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Another Bitcoin Bank "Loses" Its Deposits
Just six days after proudly proclaiming that it was unscathed by the Mt.Gox debacle, another Bitcoin bank - Flexcoin - has admitted that it will be forced to close after hackers stole 896 bitcoin, worth around $600,000, in an attack on Sunday. As The Guardian reports, the company shut its website and posted a statement on Tuesday morning detailing the loss..."as Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately."
Six days ago:
We hold zero coins in other companies, exchanges etc. While the MtGox closure is unfortunate, we at Flexcoin have not lost anything.
— flexcoin (@flexcoin) February 25, 2014
And today:
Flexcoin will be shutting its doors.
http://t.co/SoigZa3WtS
— flexcoin (@flexcoin) March 4, 2014
“On March 2nd 2014 Flexcoin was attacked and robbed of all coins in the hot wallet,” the statement read. “As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately.”
Not all of the company’s assets were stolen. In line with best practices for running a bitcoin financial service, Flexcoin held some bitcoins in “cold storage”, keeping them on devices not connected to the internet. Those bitcoins are safe, but only users who explicitly requested their bitcoins be held in cold storage (and paid a 0.5% fee) benefit.
“Users who put their coins into cold storage will be contacted by Flexcoin and asked to verify their identity,” the statement continues. “Once identified, cold storage coins will be transferred out free of charge. Cold storage coins were held offline and not within reach of the attacker. Flexcoin will attempt to work with law enforcement to trace the source of the hack.”
...
Flexcoin’s closure follows that of MtGox’s, blamed on hackers stealing 750,000 bitcoins by exploiting a bug known as “transaction malleability”. Several other bitcoin businesses, both high- and low-profile, have gone under. Services including Bitcoinica, Inputs.io and MyBitcoin have all been hacked, each losing thousands of bitcoins.
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if its not in your hands, you dont own it!
bonestar you may as well start your own and call it BENDover Coin
All your bitcoin are belong to us
That's right. The hackers are taking out the weak stragglers from the herd.
Can You Spell: "FLAWED" Coin ???
How is it flawed you fucking moron? What does this have to do with Bitcoin? This is a network security issue.
And therein lies the problem with fantasy money. There are no assets in these cryptocurrencies. Their current state is a work in progress exploring ways of transacting P2P and until all the bugs are worked out (if ever), theft, loss, and volatility are simply going to happen.
"If you can't hAck your exchange you don't p0wnz them".
If you're wondering where the coin went, ther were directed to these two addresses. Perhaps someone with more technological know-how than I can track them down. Not holding my breath, however.
1NDkevapt4SWYFEmquCDBSf7DLMTNVggdu
1QFcC5JitGwpFKqRDd9QNH3eGN56dCNgy6
All your Bitcoin are belong to us!
EDIT: dang, someone beat me to it!
I just checked on my PMs. Still there, no bugs to be found.
It's pretty obvious most of you are just mad. Think about it objectively for five minutes... what is a more likely scenario? Kids and young people going back to the 19th century and trading gold and silver bars & coins? Or people adopting new, faster 21st century technologies like Bitcoin? It seems pretty obvious to fonestar.
Actually, nobody seems mad at all.
Boris is mad. Mad at bank for fiat currency, mad at state for spend wealth of nation as denote in fiat currency, mad at daze and confuse sheeple for put up for dirty incestuous fornication of state and bank.
Boris..+10 256
SILVER BITCHEZ!!!
Nobody has to choose between owning silver and owning Bitcoin. Oh, except stupid simpletons.... yes, they have to choose.
Fonestar works for the US government? Who knew....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/10674571/Mt-Gox-collapse-could-help-Bitcoin-says-US-regulator.html
Why would a .gov blogger work to undermine confidence in USD? Face it, not only are most of you too fucking stupid to ever hope to understand Bitcoin most of you are just too stupid to live.
You have tirelessly pimped bitcrap and stated repeatedly that these exchange collapses were positive for bitcrap. Seems likely that the best way to destroy bitcrap, and thus make the dollar appear stronger by comparison, would be to lure the suckers into bitcrap and then generate massive volatility and uncertainty which would result in fear and suspicion of bitcrap among the masses. Since this scenario is exactly what has happened, the insinuation seems valid. However, I am personally familiar with numerous .gov employees, and fonestar is simply much too incompetent to secure, or maintain, .gov employment.
