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Ask HN: Is BitCoin D.O.A.?

6 points by cmelbye ↗ HN
I'm working on a consumer-oriented BitCoin product (like PayPal for BitCoin.) I believe the idea has promise if BitCoin continues growing as it has recently, but I'm debating whether or not I should continue after seeing an unsettling number of problematic issues with BitCoin recently, including the $500,000 theft, the big drop in price on the exchanges last Friday, rumors of impending government intervention, etc.

What are your thoughts on this?

7 comments

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vyrotek
Not trying to be clever, but aren't startups all about solving problematic issues? I'm not too familiar with all the issues with BitCoin, but maybe a pivot can help solve them.
lysol
The $500k theft isn't a vulnerability with Bitcoin. If you stick half a million in your mattress and your house burns down, who's to blame for that? The price on the exchange has always been volatile with a small amount of volume. So, basically, nothing has changed. If it's unsafe to put your eggs in the Bitcoin basket now, it was before too.
nextparadigms
The banks don't seem all that secure lately, either. I think that puts things into perspective a little, compared to Bitcoin.

Considering that Bitcoin is a new digital currency and the software for it is not that mature yet, I don't think what happened recently should be that surprising.

It's beta software that is quite appealing to hackers because there are money involved, so attacks or flaws like these should've been expected. It's the risk the early adopters had to take, and some or most of them made a lot of money in the process by taking that risk.

The only mistake was in believing that Bitcoin was going to be 100% safe forever with no further improvements, and securing the clients and transactions as much as possible. But this is because it's still early for it, and it does have a lot of potential, so I wouldn't give up on it.

Bitcoin also needs a real economy behind it, not just speculation, so the faster that bitcoin economy grows, the better it is for bitcoin.

kooshball
> The banks don't seem all that secure lately, either.

Are you referring to the attacks that leaked user information? That is a little different than someone stealing 500k from your account right? Furthermore, most major banks will cover fraud charges and by design there are no such protection with Bitcoin.

sorbus
> It's beta software that is quite appealing to hackers because there are money involved, so attacks or flaws like these should've been expected.

You don't seem clear about the attack: the hackers copied the wallet file from the person, and then used the information in it to move bitcoins. This is exactly as the system is designed to function - allowing people to back up their wallets, or transfer them to another computer. Essentially, any computer with a wallet on it that is also compromised by viruses, trojans, or other malware is at risk of losing any bitcoins stored in the wallet.

adrianwaj
Bitcoin is a massive opportunity still going through growing pains. I think there'll be second generation cryptocurrencies, but nothing to compete with bitcoin in this round.
mark-r
The more useful BitCoin becomes, the more of a threat it becomes to the governments of the world. You'll be creating a huge lightning rod. The two most likely outcomes are BitCoin is a flop and so are you, or the government shuts you down. Not very promising prospects.