How much do scammers and criminals harm bitcoin?

[Parzival]

I am a novice in bitcoin world and now have been reading through this forum and bitcoin related blogs. Seems that almost every website that offers you a possibility to invest, spend, lend etc bitcoins is a scam. Especially now when the price has rocketed, the fraudsters and cybercrimals seem to have launched a full scale attack to get their share. To find real honest opportunities to invest or spend bitcoins need substantial amount of work. So I wonder whether scammers and underground criminals have hijacked bitcoin. Could they even destroy the emerging bitcoin economy?

[btc24]

 Nope, they don't kill it. so they make it stronger!

[Parzival]

Nope, they don't kill it. so they make it stronger!

Well, maybe "killing" was a wrong word. Of course they cannot "kill" it. But could they prevent it from coming mainstream? What regards to money and finance, most people are conservative and safety oriented. After all, currency is just a tool, at least to most of us. And most people expect safety, honesty and realiability from this tool. That is something bitcoin economy is not able to deliver. At least not yet.

[pontiacg5]

You are on the right track, it currently takes a substantial amount of time to really tell what is going on here. If you try and skip that step and go straight to the money making you will always be burned. It's not hard to tell that many people like to try and skip that step, look at the newbie section...

That's not too dissimilar to anything else than is it? I presume as time goes on more people will make it easier for people to become involved with bitcoin safely, those people will be solely motivated by money and until things start calming down they won't take that money making risk, it's just too high right now.

It's still early in other words, lots of people probably will be turned off bitcoin from being scammed. Hopefully in ten years they have no choice but to use bitcoin  

[poordeveloper]

I am a novice in bitcoin world and now have been reading through this forum and bitcoin related blogs. Seems that almost every website that offers you a possibility to invest, spend, lend etc bitcoins is a scam. Especially now when the price has rocketed, the fraudsters and cybercrimals seem to have launched a full scale attack to get their share. To find real honest opportunities to invest or spend bitcoins need substantial amount of work. So I wonder whether scammers and underground criminals have hijacked bitcoin. Could they even destroy the emerging bitcoin economy?

I notice you used "almost", but you must understand that with Bitcoin, you must do the same as if you were lending, investing, spending... cash.
You wouldn't give cash to a complete stranger promising you unrealistic returns, right?

[Parzival]

That's not too dissimilar to anything else than is it?

Well, the banks and credit card companies are able to provide "consumer protection" to at least some extent. But if all your  wealth were in bitcoins, you had toworry about 1) Hackers breaking into your computer and stealing your bitcoins 2) E-wallet manager to steal your bitcoins 3) On line auction site to steal your bitcoins 4) A site that promises constant returns to you if you deposit your bitcoins actually being a scam and to steal your bitcoins....etc

And after the theft or fraud has happened, whence do you get help?

[bennybong]

All's I'm saying is there is a fair few CRIMINALS and THIEFS that own a HUGE amount of bitcoins/wealth at the moment....    

That's no good imo.

[pontiacg5]

That's not too dissimilar to anything else than is it?

Well, the banks and credit card companies are able to provide "consumer protection" to at least some extent. But if all your  wealth were in bitcoins, you had toworry about 1) Hackers breaking into your computer and stealing your bitcoins 2) E-wallet manager to steal your bitcoins 3) On line auction site to steal your bitcoins 4) A site that promises constant returns to you if you deposit your bitcoins actually being a scam and to steal your bitcoins....etc

And after the theft or fraud has happened, whence do you get help?

Ahhh, you seem to have missed the second half of my post.

None of the things you listed (banks and credit card companies, paypal, western union, etc) are a US dollar, right? They are things working in unison with dollars, adding value to it and taking a profit as a consequence.

So why would you look to bitcoin to do those things? Is a physical dollar bill not lost if you misplace it? Or if you are mugged?

So again, just give it a few years and ask the same question again.

 

[franky1]

about the same as pick pocketers, handbag thieves, card cloners and identity thieves affect fiat users.

people have a high understanding that no matter where you have money, there is also someone that want to get it illegally.

as long as people that are attempting to get new people into bitcoin are also teaching them about back-ups, paperwallets first. and then phishing and other obvious scam things to spot EG "hellos stranger, blah...sob story.. blah..emergency..blah.. need cash now" as well as telling them to never download unofficial software onto a holding huge wealth. then it should at least prepare people..

now from another point of view.
scammers and thieves don't affect "bitcoin" but it does affect bitcoin users.

as long as the thieves at some point spend their coin thus keeping the coin in circulation then "bitcoin" will continue. what does harm "bitcoin" are when developers alter sourcecode of mining pools and client for greedy purposes and not the benefit of community.

[halfawake]

I am a novice in bitcoin world and now have been reading through this forum and bitcoin related blogs. Seems that almost every website that offers you a possibility to invest, spend, lend etc bitcoins is a scam. Especially now when the price has rocketed, the fraudsters and cybercrimals seem to have launched a full scale attack to get their share. To find real honest opportunities to invest or spend bitcoins need substantial amount of work. So I wonder whether scammers and underground criminals have hijacked bitcoin. Could they even destroy the emerging bitcoin economy?

