Tag Archives: Mt. Gox
Top Bitcoin News Last Week: Bubble, Winklevoss Twins, Mt. Gox Attacks
Bitcoin News
A roundup of the top Bitcoin news from April 8 to April 14:
Monday, April 8
Tuesday, April 9
Thursday, April 11
Friday, April 12
- Did the Bitcoin Bubble Burst Already?
- Winklevii Bitcoin: Twins Secretly Own 1% of the Bitcoin Economy
Sunday, April 14
Video: Bitcoin Primer – Bitcoin Economy, Mining, Exchanges, and More
Bitcoin Primer Video
Below is a short Bitcoin primer video. The video provides an overview of Bitcoin, the decentralized digital currency taking the world by storm.
The film was directed, designed and animated by Duncan Elms, written and voiced by Marc Fennell - a personal project done between other jobs. More info at Vimeo.
The narration and illustration does a great job of explaining Bitcoin, discussing:
- The difference between Bitcoin and fiat currencies
- What Bitcoin mining is and how many Bitcoins have been mined
- How Bitcoin is a self-stabilizing economy
- Bitcoin exchanges including Mt. Gox
- The Silk Road
- Who accepts Bitcoin as cash
- MintChip
The video is out of date in terms of the price of Bitcoin because of the massive growth and subsequent bubble bursting, but otherwise an excellent Bitcoin primer.
Did the Bitcoin Bubble Burst Already?
Bitcoin Bubble May Be Over
Wow, the Bitcoin bubble blew up fast.
Bitcoins were trading for as high as $266 earlier this week and as low as $77 today.
Trading activity overwhelmed exchanges like Mt. Gox and trading was halted twice, as shown in the chart below from CNN Money.
“The rather astonishing amount of new accounts opened in the last few days…made a huge impact on the overall system that started to lag,” said Mt. Gox. “As expected in such situations, people started to panic, started to sell Bitcoin in mass…resulting in an increase of trade that ultimately froze the trade engine.”
This comes on the heels of Bitcoin theft and DDoS attacks on the exchange.
Bubble photo by Visual Artist Frank Bonilla used under Creative Commons license.
Bitcoin Theft: Mt. Gox Attack Pillages Investor’s Bitcoin Account
Will Bitcoin theft call into question trust and confidence in the system?
A Mt. Gox user bitbully was surprised to see his account suddenly pillaged, later learning that the Java chat client he had enabled was actually an exploit to steal Bitcoins. He reported his experience on the Bitcoin Forum.
There are mixed opinions on the web about who is to blame for this.
On Bitcoin Forum, there’s an empathetic view that suggests Mt. Gox should reimburse the loss.
I expect Mt. Gox to come up with an analysis and refund him and any other affected clients.
bitbully – I advise emailing a link to this thread to Mt. Gox support.
In the tech communities, they blame the user. Here’s one point of view from Hacker News.
Since I don’t have an mtgox account, and I have a fair degree of confidence that the code posted can’t possibly escape the Java sandbox, I decided to live dangerously and try loading the page.
Here’s the warning screen that comes up when you load it: http://i.imgur.com/sXDoFLt.png Note the self-signed certificate from “North Sumatra”.
Gotta say, I have no sympathy for someone who clicks through that warning screen and then complains that their credentials got stolen.
On Reddit, some users give advice about browser configurations.
1) Disable Java, it’s crap. 2) Enable 2-factor authentification.
Don’t use IE.
Here’s the challenge with this type of theft. It’s anonymous and irreversible by nature of the Bitcoin system. bitbully’s funds are gone.
But a bigger issue is trust and confidence. If an early adopter techie can be exploited, what about a regular retail investor? Exchanges like Mt. Gox will need to prove that they are safe for trading if they hope to grow.
Top Bitcoin News Last Week: Market Cap, VCs, Skype Virus, Pizza
Bitcoin News
A roundup of the top Bitcoin news from April 1 to April 7:
Tuesday, April 2
- Can Bitcoin Be Trusted as the Global Economy’s Safe Haven?
- Video: Max Keiser Predicts Bitcoin Market Growth to $1 Million Per BTC
Wednesday, April 3
Thursday, April 4
- Is Bitcoin Hype or Reality? Real, And Also Controversial
- Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox DDoS Attack: It’s Been an Epic Few Days
- Bitcoin Hits the Front Page of the Financial Times
Friday, April 5
Saturday, April 6
Sunday, April 7
