Freedom and Responsibility - or: why you FAILED if you lost money in MBC crash

[harmal]

 i guess i can any say that i'm a bit surprised that people chose to use MyBitcoin at all. bitcoins seem to be a geek project anyway and most of the geeks i know would want to control their own wallets and security. well, this seems to be one of the growing pains of a growing currency. sorry to all that lost their coins.

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[quattro]

I'm having a hard time feeling sorry ... people need to do their due diligence.  Their ignorance and lack of common sense is a set back for bitcoin.

[FlipPro]

...

Which brings me to Bruce Wagner. I like Bruce. I like his show and his enthusiasm. He seems pretty smart, too. But the idea that he referenced a service without confirmation of real identity is very hard to understand. It is one thing to take such a risk yourself. It is quite another, especially if you are an expert with a reputation, to be advising others without full disclosure of the risks. I really hope Bruce was clear about those risks or, frankly, I would have a hard time showing my face around here again if I were him.

In conclusion, Bruce and anyone else who mentioned mybitcoin.com, without stating that they have not personally confirmed the trustworthiness of that site, should regret that they did that and should refrain from doing that for other services in the future.

Speaking of Bruce...

I sure hope that he is OK in all of this.  He obviously had a lot of hope, energy, and passion for the project.  I hope he is not prone to suicidal tendencies or anything like that, is strong enough to look at the whole picture, and experienced enough to know that all things pass.   (It seems at this point that...) Ya, he fucked up.  Big time.  But he is not the only one and he has done a lot of very good work for a very important project and that has not gone away.  I personally appreciate his work a lot and hope not only that he recovers but continues to contribute.

This was the oldest, longest standing bitcoin eWallet site in existence.   It had a strong record of stability.   It had been around nearly since the beginning of bitcoin itself.    People who trusted using an eWallet at all...  trusted it.   It had 10s of thousands of account holders.   Some of the smartest, most reputable, long-standing bitcoin community leaders used it.    Only two people ever complained about me recommending it.   But neither could ( or were willing to ) give me any concrete reasons why they shouldn't be trusted.... other than, "I just have a bad feeling about them."    At the time, that sounded like saying the same thing about MtGox.  They had never given me, or any other users any reason to believe that they were not reputable.   Also, it was by far --- and still to this day --- the easiest and most feature rich eWallet in existence.

You have no idea how much I regret recommending mybitcoin.com   I  do not have suicidal tendencies.    I have been through things even worse than this in my life.    What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

In a few hours from now...  tomorrow morning.... I will tape an episode of The Bitcoin Show as a monologue....  just me, talking about all of this... all of my thoughts and feelings and lessons learned.... and my new convictions and new directions of advocacy ( as I'm sure you can guess what they include )...

I have not lost any faith in Bitcoin, nor in OnlyOneTV.    It has brought me back down to earth..... and HARD....  slammed my face down on the pavement.   I am no expert, and I try to emphasize that as often as possible.    But, at the same time,  I do not take my responsibility as "someone people listen to" lightly.    The pain of losing 25,000 of my own bitcoin is nothing.   Nothing at all.    Compared to the pain of knowing that my recommendations have led to the loss of so many others.   That tears my heart out.   You have no idea how much.

At first, it felt like I was kicked in the gut by an angry horse.   I've felt that pain in my gut constantly every since.   But on top of that, moments later, the realization that everyone I know and love and care about....  and how many other strangers who listen to me....  have lost their bitcoin in this as well....   and I've pretty much not stopped crying since Friday.    Even though I have been at the office, and I have put on a normal face for people...    That's why you haven't seen me on the air.     I have to regain my composure, get it together, get my head and my thoughts together, determine where to go from here, and what to say to the audience.

The worst is facing all the people I love most in my life....  and telling them what happened.... one by one.    They trusted my advice without hesitation.    And now I have to tell them what happened.    I suspect that nothing that could happen to me in my life will ever cause me as much pain as I am experiencing right now....  just thinking of how I will tell them.   These are not techie geeks like you guys.   These are normal people.   They are not to blame.   And, yes, in hindsight, I should have known better.   Hindsight is so 20/20.

I am praying for you and the entire community Bruce. All of this hurts so bad. We will get through all this and persevere, we ALL just have to get smarter, and we are more than capable of doing so.

[smoothie]

This was the oldest, longest standing bitcoin eWallet site in existence.   It had a strong record of stability.   It had been around nearly since the beginning of bitcoin itself.    People who trusted using an eWallet at all...  trusted it.   It had 10s of thousands of account holders.   Some of the smartest, most reputable, long-standing bitcoin community leaders used it.