Ah "massive volatility" you panty-waste? What did you expect from a hyperdeflationary currency as priced in inflationary nationalist currencies? Seriously, grade 8 math students should be failed for not understanding such basic concepts.
But I thought it was supposed to be a medium of exchange? Volatility is bad for a medium of exchange according to eighth grade math. Your sour grapes are showing looney tune.
Lots of sellers are already pricing in Bitcoin and some people already working in fixed Bitcoin regardless of dollar value.
If you think your American "dumb guy = tough guy" shtick is going to fly in the BitWorldOrder prepare to get ass raped hard.
fonestar, this post is out of concern and not a personal attack.
If you are not a troll and your whole sense of identity is really as obsessively invested in bitcoin as much as it comes across in the million ZH posts you've written, then I have serious concerns for your sense of mental health as bitcoin falters. You do not have the temperence that is required of someone who is riding such a precarious wave, and as bitcoin seems to be coming apart your absence of humility suggests a disconnect. It is absolutely appropriate for anyone, even if they have great faith in bitcoin, to take stock given the circumstances.
Bitcoin is a fabulous idea. But like the electric car, it has powerful enemies and it is not an infallibile certainty. This is not the fledgling 'foundation empire' of Asimov's sci-fi fable. Your personal sense of identity seems hostage to this crypto currency, and like love and family and dignity and truth, safeguarding your sense of identity is more important than financial prosperity. Your importance as a person is not dictated by how accurately prescient you are about bitcoins future
I strongly recommend you unhitch your wagon. Even if bitcoin goes to the moon, you will be a richer man for it.
Don't get too overdramatic. I am sure fonestar is having loads of fun pissing all over everyone who told him otherwise here on ZH with his 600% YTD investment. If that is what you call "coming apart" I'm not sure that fonestar is the one with a disconnect here.
It's panty waist. Refers to children's clothing style (1930's), meaning you are a child-like person. In this context, it doesn't make much sense. But, you need to be given some slack -- you are having a bad day... (week?).
fonestar is having a bad life. But he is getting a bit richer by the day.
But I want to believe!
fonestar is simply much too incompetent to secure, or maintain, .gov employment.
Respectfully disagree.
"too incompetent to secure, or maintain, .gov employment."
Oh man, it's been a while since I literally laughed out loud, but that one got me. As if you could be "too incompetent" to work for the govt.
I agree with your last statement, the world is filled with idiots. Unfortunately I also include you in your last statement.
fonestar will give the Zerohedge community credit for being two points smarter than the stawks crowd. But compared to the hackers & cryptoanarchists you're a bunch of dumb apes.
fonestar is now pumping anuscoin to his family & friends.
It's a digital currency where you deposit assets into it & watch it ultimately turn into shit.
The ZH war on Bitcoin continues. Who would have thought a site like this would be on the wrong side of a battle like this. C'mon, "site loses $600k"? What was the amount robbed from people in the US via Fed theft, Wall St theft, LBMA theft?
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that the NSA was the hacker of this and Mt Gox? Especially after Congress said they have no problem with BitCoin.
fonestar doubts there is a relationship between this and the testimony. But yes, if the intelligence community wanted to accumulate Bitcoin without buying it, they might go about hacking exchanges. Maybe they can get the "Syrian Electronic Army" to do that for them?
I'm with Boris!!!
From what I have seen Bitcoin is about as secure as Internet Explorer.
You use it over the internet, it's an electronic currency, but any determined hacker can basically clean you out.
If large companies with hundreds of millions of dollars can get hacked, what chance does an individual stand?
That's bullshit plain and simple. Bitcoin has never been hacked, never had any security issues.
World needs suckers like you...
Tell that to the people that just lost 600K.
You dont have to hack a Bitcoin user, just hack the exchanges they have more coins.
Yeah, so don't keep your coins on an exchange. Why is that so difficult to understand?
Do you and the BTC underground meet in dark alleys and exchange USB drives all cloak & dagger style?
That's like so 80's bro...
Yeah, so don't keep your coins on an exchange.
If there is no exchange, what is the purpose? Might as well be buried 6 feet down in a secret location in Siberia.
