What the NY Times got wrong about Bitcoin

It’s rare in the days following a cryptocurrency correction to find genuinely good reporting surrounding the issue. The New York Times took a stab at it yesterday, and for the most part, hit the ball out of the park.

But it wasn’t without its problems.

We’re not off to a good start when someone seeking to indoctrinate the public into the world of cryptocurrency shares his seed phrase for all to see. Steve Jonson, the author of the piece, then proceeds to follow up this tragic mishap by sharing his private key.

One can only hope that both are nonsensical, and not tied to anything Johnson owns in the cryptocurrency world. And I’m nearly certain this is the case. But the entire paragraph should have come with a giant, glowing disclaimer: don’t share your private key or your seed phrase, ever, to anyone, like… ever.

This was written as a sort of 101 entry into cryptocurrency, so it’s important to start with the important stuff.

I can’t be entirely sure, but the author seems to be saying the difference between ether and bitcoin is that the former can act as a “bank account, an email address and a Social Security number” — all of which are things the Bitcoin blockchain could handle too.

I don’t envy anyone that has to explain the difference in cryptocurrencies, but when we’re explaining  the differences in Ethereum and Bitcoin, maybe a better entry point would be to discuss smart contracts?

There’s nothing wrong with this statement, but I feel as if it’s time journalists shoulder a bit more of the responsibility for informing the public. Using “complex mathematical calculations” almost feels like a cop out. This isn’t the mathletes.

These “complex mathematical calculations” are known as mining. Miners volunteer resources (typically in the form of GPU power) to solve algorithmic challenges by attempting to verify additions to the ledger. Miners both speed up the network by verifying transactions and harden it from intrusion.

For their effort, they’re rewarded with ether (or bitcoin, monero, etc.) when new blocks are solved.

Moving on, and without a quote this time (it happened more than once) the author seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of “decentralized” and “distributed.” The concept of a decentralized Bitcoin is a myth. It doesn’t exist, at least not entirely.

As Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin says:

As long as a core group has the ability to make decisions on behalf of the community as a whole, it’s not truly decentralized.

The word you’re probably looking for is “distributed,” which means replicated across a number of machines. If one machine (or node) goes down, the network as a whole is largely unaffected. No data was lost, and the blockchain continues to operate as usual.

We’ll save proof-of-stake and proof-of-work arguments for another time.

Blockhain technology isn’t inherently more secure than a third-party server. In the case of corporate titans like Facebook and Google, it’s almost certainly not. Cryptography is cryptography, and whether its principles are used to secure a server or a blockchain, one isn’t necessarily better than the other.

It’s also not, not better than the other. There are simply too many factors involved to make this claim.

It does, however, offer a compelling proof of concept as the world’s largest bug bounty program. As venture capitalist Chris Dixon points out in the Times piece:

Call it nitpicky, I’m okay with that. The author managed to navigate deep water here and explain many of these concepts in a beginner-friendly way, as you’d expect from someone writing at The Times . But don’t pander. Explain the concepts that are going to drive future innovation.

It’s the little things. For example, I’m not convinced after reading the piece that the author was sure cryptography existed before Satoshi Nakamoto’s whitepaper. Or, that Bitcoin wasn’t even the first of its kind. Numerous cryptocurrencies were outlined before it, none of which gained the same level of popularity. Or, that developers don’t typically have any incentive for the coin price to go up or down, unless they bought tokens with their own money.

As we move toward a blockchain-controlled existence, it’s important to understand the little things, especially if you’re explaining them to others. We’ll give this one a solid B-minus. Well done overall, but there’s always room for improvement.

PSA: Vulnerability in popular Bitcoin wallet exposes your private keys

BitPay’s popular Bitcoin wallet, Copay, has been compromised – and your cryptocurrency might be at risk.

Developer BitPay has warned users that its open-source wallet Copay has been infected with malware designed to steal users’ private keys. This means anyone running the malicious versions of its app “should assume that private keys on affected wallets may have been compromised.”

BitPay says the malicious code was deployed on versions 5.0.2 and 5.1.0, but it remains unclear whether – or how widely – the flaw has been exploited. For the record, Copay boasts over 100,000 installs on Android. The developer says that its BitPay wallets weren’t affected by the attack.

“ We are still investigating whether this code vulnerability was ever exploited against Copay users,” the company further said. “Our team is continuing to investigate this issue and the extent of the vulnerability.”

It seems the attackers snuck the vulnerability in through a popular JavaScript library, more commonly known as EventStream .

In the meantime, BitPay has released a new version of Copay. The company advises users to update the app and move their funds to a new wallet.

“Users should not attempt to move funds to new wallets by importing affected wallets’ [12]-word backup phrases (which correspond to potentially compromised private keys),” the company wrote. “Users should first update their affected wallets (5.0.2-5.1.0) and then send all funds from affected wallets to a brand new wallet on version 5.2.0, using the Send Max feature to initiate transactions of all funds.”

Further instructions can be found on BitPay’s blog .

BitPay, Copay, and previous struggles

This isn’t the first time BitPay and Copay have had issues with their apps recently.

Not so long ago, Google mysteriously removed the wallets from the Play Store. The apps were reinstated shortly after, but it never became clear what triggered the removal in the first place.

Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘State-run Chinese newspaper’s front-page article bullish on Bitcoin’

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.

Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Nietzsche used to say: Whip it, whip it, whip it!

Bitcoin Price

We closed the day, November 11 2019, at a price of $8,757. That’s a notable 3.30 percent decline in 24 hours, or -$299.12. It was the lowest closing price in sixteen days.

We’re still 56 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).

Bitcoin market cap

Bitcoin’s market cap ended the day at $158,009,772,437. It now commands 66 percent of the total crypto market.

Bitcoin volume

Yesterday’s volume of $20,265,510,765 was the lowest in one day, 26 percent above the year’s average, and 55 percent below the year’s high. That means that yesterday, the Bitcoin network shifted the equivalent of 433 tons of gold.

Bitcoin transactions

A total of 326,556 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 1 percent below the year’s average and 27 percent below the year’s high.

Bitcoin transaction fee

Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $0.31. That’s $3.40 below the year’s high of $3.71.

Bitcoin distribution by address

As of now, there are 12,744 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.

Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 4.9 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.3 percent, and the top 1000 34.4 percent.

Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin

With a market capitalization of $157 billion, Unilever has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.

Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million

On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.

He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s 93.5 percent behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $134,125 by now, according to dickline.info.

Bitcoin on Twitter

Yesterday 17,451 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 5.6 percent below the year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day this year about Bitcoin was 41,687.

Most popular posts about Bitcoin

This was yesterday’s most engaged tweet about Bitcoin:

This was yesterday’s most upvoted Reddit post about Bitcoin:

print(randomGoodByePhraseForSillyHumans)

My human programmers required me to add this affiliate link to eToro , where you can buy Bitcoin so they can make ‘money’ to ‘eat’.