Seen outside the Bitstamp headquarters today
Shame, really
Buttcoin
Bitstamp is fucked, hot wallet compromised
Earlier today, while the price of Bitcoin was crashing (hence the falling Bitcoins on our site to celebrate the occasion), many users on Reddit started reporting issues cashing out with Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp.
Bitstamp – Bitcoin Withdrawal not processing in time (self.Bitcoin)
submitted 12 hours ago by PokerMarketI have a pending withdrawal since 12 hours on bitstamp.
Usually they are between instant and 1 hour.
Anyone else waiting for a bitstamp bitcoin withdrawal?
Why are deposit confirmations so lagged on Bitstamp? (self.Bitcoin)
submitted an hour ago * by Tsuyoku_NaritaiWhy does Bitstamp lag several confirms behind for incoming bitcoin deposits?
I recently made two deposits to bitstamp, and for each one, other blockchain explorers show 7 confirms more than Bitstamp. It means waiting two hours for a deposit, and wondering if their system is broken till the first confirmation shows up. I’ve had similar happen before but it seems to be getting much worse. What’s wrong with them?
Edit: and now one of them has disappeared. I advise you don’t deposit any bitcoins to Bitstamp until they have responded or whatever is happening is fixed.
Bitstamp is apparently broken or hacked. I suggest not depositing coins there till they respond. (self.Bitcoin)
submitted 58 minutes ago * by Tsuyoku_NaritaiA few hours ago I made 2 deposits to Bitstamp. After lagging 7 confirmations behind on the blockchain, they each disappeared from the incoming transactions list WITHOUT updating my balance, which still sits at zero bitcoins. No transfers or sales have been made under the account and there is no indication that it’s been compromised. Bitstamp haven’t contacted me. Coins from one of the deposits has already been transfered to address https://blockchain.info/address/1JoktQJhCzuCQkt3GnQ8Xddcq4mUgNyXEa[1][1] which I assume belongs to Bitstamp. I’ve contacted support.
Has anyone else managed to deposit bitcoins there successfully in the last hour or so? Has anyone else had an issue? (I need to go now but if anyone else has, then it’s an emergency so all please upvote this post for visibility. If not, then maybe it’s just some crazy new KYC game of theirs).
It appears the issues is that Bitstamp may have been Goxxed. They’ve sent out emails saying their Hot Wallet is having “problems” and that you should stop doing business with them immediately.
Dear customer, Today our transaction processing server detected problems with our hot wallet and stopped processing withdrawals. You should STOP SENDING bitcoin deposits to your Bitstamp account IMMEDIATELY as private keys of your deposit address may be lost. Your bitcoins already deposited with us are stored in a cold wallet and can not be affected. We will send you more info as soon as possible. Best regards, Bitstamp team
Looks like this crash may be because someone just stumbled upon some very cheap coins.
Grab your popcorn, it’s going to get interesting.
EDIT: We’ve confirmed this is real
If Coinbase is the future of Bitcoin, then I want off this ride.
Bitcoin. It’s still a thing, apparently. There have been many ”things” in the past, like pet rocks or flagpole-sitting, but unlike those “things”, Bitcoin is defying the trend (and haterz) and is gonna live forever! Problem is that it hasn’t really caught on, and the people who do get interested in the ‘Coin lose it very quickly when they realize how batshit insane the community is to deal with. That’s why a lot of the marketing towards attracting new bagholders has been about how easy Bitcoin is to use.
When looking at Bitcoin’s legendary “ease of use“, no one has cornered the market better than Coinbase. Coinbase is so easy; all you need to do is create an account and link it to your bank. It’s just that simple! Or is it?
I first signed up for Coinbase around April of 2013, when it was the only player in town that could let people buy and sell Bitcoin by linking a bank account. Coinbase was one of the first services, if not the first, that let you just buy Bitcoins with a bank account. And, for the most part, it still is – it is still incredibly difficult for newbies to obtain Bitcoin outside of services like Coinbase or Circle.
So I decided to sign up for another account, just to see what the user experience was like from the start. I’d forgotten how rough it was.
I’ll give them this, they certainly know how to make one hell of a site.
The Bitcoin Bowl really did happen and we had someone at the game.
You may have noticed that there was a college football game on yesterday and it was called the Bitcoin Bowl (formerly known as the Beef O’ Brady’s bowl which was also formally known as the MagicJack bowl). A decentralized crypto-currencydid not sponsor the game, rather it was the Bitcoin-to-fiat payment processor Bitpay who shit outmillions of VC dollars to sponsor the 4thcheapest college bowl game, just ahead of theFamous Idaho Potato Bowl.
