Most Compelling Bitcoin Statistic

[JDBound]

In your opinion, what is the most compelling Bitcoin stat out there... one that really makes people stop and think about Bitcoin. I'm thinking something along the lines of computing power, or a comparison to Paypal. (Prospective stats or goals can also be compelling...)

Extra credit for citing your response.

[1714001683]

1714001683

[1714001683]

1714001683

[evoorhees]

Probably that the core bitcoin protocol and network has never been hacked or infringed upon. That alone is quite amazing, and a testament to the good design of the system.

We can imagine that there must be an army of hackers out there trying to profit by corrupting the Bitcoin system. Thus far, they've only been able to successfully attack companies and websites, but never Bitcoin itself.

[Stephen Gornick]

Probably that the core bitcoin protocol and network has never been hacked or infringed upon. That alone is quite amazing, and a testament to the good design of the system.

We can imagine that there must be an army of hackers out there trying to profit by corrupting the Bitcoin system. Thus far, they've only been able to successfully attack companies and websites, but never Bitcoin itself.

Just to clarify, though the protocol has not been "hacked", the August 2010 incident occurred from a hack to a vulnerability in the Bitcoin client  (i.e., did not occur using the stock client -- though whether it was malicious or not has not been deteremined).
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents

[jimbobway]

Bitcoin days destroyed.

Number of websites utilizing bitcoin.

[ParrotyBit]

Probably that the core bitcoin protocol and network has never been hacked or infringed upon. That alone is quite amazing, and a testament to the good design of the system.

We can imagine that there must be an army of hackers out there trying to profit by corrupting the Bitcoin system. Thus far, they've only been able to successfully attack companies and websites, but never Bitcoin itself.

Because companies, websites, and end users are what hackers target. You don't "hack the internet", you target entities, not protocols. That's how it works. You can't "hack the dollar", but you can take someone else's dollar. You could put one in a color copier, sure. Is that hacking? Ctrl+C on wallet.dat, Ctrl+V. Race to spending go!

When Fort Gox leaves their door open, you don't try to rob the intangible postman who travels at the speed of light. There are hundreds of potential victims right now just begging to fall victim to the irreversibility and anonymity of BTC. I'm sure if some Mr. Teatime wanted to, he could set his watch a few hours late and send some coins around in a circle, or send a fine dust of BTC to random addresses and grind the system to a halt, or stage an incident to isolate the US's internet from everyone else for a period of time for some fragmenty fun. I'm sure he could get the Guild to bump their share up to 51% too. There's not much of a point to it, though, because it would completely destroy the currency and:

Money is worthless if one person has all of the money. Money is worthless if no one has any of the money.

I'd say the most compelling statistic is the estimated cost of electricity used in mining.

[evoorhees]

Probably that the core bitcoin protocol and network has never been hacked or infringed upon. That alone is quite amazing, and a testament to the good design of the system.

We can imagine that there must be an army of hackers out there trying to profit by corrupting the Bitcoin system. Thus far, they've only been able to successfully attack companies and websites, but never Bitcoin itself.

Because companies, websites, and end users are what hackers target. You don't "hack the internet", you target entities, not protocols. That's how it works. You can't "hack the dollar", but you can take someone else's dollar. You could put one in a color copier, sure. Is that hacking? Ctrl+C on wallet.dat, Ctrl+V. Race to spending go!

You can "hack the dollar."  It's called counterfeiting, and it happens every day - mainly by the Federal Reserve. My point is that nobody has been able to do something similar with Bitcoin, and this is quite remarkable and impressive.

[phatsphere]

You don't "hack the internet"

When you control some parts of it, MITM attacks, spoofing tcp/ip and many other things are possible. That's hacking the internet because that's exactly what the internet is made of. It's "unsecured" by design, unfortunately.
Related to bitcoin, an equivalent attack would be creating fake bitcoins, grabbing money from other addresses  (by means of inserting "something" into the blockchain you are not allowed to) and so on. That never happened, that's what the OP meant.

[nibor]

That you can store $36 million in a load of numbers with no promises or legal system required!

Below contains the total market value that is the above.
http://pi.uk.com/bitcoin

Where else is this true?

With Bank Accounts it is stored in a number, but the Government promises to pay you if the bank goes bust.

With cash you have to trust the Government will repay you.

With Gold you need to have something physical.

[the joint]

It works.

I'm already speechless.

[Litt]

It works.

I'm already speechless.

+1

[racerguy]

It works.

I'm already speechless.

+2

[trentzb]

You don't "hack the internet"

When you control some parts of it, MITM attacks, spoofing tcp/ip and many other things are possible. That's hacking the internet because that's exactly what the internet is made of. It's "unsecured" by design, unfortunately.
Related to bitcoin, an equivalent attack would be creating fake bitcoins, grabbing money from other addresses  (by means of inserting "something" into the blockchain you are not allowed to) and so on. That never happened, that's what the OP meant.

I was about to say before phatsphere beat me to it, that it is pretty naive to think the internet and related protocols aren't the target of attacks. They are attacked every day. However companies and end users are attacked more every day.