Today's exchanges are coded lazily at best. You can hold your own bitcoins on your own computer or even a piece of printed out paper if you really want to get hack proof. You can send these btc's to anyone you'd like to do business with, there is no need for exchanges to transact. In the future exchanges will be setup so that the owner of the exchange are not holding your coins. There's nothing stopping this from happening right now other than its easier to do it the lazy way and there are plenty of people dumb enough to let others hold their coins for them. We are now starting to see how that strategy works out, spoiler alert, you lose your coins. I expect a few more exchanges to go down in this manner before people demand 2nd generation exchanges that don't hold the users coin. This same thing has been going on for longer in the bitcoin black markets and it seems after about 5 massive thefts the users have finally learned thair lesson and the more secure exchanges that don't hold all users coins are starting to become more popular as the remaning old ones who havent stolen yet die off from lack of trust.
But I checked your wallet, and you still keep your <2 coins on the same exchange.
fonestar does not keep any coins on any exchange ever.
Liar.
>Gold Has never failed
>Tell that to the people who had their gold stolen by MF Global
Double your pleasure with Doublestandard Gum.
You have now demonstrated your utter lack of knowledge. Well done!!
No, he just exposed your epic stupidity.
Coming from you. fonestar, that is a compliment. Thanks!
Oops! I must have clicked on the wrong reply button. My comment above was to tmosely's comment:
Gold Has never failed
>Tell that to the people who had their gold stolen by MF Global
Double your pleasure with Doublestandard Gum.
My intention was to comment on tmosely's apparent lack of being able to differentiate between paper gold and physical gold.
Sorry for the confusion.
TMosleys comparison is actually a very apt one toolshed. He is being sarcastic by talking about gold in the same way people are responding to the loss of bitcoins at exchanges. Don't take his statement at face value it is intended to show the lunacy going on here. All of the people who lost their bitcoins to MT.gox never really had them in the first place. They had given them to mt gox long before they were reported missing by mtgox in exchange for an account balance at mtgox. You could even get vouchers from Mt.gox for your btc held by them, in this sense, paper btc. Why anyone would do this considering how easily transactable btc is in it's true form is beyond me, but alas people are dumb.
TMosley is trying to point out that everyone here crying about how unsecure btc is would be akin to people crying that gold is unsecure because a bunch of people who gave their gold to someone else in exchange for paper lost their gold. And this is basically what is happening. If you hold your own real btc in your own paper wallet at your own house, no one is going to be able to take it from you, much like if you hold your own real gold. If you give up your real assets that have value to someone else in exchange for credit with that institution, well now you are taking quite a risk.
I've fished the same pond for years and never caught an MFGlobal.
"Why did you rob the bank?"
"That's where they keep the money!"
Do you televagelize on the side?
The Rev. fonestar is on local UHF.
What's not bull shit is that you are delusional. Plain and simple.
And socialism/communism has never been proven to be a bad approach either.
And the US forces successfully saved the village which they had to destroy for doing so.
cold wallets FTW!
No individual who was properly storing their own coins has ever been stolen from. The day that provably happens and is reported you can expect bitcoin to lose almost all of it's value very quickly. This is what fonestar means by bitcoin has never been hacked. And he is correct in that sense. The cryptography behind the bitcoin network when properly implemented by the end user has proven to be unhackable despite great efforts. I might point out that an individual storing their own coins holds many advantages over a large company who by their very nature has to advertise their own wealth and location of their servers to continue to acquire customers. As an individual no one has to know you even have coins. There's tons of wallets on the block chain with 100k+ USD sitting in them that no one has any idea the location of.
They are not mad, Fonestar, they are proudly ignorant.
Let them spew their idiocy and keep moving forward.
I know stuff.
It's not even fun to give shit to the bitcoin believers any more. It's like beating up the wimpy kid at school who wears a back brace.
The same one with a 600% YTD return on his investment.
i actually can picture needing to go back to tradig in gold and silver
fiat is a fucked system doomed to failure
i actually can picture needing to go back to tradig in gold and silver
THAT would be a sensible thing to do!
Except most of them seem confused between using gold and silver and a gold and silver standard. Plus they want government to remain involved in the whole affair.
And that's why you'll end up broke......
Why would anyone be mad? We are sorry for the poor people who got taken. We tried to warn on some of the weaknesses. People aren't even mad at you. You are entertaining but annoying.
