Is Bitcoin really this safe with all this hacking going on?

I really need to know before I throw a ton of money towards it.

And they do have it. Instant transactions that are safe enough for everyday's expenses. Only you here seem to fail to understand how it works. Greg Maxwell, one of the most active and senior Bitcoin Core dev, has taken quite a bit of his precious time to explain it, repeatedly.

IMHO you seem to be here more to push an unsubstantiated claim that Bitcoin is impractical and cannot compete with traditional means of payments (i.e. credit/debit cards and/or cash) than to educate yourself. Your condescendance regarding 'the techie geeky stuff that [we] find so important', considering that you started yourself a technical discussion in the 'Development & Technical Discussion' section, can only reinforce that suspicion.

What exactly is your point here?

When will sidechains be ready for use?  

Start openssl from terminal wait for it start and use version to see if you have one of the versions in question. Close openssl with quit

I recently had the honor of being flown to Dubai, in order to teach blockchain technology to Nigerian government officials. With dough eyes, I hastily embarked on my journey, having forgotten the many perils of traveling from years of static living. I expected to come back writing about tall towers and exotic experiences, but unfortunately, that is not the case.

It’s now more clear to me than ever how much the world needs Bitcoin. It is not a simple matter of fighting central banks, or promoting Internet freedom. The blockchain will make society more efficient in almost every way, and is necessary to improve quality of life around the world.

Having adapted to live within the Bitcoin economy, I knew I would encounter some annoyances on my trip. I was completely flabbergasted, however, by the series of unfortunate events I was forced to endure. Please allow me to enumerate the many failures of the traditional finance system.


People criticize altcoins for flooding the market, and eroding the universal applicability of cryptocurrency by fragmenting the market. They often forget that the traditional system is worse: we have hundreds of currencies, and unlike altcoins, you are forced to use the one tied to your physical residence.

When you leave your country, all of your money becomes worthless. You will have to exchange it at a “competitive” fee, or whatever euphemism you prefer. Be careful to buy only as much as you need, because all of that cash will be worthless when you get home, so you’re going to have to pay that fee again for anything leftover.

I chose a travel route with several layovers, because I am not a wealthy man. Having stopped in China, Dubai, Istanbul and Korea, I had to deal with five different currencies, plus an American dollar I managed to acquire somehow. Some exchanges refuse to handle coins, so I returned to Canada with a useless pile of change from around the world.


The hassles of change would vanish in a digtal cash system; instead, we’re forced to rely on physical infrastructure based on ancient technology. Despite a several-decade head-start and vastly more resources, they have failed in comparison to the efficiency of cryptocurrency, as I’ll soon vindictively demonstrate.

In the cryptocurrency world, one can trade between altcoins anywhere on a mobile device. This is not the case with traditional finance, and airports are fully aware of this. There are some cities like Istanbul where ATMs are just placed too poorly (such as half-way across the airport from my flight terminal), but incompetence is not what I want to talk about. The truth is more insidious.

Korea did a great job with their financial infrastructure, with English-language ATMs placed almost everywhere. Except, of course, past the airport security checkpoint, where their generosity soon disippates. They mysteriously cannot afford ATMs in one of the most likely places for you to be stuck waiting, even though they can afford multiple exchanges in the same area.

The employees there will be happy to buy back what’s left of the bundle of won you had to withdraw to avoid running out of cash. They will not, however, let you withdraw from your bank account if you do run out, as was the case for a very hungry me.

With all the money they’re making this way, you’d think they could afford some decent security on their automatic teller machines. Alas, dear reader, you would be wrong. While in Istanbul, I mistakenly trusted a machine operated by a local bank there, whose reliance on traditional financial infrastructure left them open to hacking. This inevitable disaster caused me a host of problems, mostly involving…


Upon landing in Korea, I was tired, hungry, and in a hurry to meet someone. Unfortunately, I was unable to withdraw money from ATM in the food court upon landing. I assumed it to be a glitch or language misunderstanding, but much to my dismay, I was unable to withdraw money from any ATM anywhere after an hour of trying.

