Probability of cryptocurrency apocalypse

[mboxdk]

I suspect I have an argument for why bitcoin will die. Please challenge my suspicions.  

I think many here understand that bitcoin can only have two directions: infinitely up or infinitely down.
If infinitely up, then Bitcoin will become a reserve currency and will be used in banks and at the state level. Some people will keep large amounts of bitcoin in their wallets.

Do people understand that when working with bitcoin there is every chance of losing ALL money through negligence or because of a virus. Losing all your money is INCREDIBLY simple! There will be absolutely NO chance to get them back!
It can kill peoples, destroy banks or economy of entire states.
I don’t even want to say that people with large balances will experience the wildest paranoia. They may be physically tortured to gain access, because it's easy, anonymous and safe


Are you absolutely confident in the security of bitcoin client that you use? Are you absolutely sure in the security of OS that you use for the bitcoin client?
Are you always confident that the binaries you download do not contain a backdoor?
Are you absolutely confident that when you download a repository from a github, you download the original code? Do you check the hash every time?
Are you absolutely confident that open source guarantees no backdoors inside? You probably read it all after downloading from github?
Are you absolutely confident re that your compiler does not have a backdoor built in to embed a backdoor? Are you confident that the compiler that built your compiler does not have a built-in backdoor?
Are you absolutely confident in your hardware?

One hole anywhere is enough to lose all your money. You cannot check everything. Organizations that will use cryptocurrencies will not be able to verify everything. Bitcoins are very easy to steal due to the human factor.

If bitcoin becomes widespread there will be a great interest in finding and creating such vulnerabilities

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[hatshepsut93]

If bitcoin becomes widespread there will be a great interest in finding and creating such vulnerability

Bitcoin's price has already been high enough to attract hackers, because of potential of stealing millions of dollars and anonymously converting them to fiat. MTGox happened 7 years ago. The fact that Bitcoin didn't die because of this and continues to become stronger just disproves your argument that Bitcoin will disappear because of hackers.

Confident users will keep storing Bitcoin by themselves, others will use trusted custodians.

[mboxdk]

If bitcoin becomes widespread there will be a great interest in finding and creating such vulnerability

Bitcoin's price has already been high enough to attract hackers, because of potential of stealing millions of dollars and anonymously converting them to fiat. MTGox happened 7 years ago. The fact that Bitcoin didn't die because of this and continues to become stronger just disproves your argument that Bitcoin will disappear because of hackers.

Confident users will keep storing Bitcoin by themselves, others will use trusted custodians.

Bitcoin price can only move in one direction, infinitely up or infinitely down. Most people keep him because they believe in his future and there are more and more people like him, so it goes up. I'm talking about what will happen if their faith becomes reality.
Bitcoin can remain for a long time purely as a speculative instrument without serious use, then many people will eventually lose faith and the price will fall to zero.

[CaVO32]

If bitcoin becomes widespread there will be a great interest in finding and creating such vulnerability

Bitcoin's price has already been high enough to attract hackers, because of potential of stealing millions of dollars and anonymously converting them to fiat. MTGox happened 7 years ago. The fact that Bitcoin didn't die because of this and continues to become stronger just disproves your argument that Bitcoin will disappear because of hackers.

Confident users will keep storing Bitcoin by themselves, others will use trusted custodians.

Hackers will always be here no matter what. Trying to screw people using sophisticated softwares. Not only in crypto but even in fiat systems. We have had a lot of hacks already, and recently, DeFi hacks or exchange hacks. And yet, bitcoin is still standing and keep on growing each day. So right now, I don't see that crypto will see its end despite of these attacks.

[Welsh]

Are you absolutely confident in the security of bitcoin client that you use?

Are you 100% confident in the security of your banking system? Theoretically, the principles are the same. Bitcoin is in active development, and is open source meaning that if a vulnerability is detected, then it should hopefully be patched quickly. Bitcoin has in the past had several vulnerabilities of various degrees, all of which it has recovered from. There was basically a vulnerability in the early days which allowed creating new coins,

Are you absolutely sure in the security of OS that you use for the bitcoin client?

To a degree, yes. There's various vulnerabilities found in all operating systems somewhat regularly, just like any other piece of software. Your phone has been vulnerable , and so has the software you are using on this very forum. The point is, and this is an extension to your first question; there is no avoiding vulnerabilities in software, and therefore not only is Bitcoin under threat from that, but also the operating system you use to login to all your accounts, including your banking account if you use online banking. Also, even if you don't use online banking personally, your bank likely uses the same operating systems that we can get our hands on, probably some distribution of Linux. Even if its a custom coded operating system, it can likely be attacked the very same way as any operating system available to consumers.

its also worth mentioning that, you can actually make a Bitcoin wallet via various different methods, some of which don't require being online which significantly reduces the chances of malicious attacks, unless the attacker has physical access to your device.

