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That's about 7% of the total number of bitcoins in circulation. Anyone have details on how this happened? http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc http://blockexplor

by crayz 15y ago

That's about 7% of the total number of bitcoins in circulation. Anyone have details on how this happened? http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc

enki 15y ago
according to the guy running the exchange: user with 500k bitcoins was hacked (probably password bruteforce or csrf). they'll probably reverse all transactions since then
- andypants 15y ago
  Who is 'they'? As far as I understood bitcoin, there is no authority. Nobody can do anything about a user having 500k of his coins hacked, and nobody can do anything about the market crash either.
  - Osiris 15y ago
    As long as the money hasn't been withdrawn from the market, the market should be able to reverse all the transactions. The problem would be if the BTC or USD were withdrawn from the market before they shut down trading.
  - enki 15y ago
    the exchange is a central authority, and acts like one. you can do whatever you want with your bitcoins, but currency exchange is liable to laws and regulations.
  - jaekwon 15y ago
    as far as i know you're right. there is no infrastructure for rollbacks of any kind.
    - olex 15y ago
      MtGox != Bitcoin. Transactions on bitcoin network cannot be undone, that is true; however, MtGox will undo the transactions inside their system (buys and sells within MtGox). The only thing that cannot be undone is the withdrawal of 80 stolen BTC from a MtGox account into Bitcoin network.
- kaffeinecoma 15y ago
  How do you "reverse" transactions that live in a peer-to-peer network? Or are you saying that MtGox has some kind of buffer of transactions that haven't been "executed" onto the network yet?
  - ch0wn 15y ago
    As far as I know bitcoin transfers are issues without any delay, so it would indeed be impossible to reverse the transactions.
  - kristofferR 15y ago
    MTGox runs its own private system. They display the value of BitCoins you can withdraw, but they're not really BitCoins until you withdraw them.
- rmc 15y ago
  they'll probably reverse all transactions since then How can they? Surely if the blocks have started to get verified by other users then you'd have to fork bitcoin to do it? Wasn't "There are no chargebacks" one of the selling points of BitCoin?
- AUmrysh 15y ago
  That's kind of scary that a single user had roughly 7% of all of the bitcoins.
- marshray 15y ago
  Mtgox has announced they're indeed reversing the transactions. https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell-off-due-to-a-compromised-account-rollback https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell... Presumably they can do this because they're not actually bitcoin transactions, just exchange trades. The bitcoins and USDs entering and leaving Mtgox are not going to roll back.

by crayz 15y ago

That's about 7% of the total number of bitcoins in circulation. Anyone have details on how this happened? http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc http://blockexplorer.com/q/totalbc

enki 15y ago

according to the guy running the exchange: user with 500k bitcoins was hacked (probably password bruteforce or csrf). they'll probably reverse all transactions since then

andypants 15y ago
Who is 'they'? As far as I understood bitcoin, there is no authority. Nobody can do anything about a user having 500k of his coins hacked, and nobody can do anything about the market crash either.
- Osiris 15y ago
  As long as the money hasn't been withdrawn from the market, the market should be able to reverse all the transactions. The problem would be if the BTC or USD were withdrawn from the market before they shut down trading.
- enki 15y ago
  the exchange is a central authority, and acts like one. you can do whatever you want with your bitcoins, but currency exchange is liable to laws and regulations.
- jaekwon 15y ago
  as far as i know you're right. there is no infrastructure for rollbacks of any kind.
  - olex 15y ago
    MtGox != Bitcoin. Transactions on bitcoin network cannot be undone, that is true; however, MtGox will undo the transactions inside their system (buys and sells within MtGox). The only thing that cannot be undone is the withdrawal of 80 stolen BTC from a MtGox account into Bitcoin network.
kaffeinecoma 15y ago
How do you "reverse" transactions that live in a peer-to-peer network? Or are you saying that MtGox has some kind of buffer of transactions that haven't been "executed" onto the network yet?
- ch0wn 15y ago
  As far as I know bitcoin transfers are issues without any delay, so it would indeed be impossible to reverse the transactions.
- kristofferR 15y ago
  MTGox runs its own private system. They display the value of BitCoins you can withdraw, but they're not really BitCoins until you withdraw them.
rmc 15y ago
they'll probably reverse all transactions since then How can they? Surely if the blocks have started to get verified by other users then you'd have to fork bitcoin to do it? Wasn't "There are no chargebacks" one of the selling points of BitCoin?
AUmrysh 15y ago
That's kind of scary that a single user had roughly 7% of all of the bitcoins.
marshray 15y ago
Mtgox has announced they're indeed reversing the transactions. https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell-off-due-to-a-compromised-account-rollback https://support.mtgox.com/entries/20208066-huge-bitcoin-sell... Presumably they can do this because they're not actually bitcoin transactions, just exchange trades. The bitcoins and USDs entering and leaving Mtgox are not going to roll back.