28 comments

  • lordkrandel a day ago

    We are convinced that digital money is safer than analog gold bullions or notes. But... is it true?

    • biglyburrito 20 hours ago

      Who is "we"? Because it ain't me.

    • JumpCrisscross 13 hours ago

      > We are convinced that digital money is safer than analog gold bullions or notes

      Don't know anyone who thinks this who has any substantial wealth to their name.

    • infinite_spin a day ago

      I don't remember anyone of good repute saying such a thing, how are you (the convinced) measuring safety?

  • sciencesama a day ago

    curious how !

  • Detrytus a day ago

    What does it even mean to "seize" Bitcoin? Did they somehow get possession of wallet keys?

    • no-name-here a day ago

      1. OP article doesn’t seem to mention bitcoin, and original hack covered multiple cryptocurrencies (including bitcoin).

      2. Other theoretical ways would be if a governing body for one of the other cryptocurrencies reversed a transaction, such as occurred during the earlier DAO hack. Another possibility is if some of the funds were left in an exchange’s custody - obviously a hacker would work to avoid that, but maybe they were rate limited or something before an exchange locked the funds.

      • chistev a day ago

        Crypto lost part of its appeal to me when I found out they do that after major hacks - reverse transactions.

        The whole point of crypto, for me, was to be immune to central authorities who can reverse transactions.

        • bigfatkitten a day ago

          Crypto has, for the most part been a speedrun of the last 150 years of the financial system. A lot of people have learned the expensive way why we have the regulations that we do.

        • solyin a day ago

          I'm not super in the crypto scene, but hasn't that only happened a tiny handful of times on the major coins? Like twice, ever? That isn't what happened here, afaik.

        • bikvfeee 13 hours ago

          Crypto has central authorities too.

        • akimbostrawman a day ago

          >reverse transactions

          That is an issue of inferior public and non-fungible crypto like BTC not crypto as whole. Monero XMR for example has none of these issues as one of the only actually useful crypto.

          • DaSHacka a day ago

            Always love to see another XMR maxi out in the wild. I've been saying this for years, I never understood the point of NFTs or any other blockchain-based technology but the capabilities XMR provides are legitimately useful. It's basically the closest thing we have to digital cash, gas fees are super low and there's minimal centralization of the network versus other currencies. Also fluctuates less in value so it works better as an actual currency versus some "speculative asset".

            • akimbostrawman 21 hours ago

              It's what normies thing btc is and what satoshi would have changed it into if he was still around/ not a fed/ still in control.

          • no-name-here a day ago

            From googling, it appears monero xmr regularly adopts forks in order to accommodate protocol upgrades - that’s what the DAO hack “reversal” actually was - a fork. If that’s true, I think you’re saying monero xmr could do the same thing but will choose not to? Although if there was a massive hack where, for example, almost half of holders coins were stolen, would they still choose not to fork to restore the coins?

            (Also, the DAO fork was ETH.)

            • infinite_spin a day ago

              developers can't force miners to adopt a fork, when etherium was forked it essentially created a new coin, as some miners chose not to

              • bikvfeee 13 hours ago

                > developers can't force miners to adopt a for

                In other words, the dictatorship of the majority.

                I prefer a minority who does the right thing, than a 51% majority who rips off the other 49%.

              • chistev a day ago

                So when we talk about eth, do we refer to the forked one or the original one?

                • infinite_spin a day ago

                  the forked one, the original one is now called ETC (ethereum classic)

            • akimbostrawman 21 hours ago

              >it appears monero xmr regularly adopts forks in order to accommodate protocol upgrades

              That is a separate unrelated issue/topic. Every currency could be steered in a bad direction but unlike fiat every user/node has a say in it.

              >you’re saying monero xmr could do the same thing but will choose not to?

              I'm saying that seizing, tracking or otherwise blacklisting of coins would not be possible because of its private and fungible design.

              >if there was a massive hack where, for example, almost half of holders coins were stolen, would they still choose not to fork to restore the coins?

              There have been at least one occasion where the main monero developer funds have been stolen and they did no such thing because reverting transaction would required the majority of user/nodes to agree to it.

    • jpardoe a day ago

      It’s likely the stable coins. Those can be frozen by the stable coin operators.

    • stackghost a day ago

      Some of the coins like Tether have been speed running a less trustworthy version of central banks and governmental monetary policy by allowing certain privileged users to freeze funds.

      It’s probably those that have been seized, as the heist wasn’t entirely BTC.

  • a day ago
    [deleted]
  • lioeters a day ago

    If they can "seize" it, then the currency wasn't very crypto.

    • infinite_spin a day ago

      crypto in this context doesn't really have anything to do with asset seizure, it has to do with proof of work, attestation, and verification. The goal might be a decentralized authority, but that doesn't mean another authority cannot exert control

  • hulitu a day ago

    So US stole from Binance.

    • no-name-here a day ago

      Is your idea that the US is going to keep the funds for the U.S.?

      • cyanydeez 18 hours ago

        the question more is: Binance isn't allowed to service US customers here; why is the FBI doing anything. They're suppose to be conserved with US stuff.

        This sounds like one of the president's grift schemes gone wrong.