Korean crypto exchange Youbit hacked again, files for bankruptcy

[mlawson71]

Youbit, a relatively small South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, announced it was hacked and has lost 17% of its coins, stored in the online hot wallet. This has made the owner company Yaffian Co. to halt operations on the exchange and file for bankruptcy.

This is the second time in 2017 Youbit was hacked, after in April thieves made off with over 4000 bitcoins. After the first attack the exchange took measures to improve security, but has obviously fallen prey to the hackers once more.

 

[Visaria]

I do wish these hackers would stop doing these thefts. It's not very conducive to the long term health of the crypto market.

 

[maxinger]

That's why very important to trade through regulated exchange like CME, CBOE.

Hackers are very innovative people and they can think out of the box.
Soon they will be able to create thousands of bitcoins and flood the whole world and before that, they would short it first.

or perhaps they could vaporise the bitcoins and before that, they would long it first.

 

[Pekelo]

Soon they will be able to create thousands of bitcoins and flood the whole world

It is called tether.

But that is not how hacking works.

 

[Cuddles]

It is called tether.

But that is not how hacking works.

Everytime I see the hacker argument I die a little inside. Yeah, let's call the underlying useless because the crappy bank where you keep it has shitty security and was robbed.

 

[Gotcha]

Everytime I see the hacker argument I die a little inside. Yeah, let's call the underlying useless because the crappy bank where you keep it has shitty security and was robbed.

I die a little bit each time I see the opposite. In order for BTC to go well, everything has to go right. There can be no hacks, there can be no power outages. There can be no internet outages. There must be a steady supply of miners willing to approve transactions at all times (except what happens when price makes it not profitable to mine???).

From what I even read, the coins have multiple keys that will work and a hacker only has to hit one of the right ones, not just yours. With quantum computing around the corner, it will apparently be much easier to brute force working keys.

There are dozens of ways your coins can disappear or be inaccessible, and the only way for it to go right is for you to rely on a network and infrastructure that is completely outside of your control where you are reliant on everyone else. I even read that once any miner has more than 50% of the market share, they can start to change rules as they see fit. Once again, you and your coins will be at their mercy. I much rather be at the mercy of my government because they at least in some small way answer to the people.

So you see, it really is just a matter of time until this whole thing blows up. Either price drops and the system grinds to a halt, or price explodes and the hacking is so lucrative that your coins will never be safe.

 

[John9999]

this is the exact reason I have not participated... but it appears to me that the Crypto fans are willing to overlook this hacking risk. To me it is like asking to have your money stolen. I am in the USA... I can trust the institutions here. I am 50 years old and never one time have I ever had an institution fail to protect what is mine.

So, I sit out until an ETF, Mutual fund or similar is available...

 

[Gotcha]

So, I sit out until an ETF, Mutual fund or similar is available...

Even then, what does an ETF do if one day, half of all bitcoins are stolen? If you own the ETF and they have half the amount of assets one morning, who pays? I guess this is why there are no ETFs approved on this, and with futures, you're not actually dealing with the underlying asset at all, its just a contract, or pure bet, on the future price, without any party ever having to own a coin. Interestingly enough, I would never expect oil to all of a sudden be worthless one day, so when you trade CL you have this in mind, but I would expect, or at least could theorize, that one day bitcoin would be worth absolutely nothing in only minutes.

I mean imagine an article coming out that North Korea is financing itself with Bitcoin, and Trump makes buying bitcoin illegal because you're essentially supporting them via your purchase, which makes total sense. Anyone who buys bitcoin today, even at $13000, is essentially sending 13k to North Korea if they are the ones who mined that bitcoin and use it to buy food, fuel, uranium, etc.

Anything like this is certainly within the realm of possibility.

 

[algofy]

I do wish these hackers would stop doing these thefts. It's not very conducive to the long term health of the crypto market.

We should sit down with the hackers and have a little pow wow, maybe we can talk some sense into them!!

 

[sss12]

Everytime I see the hacker argument I die a little inside.

Yeah, let's call the underlying useless because the crappy bank where you keep it has shitty security and was robbed.

But the crappy bank was a component of the strategy, just as crappy security is a component of crypto (at least in this case). As of now it is a cost of doing business. For crypto to be successful this cost has to be reduced.