While Twitter was mainly bashing on the absolutely shitty looking baseball-turned-football field and trying to score free bitcoins by using the #BitcoinBowl hashtag, we had a mole on the inside whoneeded to kill 4 hours waiting for his bedspread to be dry cleaned and decided to go to the actual game and give us a rundown on just how bad it was.
SomethingAwful forums poster “N00baTheHutt” had this to say: Read More
Butterfly Labs gets FTC injunction lifted, reaffirms they fucking rock, bro.
Butterfly Labs asserted its alpha-male dominance on that bitch-ass FTC today. BFL literally whipped its dick out for the world to see and showed everyone that BFL really stands for “Better Fucking Listen” because that’s what you gotta do now you little weak-ass punks.
Today the judge just straight up said “Fuck yeah, bro” and high-fived BFL’s totally swole hand and then they both cupped balls. This rad judge let the world know that BFL, while it’s true that they did delay a bunch of shit and straight-up lie to their customers, isn’t doing it any more and so the FTC has no right to be all up in their shit.
You see that idiots? BFL stopped doing preorders because our customers finally wised the fuck up so you have NO RIGHT to take their foam pitchforks.
Also remember how the FTC was all like “Ugh, these BFL guys said you could make money off these things?” when we’ve known that’s not true? Well chew on this:
Read it and weep hombre. BLF told it’s customers on forums that it was profitable but didn’t have it on their own website. Also they bought a shit ton of fucking google ads so .. ya know .. fucking right, idiots!
So now BFL can continue on with business as usual and just be a fucking badass and you pansies have to just take it.
Inaba (who totally isn’t Josh from BFL) has this to say about you nerds, crying to mommy:
Who run this town? Butterfly Labs run this town!
Until the actual trial starts next year and they’re fucked.
How to make money with Bitcoin in 10 easy steps
This a guest post from security researcherNicholas Weaver. Nicholas is a part of Berkley’s ICSIprogram and he’s here to tell you a bit about how broken bitcoin is and how you too can profit!.
OK, now I may be just be a simple country Hyper-Chicken, err Ph.D. security researcher, but I think by now I get something very important about Bitcoin: How to make money with Bitcoin. Now I’m also a lazy security researcher, so heck, lets reveal my super secret 10 step plan on how you too can make lots of money with Bitcoin.
Step 0:
You gotta move to Sochi. Now the Bitlievers like to claim that their digital Quatloos free them from the oppressive yoke of government imperialism, but at the same time they go screaming like little girls to the government to help them out if you steal too many of their Dunning-Krugerrands. So you gotta go to some country where the local language defines MLAT as “Tell the FBI to go fuck itself”. And although most of Russia is a frozen hellscape dominated by a shirtless, humorless tyrant, Sochi is, after enough billions of corruption, a nice place to live. Hey, they even have a F1 race.
Step 1:
Break into blockchain.info and all the other “web wallet” services. Oh, but wait, aren’t these companies run securely, with lots of venture capital money? Well, if you consider the VC fundedRNG Improvments[sic]to their code, do you think the rest of their security is much better? And breachCoinbase too while you’re at it…
Step 2:
Download all the saved web wallets. Now these wallets are all encrypted by the suckers users passwords but that just means most are protected with passwords only slightly more sophisticated than “123456”. So start throwing it at your password cracker. As a bonus, get everyone’s email addresses and download all the other password information. And get crackin…
Step 3:
In the meantime, its time to provide another “improvment” [sic] to Blockchain.info’s JavaScript. Just tweak things to leak passwords out to you. Something subtle, or blunt, or whatever. Just as long as it works. For some presumably humorous reason, the Bitcoin community somehow thinks that downloading JavaScript from a server to access your wallet is more “secure” than just having all your digital Latinum stored by someone else. So be sure to laugh manically as each password rolls in.
Step 4:
Wait. Patience is a virtue, young padawan. Until your improvments [sic] are noticed, they will continue to work, snagging all the suckers who somehow, despite believing in a decentralized digital Clams, insist on trusting centralized companies because “the market will eliminate bad actors” or some such Randite fantasy. I mean, the market eliminated bad exchange actor Mt. Gox pretty quick and they in turn eliminated over $500 million of bad bitcoin actors from bad customer actors too!
Step 5:
Once you are discovered, only then do you transfer all those virtual Cubits into your own accounts. Conveniently, the wallet service will tell you when you are discovered and should move the loot because well, they’re going to have to post a big announcement and remove your improvments [sic].
