[2014-07-21] The 9 Biggest Screwups in Bitcoin History

[ganabb]

http://www.coindesk.com/9-biggest-screwups-bitcoin-history/

Do you know where your bitcoins are right now? Hopefully they’re still in your wallet where you left them, but the history of bitcoin is littered with human error, poorly implemented software and heists that would make even the most hardened of Wild West outlaws tip their hat in respect.

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[Swordsoffreedom]

Ah walking down memory lane
I mean most of it some was before my time like #9
I thought the full article would be all on piling on the devs but just 2 spots

That said number 5 was a facepalm moment... and we will see with Maidsafe.

#2 Did forget the one case where Friedcat gave back the coins since he found that block but sucks for others and accidental transactions are stupidly common lol just some are far worse than others.

[Kprawn]

Stictly speaking only 2 on that list, is directly linked to the Bitcoin protocol. The rest is 3rd parties using the protocol and them failing. Or human error by people using the protocol.

Looking at the title, some might think, the Bitcoin protocol itself had 9 big screwups, which is technically not true.

MtGox and Silkroad was not Bitcoins mistake. 

[ThomasCrowne]

Wow!  Wasn't even aware of that CVE error back in August of 2010!  Talk about a serious extinction level event!

[Mudd]

4. The end of auroracoin

Iceland is famous for aggressively prosecuting its bankers for their role in the financial meltdown of 2007/2008. So when auroracoin was announced in February, a cryptocurrency designed to be a national currency for Iceland, the stars seemed to have aligned perfectly.

Just months later, auroracoin is dead and all the hype dead with it.

What does that have to do with bitcoin. Out of interest, what actually happened to it?

[Ron~Popeil]

These stories are fun to read and are excellent cautionary tales. The one about hard drives makes me want to buy up some old ones on ebay etc.

[ajareselde]

http://www.coindesk.com/9-biggest-screwups-bitcoin-history/

Do you know where your bitcoins are right now? Hopefully they’re still in your wallet where you left them, but the history of bitcoin is littered with human error, poorly implemented software and heists that would make even the most hardened of Wild West outlaws tip their hat in respect.

Im unsure; should i laugh or cry now, as some of theese stories are both histericaly funny and sad at the same time.
I also had a hard drive with big amount of btc, sold it with laptop in 2009, and the funniest part is that i knewed y wallet is there, but i didnt care, since they were practicaly worthless at the time.

oh boy..

[ArticMine]

My favourite is 5. Anyone who has been around the Canadian telecommunications scene anytime during the last 30 years should know to stay well away from Rogers. This company is well known for perfecting the art of providing totally atrocious customer service for years, from introducing negative option billing, to grounding a cable modem by drilling into a live gas line, to harassing people who were not even their customer with endless collection calls. The list of horror stories involving Rogers is just endless. What happened to Canadian Bitcoins is not surprising at all given that the provider involved is non other than Rogers. Their mistake for which they paid dearly is to not remove their servers from the data centre the moment that Rogers bought it.

[Swordsoffreedom]

4. The end of auroracoin

Iceland is famous for aggressively prosecuting its bankers for their role in the financial meltdown of 2007/2008. So when auroracoin was announced in February, a cryptocurrency designed to be a national currency for Iceland, the stars seemed to have aligned perfectly.

Just months later, auroracoin is dead and all the hype dead with it.

What does that have to do with bitcoin. Out of interest, what actually happened to it?

Think it was the icelanders that claimed the coins dumped it all as fast as they could and the miners didn't want to do anything with it so the coin just died off.

Edit In:
Was below the picture
The currency was ‘airdropped’ to Iceland’s citizens in late March, with 31.8 auroracoin allocated to each citizen who had registered. The few that claimed their coins are thought to have immediately sold them off and the price of the coin never recovered after plummeting on its first day in circulation.

Auroracoin’s fatal blow came from the insecurity of the network – there was little incentive for miners to maintain the network and process the few transactions made with the coin. As a result it was vulnerable to attack from anyone with a modest amount of computing power at their disposal.

[TheButterZone]

No Bitfloor?

[DrG]

I'm pretty sure there are a lot more "7500 coins on one HD in the trash" stories.  I wouldn't be surprised if somebody lost 10K or 20K coins and won't admit it simply because then others know he/she probably has a lot more

Yeah only 2 are related to the protocol itself, the rest is stupid human.