Good question.

There is a difference between knowing the irresponsible are going to fuck shit up and being one of the irresponsible fucking shit up.

I use Bitcoin to avoid centrally planned fiat and authority implemented capital controls. Basically, I choose monetary freedom. Is there something other than Bitcoin that can do a better job? I, personally, don't think so, so I'm stuck knowing the irresponsible are going to fuck shit up. So... I think it's OK for me to bitch about it!

Besides, the damage the irresponsible can do will decrease with each event (IMO).

Your have a kinder heart than I.

My heart goes out to all those Bitcoiners who, after countless exchange failures and hacks, understood the risks of holding large IOUs with third parties, yet still had to watch their asset drop in value as the market priced in (is pricing in) those events. (Of course some will argue this was going to happen to the market anyway.)

The unfortunate thing about society is that everyone has to take the bad along with the good, and when stupid people get together and fuck shit up, everyone pays the price. Perhaps I'm cold hearted, or even a pessimist, but I don't understand this forgiveness when everyone has to bear the burden of the irresponsible.

To be clear, while shitty things do happen quite a lot in bitcoinlandia, I'm speaking more generally here, and these types of "everyone pays" events happen all the time in the grand scheme of things.

To be fair, one Core contributor did make a slight suggestion which would certainly result in a fork. You can't really say this was from the Bitcoin Core developers though (other Core contributors were quick to disagree with maaku, which caused some backpedaling from him).

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4vupa6/p2shinfo_shows_movement_out_of_multisig_wallets/d61qyaj

Anyway, it's certainly nothing like that which came from the Ethereum foundation after the DAO coding fail (I personally don't think it's correct to call those events an "attack", after all code was law).

No, I save all mine for here. It's like my own personal yoga.

Welcome to the universe. Enjoy your stay.

Like, the customers themselves were responsible. Totally.

Well, I don't know how you can blame Bitcoin when many users have had no issues what-so-ever securing private keys. Obviously huge thefts are going to be very visible to all, but what you won't see is the thousands of users, who keep their private keys secure, posting that another day has gone by where their coins remain safe. Bitcoin provides a user with monetary freedom, but this comes with the price of individual responsibility.

Hopefully you haven't misjudged BitFinex and they are able to make users whole again. I have my doubts.

It's good that you don't trust anyone anymore. This is why I started using Bitcoin in the first place. I took "be your own bank" to heart and I've never looked back since. It's unfortunate that such a terrible incident has had to occur to open your eyes to this (I don't know if you were personally affected by this or not). You are not a new user here, certainly you've heard many times that a cold storage/air-gapped wallet is a fool-proof method to be sure your coins are safe. When I first got involved with Bitcoin, a user named Allinvain was hacked, and at that point I learned everything that was required to protect myself. It was immediately clear to me that anything connected to a network was potentially insecure. Somehow, people forget this lesson and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Consider patronizing bitcoin businesses which are not involved in holding users funds for them.

Yes, I would most certainly consider the security measures at any typical bank. In fact, I don't trust banks at all, so I don't use them to store funds (only for transferring amounts I can afford to lose).

So, you fully understood how funds were secured with Bitgo's multi-signature solution and you were comfortable with that?

Could you direct me to a page describing their security practices in detail? Example: https://www.kraken.com/en-us/security/practices

Word is they stored the bitcoins in multi-sig wallets with Bitgo. This isn't cold storage.

Bitcoin is broken because third parties continuously fail to secure their private keys and thus can't make good on their IOUs?

If you say so.

Franky1 doesn't seem to understand the tenacity of a certain group of Bitcoiners. If contentious changes are made, we can be certain that a fork will result in two surviving chains, regardless of what "the majority" claims to want. It doesn't matter what the miners, exchanges, or businesses choose to do. It only depends on the users. Obstacles (such as difficulty) are simply speed bumps and they will be overcome along the way.

To put it simply: Where there is demand, there will be supply.

Satoshi gave us a way to escape the control of those that would choose for us. We aren't going to give that up, under any circumstances.