So how does a person who bought BTC < $50 feel "taken"? fonestar is laughing all the way from the bank.
You could have bought at $50 but if they were stolen the value to you is still $0
fonestar has never had Bitcoin stolen from him. Never got Zhou Tonged.
Those people trusted their bitcoins to a 3rd party. Kind of ironic when the entire system was devised as a way to eliminate 3rd parties. Anyone with even a modicum of understanding of bitcoin did not have their bitcoin stored on an exchange. This is like a file storage service going offline and everyone decrying digital storage of information as a whole when in reality the failure involved using a decentralized protocol in a centralized way.
"fonestar is laughing all the way from the bank."
Why do the fonestar need a bank when he has Bitcoins?
The traditional saying says "to the bank" hence the "from the bank". He is going away from the bank. It's even italicized.
Speak for yourself. I have absolutely zero sympathy for the bitcultist morons.
Mad? Hardly.
Mocking? Absolutely.
You told us this exchange was safe, Foney- once again, your cluelessness is showing.....
Which exchange you fucking moron? The only exchange fonestar has ever used is BTC-e.
Fonestar what do you know about BTC-e???
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/02/27/bitcoin-exchange-btc-e-a...
Thanks for that link. And these are the entities we are supposed to trust? Unknown site locations and unknown administrators always inspire the kind of trust every currency needs. LOL!!!!
There were no exchanges when bitcoin was created. You need trust no one. That is the whole fucking point.
"The only exchange fonestar has ever used is BTC-e."
Why does fonestar need an exchange if he has the Bitcoins?
To purchase Litecoin and Namecoin using Bitcoin obviously.
Wait, there's more of these things?
Taste the rainbow of snake oil!
No he didn't, you ridiculous liar.
He SPECIFICALLY told you that Mt. Gox was on the way out and would wind up bankrupt. He also SPECIFICALLY told you to keep your bitcoin in your own wallet.
Why the fuck would anyone want to keep their bitcoin in a bank? You are your own bank with bitcoin!
Anyone can go back and read the threads. No real coiner has been on Gox for a long time before their bankruptcy.
Yes that was why it was the biggest?
So will you decry gold when the largest gold exchange goes bankrupt?
digits posing as gold? Of course, same as paper posing as gold. Bitcoin is the same: digits posing as money, but aren't money of any sort.
I simply have no time for bitcoin in my life. If I did, I'm sure my life would be burdened and worse. What a ripoff. Go skateboarding instead. I enjoyed a few games of skate and a good session with a homie at at the skatepark. Aint no ponzcoin gonna buy your landing some sweet tricks on the ramps.
Now PMs, there's something real.
Direct comment URL or get the fuck out
Getting sick & tired of this fraudulent claim. Not one comment ever from anyone, including Bonestar, said such a warning of MtGox.
" ... what is a more likely scenario? "
That's precisely where I have a problem. We live in a time where I'm definitely not sure about what a "likely scenario" could mean.
Clocks always work clockwise. Before, during and after the USD's demise.
" Clocks always work clockwise. "
I agree, but is it only some currency demise, we will experience ?
"Clocks always work clockwise. Before, during and after the USD's demise."
I guess that comment would make some sense........if the internet was a clock.
Actually, a shit-ton of network specific tools, and hardware, depend on time-stamps & clock signals so while it doesn't work "like" a clock, without one it's tits-up and not working. Very little computing or direct data transfer is done purely asynchronously.
"Kids and young people..." Oh! Now I understand your audience; Michelle Obozo's "Knuckleheads".
Dear Fonestar:
No one has to go back to the 18th or 19th century.
The US Dollar did quite nice when it was exchangeable for gold coin.
If could be the same again.
So your solution is to go back onto government-sponsored money? fonestar doesn't care if they say it's gold-backed or whatever, he isn't buying it.
Depends on how smart they are. My kids like to collect Morgans. Bitcoin, not so much.
"It's pretty obvious most of you are just mad."
I think sceptical would be a more accurate description. For a currency to have wide acceptance you have to convince the sceptics, and there's a lot more of them today now that these exchanges have gone under, for whatever reason.
