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Posted on 03/04/2014 7:16:05 PM PST by Nachum
[UPDATE: Tech in Asia has updated the article to emphasize that suicide is only suggested and not certain]
The last few weeks have been dismally littered with two things. The virtual losses of virtual wealth from virtual currency speculation and the very real losses of very real humans with very real senior financial services positions. Sadly, as NewsWatch reports, tonight sees the two trends converge as the 28-year-old CEO of Singapore-based Bitcoin exchange First Meta has been found dead. The exact reason that may have led to the suicide is not known, and whether the Police have concluded that the cause of death is suicide is also unofficial.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Dead Pool Update
http://www.nachumlist.com/deadpool.htm
A what-the-hell-is-going-on-here BTT
Ping.
Yikes.
Ping
Does he count for the ‘Dead Bankers’ tally? Bitcoiners are sort of the ‘anti-bankers’ aren’t they?
You are asking me to speculate here. But- it is not too far of a stretch to see how Bitcoin is a threat to the Banking industry.
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>> it is not too far of a stretch to see how Bitcoin is a threat to the Banking industry.<<
Not too far of a stretch? Who in the hell would convert their supposedly-suspect “fiat money” into bitcoins now, with customers losing funds to hackers left and right?
Is it more widespread than Mt. Gox?
Well, there was the Flexcoin shutdown after it was cleaned out. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2104400/bitcoin-bank-flexcoin-shuts-down-after-massive-theft.html
Ping me!
She is a she, not a he.
Well!
I guess folks who owned BitCoins lost virtually everything...
Admittedly, I haven’t really been following this ‘Bitcoin’ mess and have NO idea what is up..etc...
Best I can figure from ‘listening’ are Bitcoins actually of no value or nothing backing them?
I realize that if we (say FR) decided we would do business with say matchsticks, that if I buy something for you for 50 matchsticks and you send me the product, the sale is complete between you and me.
Eventually someone (in the grand old pyramid way of things) will end up with tons of match sticks...
Where does this ‘someone’ cash them in or is it just a magical cycle that never ends (??).
When I used to waste my time for entertainment in re solicitors, bill collectors and when complaining about a product etc I would eventually tell them that the ONLY PERSON that I would ‘talk’ to is the one that got the last ‘penny out of every dollar’....
THAT is the one that is in charge of EVERYTHING.
When he doesn’t get that penny then the SHTF.
Back to BITCOINS, I was thinking today, could we liken BITCOINS to the old S&H Green Stamps?
Business used them for lures, people collected them and turned them back in to S&H for different appliances, utensils and think even a car now and then.
WHERE did the S&H people eventually turn in the stamps THEY collected??
It looks like S&H sold their stamps to retailers in the first place, then retailers handed them out as they liked.
With the money earned from selling the stamps to the retailers, S&H would buy or produce products which they traded to consumers who turned the stamps back into S&H.
At least theoretically it should be possible to figure out who stole the bitcoins (the data stream is a record of all transactions with bitcoins), but with these two failures one wonders if it’s that easy to do.
How do the bitcoin banks ensure that their data stream is real? The data stream is a record of every transaction of every bitcoin ever traded. It’s a list of the bitcoin ID, the seller ID, and the buyer ID (all encrypted), no?
I suppose that’s how the bitcoins are stolen. The hacker substitutes a fake data stream for the bitcoin bank’s real one. The bitcoin bank could try to figure out who stole the bitcoins but the cost of going after the thieves is greater than the company’s resources so they have to declare bankruptcy instead.
Also there’s the very real possibility that it’s been inside jobs and they took the money and ran. Anonymous stuff like that can happen. I’m not sure why you’d ‘store’ your bitcoins remotely in any case except when actually doing the transaction and they grab it right then somehow.
To me it’s 50/50 that it’s hackers or the companies themselves just folding and running with the stuff while the price is high.
Not finding this reported death on any major news outlet yet...hmmmm
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