that go wrong and would just like to be able to have something to celebrate :)

Oh and to the guy posting above Im actually over 50 :/

Fair enough. I'm sure 5 years after the invention of fiat currency there were problems. Personally I'm not concerned one bit about the future of Bitcoin just because blockchain.info has a few hours of downtime. I'm not particularly a fan of blockchain.info's wallet service anyway, though. If you want to access your BTC from your Android phone, there are apps for that. I guess for people who have iPhones that's not a solution, but my concern in that regard is that Apple has banned Bitcoin wallet apps, not that blockchain.info has some downtime.

Maybe I'm wrong, though.

I'm sure / hope you are right.

Its probably down to my inability to pick stable companies to deal with! I thought with the likes of Andreas at the helm of Blockchain.info it would be bomb proof :)

Ive been Goxxed, and im nervous maybe :)

I need to relax!

Nervous about what exactly?

This is why local clients will never be overthrown by web clients. To be honest they should have multiple mirrors and backup database, I have worked with large data sets and this is pretty standard.

Yeah, I don't understand again. You say you have your private key. If you're worried about losing your BTC, import your private key into a working wallet, and send all of it to a new address (or addresses) which you've generated locally.

I have imported my key I have my btc.

I'm nervous because I've lost money with Gox, and BFL.

Like I said there is very little good news lately. Every time I send money to an exchange to buy more btc I run the risk of losing my money.

Nothing is without risk, I just feel right now Bitcoin is more risky, I wish it wasn't so.

Understood.

I'm not sure where you live, but you're always going to be taking a big risk when transferring money to a foreign entity which doesn't have a substantial track record. If there are more local options, and you're not doing anything that's illegal where you live, you should probably trust those local entities first.

It eludes me why so many people trusted significant amounts of BTC to Gox. I get the feeling that most of them were either doing something illegal or were trying to get rich quick playing the arbitrage game. But I'm sure many like yourself weren't in either of those two categories. But then I'm back to the question: Why?

I wouldn't leave a pennies worth of  coins on any site. They aren't insured. They screw up you lose. And most of them eventually flake out. Like GOX or Bitfloor etc.  Their is simply zero reasons to let some stranger take care of your coins. It's like letting Joe Blow take care of your savings.  ::)   

People don't feel comfortable transferring to an exchange for a few minutes to conduct business but will hand a waitress or waiter their credit card for 20 minutes waiting for the bill. There's risk everywhere you go in the financial industry. Just do your homework and don't be lazy.

One might leave pennies worth of coins on a site because the withdrawal fees are measured in dimes. And some sites offer things that aren't available elsewhere.

Well, yeah, for lots of reasons. Most importantly among them, that the credit card company is the one that takes the risk of fraudulent charges.

Credit cards are insured :)

anth0ny I'm in the uk. I used Gox because I'd been registered there for a long time. I didn't lose much thankfully and I wasn't storing btc there but I simply couldn't withdraw my btc that I'd bought. I just presumed Gox was trustworthy because just about every website and app quoted Gox. I wrongly presumed they were trustworthy.

People with much more experience than me got shafted. There is a lot of confusing information out there for new users of btc.

It's not about being lazy. It's about being vulnerable and misinformed.

Just cause it's insured means you can no longer give a shit? You do realize somewhere somebody pays for that right? Fucking people irritate me to no end when they say don't worry it's insured. That's why fees are so fucking expensive these days. Don't leave your fiat lying around, don't give your card to strangers, and limit your risk dealing with exchanges.

Don't give your card to strangers?

So...don't ever buy anything with a credit card?

Give me a break.

When it comes to credit cards: Don't worry. It's insured. (I think that's even one of the credit card company's slogans.)

So blockchain.info is down couple minutes and you start panicking? comeone give them a break. they have work over their head and they still manage to be online 99.(alotfnines).

Have any of you uploaded your backup to multibit? I am just sitting tight with my wallet on blockchain.info

I did. Just to try it out as much as anything.

It's been down several hours now. I stand by my first post. Things have to improve if BTC is going to be come accepted by the masses.

Hopefully things will become more robust.

I can get my coins whenever I want. Nobody can stop me. They are in my cold storage. I might send some to an exchange to trade but I won't leave any large amount on any exchange or online wallet.

Show me someone that trusts strangers on the net and I will show you the next victim. Anyone doesn't like it suck it.

Someone will spend your coins and start running a ponzi scheme every time. Could be just technical difficulty. Could also be they are having trouble covering their ponzi scheme as more withdraw funds because of GOX.         

I agree (with the part I put in bold). In terms of people who want to hold their own keys, we need robust hardware wallets. In terms of people who want their keys held by others, we need big players with long track records and lots of insurance/bonding (and ATMs or partnerships with local stores to make deposits/withdrawals ubiquitous). We also need well thought out hybrid solutions with things like split keys - solutions which I only can currently outline today because even a formal specification has not yet to my knowledge been written.

Blockchain.info is really none of this. On the other hand, I believe they're doing pioneering work with regard to things like CoinJoin. Not anything that I'd consider fit for "the masses", but important work nonetheless.

You say you had your website up since 1998. Bitcoin hasn't reached 1998 yet. This is a technical problem, but it's also a regulatory one. Unfortunately, I think we're more likely to move in the wrong direction on this one, at least at first.

As for "alotofnines", by the time that was written they were already down to about 3 nines for the year (2014), and now they're down to 2.5 or so. That's not very good, really. (I demand a full refund. ;))

https://blog.blockchain.com/2014/03/17/service-outage-update-how-to-import-a-wallet-backup/

It seems pretty unrelated, but ever since the outage of blockchain.info...the LTC/BTC ratio has been surging...