I have no doubt digital currency will be introduced at some point. Once government figures out how to run it without getting hacked then you'll have your bitcoins, but be careful what you wish for as the motive will be tracking and taxation, not personal freedom.
or Once government figures out how to be the only hacker, no point sharing the power to skim and digitally alter peoples assets/debts... roll on one world gov incorporated for world peace and equality that equally shares oppression and poverty across the entire globes 99%
i actually found a dead stinkbug in mine
but it wasnt able to make off with any coin
What's a stinkbug?
More commonly known as a Bernanke.
Gosh, I hope nobody hacks into that pond out back and steals all my precious metals...
commencng hack
i have a wetsuit
It's a far more likely mathematical probability than anyone stealing an individuals properly stored bitcoins.
Due to the extreme effort of searching just one pond, and difficulty in locating all ponds, and difficulty in figuring out which ponds not to search, combining all the search-hours & equipment, no
in fact it's much easier & therefore much more likely to see bitcoin wallets & exchanges hacked or raided. Much, much more likely.
You must have missed the part about "properly stored bitcoins". I made no claims about ones that were left out in the open for the taking. I guess I will just keep posting the same image like you do with that 6$ bitcoin transaction. Turns out there are quite a few more numbers in 2^256 than there are square inches on the surface of the earth.
Meaningless. There's nary a few seconds to chunk through giant swaths of 2 256 using an all-optical VLSI machine dedicated to brute-forcing such a small key size. We're talking minimum 10 terahertz per board.
You have no proof that exists. But even if it did, that's still not fast enough. It seems we can add basic math to the list of things you claim to understand but quite clearly don't.
http://miguelmoreno.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/fYFBsqp.jpg
invalid. Not even 1 quadrillionth of 1 quadrillionth of 1 quadrillionth of the power you speak of would get the job done completely because you don't transpose every digitpattern into the same instance of time.
Shit! These ones have bugs. Think it's contagious?
dupe
dupe
dupe 3! Sorry folks
They're gone forever. Into the hands of someone more technically competent than Flexcoin's IT staff.
(Or perhaps into the wallets of Flexcoin's IT staff).
Anyone want to bet that those two addresses could be traced back to NSA labs?
Such Perfect Product...
AND, One By One They Crash...
If I were in charge of the current monetary system and something came to threaten it, I would simply pump up the price of the threat (volitile pricing) and smash any security comfort it offers. I would allow greed and fear work its magic. It really wouldn't be that hard..
Your like a guy trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean on a pogo stick and when it doesn't work...
It's not the pogo sticks fault... It's this stupid water, it's not strong enough.
Fonerats!! You're alive!!
Only the customers who did not set up passwords were hacked ? they used google authenticate to sign in !
Only the customers who did not set up passwords were hacked ? they used google authenticate to sign in !
Uhm, because bitcoin lives on the network perhaps?
While I'm pro bitcoin, gold can't be stolen through my internet connection.
Whatever you want, bitcoin is dependent on the internet, period.
It's an extra layer of depenency which gold lacks.
Sure, it also brings great benefits, but it is an extra layer of dependency
Bitcoin can't be stolen through fonestar's internet connection. He's not dumb enough to leave it online on an exchange.
So you never use the internet in your bitcoin transactions?
lol@StupidPeople
The majority of fonestar's Bitcoin is stored in offline wallets. fonestar uses one online wallet and always keeps all his spending Bitcoin in that.
It is not necessary to have a connection to receive BTC. Thus, you can deposit into any account you like of yours indefinitely.
When you want to actually move the money or spend it, you need a signed transaction. This can be done offline, then you take the signed transaction to an online computer and publish the transaction to the blockchain.
No internet connection is necessary to the hoard.
Downvotes for a post containing simple facts? Try not to be so obvious about having a blind agenda.
So you could say it's like handing someone a gold coin but you don't have to connect to the internet to tell a blockchain?
Not exactly. The blockchain must be told and that requires a connection to the internet. The signed transaction is what must touch the internet.
The usual way to do this is to type up a transaction on a computer which has no access (ideally disabled) at all to the internet. Sign it and save it and only it to a USB.
Take the USB to a computer connected to the internet and publish to the blockchain. The purpose here to to never allow anyone or anything to have the opportunity to copy/steal private keys on the offline computer. A signed transaction does not contain this information so it is safe to move to an online computer.
It's not an "extra" layer, it's has different weaknesses. Eg. try moving your gold and silver stash across borders versus moving your bitcoin stash.