Are you always confident that the binaries you download do not contain a backdoor?

Depends on binaries you are specifically talking about. However, generally if the code is open source then you can verify it, or get someone else to verify it for you.

Are you absolutely confident that when you download a repository from a github, you download the original code? Do you check the hash every time?

Yes, this is including, but not limited to the operating system I use.

Are you absolutely confident that open source guarantees no backdoors inside? You probably read it all after downloading from github?

No, it guarantees nothing, Although, the chances of a malicious program being open source, is significantly less so than it being closed source. Basically, the code can be verified, but lets be honest not all of us understand that specific language or we don't have the time since programs can literally be hundreds of thousands lines of code, and therefore to an extent you are relying on a collective effort to verify that the code is clean, and safe. Generally, you can vet the code in specific areas, for example what happens when you enter the private key, is it logged anywhere or sent to someone's email address etc.

Not to mention, there are dedicated organizations out there in verifying open source content. Yeah, you are again relying on another third party, but without actually having the time, and knowledge yourself you are pretty much limited to giving some sort of trust to the collective. However, banks don't have this option, and you must entirely put your trust in them to manage your money, invest your money, and to keep patching any vulnerabilities that they find.

There is one exception to this, and that is generally the more developed countries tend to have a protection limit, that if the bank goes bust for example, they will reimburse a set amount. I think in the UK its 85k. You of course, don't have this in Bitcoin, but other than that in every other sense, traditional currencies are just as susceptible to attacks than Bitcoin. You could even argue more so, since there's physical location that can be attacked not just a digital one.

One hole anywhere is enough to lose all your money. You cannot check everything. Organizations that will use cryptocurrencies will not be able to verify everything. Bitcoins are very easy to steal due to the human factor.

If bitcoin becomes widespread there will be a great interest in finding and creating such vulnerabilities

This is literally true for everything.  The majority of the people in the world are already using a system which relies on computers, and are therefore have the same concerns. The majority of people now use online banking, not only that they are using it on phones, that they install apps on which have access to varying amounts of information, and they browse on that same phone, they do everything on that phone. When you own Bitcoin, you are basically removing the third party element, so you are more inclined to protect your assets. Therefore, you generally aren't going to be storing your main wallet, on a live machine. At least, it isn't recommended.

[mboxdk]

Are you 100% confident in the security of your banking system? Theoretically, the principles are the same. Bitcoin is in active development, and is open source meaning that if a vulnerability is detected, then it should hopefully be patched quickly. Bitcoin has in the past had several vulnerabilities of various degrees, all of which it has recovered from. There was basically a vulnerability in the early days which allowed creating new coins,

I don't say about vulnerabilities in Bitcoin, I mean other software.

To a degree, yes. There's various vulnerabilities found in all operating systems somewhat regularly, just like any other piece of software. Your phone has been vulnerable , and so has the software you are using on this very forum. The point is, and this is an extension to your first question; there is no avoiding vulnerabilities in software, and therefore not only is Bitcoin under threat from that, but also the operating system you use to login to all your accounts, including your banking account if you use online banking. Also, even if you don't use online banking personally, your bank likely uses the same operating systems that we can get our hands on, probably some distribution of Linux. Even if its a custom coded operating system, it can likely be attacked the very same way as any operating system available to consumers.

Banks control centralized money, they can very easy find and return them! They can block transactions and do very much things to keep your money safe and find thefts. Hacker cannot steal 10millions dollars from your bank account using a virus, but 10millions bitcoins - easy.

its also worth mentioning that, you can actually make a Bitcoin wallet via various different methods, some of which don't require being online which significantly reduces the chances of malicious attacks, unless the attacker has physical access to your device

.
But you cannot send it offline.

Yes, this is including, but not limited to the operating system I use.

No, it guarantees nothing, Although, the chances of a malicious program being open source, is significantly less so than it being closed source. Basically, the code can be verified, but lets be honest not all of us understand that specific language or we don't have the time since programs can literally be hundreds of thousands lines of code, and therefore to an extent you are relying on a collective effort to verify that the code is clean, and safe. Generally, you can vet the code in specific areas, for example what happens when you enter the private key, is it logged anywhere or sent to someone's email address etc.

Github can be hacked or falsified by the government in theory.