A sad day for Bitcoin? Indeed. Sad because a bunch of people trusted (again) a third party, who proved to be extremely incompetent (again) at securing private keys, while those of us who are competent enough to secure our private keys had to watch our asset lose value (again) due to misplaced trust and obnoxious incompetence.

Seriously people. Stop making this mistake. Do not trust third parties with your money unless you know there is some recourse when they accidentally all the coins. Cuz, chances are, they are going to accidentally all the fucking coins. This isn't 2011. Learn from the mistakes that have been made over and over again.

OP, if you want insurance, get your IOUs from an institution that provides insurance. Places like that do exist. This isn't rocket surgery here. Better yet, don't accept IOUs from any institution. We have the technology to store your own money. It's called Bitcoin.

As always: If you aren't the sole controller of your private keys, you don't have any bitcoins. Take the steps required to ensure that you are the sole controller of your private keys, and you will never have any problems with theft of bitcoin. If you are incapable of securely creating and storing a specific string of number and letters, please do us all a favor and avoid cryptocurrency.

I can't wait to sell my coins on the rollback fork.

How much money do you make trading when the exchange goes tits up and accidentally all the coins?

People need to learn the easy way, from the mistakes of others, as opposed to actually sticking their hand in the fire.

If you aren't the sole controller of your private keys, you don't have any bitcoins. I mean, I hate to sound like a broken record, but do we really need to keep learning this lesson the hard way?

We do. Not on exchanges. LOL.

I know, we can't trade if we aren't on an exchange. Who the fuck cares? Trading is for suckers and insiders who rape the suckers. That seems to be obvious regardless of which market you pick. Have fun on the stock market, LMAO.

Mat, you need to become an insider so you can rape people like yourself. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

"Dude, remember back in 2011 when you told me to sell all my bitcoins? Yeah... that's was great, wasn't it?"

OK, that's settled. LOL.

Oh, apologies, let me fix that for you.

OK, that's settled. LOL. -Now you don't need your reading glasses!

LOL. First time I've heard that one. I guess that means you are older than me, huh Grandpa?

I know how we can settle this for sure. Did you watch The Muppet Show as a child or did your children watch The Muppet Show?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0s5Kn9QXtU

Bumping this oldish thread of mine because I feel it's relevant to current events. Today, we can watch (or even partake in) a scenario similar to the one I've mentioned in the OP, thanks to Ethereum's hard fork.

I've often discussed (not only in this thread) what I would do should there be a contentious hard fork on the Bitcoin block chain. Many people responded suggesting that two chains would never survive such a fork. I think it's now clear that two chains most certainly can survive (perhaps it's temporary?) after a hard fork and we Bitcoiners should use current events as a chance to learn as much as we can from the situation. After all, I've always thought it better to learn from watching other people stick their hand in the fire as opposed to actually doing it myself. The Bitcoin community is still divided regarding scaling Bitcoin, and it's not unreasonable to imagine that in the future we may experience something like that which Ethereum is experiencing today.

As we watch the Ethereum hard fork unfold, consider the future of Bitcoin and whether or not we as a community should resolve our differences or go our separate ways forever.

Is a hard fork an opportunity or something that should be feared? Has current events changed your opinion?

One particular things that stands out for me, holding your own private keys, while always recommended, is especially important right before a hard fork, otherwise you are at the whim of the exchange/service/online wallet when it comes to claiming your coins on both chains post fork.

P.S. Although I mention Ethereum several times in this post, try to keep in mind that this is Bitcoin Discussion and any replies should only consider the example set forth by Ethereum's hard fork and how it could apply to Bitcoin, not how you feel about ETH or ETC (those opinions belong in the alt coin sub forum).

This is only posturing, regardless of which side is winning.

Real voting can only occur post fork when actual value is on the line. (Even then games can still be played to make it seem like one side is the clear winner before everything suddenly flips.)

Anyway... lets fork and see what happens? The block size debate grows tiresome. Time to act!