Topic: Connecting a few dots (Read 4723 times)

Proof of hack attempt?!  

You guys need to chill out, this isn't hacking allover the place.
Just a strange variance, that's it, and it happened during a heavy load of transactions... but, hey, maybe they connected K to the btc network to go on a test run...  

I salute you.  Most people can't pack this many errors into such a small post.

Solving the blocks that way may had been a way to use an eventual surplus on computing power from the bitcoin network.

If you notice the two to the left, they look like at the normal block solving heartbeat.
During the attack you've 2 blocks being generated simultaneously, than 3 (at least, the amount of trades cover it up) and in the end 5.
At the same time it looks like party time in the transactions entering the blockchain. This denotes a co-relationship between demand and supply.

May things happened in that time frame worthing a look at, being obviously the most urgent MtGox's issue.

There's a limit of transactions a block can contain I know you can solve empty blocks, but the spike on demand created a spike on supply.
This is actually an unforeseen event, would be interesting, when the dust settles, to study this behavior and its influence in the blocks generated on. I would believe in "chance" if it was 2 or 3, but I count there 10 blocks during the attack and then the 2 following solved blocks appears to be what it does regularly.

Block production does not go up because there are more transactions pending.  Unless you think the hash rate of the network suddenly shot up at the exact moment of the heist?

It's just chance that five were made close to each other.  If one miner accepted all of the transactions that happened around the disaster, then they were all in the first block, the following four were completely redundant.

I'm not betting, this is an apocalyptic hypothesis, but still sustainable by the available data.
And no, I'll NOT be happy if I'm right. Being a pessimistic I'm used to be happy when I'm wrong.

Just by looking at the monitor, I can count 10 blocks solved (maybe more, they're hiding under the trade dots) during the attack. This means the blockchain was on fire with so many transactions going on. And the blockchain doesn't move because there was a trade at MtGox, it moves because someone was inputing a huge load of transactions to it.

I'm not betting, this is an apocalyptic hypothesis, but still sustainable by the available data.
And no, I'll NOT be happy if I'm right. Being a pessimistic I'm used to be happy when I'm wrong.

Just by looking at the monitor, I can count 10 blocks solved (maybe more, they're hiding under the trade dots) during the attack. This means the blockchain was on fire with so many transactions going on. And the blockchain doesn't move because there was a trade at MtGox, it moves because someone was inputing a huge load of transactions to it.

Actually, by the previous trend I would believe it's price to be around 5 by now.
Still, if I'm right, not even by creating a "fractional-reserve" MtGox will be able to stand up again.

the $1000 limit withdrawal applied to BTC so why would they convert USD to BTC only to be limited from cashing out?

Ok, the new ones are crypt MD5 salted hashes. But 2 months ago they were all plain MD5 unsalted.

Let me try to go more descriptive here, to see if you understand my line of deduction:

Notice there the evolution in the prices 2 months ago:



My theory goes around that by such time MtGox's db was already compromised.
At this point the hacker would start to get pwds and entering some accounts to check its users' activity. Allowing him to sort some dormant accounts with credit. Those with BTC on it were probably just wiped out, those with USD the hacker used it to buy BTC (bringing the price up this way) and later cashed out the BTC resulting from those trades.
Some of those users started to complaint to M'Tux who decided to implement his crypt(pass,salt) function. Up to this point, and up to yesterday M'Tux was most likely believing it was about users' giving away their passwords not his site fault.

Lately the thief tripped some wires or the legit owners checked their accounts making a load of requests to MtGox who came forward and put that thread on the forum. Seeing this, the robber decides to go on his final blow... and here we are.

In order to withdraw them they would have had to be active during the 20 minutes after it happened (all of those orders were there before the sell off, no one could get in orders during the sell off) and during that time mt gox's website was moving at a crawl. On top of that, there is a $1000 withdraw limit. I know, from experience, that this withdraw limit is based on the 24 day weighted average. At the end of the sell off that average was about $4, or about 250 bitcoins.

So if 50 people got to withdraw the full 250 bitcoins that they didn't have in there account before the crash, then mt gox will have to cover 12,500, or about $150,000. The daily volume lately has been around $400,000. Mt gox gets about 1.3% of that $400,000, or $5,200 a day. That means that this incident cut in a little bit to this months profit.

We know mt gox has over 400,000 bitcoins on hand (it is right there in the block explorer), so even if they don't have money to cover it, and go on a sort of "fractional-reserve", the fraction would be almost 1. (400,000-12500)/400,000 = 0.96. That just isn't a worrisome fraction. And even if they take a 70% hit in volume, they will be able to make up that fraction in a month or two.

EDIT Where are the people claiming to withdraw with success? I know they didn't withdraw anything huge like the 260,000 that went for a penny, because I would see that in the block explorer.