This is literally true for everything.  The majority of the people in the world are already using a system which relies on computers, and are therefore have the same concerns. The majority of people now use online banking, not only that they are using it on phones, that they install apps on which have access to varying amounts of information, and they browse on that same phone, they do everything on that phone. When you own Bitcoin, you are basically removing the third party element, so you are more inclined to protect your assets. Therefore, you generally aren't going to be storing your main wallet, on a live machine. At least, it isn't recommended.

Bitcoin transactions are irrevocable, you cannot complain to the bank or the police. They can steal absolutely any amount of money without consequences, this will greatly motivate hackers

[mboxdk]

Satoshi Nakamoto created money that does not require trust in each other, but requires trust in tens of thousands of software, hardware and online sources and added HUGE motivation to hackers and governments to infect everything.

[Welsh]

Bitcoin theft or any theft is indeed punishable under law. Due to the nature of Bitcoin, it can sometimes be difficult to prove that there's been a theft in the first place, and I'll admit that there's definitely complexity involved when reporting Bitcoin theft.

As for banks blocking transactions, this is somewhat true. They do indeed have fraud protection, and therefore are actively looking for suspicious activity. However, if missed, and they do indeed get missed once the transaction has been sent, and the money has been removed you'll find it rather hard to get that money back. There's been evidence of banks missing transactions, and being fooled multiple times in history. In fact, its quite a common saying within the IT industry that large organizations, and banking systems generally have poor security protocols. There's several books that have gone into detail of various high profile companies having absolutely shocking security practices. However, yeah I can acknowledge that having a safety net in terms of fraud prevention is something that people rely on these days, and will see as a benefit. However, there's clear downsides to this too, mainly convenience or "censorship". For example, your bank has the right to deny a transaction if they deem it against their policies. They can also, suspend your banking account for the same reasons. There's been various reports over the years of banks closing peoples accounts for purchasing Bitcoin as an example.

You can't send offline, this is true. However, there is ways around this if you want to have the upmost security. Its advisable to have "cold storage" which you intend to hold for a long time, secured in a offline environment. While, also having a hot wallet which houses significantly smaller amounts of Bitcoin, but Bitcoin that you intend on accessing regularly. There is ways to mitigate some of the issues you might face though, using a hardware wallet, or securing your system. If you are using cold storage for larger amounts, and another "hot wallet" for smaller amounts then you might argue that this is better practice than having a bank account which stores all of your money, which you access through a online portal.

Github or any website for that matter can be falsified as you put it. Government websites have previously been hacked, and have been falsified. I have no doubt that banks are targeted too,

I do understand your concerns, there are clear downsides to being responsible for your money, mainly being related to the lack of a safety net if something goes wrong. However, there are clear upsides to it, and if you approach Bitcoin the right way, you can argue that its more secure than any banking system in the world. You can make Bitcoin as secure as you want. From a code point of view, its been tried, and tested, and is in active development. However, for someone who doesn't particularly like to rely on third parties, controlling your money right down to the very way its stored appeals to me. Also, the freedom to move your money when you want without having to deal with additional third party policies.

[mboxdk]

The bank is a guarantee of the safety of funds under the responsibility of the bank in any case. This is especially true if the money is very large, there will always be a responsible party to which claims can be made. Money from the banking system cannot leak into the void and can easily be returned and moved, no matter what kind of protection system there is. We're not talking about collapsed banks or fraud.

I agree that the bank is censorship, I do not like censorship too, I just state the facts.

But accidental theft or loss of bitcoins will turn into a complete apocalypse for people or organizations. People will be afraid of each other and not trust each other. How will it work if the slightest mistake or hack leads to financial death?

[Silberman]

One hole anywhere is enough to lose all your money. You cannot check everything. Organizations that will use cryptocurrencies will not be able to verify everything. Bitcoins are very easy to steal due to the human factor.

If bitcoin becomes widespread there will be a great interest in finding and creating such vulnerabilities

I think you are confusing two different realities, people will lose their coins? Yes this has happened many times already and the price keeps going up, you are your own bank so bitcoin requires people to learn to keep backups, this is just good practice and it has been taught as long as computers have existed, equipment fails, people forget their passwords, it happens, get a backup, the chances of getting hacked are way smaller than the chances of losing your coins by yourself or giving your coins willingly to scammer.

[mboxdk]

One hole anywhere is enough to lose all your money. You cannot check everything. Organizations that will use cryptocurrencies will not be able to verify everything. Bitcoins are very easy to steal due to the human factor.

If bitcoin becomes widespread there will be a great interest in finding and creating such vulnerabilities

I think you are confusing two different realities, people will lose their coins? Yes this has happened many times already and the price keeps going up, you are your own bank so bitcoin requires people to learn to keep backups, this is just good practice and it has been taught as long as computers have existed, equipment fails, people forget their passwords, it happens, get a backup, the chances of getting hacked are way smaller than the chances of losing your coins by yourself or giving your coins willingly to scammer.

