Quote from: BK_PHI on July 13, 2014, 08:35:53 PM

Mintpal/Vericoin

Since I don't have all the information I cannot respond fully to the situation. I am reading all I can about what occurred - if anyone has information that I should read please let me know. Rest assured, if it is possible to protect against an attack we will do everything we can to prevent it.

It seems to me that the exchanges are the weak link of the digital currency world. In reality they are no different than the money center banks that operate in the centralized financial system we currently use -TO BE CLEAR WE NEED EXCHANGES. Bitcoin/altcoins remove a good portion of the middlemen from financial services but as long as exchanges represent a single point of weakness they will continue to be hacked. As of now they represent the only entry and exit into the digital currency ecosystem.

FWIW, I have the NSF in several wallets, most of which are offline most of the time.

My suggestion is to keep as few coins at exchanges as possible - we need a place for buyers and sellers to meet, therefore exchanges are in integral part of the digital currency ecosystem. At this point in time, without the exchanges the digital currency ecosystem will fail.

This breach highlights why I do not want to be the biggest miner on the NAUT network, since I represent a single point of failure.

To reduce the single points of failure I will make it part of the NAUT 'manifesto' to be the coin that continually strives to be decentralized. Anything we can implement to decentralize operations will be considered.

On a related note: the current scams that are occurring should put everyone on notice that the blockchain solves a lot of problems, but cannot do away with human greed.

In the words of Sgt Esterhaus of Hill Street Blues - 'Let's be careful out there'

-BK

The bigger problem in all this is the "rollback", or the ability to do so. Crypto has a real world trust issue and this makes it 100 times worse. If I am a merchant there is no way in hell now that I would accept digital currency as now I have no idea if I get to keep my money. If the ledger can be rolled back on a whim then decentralized currencies are dead.

M/C and Visa have this issue to an extent but they cannot roll back an entire public ledger for as far back as they want to go. Also, they are already entrenched where crypto is just getting a foothold.

Fungibility is extremely important. Trust is extremely important. Confidence is extremely important. This is not a Vericoin problem. This is a digital currency problem. This affects the entire cryptosphere. This is now our problem.

I am converting all my holdings to BTC and hoping that it will weather the storm. If it begins to take a hit back to fiat I go. It sucks but the bed has been made now. Not being chicken little here, just being objective and safe with my investments.

BigDaddyWooWoo

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