Bitcoin Forum

So far this month:

• Feb. 3, 2014: CryptoTrade - Another Bitcoin Exchange Shuts With Little Warning (https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/another-bitcoin-exchange-shuts-little-warning/)
• Feb. 10, 2015: MYCoin closes its doors, $387 million in investor funds vanishes (http://www.zdnet.com/article/mycoin-closes-its-doors-387-million-in-investor-funds-vanishes/)
• Feb. 11, 2015: BTCXChange - Bitcoin Exchange Closes after Lead Programmer Holds Servers Hostage (https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-exchange-closes-lead-programmer-holds-servers-hostage/)
• Feb. 15, 2015: Chinese Bitcoin Exchange BTER hacked (http://newsbtc.com/2015/02/15/chinese-bitcoin-exchange-bter-hacked-hitbtc-also-offlinechinese-bitcoin-exchange-bter-hacked-hitbtc-also-offline/)
• Feb. 18, 2015: Canada’s largest Bitcoin exchange is shutting down after a suspected hack (http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/02/18/canadas-largest-bitcoin-exchange-shutting-suspected-hack/)

Who's next?

(Kipcoin just shut down, but they were clearly a Ponzi; not even going to list them.)

Just so that I can get a fair comparison, please now list every theft and scam that has happened with U.S. dollars in the past month.

Is it accurate to say that "take the money and run" is "the bitcoin way"?

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that take the money and run is the criminal way, and that criminals will take any thing of value that they can get their hands on regardless of whether it is U.S. dollars, bitcoins, cars, artwork, jewelry, or children?

more will follow. there will be alot drama with our new "internet-money".

for exchanges, maybe this will help a bit:

http://www.coindesk.com/security-standard-proposed-bitcoin-exchanges-wallets/

The Bitcoin's way is be your own bank on a fair system
The fiat's way is get your money bailed out of banks at random and elites creating random money whenever.

If you put your coins in an exchange they are not your coins anymore, period.

What's happening is not that Bitcoin is going down or Bitcoin is dying .
It's simply that 2015 is not the Year of Bitcoin as some people predicted , Let's give it two years as Andreas said and let's see  ???
Still .. wondering how the price is still stable with all those exchangers going down one after other . kinda weird if you ask me

~ Madness

Once again, dannyhamilton nails it.  Nagle's post is overly emotional as well as intellectually dishonest.  He even lists something that he says he will not list.  So strange for someone with so many posts...

I'm sorry, but with the amount of thefts and hacks this month alone, only regulation and compliance is the real way:

https://blog.gemini.com/welcome-to-gemini/

Basically we tried to it do it our way in our playground, but there's no one in charge to put anyone in timeout for the bad kid that continues to give all the good kids titty twisters and indian rope burns.

It's inevitable and indisputable, gotta regulate, yo!  Not sure how Decentralized Exchanges like Coinffeine or BitSquare will turn out, but doesn't look like they have the resources to compete with the scope and scale Gemini is going for.

Percentage wise bitcoin websites have a very high failure/theft/loss rate. It is a concern. What is the answer? I guess the creme rises to the top.

Not all of those ran away with the money.

But with the "trend" we've seen over the years it seems way to easy for people to do that and get away with it...

I think a lot of these "hacks" were inside jobs where the owners or employees just took the money and ran. How can a cold wallet get "hacked"? Really? I don't believe it for a second.

Anyway, all of these hacks combined pale in comparison to this 1 billion dollar fiat hack:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/02/15/hackers-steal-billion-in-banking-breach/23464913/

At least a lot of these really poorly run businesses will cease to exist. Bitcoin companies that don't take security seriously and adhere to best practices will not last long in this environment.

Bitcoin is all about NON regulation, no GOV did you forget? :)

Things change. 

Money is about government and banks and fiat, did you forget? (Takes a look at Greece, hmm maybe not)  :)

the security costs a LOT. Imagine that a bank can spend tens of millions and they can be hacked. How can a small-medium exchange business to hire very good programmers? impossible.

even you take the security very serious, they don't have the resources to do it.  

a small-medium exchange is earning around of 5-7K per month, maybe less. a very good programmer cost around 90-100 USD/hour.
a good server administrator is the same.

the initial website costs a lot too.

You should remove Mycoin, that info is plain bullshit, not to mention they did scam mostly fiat investors who didn't have much clue of what Bitcoin is. They used BTC as a con to justify ridiculously high ROI they promised.
That $387m is based on the exaggerated number of investors provided by MyCoin themselves to attract new victims.

I know that very well but then Bitcoin is useless. Why would somone use Bitcoin when we have normal payment processors already? :)
Just to wait for an hour a transaction confirmation? don't think so  

You have to change the Mycoin URL and headline, it's wrong:

http://www.coindesk.com/mycoin-hong-kong-police-8-1-million/

Huge difference with $387mill and $8.1mill.

Actually it's not, and I'm not talking about regulating Bitcoin, I'm talking about regulating Bitcoin exchanges.

It's why I mentioned Coinffeine(decentralized), BitSquare(decentralized), and Gemini(fully regulated) in the same post.

Reading comprehension, my friend.

thefts and hacks are done by humans, Bitcoin is not at fault!

