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Topic: Another huge problem with Bitcoin and the problems users have staying safe (Read 1456 times)

hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
Imagine a wallet (hot or not) becomes the market leader and more than half the existing bitcoins are stored there.

Then imagine it's security is breached.

If this happens at a time when bitcoin has been mass accepted and it is a dominant currency to store wealth in world-wide - then a criminal could be in possession of half the wealth in the world.....

Sounds surreal and could not happen in a FIAT system.

I think if one wallet had half or more of the btc in existence, we'd already be in trouble, whether the wallet ever got hacked or not
legendary
Activity: 1092
Merit: 1000
The security factor is one of the biggest hurdles for bitcoin, absolutely. But, that doesn't take away from the fact that the technology is innovative and a breakthrough.
legendary
Activity: 1638
Merit: 1013
Some of OP points and other replies in the thread are flawed or misguided.

a) 51% attack is based on hashing power not ownership of coins.
b) Owning a large number of coins does not automatically mean the end of the world. The owner has to have malicious intent and the will to dump.
c) Assuming malicious intent, 49% ownership is just as bad as 51%
d) Fiat is not far off - refer this article as well as this one.
full member
Activity: 139
Merit: 100
Potentially the security aspect will be solved (or at least made easier for the masses) and then you are left with a fine form of currency.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 251
Imagine someone steals trillion of dollars per year from people and they use it to go out and bomb and shoot people and kidnap and imprison millions of other people.

Scary thought.

Just like in The Dictator American Democracy Speech

Imagine a wallet (hot or not) becomes the market leader and more than half the existing bitcoins are stored there.

Then imagine it's security is breached.

If this happens at a time when bitcoin has been mass accepted and it is a dominant currency to store wealth in world-wide - then a criminal could be in possession of half the wealth in the world.....

Sounds surreal and could not happen in a FIAT system.

We can do a 51% attack anytime if this really happens Tongue

Shady road to go down. Also, if this really happened it would probably be late for bitcoin and whoever still had some would abandon it because of simple fear. And rightfully so.

hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 501
Error 404: there seems to be nothing here.
Imagine a wallet (hot or not) becomes the market leader and more than half the existing bitcoins are stored there.

Then imagine it's security is breached.

If this happens at a time when bitcoin has been mass accepted and it is a dominant currency to store wealth in world-wide - then a criminal could be in possession of half the wealth in the world.....

Sounds surreal and could not happen in a FIAT system.

We can do a 51% attack anytime if this really happens Tongue
legendary
Activity: 1148
Merit: 1014
In Satoshi I Trust
Imagine someone steals trillion of dollars per year from people and they use it to go out and bomb and shoot people and kidnap and imprison millions of other people.

Scary thought.

wait.....is there an underlying message?  
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1008
Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political
Imagine a wallet (hot or not) becomes the market leader and more than half the existing bitcoins are stored there.

Then imagine it's security is breached.

If this happens at a time when bitcoin has been mass accepted and it is a dominant currency to store wealth in world-wide - then a criminal could be in possession of half the wealth in the world.....

Sounds surreal and could not happen in a FIAT system.

If you're not the sole controller of your private keys, you don't have any Bitcoins.
Most experienced people here prefer to have Bitcoins, not IOUs.

The whole point of Bitcoin is you can be your own bank.
So, I don't think this is a "huge problem".

legendary
Activity: 3542
Merit: 1352
Cashback 15%
Imagine a wallet (hot or not) becomes the market leader and more than half the existing bitcoins are stored there.

Then imagine it's security is breached.

If this happens at a time when bitcoin has been mass accepted and it is a dominant currency to store wealth in world-wide - then a criminal could be in possession of half the wealth in the world.....

Sounds surreal and could not happen in a FIAT system.

Any vault or storage that contains a vast amount of wealth would likely have a heavy security around it. For you to get access on the inside, you must first pass through different layers of security. Not sure what do you really want to convey in this post, but security is not bitcoin's problem, it is on the user that is maintaining the wallet to keep it secure.
legendary
Activity: 950
Merit: 1000
Imagine a wallet (hot or not) becomes the market leader and more than half the existing bitcoins are stored there.

Then imagine it's security is breached.

If this happens at a time when bitcoin has been mass accepted and it is a dominant currency to store wealth in world-wide - then a criminal could be in possession of half the wealth in the world.....

Sounds surreal and could not happen in a FIAT system.

Oh yes a system where .0001% of the population are the only ones that are allowed to create money and have the police and armies all over the  country bought out to ensure their power.... 

OH YES WHAT AN AMAZING FIAT SYSTEM WE HAVE....

What happens when the gov decides to just randomly debase your currency 50%? Or print 1000000x more of it?

WHAT HAPPENS THEN RANSOMER WHAT HAPPENS THEN?

Can we fork back.. NOPE WE CANNOT, Can we make our own ? NOPE WE CANNOT.