This is true, as long as I work with bitcoin as an individual, there is no problem. I'm talking about what will happen if Bitcoin continues to grow and gain official status and truly becomes reserve currency.

[Darker45]

Those are valid questions, or so they appear to me. By simply raising those questions, you must already be provoking reasonable doubt among a lot of people. At the end of the day, the question is yours to answer, will you, then, get into Bitcoin or not? If you say you will, then welcome and be aware that there are existing risks in the world of Bitcoin, as there are in fiat. If you say you don't, then you are completely free to do so, which you simply cannot do with fiat.

Yes, there must be a hole, or even holes, somewhere, but if the bad guy can find it, the good guy also can. In terms of security, it is always a race between the good guy and the bad guy.

I think many here understand that bitcoin can only have two directions: infinitely up or infinitely down.

I simply don't subscribe to this.

I'm talking about what will happen if their faith becomes reality.

"then this world would be a gasser."- Louis Armstrong to you.

Hacker cannot steal 10millions dollars from your bank account using a virus, but 10millions bitcoins - easy.

Whatever hackers use doesn't matter. The point is that stealing applies to both of them.

its also worth mentioning that, you can actually make a Bitcoin wallet via various different methods, some of which don't require being online which significantly reduces the chances of malicious attacks, unless the attacker has physical access to your device

.
But you cannot send it offline.

You can if you really want to.

Bitcoin transactions are irrevocable, you cannot complain to the bank or the police. They can steal absolutely any amount of money without consequences, this will greatly motivate hackers

To a certain extent, it is a myth that Bitcoin cannot be seized or confiscated or recovered.

[mboxdk]

Yes, there must be a hole, or even holes, somewhere, but if the bad guy can find it, the good guy also can. In terms of security, it is always a race between the good guy and the bad guy.

One bad guy with one open hole somewhere is enough to lose all money 

I simply don't subscribe to this.

"then this world would be a gasser."- Louis Armstrong to you.

What is idea of Bitcoin? A huge number of people will lose unimaginable amount of money there if it will not go up infinitely. I would stay away from Bitcoin if it has no serious goals to take over the world.

You can if you really want to.

Yes, I understand how. But this will only help me, and does not protect against the human factor if an organization uses bitcoin.

To a certain extent, it is a myth that Bitcoin cannot be seized or confiscated or recovered.

In some cases, it is possible if the money was stolen by a complete idiot.

[ethereumhunter]

This is true, as long as I work with bitcoin as an individual, there is no problem. I'm talking about what will happen if Bitcoin continues to grow and gain official status and truly becomes reserve currency.

To become a reserve currency will need a long time because I do not think that the government will easily approve bitcoin to be their currency. The government may approve bitcoin as a commodity like stock and else, but they need to research more or discuss with other instancies of using bitcoin as their currency.

As a regular user who uses bitcoin now, I only use bitcoin to trade, which is buy and sell, make a profit, and send the profit to my bank account. That is more complex if we think about the whole thing that might happen to bitcoin because that is out of our expectations, and even if that is happening in the future, I am not sure we still alive.

What you are saying can happen in the future, but we as a user need to take care and responsibility to our bitcoin, including what we used. It is like we save the money in the bank, and the bank will guard the money and responsible for the money. But this time, because bitcoin is a self-manage thing, that will be our responsibility to guarding, take care of, and know how to use it properly, so we do not give a chance for the thief or other bad people who want to steal our bitcoin. Even if the hacker tries to hack our wallet or our OS or anything we use, we do not have to worry as long as we can take care of what we have.

It is enough if we can use the benefit of bitcoin without thinking about the thing that maybe happen if we use it in the wrong way. Let the expert solve that, and we as a user only need to use it carefully. That is what I think of a regular user.

[mboxdk]

This is true, as long as I work with bitcoin as an individual, there is no problem. I'm talking about what will happen if Bitcoin continues to grow and gain official status and truly becomes reserve currency.

To become a reserve currency will need a long time because I do not think that the government will easily approve bitcoin to be their currency. The government may approve bitcoin as a commodity like stock and else, but they need to research more or discuss with other instancies of using bitcoin as their currency.

As a regular user who uses bitcoin now, I only use bitcoin to trade, which is buy and sell, make a profit, and send the profit to my bank account. That is more complex if we think about the whole thing that might happen to bitcoin because that is out of our expectations, and even if that is happening in the future, I am not sure we still alive.

