Sometimes a centralized authority is a good thing...
Everyone loves the idea of being their own bank, in complete control over their own money, but it certainly has its risks as well.
One of the main selling points of bitcoin and crypto is the idea that you, and you alone, are responsible for your own money.
You don't have to ask permission to send your money wherever you want.
However, there is also a major downside to this that rarely gets talked about...
And that is the idea of protecting people from themselves.
Yes, many out there think that people should never be "protected from themselves", but there are also many out there who are mostly incapably of protecting themselves from... themselves.
(whoa that was a confusing sentence)
But anyways, if you haven't been living under a rock this past week you likely heard about the Twitter Hack.
If not, more about it can be seen here here:
Basically the hackers took control over very high profile and celebrity accounts and pulled the traditional bitcoin scheme where they ask people to send them bitcoin with the 'promise' of sending them more back in return.
(Source: https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1603171281388/us-taxman-signs-on-to-use-coinbase-analytics)
This is where things got interesting...
You see, hundreds of people actually ended up sending these hackers money (bitcoin) to the tune of roughly $130k worth of BTC.
That's not a big haul for the high profile hack, but apparently it could have been a lot more had one central authority not stepped in.
Coinbase reported that they blocked roughly 1,100 accounts from sending roughly $280k worth of BTC.
Which would have inflated the total to more than $400k in ill-gotten gains.
Unfortunately Coinbase wasn't able to blacklist all the hacker wallets in time as 14 customers did send a total of $3k worth of BTC to the addresses.
However, as you can see, Coinbase did prevent the haul from being much much worse than it was.
So, the next time someone tells you how important it is for everyone to be in control over their own money and be their own bank, simply remind them that some people simply can't be protected from themselves, which is going to be an issue for mass adoption with current crypto iterations.
Eventually there will probably be 3rd parties that can provide insurance for transactions and holdings at least to some degree to better protect people because as we just learned, some people are incapable of protecting themselves.
Stay informed my friends.
Image Source:
-Doc
Posted Using LeoFinance
Why save morons from themselves? Don't they have face masks for that?
Lol 2shay...
People are not ready for crypto because most are not able to store a password securely. Every website has I forgot my password.
They could have got far more than $400k by manipulating stock and crypto markets.
Yep, agreed. It was more than just a bitcoin scam I think.
!BEER
for you
View or trade
BEER.Hey @droida, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @eii for you. Enjoy it!Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your
BEER.Congratulations @jrcornel! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
You can view your badges on your board And compare to others on the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPSupport the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!
Thanks.
You're welcome @jrcornel
BTW, do you mind to support our proposal, We are really close to funding and it would be really appreciated!
Wow, I had no idea they blocked more than half! That's crazy! Scams like this just make it more confusing when trying to convince my friends to get on Hive!
They blocked more than double what was actually obtained. :)
I really can't believe so many fell for this. Followers of Obama I understand but Elon Musk.?
That puppet wouldn't know night from day unless his MK Ultra programmers told him! And that is a big clue that this story is another psyop
Yea seriously. Over 1,100 people tried to send these guys bitcoin?! Who are these people?!
Muy interesante y instructivo , es bueno asi estamos a la defensiva,,te dejo mi voto y te sigo.
Gracias.
interesting is the concept of "protecting people from themselves" ... perhaps today the safest exchange is COINBASE (my personal opinion).
Yes, plus it is fully insured. Even if there was a hack, you would very likely get your funds back.
Their existence is to service the technically unsavvy, good to see that their customers are protected from scams (-3K)
To think, if they were smart enough to own their own keys they might of lost their funds for good lol
Yep, exactly. They are the gateway to the normies.
the people who send money are probably brain dead. why you anyone asks for money that way I would never send money to anyone like that
well, many people did screw up by the hacker and learn from your mistake to make a better life anyways sorry for your losses.
There need to be choices.
Who do you trust more, yourself or an institution?
The answer is different for different people.
Yep, agreed. In this instance, people who don't fully understand what they are doing are much better off trusting a 3rd party.