Bitcoin Forum

As I read more into Bitcoin, the topic of theft comes up often. How much has been stolen in total?

25000BTC from someone who left wallet unencrypted last year.
about 58000BTC from the linode "hack" (I think, someone may need to correct me).
about 200000BTC currently from Bitcoinica (I'm classing bitcoinica's funds as stolen until they refund people).
Oh, and we have shroedinger's ponzi (BTCST) over in the lending section, which has liabilities of well over 200000BTC.

So I'd say at least 85000, could go as high as a million by the end of the year  ;)

... and people wonder why their is so much distrust in this world.

Yeah that kinda proves it.

In this forum you are able to search, by clicking the small "button" labeled "search" and type in your, well, search. So within 2 seconds you would have been able to find this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0)
But of course it is way easier to open a new thread...

@theymos: can we have a sub-section for those constantly repeating threads?

Most of the thefts were actually caused by too much or misplaced trust.

Besides, it is actually a very small number. Why not go totaling up the number of transactions which weren't thefts to see how much bigger it is and therefore how much goodness there is?

Both are silly ways of calculating trust/distrust.

How much did mybitcoinwallet walk away with?

Where are you getting that number from?  They lost ~18,000 BTC in the Rackspace hack and 40,000 in the MtGox breach.  Even if you add in the BTC they lost in the Linode hack (~43,000 BTC, which you seem to have counted separately), the total comes nowhere near 200,000 BTC.

I was counting the value of all of their deposits as "stolen" since I don't honestly believe people are likely to get it back in the foreseeable future  ;)

I didn't include it on my low-end estimate though.

Also, completely forgot about mybitcoin - I know of individuals with >5000BTC on there, so that must've been pretty huge.

A lot.

May thread on this topic which includes a comprehensive list of thefts, scams, hacks and other losses.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0

I mentioned the same thread in post#4, but I guess people like talking repeatedly about the same things all the time, so I think you will be ignored too...

Anyone can write anything on this or any other forum. I'll write this: I've never had any coins stolen since I start mining, trading, and using them in January 2011.

I wouldn't call BTCS&T stealing. Anyone with half a brain cell knows that could be Game Over at any time.

How many BTC does ZT own?  That's your answer.

The answer is "Not NEARLY Enough because people keep doing really stupid things and losing all their bitcoins".

I hope that the left half of the intelligence bell curve loses all their BTC, so that everyone elses will go up in value.

"This site has been around for WEEKS! Why not trust 40k worth of BTC to them?!?!?!"

I wonder how many coins have been stolen twice!

This!

Many have been stolen.

But it's worth remembering that every single theft could have been prevented.

10BTC stolen from p2pmining.com (Really from the miners on the pool) .  Someone went through a lot of effort for $87.  Goes to show that even a site with even a few Bitcoins on it is a target.  I would suggest that any further Bitcoin ventures use servers under private control rather than renting one in a data center.  

Okay, guess I phrased that badly, but I agree.

Their is a lot more mistrust than in the early days when people too blindly trusted the exchanges and individuals in the community.

I am one of those who feel a strong sense of distrust of exchanges, which isn't helped when I live in the UK when their is a severe lacking of exchanges which operate here. Most which have somehow been involved in these events which have lead to people losing a lot of bitcoins or money.