Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

[Andy_Ross]

What else was it for?

fun?

 

[psionl0]

You are very confused.

That is not surprising. You stated that Satoshi Nakamoto claimed that bitcoin's purpose was to replace other currencies and when I asked for a quote from the white paper, you quoted a section about "double spending". Very confusing indeed!

The demise theory doesn't seem to be popular.

DKDC. I'm not saying that the untouched wallets raises the standard of proof to balance of probabilities.

 

[dirtywick]

Major bitcoin wallet flaw drains 594 BTC in 25-minute sweep

A hardware wallet randomness bug turned “impossible to guess” seeds into guessable ones, and $38 million is already gone.

www.coindesk.com

cold storage wallet coldcard has security flaw dating back to 2021, $38m in bitcoin stolen in minutes. no trusted third party to prevent it, can't be reversed, another success for satoshi.

 

[dirtywick]

Strategy CEO Phong Le Reveals 'Biggest Lesson' the Bitcoin Treasury Company Learned in 2026: 'The Importa

Strategy Inc. CEO Phong Le said on Thursday, July 30, that the firm realized in 2026 the importance of holding cash reserves over liquid Bitcoin for balance-sheet strength

www.benzinga.com

as strategy continues to sell bitcoin to fund their dividends of their preferred stock, they say something hilarious

During the company’s second-quarter earnings call, Le revealed that the “biggest lesson” of 2026 was the need to maintain liquid U.S. dollars to fund its dividend obligations on its Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock (NASDAQ:STRC).

“We thought that liquid Bitcoin would be important, but what Mike [Michael Saylor] mentioned earlier is that the people who are holding these preferreds don’t look at Bitcoin the way they look at U.S. dollars,” Le added.

As of this writing, Strategy maintains $3.75 billion in cash reserves, sufficient to cover more than two years of its dividend and interest obligations.

The CEO stated that maintaining a "robust" dollar reserve covering two to three years is a prudent strategy.

yes, people don't want bitcoin, it's useless. they want dollars.

too bad they have so much bitcoin.

 

[psionl0]

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2026/07/31/major-bitcoin-wallet-flaw-drains-594-btc-in-25-minute-sweep

cold storage wallet coldcard has security flaw dating back to 2021, $38m in bitcoin stolen in minutes. no trusted third party to prevent it, can't be reversed, another success for satoshi.

An interesting development but I don't think you can blame Satoshi Nakamoto for this:

Coldcard is a hardware wallet built by Canadian firm Coinkite, a small standalone device that stores bitcoin keys offline, away from internet-connected computers.

A wallet's seed, the secret phrase controlling the funds, is meant to be drawn at random from a pool so vast that guessing is hopeless.

Coldcard's firmware was not doing that. According to a report published by Block's Bitcoin engineering and security teams, a build setting told the device to skip its own hardware randomness generator, and a check in a supporting library tested only whether that setting existed rather than whether it was switched on.

Key generation quietly fell through to a basic software substitute seeded from the chip's serial number and clock registers.

None of those are secrets. The serial number is fixed factory metadata, and the clock values are timing state an attacker can narrow down or measure on a device of their own. Block traced the change to a commit dated March 1, 2021, shipped in firmware 4.0.0 that month.

The lesson here would be to beware of third party suppliers of hardware or software.

 

[dirtywick]

yes, you must beware of them because there's no trusted third party and all transactions are final and irreversible

 

[psionl0]

yes, you must beware of them because there's no trusted third party and all transactions are final and irreversible

It has always been the case that keys on unencrypted drives can be stolen (hence the need for precautions) but I must admit that defective hardware or software provided by a third party is a new one on me. I guess that you should also double check the "official" repositories.

 

[dirtywick]

yeah, you have to go to extreme lengths to protect yourself from fraud, largely because there's no way to get it back and no one can help you if you are a victim of a scam, or even through no fault of your own like the case here. pretty crazy to think a design so poor could be considered a serious attempt at a peer to peer cash system

 

[psionl0]

yeah, you have to go to extreme lengths to protect yourself from fraud, largely because there's no way to get it back and no one can help you if you are a victim of a scam, or even through no fault of your own like the case here. pretty crazy to think a design so poor could be considered a serious attempt at a peer to peer cash system

Irreversible transactions is not a modern concept. Once you have handed over your cold hard cash to a shady merchant, you usually have no redress if you don't get what you paid for.

 

[dirtywick]

Irreversible transactions is not a modern concept. Once you have handed over your cold hard cash to a shady merchant, you usually have no redress if you don't get what you paid for.

yeah it's not great when that happens either, good point. sucks when that happens too

 

[psionl0]

yeah it's not great when that happens either, good point. sucks when that happens too

TBF if there are laws governing the sale (or you have access to some bruise boys) you might be able to persuade the seller to give a refund.

Of course, this is not possible if the money is sent to somebody in a far distant country. But even if you made the payment via your friendly bank, they are usually powerless to do anything about it if you get ripped off. Once that Nigerian prince gets your money, you can be sure that that's the last time you will ever see it.

 

[dirtywick]

there’s potential the transaction gets flagged and stopped before it’s completed or at any time while it’s pending. when such fraud occurs in spite of these systems, it’s unfortunate but it’s the best we got. that satoshi saw such safeguards to protect consumers as problems to be eliminated is one of the reasons for its failure as a peer to peer cash system

 

[dirtywick]

How bitcoin cold wallets lost $70 million in an attack that never touched the devices

Galaxy Research said weak seed generation let an attacker recreate likely private keys offline, sweep more than 1,000 BTC from nearly 1,200 wallets and continue searching without ever accessing the devices.

www.coindesk.com

it's now $70m in 40 minutes

 

[psionl0]

there’s potential the transaction gets flagged and stopped before it’s completed or at any time while it’s pending. when such fraud occurs in spite of these systems, it’s unfortunate but it’s the best we got. that satoshi saw such safeguards to protect consumers as problems to be eliminated is one of the reasons for its failure as a peer to peer cash system

I guess that depends on whether you are the seller or the buyer. It is useful to know that there are alternatives to bitcoin if you are worried about getting ripped off if you are buying something.

Of course, since bitcoin is mostly an instrument of speculation, this discussion could be considered moot.

 

[dirtywick]

i agree, if you're worried about getting ripped off stay away from ever using bitcoin as a payment system. it's terrible

 

[psionl0]

i agree, if you're worried about getting ripped off stay away from ever using bitcoin or cash as a payment system or deal only with reputable merchants. it's terrible

ftfy.

 

[dirtywick]

you calling cash terrible doesn't make my post any less accurate

 

[psionl0]

you calling cash terrible doesn't make my post any less accurate

I'm making your post more accurate. You apparently forgot that you agreed that cash transactions are also irreversible.

 

[dirtywick]

i wouldn't have agreed to something like that because cash exists in the material world and can be physically recovered

 

[psionl0]

Irreversible transactions is not a modern concept. Once you have handed over your cold hard cash to a shady merchant, you usually have no redress if you don't get what you paid for.

yeah it's not great when that happens either, good point. sucks when that happens too

Q.E.D.

I know you want it to appear as if irreversible transactions are the worst thing in the world (at least when it applies to crypto transactions) but special pleading like this doesn't work. It is simply a case where you need to be aware that you can't reverse the transaction before making it.

At least, when you a transaction with crypto, there is a permanent record of a transfer from your wallet to the other wallet. If you use cash, this is not necessarily the case - especially if the receiver is unwilling to give you a receipt.