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Comment count is 29
SolRo - 2014-02-28

In essence the electronic money bank got electronic robbed, and since there's zero federal insurance for bitcoin banks, all the users are SoL.

Upside is that there might be some sweet deals on craigslist as drug dealers try to make some quick cash


Syd Midnight - 2014-03-02

Autism Kroners.

Dunning-Kruggerands.

Pounds Spergling.

Ron Paul Fun Bux.


Xenocide - 2014-02-28

Big deal. Just raid your Monopoly sets for more pretend money to play with.


misterbuns - 2014-03-01

my brother made 2000 bucks by selling one bit coin about a month ago.


BHWW - 2014-02-28

The thing with bitcoin fans is they usually get into BTC because they have problems with fiat currency even though bitcoins are even faker then fiat; dollar bills might just be a promise from Uncle Sugar, but nonetheless it's a promise that still represents a stable and predictable value. Bitcoins are basically software codes with any number of possible program bugs that can never predicted and only a few programmer nerds can take care of transfering and storing them; of course that sounds WAY more stable. Bitcoins are like the old fad for tulips only it's based on tulips that are imaginary.

The hilarious thing about this was skimming places like bitcoin subreddit and elsewhere and seeing some of these people alternatively bawling their eyes out about getting scammed and then whining that they still have faith in the idea of BTC even though they were just majorly fleeced but THE WIFE or somebody else won't let them invest more money in Libertarian eFunBux when they aren't giving each other e-pats on the back and telling each other "it's not OUR fault".


13.5 - 2014-02-28

I gave my untraceable crypto money to an unregulated bank run by randroids. How could it have gone so _wrong_? No government was involved at all!


Sudan no1 - 2014-02-28

I tried fixing the dead link but it doesn't look like it worked.

*shrug* Five stars for buttcoin loss.


moldprince - 2014-03-01

I blame my URL fuckup on transaction malleability.


Sexy Duck Cop - 2014-03-02

hold on theres coins made of butts


kingofthenothing - 2014-02-28

You know, the Silk Road business really put BitCoin on the map. Look at the price index. It went steadily up while the Silk Road was doing business, and it went explosive after the big bust.

I wish I had bought a shitload of them on a lark when they first came out and sold them after the Silk Road bust. But, such is life.

I guess it's time for me to get a taco truck and sling beef outside marijuana dispensaries.


fedex - 2014-02-28

I did, made about K US on the whole thing.

Fun!


misterbuns - 2014-03-01

lol see my comment.


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-03-02

@misterbuns: I'm sure your brother saw stuff like this coming and used his business savvy to get out just in the nick of time.

Does he plan on retiring comfortably based on Lotto winnings?


13.5 - 2014-02-28

"I'm real sorry for the trouble that was caused by this," i.e., losing half a billion dollars of untraceable money because of incompetence, and then running Mt. Gox as a ponzi scheme once he realized the problem

You know, being in Japan, there's a way you can _demonstrate_ how sorry you are, and restore your family's honor at the same time


fedex - 2014-02-28

by bowing a lot and retiring early! tears help these days too

Oh you meant that other thing? Pffft, no one does that anymore, except stupid gaijiin with no honor


dubz - 2014-03-01

"Stupid gaijin with no honor" is a good match for that pale lump in an ill-fitting suit.

I've got no dog in this race, only in it for the laughs. These last few weeks have been like freebasing schadenfreude.


Jet Bin Fever - 2014-03-01

schadenfreude tag is so so apt.


spikestoyiu - 2014-03-01

Watching a group of these people call for some sort of government intervention in order to recover their fake Internet money has given me a neverending boner.


Billy the Poet - 2014-03-01

Yes, that. It's so illustrative. "WHY isn't there someone who will help a RUGGED INDIVIDUALIST out?!?"


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-03-01

Mt. Gox isn't actually the true name of the site. It was originally an acronym for (and I'm not making this up): "Magic The Gathering Online eXchange."

I'm trying to imagine a real-world counterpart to this setup:

"And you say this bank is perfectly safe and professional?"
"Oh, yes. We here at TRU banking are all about banking and your banking needs."
"Interesting logo. A giraffe?"
"It stands tall and sees all. We look out for your investments."
"I see. And the fact that your bank is located in a disused big-box store and has the same initials as Toys R Us is a complete coincidence?"
"Totally. I was never the manager there, either."