So, before you "trusted" your money to mybitcoin.com, recommended to personal friends that they trust "mybitcoin.com", and recommended mybitcoin.com to people online, you spent +/- $2000 to fly down and meet the people behind it ... right.

I think you need to look up the word trust.

The second day I got into bitcoin I knew it mybitcoin.com was bad news and pulled everything out of mybitcoin.com.

The damage you have done to bitcoin is immeasurable.

Yeah I expected more from Bruce from a security stand point. I do remember him emphasizing securing your passwords for multiple websites that are sensitive in nature that relate to bitcoin. Why he would leave an open door to be taken advantage of like this I cannot understand especially with an amount of bitcoin as 25k.

That's the equivalent of taking $250,000 of your own money and saying let me store it in someone else's bank account in which they have the authority to access the funds at will and I trust them.

No one in their right mind would ever let some unknown/faceless person you never met store your $250k in THEIR bank account. And on top of that the recommending of using the same process to others to store their bitcoins and countless worth in dollars is like 10 times worse.

The first thing I would have done is taken the 25k bitcoins and broken them up into 1k lots and stored them in separate wallets on separate jump drives that have duplicates store off site of where I am at locked up in a safe (not the bank of course).

Decentralization of the storage of your bitcoins is probably the best idea one can use to protect their investment.

[Bitcoin Swami]

This was the oldest, longest standing bitcoin eWallet site in existence.   It had a strong record of stability.   It had been around nearly since the beginning of bitcoin itself.    People who trusted using an eWallet at all...  trusted it.   It had 10s of thousands of account holders.   Some of the smartest, most reputable, long-standing bitcoin community leaders used it.

So, before you "trusted" your money to mybitcoin.com, recommended to personal friends that they trust "mybitcoin.com", and recommended mybitcoin.com to people online, you spent +/- $2000 to fly down and meet the people behind it ... right.

I think you need to look up the word trust.

The second day I got into bitcoin I knew it mybitcoin.com was bad news and pulled everything out of mybitcoin.com.

The damage you have done to bitcoin is immeasurable.

Yeah I expected more from Bruce from a security stand point. I do remember him emphasizing securing your passwords for multiple websites that are sensitive in nature that relate to bitcoin. Why he would leave an open door to be taken advantage of like this I cannot understand especially with an amount of bitcoin as 25k.

That's the equivalent of taking $250,000 of your own money and saying let me store it in someone else's bank account in which they have the authority to access the funds at will and I trust them.

No one in their right mind would ever let some unknown/faceless person you never met store your $250k in THEIR bank account. And on top of that the recommending of using the same process to others to store their bitcoins and countless worth in dollars is like 10 times worse.

The first thing I would have done is taken the 25k bitcoins and broken them up into 1k lots and stored them in separate wallets on separate jump drives that have duplicates store off site of where I am at locked up in a safe (not the bank of course).

Decentralization of the storage of your bitcoins is probably the best idea one can use to protect their investment.

Agreed

[quattro]

Yeah I expected more from Bruce from a security stand point.

After mtgox, there is no excuse for this ... heck even before mtgox there was no excuse. It's basic common sense ... something a lot of people seem to be missing.

There is  reason his videos have so little viewership ... watch one if you can stand it for more than a few minutes.  It's like the blind leading the blind.

People like this need to be weeded out of bitcoin for it to succeed ... and that's exactly whats happening.

Bitcoin has enough hurdles to pass before true widespread adoption can be achieved.

Of course if you listen to Bruce, Shell stations will be accepting bitcoins any day now.  On the contrary a lot has to happen before that is possible.

[smoothie]

Yeah I expected more from Bruce from a security stand point.

After mtgox, there is no excuse for this ... heck even before mtgox there was no excuse. It's basic common sense ... something a lot of people seem to be missing.

There is  reason his videos have so little viewership ... watch one if you can stand it for more than a few minutes.  It's like the blind leading the blind.

People like this need to be weeded out of bitcoin for it to succeed ... and that's exactly whats happening.

Bitcoin has enough hurdles to pass before true widespread adoption can be achieved.

Of course if you listen to Bruce, Shell stations will be accepting bitcoins any day now.  On the contrary a lot has to happen before that is possible.

+1

[Bruce Wagner]

MyBitcoin.com USERS HAD BITCOIN STOLEN. They are returning a portion 49% of them to you: Not sure where to send them? CALL ME. 646-580-0022

[solarpower]

This was the oldest, longest standing bitcoin eWallet site in existence.   It had a strong record of stability.   It had been around nearly since the beginning of bitcoin itself.    People who trusted using an eWallet at all...  trusted it.   It had 10s of thousands of account holders.   Some of the smartest, most reputable, long-standing bitcoin community leaders used it.