But you can always leave....
How could we? We have deeply involved in the fiat dominating economy! We need to use the printed money to pay for our food and living, get paid from  our jobs!
legendary
Activity: 1778
Merit: 1043
#Free market
Imagine a wallet (hot or not) becomes the market leader and more than half the existing bitcoins are stored there.

Then imagine it's security is breached.

If this happens at a time when bitcoin has been mass accepted and it is a dominant currency to store wealth in world-wide - then a criminal could be in possession of half the wealth in the world.....

Sounds surreal and could not happen in a FIAT system.

Oh yes a system where .0001% of the population are the only ones that are allowed to create money and have the police and armies all over the  country bought out to ensure their power....  

OH YES WHAT AN AMAZING FIAT SYSTEM WE HAVE....

What happens when the gov decides to just randomly debase your currency 50%? Or print 1000000x more of it?

WHAT HAPPENS THEN RANSOMER WHAT HAPPENS THEN?

Can we fork back.. NOPE WE CANNOT, Can we make our own ? NOPE WE CANNOT.

But you can always leave....
legendary
Activity: 950
Merit: 1000
Hope that happens soon, I want to be rich! Cheesy
Bitcoin will fall into chaos and the price will plummet! Yes, fork is a good solution, which will roll back to the block before the incident happened! But it will cause some users missing money or getting back the sent out balance! I have to say fork can not be the solution forever! We need better solutions which is easily applied in real!
hero member
Activity: 1582
Merit: 502
Imagine someone steals trillion of dollars per year from people and they use it to go out and bomb and shoot people and kidnap and imprison millions of other people.

Scary thought.

Indeed it is a scary thought....
I don't even wanna think about it.... Roll Eyes

Hell, imagine if a few of these so called bankers found a way to make hundreds of billions of dollars by putting the taxpayer in debt.
And when the whole think blows out, they bail out and get to keep all that money.
Now isn't that a scary thought? Roll Eyes

Anyone seen Inside Job, the documentary, by the way?
It's pretty good.
Explains a lot.
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1005
★Nitrogensports.eu★
Op, I guess you have little idea how much money is stolen each year from Banks and financial institution due to hackers attacks. I guess this info is not exactly on the first page of every newspaper because it is not convenient to scare people. Security of the most powerful financial institution and even Pentagon are being breached on daily basis. Compared to this, bitcoin structure and security looks amazing.
legendary
Activity: 1778
Merit: 1043
#Free market
Imagine someone steals trillion of dollars per year from people and they use it to go out and bomb and shoot people and kidnap and imprison millions of other people.

Scary thought.
Haha, yeah, just imagine! How disturbing would that be. The mass public would undoubtedly start rioting and screaming and running away from such a corrupt financial scheme, and urge to fall back on alternative, more open, transparent monetary systems.

Oh, wait...



But this is how the current system works... so it is up the people (better citizen) to change the things with a real revolution.


PS: Maybe I'm dreaming.
legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1011
Imagine someone steals trillion of dollars per year from people and they use it to go out and bomb and shoot people and kidnap and imprison millions of other people.

Scary thought.
Haha, yeah, just imagine! How disturbing would that be. The mass public would undoubtedly start rioting and screaming and running away from such a corrupt financial scheme, and urge to fall back on alternative, more open, transparent monetary systems.

Oh, wait...

legendary
Activity: 3598
Merit: 2386
Viva Ut Vivas
Imagine someone steals trillion of dollars per year from people and they use it to go out and bomb and shoot people and kidnap and imprison millions of other people.

Scary thought.
full member
Activity: 168
Merit: 100
Hope that happens soon, I want to be rich! Cheesy

I only got into bitcoin for that one reason only
sr. member
Activity: 434
Merit: 250
Loose lips sink sigs!
Imagine a wallet (hot or not) becomes the market leader and more than half the existing bitcoins are stored there.

Then imagine it's security is breached.

If this happens at a time when bitcoin has been mass accepted and it is a dominant currency to store wealth in world-wide - then a criminal could be in possession of half the wealth in the world.....

Sounds surreal and could not happen in a FIAT system.

One word... fork.

RedSn0w, give us more than one word. Explain yourself.

To the OP, great question...Could something be done on the blockchain to provide added security? It makes the idea of cold storage a lot more valuable, imperative. There's no one great answer, yet...unless RedSn0w can explain how the fork is going to save us.
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1074
Well, We had a situation like that with MtGox before, and it did not ruin Bitcoin.... It did do a lot of harm though.  Angry

There are loads of online wallet service providers out there now, and it can be positive and negative for us. Positive in the sense that it protects from one single point of failure,

if everyone use one service and it fails. Negative in that it creates several opportunities for loads of smaller security failures, where all sites are not on the same standard as the

strongest sites out there. My advice would be to only store small amounts of Bitcoins on these online wallet service providers and the rest in cold storage or paper wallets.  Wink

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