I notice you used "almost", but you must understand that with Bitcoin, you must do the same as if you were lending, investing, spending... cash.
You wouldn't give cash to a complete stranger promising you unrealistic returns, right?

Actually, people do this all the time with the traditional stock market.  If you own any shares in mutual funds, do you personally know what the fund manager is doing with your money?  The difference here is that there are a lot of laws so that those who do their research can see what the funds are investing in, it generally spells it out in the prospectus: along with the legally required caveat that this is an investment, not FDIC insured, and may lose value.  The difference is there are a lot more consumer protections in things like mutual funds, and the good ones are fairly diversified, so the worst you're going to do is lose 30% of the fund's value in a bad year, not 100% of it because someone just plain ran off with your money.

Of course, investing with individual stocks is a lot more risky - good investments can go up a lot higher, and bad ones can lose everything.  I lost money to the Inputs hack / theft, and believe me, it feels a lot worse than losing it to a bad year in the stock market.  Because here, the money's actually gone, unless we can get it back in a lawsuit, in which case the lawyers will take a large chunk of it.  In the stock market example, all you have to wait and assuming the underlying investment is sound, it'll eventually go back up again.

I've learned my lesson, but I see so much of the hacks and thefts, that to me the lesson is that if I end up buying more bitcoins, I'll just stick em in a cold wallet and hope the price goes up again rather than attempt to invest in anything.  The investing market just doesn't feel mature enough to be trustworthy yet in the bitcoin world.

[Parzival]

None of the things you listed (banks and credit card companies, paypal, western union, etc) are a US dollar, right? They are things working in unison with dollars, adding value to it and taking a profit as a consequence.

So why would you look to bitcoin to do those things? Is a physical dollar bill not lost if you misplace it? Or if you are mugged?

So again, just give it a few years and ask the same question again.

You are right. But is bitcoin such a solid foundation on top of which those institutions can be built? At the moment victim of a crime seems to lack all legal protection. At least in practice. This is not the case with US dollar. And bitcoin is a global P2P currency, not state currency. So whence does that safety come from?

[hilariousandco]

How much do bank robbers and counterfeit money-makers hurt fiat?

[pontiacg5]

None of the things you listed (banks and credit card companies, paypal, western union, etc) are a US dollar, right? They are things working in unison with dollars, adding value to it and taking a profit as a consequence.

So why would you look to bitcoin to do those things? Is a physical dollar bill not lost if you misplace it? Or if you are mugged?

So again, just give it a few years and ask the same question again.

You are right. But is bitcoin such a solid foundation on top of which those institutions can be built? At the moment victim of a crime seems to lack all legal protection. At least in practice. This is not the case with US dollar. And bitcoin is a global P2P currency, not state currency. So whence does that safety come from?

Bitcoin is obviously a solid foundation, for it to come this far is proof itself.

It most certainly IS the case with the US dollar in most circumstances. First, most times you probably don't know who has your money, second there are plenty of jurisdiction problems within the US itself alone. In the cases where litigation actually recovers something you can bet it's been months or years and you've got a fraction of what was yours. There's nothing to say that bitcoins can't be recovered this way, by the way.

From where does global safety come from? No idea there, we are seriously on our own for making a new global virtual currency. If laws could even be made, who would enforce them? This isn't a bitcoin problem either, you can easily wire money to Chinese drop shippers who then don't do anything. Good luck suing China.

[Parzival]

How much do bank robbers and counterfeit money-makers hurt fiat?

There is a difference whether a crime is a rule or an exception.

[pontiacg5]

How much do bank robbers and counterfeit money-makers hurt fiat?

There is a difference whether a crime is a rule or an exception.

So you say crime is the rule for bitcoin?

Obvious troll is now obvious. Time to move on.

[RodeoX]

I think it is a destructive force. People grow upwith paper money and know how to keep it safe. Bitcoin is different. You have to know something about computers and the internet to safely use it. It seems like every day someone comes here with a tragic story of having lost $10k worth of coins that they were protecting with their FaceBook password.
A person who was ripped of like that may turn away from learning more and adopting bitcoin.

[PenAndPaper]

I am a novice in bitcoin world and now have been reading through this forum and bitcoin related blogs. Seems that almost every website that offers you a possibility to invest, spend, lend etc bitcoins is a scam. Especially now when the price has rocketed, the fraudsters and cybercrimals seem to have launched a full scale attack to get their share. To find real honest opportunities to invest or spend bitcoins need substantial amount of work. So I wonder whether scammers and underground criminals have hijacked bitcoin. Could they even destroy the emerging bitcoin economy?

The good thing is that you can always be the master of yourself and decide not to risk anything in shady services. I don't underestimate the security concerns but even now that bitcoin is in the early stages people have alternatives and solutions.

[Parzival]

How much do bank robbers and counterfeit money-makers hurt fiat?

There is a difference whether a crime is a rule or an exception.

So you say crime is the rule for bitcoin?

Obvious troll is now obvious. Time to move on.

I am not trolling. Just genuinely worried that bitcoin as unregulated and decentralized currency has attracted a considerable amount of dishonest people to misuse this liberty. And genuinely worried that these people could do considerable amount of harm to the future of bitcoin. Of course it is the people who commit frauds, not the currency itself.