So, before you "trusted" your money to mybitcoin.com, recommended to personal friends that they trust "mybitcoin.com", and recommended mybitcoin.com to people online, you spent +/- $2000 to fly down and meet the people behind it ... right.

I think you need to look up the word trust.

The second day I got into bitcoin I knew it mybitcoin.com was bad news and pulled everything out of mybitcoin.com.

The damage you have done to bitcoin is immeasurable.

WOW man you are a MASTER of the obvious after the fact quattro.

I for one MUST hear more from you on a daily basis.  RUN (don't walk) and setup a video podcast immediately.  In it you can tell us all the news (like a week later) and tell us how you knew all along how it was going to work out.  Oh here is a suggestion you can hold a conference just like bruce in NYC but have it like 2 weeks later and tell us all that he might possibly do wrong in his conference that you "knew was gonna happen"  I know i would sign up and be there because i just LOVE YOU MAN.

Your words are just so poetic.  Like when you asked if Bruce had flown down to meet the people before he put his money in.  Wow I am so proud of you.  Man I am sure Bruce never thought of that months after the fact. Since you said in the quote above you "pulled everything out of mybitcoin" I can only assume you took your own perfect advice and took a plane there before you ever put money in.  So tell us master of the obvious when you met the people behind mybitcoin what were they like?  What made you put bitcoins in mybitcoin in the first place?

Looking forward to your conference and podcast creations quattro  ... coming soon I hope ....
 
Solarpower

[quattro]

MyBitcoin.com USERS HAD BITCOIN STOLEN. They are returning a portion 49% of them to you: Not sure where to send them? CALL ME. 646-580-0022

They weren't stolen, you gave them away.

Bitcoins are P2P currency, that means you don't store them in a centralized location like traditional currency.

Don't tell people to send them anywhere.  That's more of the blind leading the blind.

If you can't secure a machine and protect a single file, you have no business participating in bitcoin at this stage.

The time will come for non-technical participants, but it's not  now.

Let me see if I got Bruce's recommendation right ... "Hi Dad, you won't believe this new currency, it's strength is that it's peer to peer.  But here, store this p2p currency in a centralized location with a complete stranger."

[quattro]

This was the oldest, longest standing bitcoin eWallet site in existence.   It had a strong record of stability.   It had been around nearly since the beginning of bitcoin itself.    People who trusted using an eWallet at all...  trusted it.   It had 10s of thousands of account holders.   Some of the smartest, most reputable, long-standing bitcoin community leaders used it.

So, before you "trusted" your money to mybitcoin.com, recommended to personal friends that they trust "mybitcoin.com", and recommended mybitcoin.com to people online, you spent +/- $2000 to fly down and meet the people behind it ... right.

I think you need to look up the word trust.

The second day I got into bitcoin I knew it mybitcoin.com was bad news and pulled everything out of mybitcoin.com.

The damage you have done to bitcoin is immeasurable.

WOW man you are a MASTER of the obvious after the fact quattro.

I for one MUST hear more from you on a daily basis.  RUN (don't walk) and setup a video podcast immediately.  In it you can tell us all the news (like a week later) and tell us how you knew all along how it was going to work out.  Oh here is a suggestion you can hold a conference just like bruce in NYC but have it like 2 weeks later and tell us all that he might possibly do wrong in his conference that you "knew was gonna happen"  I know i would sign up and be there because i just LOVE YOU MAN.

Your words are just so poetic.  Like when you asked if Bruce had flown down to meet the people before he put his money in.  Wow I am so proud of you.  Man I am sure Bruce never thought of that months after the fact. Since you said in the quote above you "pulled everything out of mybitcoin" I can only assume you took your own perfect advice and took a plane there before you ever put money in.  So tell us master of the obvious when you met the people behind mybitcoin what were they like?  What made you put bitcoins in mybitcoin in the first place?

Looking forward to your conference and podcast creations quattro  ... coming soon I hope ....
 
Solarpower

I have no desire to explain basic common sense to people who have none.

At this stage, I'm merely stating the obvious because Bruce and others are pretending that the blame doesn't rest 100% with them.

It's like handing your car keys to a car thief ... you can whine all day long about how evil the car thief is, but in the end, you're the idiot that handed them your keys.

If I was making recommendations to non-technical users to give thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars to a complete stranger in a foreign country, and I was pretending to be an expert with my own show, you can bet your ass I'd at least meet the person behind the company before doing so.  You don't have to suspect they're a thief, they can be incompetent, or just lazy.

As it stands, I'm an individual making recommendations to no one, knowing full well what my own risks are.