I see where you're coming from and I know there are many more than those two.  Unfortunately we have an unlimited memory for wrong-doing.  Things like $6000 shower curtains last forever.  However the other 5 million or more people in the financial services space from bank tellers to your 401k advisor or securities lawyer would be a more accurate representation.  Equally most of the people even at Goldman.  The problems are not the people or even the .1% of bad apples, it literally boils down to an unaccountable, fractionally reserved monetary system with no oversight or checks or balances or even audits.  No business built on this foundation can ever have the chance to be regarded as credible.  The negative actions and fines against HSBC, Barclays, JP Morgan and all the others, masks the source of the actual problem, the World Reserve Currency.  Unfortunately it was designed with the best of intentions but the path to hell has been paved with those.

Again it is because the instrument that underwrites their businesses can be manufactured out of thin air with no cost or accountability.  They do not require 2FA because they feel it aggravates a person.  It is much more easier to have a case INsensitive password which is true.  If someone frauds the account and removes cash in some schema, they can simply 'reverse' a transaction.  They transfer the aggravation to the money system which has infinite printing capabilities with no auditor or oversight.  In fact Janet Yellen has "strongly advised against an audit of the Fed."  We all know there is a clear reason for this.

Most transactions are not reversible.  That is just a nice way to put it, kind of like "Federal Reserve" - it is not Federal and has no reserves.  What reversible actually means is, "we can use other methods eventually leading through our insurers and federal reserve banks, to print more."

In the Bitcoin space we do not have that luxury.  We must be accountable.  Actually 105% accountable.  Even Gold can be manufactured much easier than Bitcoin.

The banks are not evil.  The instruments that underwrite their business have masters who are in a race to a value of 0.  It is hard to build a business on that kind of foundation.  The banks enjoy the fruitfulness of that crazy exercise.

You know, we tend to disagree with that.  Everyone we have ever personally known in finance houses like Goldman (never knew anyone in Goldman directly) have had impeccable moral compasses.  They woke up each and every morning to do the best job they could to provide credit, or figure out a profitable strategy for their company, what-have-you.  Goldman and the others are not evil (although Blankfein has made some borderline satanic references), what makes them appear less than credible is the instrument that underwrites their entire business.

How can you create a solid business built on the foundation of a baseless trust?

If you take these same types of infrastructures and build them upon the foundation of a publicly accountable ledger, I assure you they will operate flawlessly and the perception of their purpose will change dramatically.  This will take 50 to 100 years but it can happen.

Good luck running a financial institution when today you had to search around for the word "patience" in order to gauge your VAR.  This kind of foolishness is not how mankind should operate its money supply.

Evidently nothing.  Suspicious link removed from CNBC, not welcome I guess.  Its a pretty profound statement of how security in the Digital Currency space operates and unfortunately the larger corporations don't quite understand what the rest of us regard as common sense.

We think it would be safe to say that the traditional financial system has begun to take their security almost as serious as the Digital Currency space.  From the perspective of the Digital Currency industry we are all too familiar with sub-par security systems.  2-factor authentication comes to mind as a practice that everyone regards as standard around here.  It is not an inconvenience, it does not slow anyone down.  It provides for a very high level of security.  Multi-signature transactions are also a standard key control when moving any value, anywhere.  Why these two methodologies would be glossed over when managing your most valuable asset is beyond us to try to explain.

When developing a risk model there of course can be no 100% certainty.  However if you have reached a 99% level and the 1% can be quantified and insured against, then you have effectively mitigated 100% of the risk.  We read that JP Morgan spends $5 million per week or $250 million per year to guard against cyber security issues.  Although they have 83,000,000 clients to maintain across multiple businesses, their data was breached due to a server not employing the 2FA standard.  2FA is virtually a free implementation.

http://www.c[Suspicious link removed]m/id/102506520

We are inspired to know that our members take their security seriously.  Education is the key to understanding that a simple password does not cut it now-a-days, externally for users, or internally for systems operations.  We are very proud of the Incryptex's security initiatives and partners that have climbed on board the platform.

We hope the cyber security teams at Home Depot, Target, JP Morgan among countless others, might take a serious look as to what is going on in the Digital Currency space, where protecting sensitive data is paramount to operating any business.

The Incryptex Team

Insurance is obtainable with a little luck and a team of underwriters willing to undertake a year to handle the due diligence, compliance, checks, balances, controls and procedures to mitigate any activity down to a criminal matter which can be clearly defined and insured against.  This is common place in most systems that manage valuable assets.  There are a few who have navigated the space to bring a higher level of clarity to this new class of product but insuring one's self is a little disingenuous.  It is a process where you must be challenged, doubted and questioned.  Bit Go seems to have done a great job and we commend them!

We couldn't help but say something here, only being the second post of course.  We have been duct taped, blindfolded and hog tied from saying anything but soon we will finally have something to say.  It will be to the dismay of a few and a hooray to the many.

We entered the Bitcoin environment when PFlops of the network were around 600.  It was an absolute certainty that the authenticity of the store of value everyone called Bitcoin was incorruptible.

That same network is now 39,000,000 PFlops.  Most participants did not want the aggravating circumstance to purchase Bitcoin and instead decided to mine it.  99% of the hashing power out there is completely irrelevant to the stability of the network which, as I said was untouchable at 600 PFlops.  However the arms race began.

To our knowledge unless you have created some kind of geothermal electricity and housed your rigs in the Norweigan Arctic while your best friend owned a chip foundry in China operated with one million prisoners, there is no way for mining to be profitable.

There are some indisputable laws of the universe.  Gravity, the speed of light, and we will say Moore's Law.  We simply could not double the rate of transistors fast enough to satisfy the appetite to mine Bitcoin and now the weight of those huge pieces of infrastructure must collapse.  In effect we personally see it as a confidence boost that illustrates the longevity of Bitcoin.  Economics will reign in the rate of growth of the network and prevent centralization of mining from falling into a few hands.  The risk is simply to great for these enterprises to consider.  When a graph of the exponential growth of the network is overlayed on the rigid two year stair-step of Moore's Law one can clearly see where things went awry.  Instead the risk will be redistributed over the many.  Quite an astounding consequence of design.

Unfortunately this is the first time this phenomenon has been regarded and so many of these players have been blindsided unable to comprehend what has happened.  For the rest of us the fall out is regarded in the price but we are comforted to know the network has a built in mechanism where even limits exist for mining to keep everything in balance.