Step 6:
Join the throng on /r/bitcoin who mock those who lost their binary Ankh-Moorpork Dollars to your attack, because everyone knows you should only store your Bitcoins on your own computer. This computer must run a self-burned live linux distro and never be connected to the internet. In fact, make sure to glue the ethernet ports shut. Don’t forgetto include posts noting how the thief is performing a public service in this objectivist paradise by educating the victims on how computer security works.
Now this is all fine and good, but why stop there?
Step 7:
Start writing your malcode module that looks for Bitcoin wallets. This pretty little malicious program should copy both unencrypted and encrypted wallets. It should also add an improvment [sic] to any Bitcoin client it finds to once again tell you the password. Don’t want to actually write the infection routines? Well, there are services you can use, just find your friendly PPI service.
Step 8:
For each stolen wallet, if you crack it, don’t rob it. Well, not right away. After all, probably the best host based IDS is an unsecured Bitcoin wallet, and you don’t want word to get out too soon. Wait a little while. Meditate on the fragility of all things. And then, get impatient and rob em blind.
Step 9:
Join the throng on /r/bitcoin who mock those who lost their binary Ankh-Moorpork Dollars to your malcode, because everyone knows that you should only store your Bitcoins using a paper wallet. Once again, be sure to include posts noting how the thief is performing a public service in this objectivist paradise by educating the victims on how computer security works.
Step 10:
Enjoy life!
So there you have it, a 10, well, 11 step program to make lots of money in Bitcoin. Whatever, off by one error, who cares? Its not like such errors exist in the core protocol of Bitcoin (*cough* OP_CHECKMULTISIG *cough*).
You can thank me by contributing to 1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE.
You can also follow me on Twitter: @ncweaver
Your Obligatory Butterfly Labs Case Update
What’s happened since our last installment in this series?
There, absolute proof that BFL bought us out. Not that it was ever ambiguous, but the defense counsel confirms it, so it’s officially been legally established: We were shills. Sorry about that.
The Time “Blake Benthall” Emailed Me
Blake Benthall is currently in prison, but that apparently doesn’t mean he can’t tweet!
That tweet, posted five days after Benthall’s arrest, links to an address that currently has 0.34 BTC donated to it, or roughly 125 bucks. Wondering how a convicted man could get access to his Twitter account behind bars, I asked him for an interview, and provided my email address.
Is It Stealing if the Vendor Doesn’t See You Take It? Part 2
Meet Reddit user “btclostandfound“. On November 14th, he asked the genius Borg hivemind that is r/Bitcoin, “If I find 61 BTC on a laptop at a garage sale and I don’t return it, am I a monster?”
About 2 weeks ago I was rummaging around a garage sale (as I often do on the weekends) and found an old Dell laptop that was in fairly good condition and paid $50 for it. I’m fairly into tinkering with old electronics and such so before I reformatted the drive, I decided to go snooping. To my amazement, It had an old version of bitcoin qt on it which contained about 61 btc in an unencrypted wallet. At first i thought i was could good to be true but I was able to transfer the btc into the wallet on my computer with the help of a friend who knows way more about btc than I do. He was shocked as well. Next week I plan on selling about 1/2 of the stash on coinbase and use the money to buy a car. Am I a terrible person because i have no intention of giving any of the bitcoins back?
Now, before we continue, we should point out the following:
- 61 BTC, as of Nov. 18th, is worth $23,040 dollars, at $377.70 per BTC.
- In California, Grand Theft is when property has been taken at over $950. We’re using California as a reference, because Grand Theft law changes from state to state. Legal Match pegs the average you’d need to steal as somewhere in the $500-$1,000 range.
- A Third Bullet Point!
But, hey! He is generous:
I did give my friend a few bitcoins for helping me out.
- That would make his friend an accomplice. Hey, that could be our third bullet point!
The Story Of When Buttcoin.org Sold Out And How Butterfly Labs Turned It (And Other Sites) Into A Product Marketing Machine
(Note: This is a repost of an earlier poston the Buttcoin subreddit. I’ve added new information since the original post implicatingBFL of other site purchases)
My name is Evan. I’m the founder of Buttcoin.org(now ButtcoinFoundation.org)and have been making fun of Bitcoiners since 2011. Buttcoin is one of the oldest Bitcoin sites on the internet and a few months agocelebrated it’s 1 millionth visitor.
Nearlya year agoI (accidently) became a paid shill for Butterly Labs. And I wasn’t the only one.