What you are saying can happen in the future, but we as a user need to take care and responsibility to our bitcoin, including what we used. It is like we save the money in the bank, and the bank will guard the money and responsible for the money. But this time, because bitcoin is a self-manage thing, that will be our responsibility to guarding, take care of, and know how to use it properly, so we do not give a chance for the thief or other bad people who want to steal our bitcoin. Even if the hacker tries to hack our wallet or our OS or anything we use, we do not have to worry as long as we can take care of what we have.

It is enough if we can use the benefit of bitcoin without thinking about the thing that maybe happen if we use it in the wrong way. Let the expert solve that, and we as a user only need to use it carefully. That is what I think of a regular user.

Approval of bitcoin as a commodity is the same as recognizing a reserve currency, everyone will run to buy bitcoin and fiat will depreciate in a matter of years. I see salvation from hackers only in offline use, offline generation of a wallet is required, an offline terminal to generate a signed transaction for online transfer. I see another problem, in addition to the human factor: the more backups of the private key in different places you make, the lower the likelihood of loss, but the higher the likelihood of theft.

[electronicash]

the security risk depends on the user unlike with bank system right now which everyone's funds lie in their hands. restoring with private keys solves everything.
the apocalypse of cryptocurrency should have happened a long time ago if it's really meant to but look at how far crypto had gone right now. the moment BTC goes down, there will hundreds if not thousands of people and institutions going to buy it all up again.  whether it becomes a currency reserve or not Bitcoin will be used. there will be corrections which we got used to it, the countries adopting BTC got used to it.

[Lorence.xD]

The only way that I can think of that will cause a cryptocurrency apocalypse is when we are dependent solely on technology for our transactions, fiat will be a thing of the past and every payment is all digital, and when that happens, the only apocalypse that will happen is when there is a global EMP that will wipeout all the electronics in the world, with no computers for back ups, digital money will become useless but that too will not likely happen because electronics protection is definitely going to be innovated along with other things.

[pooya87]

I think many here understand that bitcoin can only have two directions: infinitely up or infinitely down.

Not at all. Nothing is infinite and there are a lot of directions bitcoin can go but the most possible one is stability of its value (not the price). For example at some point you will be able to pay something like 1000 satoshi for a cup of coffee and that won't change even if 1000 satoshi continues rising in price against failing fiat currencies.

It can kill peoples, destroy banks or economy of entire states.

Not all the money is kept in one place, specially when we are talking about bitcoin when speaking of "money". Not to mention that with bitcoin there is no need for banks anymore and your "money" is stored in your own pocket. If you lose it you lose it as an individual not affecting anybody else.

Are you absolutely confident that when you download a repository from a github, you download the original code? Do you check the hash every time?
Are you absolutely confident that open source guarantees no backdoors inside? You probably read it all after downloading from github?

Everything is open source and verifiable, and also reproducible meaning everyone anywhere in the world that builds the same code comes up with the same hash.

Are you absolutely confident re that your compiler does not have a backdoor built in to embed a backdoor? Are you confident that the compiler that built your compiler does not have a built-in backdoor?
Are you absolutely confident in your hardware?

Again everything is open source from the code to the compiler. And if your hardware has any backdoors you have more serious things to worry about than just your bitcoins. It will affect the current banking system too.

[Josefjix]

The only way that I can think of that will cause a cryptocurrency apocalypse is when we are dependent solely on technology for our transactions, fiat will be a thing of the past and every payment is all digital, and when that happens, the only apocalypse that will happen is when there is a global EMP that will wipeout all the electronics in the world, with no computers for back ups, digital money will become useless but that too will not likely happen because electronics protection is definitely going to be innovated along with other things.

I don't think fiat can completely be wiped out, but this is all illusional discussions, setting up examples of possible scenarios that could happen with the fast growing sector.  Bitcoin theft just like every other currencies happens and will continue to happen. It is all left for the user who wishes to save Bitcoin as stock for a long time to learn tactics on how to outsmart the potential fraudster by using custodian wallets maybe. Security is a very important aspect of Bitcoin that doesn't need to be taken lightly, exposing your private keys to a non trusted exchange already puts you in risk of hack as the OP has suggested.

[lovesmayfamilis]

OP, the good script for yet another disaster movie. But you forget that bitcoin carries with it the idea of ​​freedom. And accordingly, those who invest their capital in it are not subjected to any kind of violence to do so. Investing is a voluntary affair of every person who has believed in bitcoin.
All those moments, how we relate to our finances, apply only to those who and how owns them. We are responsible, and we are our banks. Naturally, someone who trusts large amounts of bitcoins should have good knowledge to keep everything without prejudice to themselves, as well as have a good mental state so as not to be constantly distracted by paranoid questions like your questions.