Frustrated, I called my bank to ask them about it, and waited through several rounds of elevator music. “I’m trying to withdraw money from an ATM in Korea. Do you know what’s going on?”

“We froze your account due to suspicious activity,” he stated as a matter of fact. “You used an ATM that was compromised, and had unusual activity on your account.”

“Thanks for advanced warning,” I said drly. “Can you unlock my account now?”

“We need you to come into your bank branch and change your PIN in person. Until then we have to implement some security measures,” he replied, ignoring my counter-suggestion that we use encrypted communication.

It suddenly dawned on me how annoying my short vacation in Korea was about to become. “I’m currently trapped in South Korea, so obviously I can’t do that. I need money for food and lodging, so you need to make that happen. How am I supposed to get cash?”

Finally, they agreed to unlock my account for windows of 30 minutes at a time, if I call them and request it. Each time, I waited again through the elevator music, and if I did not get to an ATM in time, I would have to call back and do it again. If my phone ran out of power, I was out of luck.

For at least a week I suffered this calamity of bureaucratic failure. If not for the like-minded people I met at Seoul Bitcoin, I would surely have perished from overwhelming frustration and despair. It’s good to know that almost anywhere in the world, I can find a Bitcoin ATM, change my bitcoins with a local currency, and meet some new friends along the way.

Despite the silver lining, I can’t help but still feel annoyed about how much unnecessary stress I had to go through. The travel industry will be one of the first revolutionized by cryptocurrency, and I beg any entrepreneurs reading this to hurry up. I might have to fly again, soon.

Who are 'all'? How do we 'know' beyond any shadow of doubt?

Its easy to think that cases like this should be handled like as you suggested, but where do you stop? Its supposed to be trustless, you are putting in actors you have to trust.

I was thinking yesterday, this address:
https://blockchain.info/address/1L2JsXHPMYuAa9ugvHGLwkdstCPUDemNCf

We all know that it belongs to the Bitstamp hacker, a thief; why then, the whole network, knowing that Bitcoins are coming from a hack, can't do anything about it? Why if we all agree, the network, can't do anything against this injustice?

Crazy idea, but what if we all start to migrate to new anti-thief-nodes where, while analyzing the blockchain during a transaction and find that this address was involved, automatically reject the transfers?
Does not this would eliminate the profit of the hacker?, this will not eliminate the urge to steal bitcoins, and still maintain a decentralized, anti theft system?

I know that this will only works for BIG hacks, that the entire network knows about, but this could be done somehow or I'm missing something?

Thanks in advance.

2 .........................a whole fucking 2 for the entire btc world ...............
do you think thats enough or youre just trolling ??

https://twitter.com/gavinandresen <- Here's one feel free to follow him. He posts a couple times a day. I shall excuse your ignorance on the matter.

I really don't see the problem here. 

Yes, there are a few who own a disproportionally large amount of Bitcoin, but why does that matter?  Bitcoin is divisible down to one millionth or a Satoshi, and there is further subdivision capability if needed. 

 If the "bitcoin rich" just hold on to it, the value of the rest of the circulated bitcoin will rise, and if they spend it then they are spreading the wealth around.  It is all good.

And forced redistribution of wealth has led to history's worst atrocities.  And in reality, the numbers won't make anyone rich or do anything but buy a month or two of living if all wealth were redistributed equally.  Volume of exchanges and class MOBILITY is what matters, and that involves a free market, which I assumed Bitcoin represented.


Stop with the class warfare neo-marxism crap.

Sign to Mine™ (S2M) is a mining algorithm that requires the miner who solves a block to be able also to spend the reward for that block. Under this system, a pool with many anonymous miners would not be feasible because all miners in the pool would be able to accept rewards according to their shares when others solve a block, but then abscond with the whole block reward when they are the one to solve a block. Thus, a certain level of trust should be established before allowing a miner into one’s pool.