It's also not the only thing stolen on the internet. Passwords, identities, credit cards. If BTC is being used as a store of wealth like I assume you are using gold for in your example, then it shouldn't *be* connected to the internet.
I agree with you, but gold doesn't need Internet. Gold is analog, therefore very robust as a store of value.
Bitcoin *needs* Internet, otherwise it's useless thus worthless. No Internet, no bitcoin, while gold will still exist.
That's why I said extra layer.
It don't necessarily means that it's wrong, it also adds a great deal of benefits. I own both of them 50/50 compared to dollar.
Understood and agreed. Was just trying to point out that it's different. The odds of the loss of the Internet is a risk I hope most people are willing to take. :) That scenario has a lot of outcomes.
Time will tell which is better if that's even a fair statement. I think in the current ideal that they compliment each other well. I get a lot of downvotes for pointing out the flaws in gold ownership here, but...it ain't perfect either.
once you steal a bitcoin how do you spend it without getting caught?
You just spend them like any other coin. Remember, they're just addresses... not tied to physical people.
If you stole a large enough sum from the wrong people, you might find yourselve having a hard time spending it without being caught. Of course there are plenty of hackers working on a solution to this dillemma as we speak. This solution should in theory bring true anonymitity to bitcoin.
Doesn't matter.
When those people find out how spent their bitcoinz they will at best try to cast magic missile on you.
You're pretty much good to go.
I'm having trouble wading though all of this FUD
It doesn't matter. FUD is a sign of desperation. Dimon tried not to sound scared discussing Bitcoin, same with these foolz.
Desperation for what you idiot? Your long-hoped for death of the dollar? Bitcoin will always be what it is now - used for P2P transactions between a small, rabid group of true believers. Until people get bored with it and move on to the next "new" thing.
"Bitcoin will always be what it is now - used for P2P transactions between a small, rabid group of true believers. Until people get bored with it and move on to the next "new" thing."
You do realize how many people said the exact same thing about email and even the internet itself right? Along with countless other technologies.
#4 most people had nothing to say about the Internet itself as it was progressing into public view. Some thought it odd that it was used at all and then suddenly it was everywhere and no one questioned it once they saw how useful it was. That's that.
The biggest impact the Internet had on most people's opinions was the dotcom bubble because people don't ignore money even if it's a bubble.
#1 absolutely no one said that about email
#2 absolutely 80% or more of people using facebook stopped using email. They flat out don't care unless a job makes them use it. They have those email accounts only because facebook demands one be given.
#3 with sms validation to cells for Google and I imagine Yahoo, pepole won't need another email address & may or may not care if one day email is gone so long as something else takes its place & is convenient.
I personally use email a lot but the #1 purpose of it is to email myself between accounts depending on where I am and one to my own phone.
I have next to no value from messages from others unless it concerns money, transportation or something generally related. A lot of what needs to be said will be done in person & the messages are just to coordinate the time & place to do precisely that.
The stuff from myself to myself is to secure locations & plans. I make grocery lists, I make reminders for sites to check, recipes to read, articles, etc., and I ensure that certain accounts are only accessed from certain networks, to ensure connections are rarely if ever drawn between them for the snoopers.
Tons of people were saying that, especially those entrenched in business models that would be disrupted by it. Blockbuster said netflix would never catch on. Plenty of brick and mortar stores claimed amazon was a joke.
"By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's" Paul Krugman
Robert Metcalfe (the inventor of Ethernet) wrote an article for Infoworld in December 1995 in which he predicted, "I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse."
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC)
“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist
“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.
“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” — A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).
“The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.” — The president of the Michigan Savings Bank
“The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.” -– Charlie Chaplin
“The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.” — IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox
“Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison
“Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan.” — Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.
“When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.” – Oxford professor Erasmus Wilson
“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” — Associates of David Sarnoff
“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” — Dr Dionysys Larder
Mind you all of these were considered very smart people at the time of their respective quotes.
TLDR, bitcoin is so early in it's infancy people haven't even begun to realize the possiblities. Money is information in it's purest form, bitcoin is here to remind us of that.
Not a one.
Not one person in any newspaper, magazine, in person, anywhere said any of those things for the Internet.
What was said in 1943 about computers is a story so detached from your first comment it can not be linked.
Dismissed.
They were still using ring core memory at the time, asshole. You are dismissed.