Nominal - 2014-03-01

No gods or kings. Only man.

Welcome to bitcoin.


EvilHomer - 2014-03-01

Well, yes and no.

As to the "fakeness" of cryptocurrency vis-a-vis fiat, in the theoretical long term, cryptocurrencies actually tend to be more stable and predictable than fiat money. This is because cryptocurrencies usually have fixed caps on the amount of currency units that can be created, and their value cannot be inflated, perpetually and arbitrarily, to suit the interests of a central authority. As a result, cryptocurrencies have scarcity and predictability, which (like currencies backed by gold or silver) makes them a far better reflection of *real* value - that is, the measure of the actual value of a labor force's output - than fiat currency, which is unstable by design, and is based around debt and bubbles of imaginary value. Now, *it could be that imaginary value is a good thing*. Whether bank-sponsored imaginary value really is the key to limitless wealth (and it certainly is, so long as you're one of the 1%), or whether the only true wealth lies in the real value of goods and services produced by the rest of us, that's very much an open question, and it's made a very lively debate for almost a century now! But the decentralized, print-limited value of cryptocurrency is far less "fake" than the perpetually manipulated value of fiat currency.

Cryptocurrencies are also, perhaps counter-intuitively, much more resistant to robbery than fiat currency; while "programming errors" and "hacking" attacks" may indeed pose hypothetical threats to the security of one's cyber-wallet, most cryptocurrencies are set up in such a way that hacking them is extraordinarily costly and difficult, far more difficult than hacking traditional fiat currencies stored electronically. Remember, banking has been digital for decades now, so any criticism of cryptocurrencies on the basis of potential hacking threats, needs to take into account the fact that hackers can, and do, rob people of their digitally-stored fiat currency every single day. What's more, fiat currency, being physical as well as digital, is saddled with a whole host of potential threats that crypotcurrencies will never face: you can lose your dollars by being mugged, by misplacing them, by having your bank burn down, by leaving them in your pants while you're doing laundry, by them being intentionally devalued by a government defaulting on the debts it's accrued while trying to maintain the world's largest military-industrial complex, etc etc etc.


There's only really one valid piece of criticism I've heard so far, and I admit, it is a VERY valid criticism: namely, market confidence. All systems of monetary exchange are only as strong as we think they are; without confidence from the market, any currency is useless. We're seeing this with a lot of cryptocurrencies, and we'll see this with a lot more in the years to come. Now, it bears pointing out that this is an issue that plagues EVERY form of currency, not just newfangled cyber-libertarian e-bucks; plenty of currencies go bust, even our own US economy saw countless prospective currencies flounder to extinction before the venerable dollar took over (the only one of hundreds of stable currencies our ancestors used, now available to us here today). But being able to view cryptocurrencies within the grand framework of historical inevitability doesn't really inspire confidence RIGHT NOW...

... so as much as it pains me to say, until things settle down, I'm firmly with you Luddite skeptics! I'm not about to plunk my life-sazings on Dogecoins when Dogecoins could easily be gone next month. Sorry, Ayn. Caveat investor!


EvilHomer - 2014-03-01

^ Woops, reply to BHWW.


EvilHomer - 2014-03-01

And stars for the fat MtG dork who lost all his money by playing cyber banker. But I ask you, is he really any more reprehensible than JP Morgan or Bank of America?


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-03-01

Except if some hacker makes off with my bank account, the money is insured by the FDIC.

My money won't vanish if someone steals my hard drive or the disk crashes, either.


Bort - 2014-03-01

What SPK said. You use some sort of alternate currency to keep Uncle Sam out of the loop, don't expect Uncle Sam to be of much help when you get ripped off.


Sexy Duck Cop - 2014-03-02

EvilHomer:

The drawback is that no one gives a shit about your fake money.

Literally nothing else matters.


Urkel Forever - 2014-03-07

"in the theoretical longterm" = We don't know but we certainly hope!


cognitivedissonance - 2014-03-01

Absolutely nobody who wasn't a complete smug-face asshole was harmed in the making of this hilarious, hilarious comeuppance fiesta.


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