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A brief history of Bitcoin hacks and frauds

Enlarge (credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images ) There’s a lot of excitement about Bitcoin right now, with the value of the cryptocurrency recently soaring above $11,000—more than 10 times its value at the start of the year. This has caused many people to wonder if they should be getting involved in the Bitcoin craze. But it’s important to keep in mind that participating in the Bitcoin economy comes with big risks. Over the years, the Bitcoin world has been plagued by hacks, scams, and abusive practices. Users who don’t take appropriate precautions can lose everything. Here we present a short history of the Bitcoin world’s most significant scams and hacks. It’s worth noting that all of these attacks were against Bitcoin-related services, not the core Bitcoin software. As far as we know, the Bitcoin network itself is highly secure, though of course that’s little comfort if you entrust your bitcoins to a third party who gets hacked. Read 25 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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A brief history of Bitcoin hacks and frauds

AlphaBay taken down by law enforcement across 3 countries, WSJ says

Enlarge / A bitcoin token stands in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017. (credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images ) AlphaBay, one of the largest Tor-hidden drug websites that sprung up in the wake of Silk Road, has been shuttered for good after a series of law enforcement raids and arrests. The site mysteriously went dark earlier this month. Some users on Reddit suspected an “exit scam,” in which AlphaBay’s founders had shuttered the site and absconded with piles of bitcoins. According to the Wall Street Journal , which reported the news on Thursday, police in the United States, Canada, and Thailand collaborated to arrest Alexandre Cazes, who allegedly was the head of the online operation. The Canadian citizen was arrested on July 5 in Thailand, the same day that two raids on residences in Quebec, Canada, were executed. On Wednesday, Cazes was found dead, hanged in his Thai jail cell. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AlphaBay taken down by law enforcement across 3 countries, WSJ says