Agreed, but all that means is that a lot of these fly by night, undercapitalized exchanges are in over their head and have no business trying to run an exchange.

Handling other peoples money is serious business and should not be done by amateurs.

I can't wait until amateur hour is over and we get some real exchanges that actually know what they are doing.

Actually nowadays this is not "the Bitcoin way", it's really "the people's way"

These scams/hack give a bad image to bitcoin, we should stop them. Bitcoin is a rivolution and we must support it.

Yeah well we should do something , but we can't do anything .
It's up to the exchangers to protect them selfs from attacks and hackers . and if it's an inside job it's even worst .

~ Madness

Exchanges should be regulated, insured or idk what cause otherwise this "hacks" will never stop. Bitcoin is sort of money not only payment processor so if we want widespread addoption, we need to improve security. When fiat bank in my citty was robbed, i got my money anyway and most of haced exchange users get shit.

 Just face it, Bitcoins security issues are too much to overcome in the long term. 95% of exchanges that come into existence end with all their coins being stolen. And most average everyday people aren't smart IT professionals and won't be able to secure their computers from theft. The norm will be cyber criminals installing programs on the average Joes computer and stealing all their coins which will prevent mass adoption of Bitcoin as a major currency. And unlike with fiat people won't get their money back. Bitcoin transactions can't be reversed. If your bank account gets hacked you might get all your money back, with Bitcoin there is no one to reimburse you. I don't see how Bitcoins could even be insured because of how transactions work. How could someone prove their coins were stolen instead of being sent from their wallet as a legitimate transaction? they can't. Computer networks are prone to being compromised and that's what Bitcoin lives on. You can't use Bitcoin without it going through a computer network. And people are always looking for ways to steal money, and Bitcoin is a prime target. It's anonymous and has no legal standing which makes it even worse. I also believe that at some people some super genius will be able to reverse engineer private keys  and/or understand the blockchain on a level which allows them to flat out steal coins. At this point It's way too hard to even keep bitcoin without it getting stolen. I do not think this will change because our internet networks are what they are, unless they are rebuilt from the ground up there is nothing you can do. I believe this will lead to the demise of cryptocurrency.

TLDR, the answer to all your concerns:

https://blog.gemini.com/welcome-to-gemini/

BTW, Bitcoin is not an exchange.  Exchange operators AKA human beings "take the money and run", not a cryptocurrency.

over and over people are told not to keep their coin on exchanges and what do they do?  don't listen and lose their btc.  ohh well what can you do? 

Correctly. There is nothing wrong with bitcoin. However, the owner of the site, the user. Less carefully for safety bitcoin. Though they know bitcoin is invaluable. Only systems that need to be improved and enhanced. Not hostile bitcoin.

Great summary. Thx for posting it !

Looking at the dates, isn't it ironic that all the hacks took place roughly almost at the same time... only about days apart.

I asked God for Bitcoin, but God didn't respond. So I stole Bitcoin and asked God for forgiveness.

People must be aware:

DO NOT HOLD YOUR BTC ON THIRD PARTY EXCHANGES – BE YOUR OWN BANK

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=945881.0

First of all, it isn't Bitcoin way! , Every thing have it's pro's and con's , though the pro of BTC is , it's anonymity but people always find loopholes and that doesn't certify as the bitcoin way.
The biggest mistake of people is keeping/ leaving their BTC on exchange's .
I always keep mine safe with me on cold wallets and when i need to do some trade ,i easily switch them
If i plan to keep them on exchange for long , i always prefer to change them to an alt (DOGE mostly) and it is much more safe ...

Are these a kind of inside job ? The money were stolen, actually by the people of these site, Hacker is the cover?

More in China:
A fund hacked, more than 3000 BTC lost. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=959126.0
A small exchange called 366 was hacked, 300 BTC lost.

Are the hacked? or they "hacked" themselves? :D

I remember an old movie "In time" where every one carrying their money(time) with them privately, and they have to hire bodyguards against theft and robbery  :D

Banks fail at the same point Bitcoin is failing.... {Human factor} There are security features in for example hardware wallets, where nobody has been able to steal any coins. I will rather want the human factor to be eliminated or reduced, to solve that weakness. {Use technology to make the transactions and security invisible for the average user... they should not have too much control over how it works, they should just be able to use it}

The Bitcoin protocol is not set in stone. It will adapt to change and stronger encryption could also be introduced on other levels to improve it and save it from the "demise" you are predicting. 

The unique thing that we can do (I think) it is : to not keep our coins on the various exchange.  This is the best thing to do (right now).

No. It's only the criminal way when you get caught.

"Take the money and run" is the capitalist way, and that's an insight to why the system is verging on collapse today.

It happened many times but hacks happen in real life too, look at how many times banks have been hacked of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions.

Many bitcoin businesses are very legitimate.

A vaporware exchange run by two guys with limited financial experience.

What makes it vaporware if it's supposed to launch soon?

http://www.etftrends.com/2015/02/winklevoss-twins-talk-bitcoin-innovation-gemini-exchange/

Limited experience?  Aren't these the same guys that Mark Zuckerberg stole the whole idea for Facebook from?  Pretty sure Zuckerberg had to settle with them for stealing their IP.