Over the past two weeks, Bloomberg anchor Matt Miller has been on a crusade to popularize Bitcoin, which intuitively makes sense: having risen ten-fold in the past year, the mainstream financial media is now paying attention and furthermore, is providing its audience the desired information about the hot meme du jour. To be sure, it is quite possible that his interest is sincere instead of merely the latest pageview-generating gimmick used by a majority of the other Series X preferred stock round media outlets.
Which is why it was ironic (and humorous) that in his quest to demonstrate just how "accessible" Bitcoin is on live TV, the anchor was "robbed" in broad daylight by an enterprising Reddit hacker named "milkywaymasta [3]" who screengrabbed the QR code shown by Miller and promptly confiscated the $20 equivalent.
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Later, said user was kind enough to offer it back, noting that a "segment on Bitcoin security and the importance of NOT showing the private key and also BIP0038 (Password Encrypted Private keys) will be more than enough compensation."
The Blockchain confirmation of the Bitcoin wealth redistribution in question can be found here [5].
[6]
And the Public key of where the Bitcoin was sent:
In short: when pitching the utility of Bitcoin, do not show its QR code in HDTV.
Below is a clip of what not to do when presenting the functionality (and security) of Bitcoin:
And here is Miller explaining what happened afterward: