Bitcoin Theft Victims Search For $100 Million In Sheep Farce

[Karloff]

Bitcoin Theft Victims Search For $100 Million In Sheep Farce

Just goes to show, never trust a crook.

When they were robbed of over $100 million in Bitcoin, the victims of one of the largest virtual currency thefts in recent history went looking for the culprit. They spent countless hours putting the vaunted anonymity of Bitcoin to the test, all for nothing; whoever the mystery figure behind the Sheep Marketplace theft may be, he or she probably converted the coin to actual cash some time ago.

Sheep Marketplace was one of the darknet sites that sprang up after Silk Road went to its reward. It existed to help people purchase illegal goods online, but when a user allegedly exploited a bug in the system and stole 5,400 Bitcoin, Sheep Marketplace collapsed. "Your money, our provisions, all was stolen," said Sheep's administrators. Sheep's customers didn't believe that story, and suspected that the balance in their accounts - over $100 million worth in Bitcoin - had been stolen by Sheep.

They went looking for the stash. Bitcoin is notoriously difficult to trace, but they figured they had an advantage. A small Bitcoin amount is just one of many in the stream, but $100 million worth - over 90,000 Bitcoin - is a substantial amount, and would probably leave a trail. The hunt went on for days, as the victims began closing in on what they believed was their Bitcoin wallet.

Except it wasn't their wallet at all. Yes, it was a substantial amount of Bitcoin, but the victims hadn't found the thief. They'd found BTC-E, a digital currency exchange that handles roughly 33% of the world's Bitcoin transactions. All those days of effort, wasted.

"I'm going home," announced one of the main investigators on Reddit. "I'm tired, I've got no milk in the fridge, and I need to go back to my day job of driving about in a van, solving mysteries."

Nobody knows who has Sheep's cash; one suspect has gone to the Czech newspapers [http://byznys.lidovky.cz/obral-drogove-dealery-o-miliony-cech-jsem-nevinny-brani-se-programator-1md-/firmy-trhy.aspx?c=A131206_112108_firmy-trhy_mev] in an attempt to clear his name. But whoever did shear Sheep probably turned the Bitcoin into cash long ago, like a sensible criminal.

Source: Guardian [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/09/recovering-stolen-bitcoin-sheep-marketplace-trading-digital-currency-money]


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[synobal]

Bitcoin is awesome, it has inspired me to write more Cyberpunk.

 

[anthony87]

I read things like this and it makes me wish that I'd gotten into the Bitcoin thing years ago when nobody had heard of it...

 

[Mid Boss]

I read things like this and it makes me wish that I'd gotten into the Bitcoin thing years ago when nobody had heard of it...

Hell, if I had bought some last year when they were 75 bucks I could have sold them today for 850! But it's an extremely volatile investment. They've already had one crash already. Don't even think about getting in on the mining. You have to invest most of the money you get back into buying more mining rigs and, eventually, your rigs wont make enough money to cover the electric they take to run.

It's very much like a pyramid scheme where the people who get in early are rich and now no one new can hope to make anything off it.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

And now you know why you don't trust people on darknet websites...

 

[frobalt]

Ahahahahahahahahahaha.


Can't feel sorry for them due to the whole helping people buy illegal goods things.

 

[Jupiter065]

Another day, another hilariously dumb bitcoin story.
Thank you Internet Gods for this blessing!

 

[Neverhoodian]

Aww, did the widdle bwack market dealers get their virtual money stwolen?

You play with fire, expect to be burned. Cry me a river.

 

[Nimcha]

Awesome. I was hoping this kind of thing would happen. I like bitcoin but I am not one of those people that doesn't see how perfect it is for criminal activities.

Criminals stealing from criminals.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I've got no milk in the fridge

That's better a reason than most have to stop investigating the theft of millions of dollars.

 

[ritchards]

How long before this turns up in a movie, with some 'super hacker' character claiming to have done this?

 

[Johkmil]

A currency completely without any real-world grounding, valued solely on scarcity and demand? I give it a few years before collapsing on itself as people start to question this ridiculous air castle made out of an emperor's clothing. Or perhaps until the mining rigs no longer make money in the usual way and people start to use the computing power to try and counterfeit the bitcoins instead. Who would be responsible for investigating and preventing counterfeit bitcoin?

 

[Veylon]

A currency completely without any real-world grounding, valued solely on scarcity and demand? I give it a few years before collapsing on itself as people start to question this ridiculous air castle made out of an emperor's clothing. Or perhaps until the mining rigs no longer make money in the usual way and people start to use the computing power to try and counterfeit the bitcoins instead. Who would be responsible for investigating and preventing counterfeit bitcoin?

The things are mathematically uncounterfeitable. It's more a matter of everyone agreeing that number X is connected to number Y than actual coins. The value is based on the notion that only so many number X's that match a particular set of conditions are known. My bet on the collapse is when the first guy to manage quantum computer mining comes along and seniorage taxes the rest of the BC community into penury.

Technically, it's no more a ridiculous air castle than any other fiat currency and less so than a good many state currencies.

 

[Sean951]

A currency completely without any real-world grounding, valued solely on scarcity and demand? I give it a few years before collapsing on itself as people start to question this ridiculous air castle made out of an emperor's clothing. Or perhaps until the mining rigs no longer make money in the usual way and people start to use the computing power to try and counterfeit the bitcoins instead. Who would be responsible for investigating and preventing counterfeit bitcoin?

The things are mathematically uncounterfeitable. It's more a matter of everyone agreeing that number X is connected to number Y than actual coins. The value is based on the notion that only so many number X's that match a particular set of conditions are known. My bet on the collapse is when the first guy to manage quantum computer mining comes along and seniorage taxes the rest of the BC community into penury.

Technically, it's no more a ridiculous air castle than any other fiat currency and less so than a good many state currencies.

Oh, it's much more ridiculous than other fiat currencies. The Dollar, for example, is accepted because people the world will end before the US Government falls, and the government will always produce enough to pay the debts. Bitcoin has value simply because people agree that it does for no other reason.

 

[Gilhelmi]

A currency completely without any real-world grounding, valued solely on scarcity and demand? I give it a few years before collapsing on itself as people start to question this ridiculous air castle made out of an emperor's clothing. Or perhaps until the mining rigs no longer make money in the usual way and people start to use the computing power to try and counterfeit the bitcoins instead. Who would be responsible for investigating and preventing counterfeit bitcoin?

The things are mathematically uncounterfeitable. It's more a matter of everyone agreeing that number X is connected to number Y than actual coins. The value is based on the notion that only so many number X's that match a particular set of conditions are known. My bet on the collapse is when the first guy to manage quantum computer mining comes along and seniorage taxes the rest of the BC community into penury.

Technically, it's no more a ridiculous air castle than any other fiat currency and less so than a good many state currencies.

Oh, it's much more ridiculous than other fiat currencies. The Dollar, for example, is accepted because people the world will end before the US Government falls, and the government will always produce enough to pay the debts. Bitcoin has value simply because people agree that it does for no other reason.

You have much more faith in the US government then I do. But that is both Good but the Problem as well.

As long as the vast majority of people have faith in the stability of the government we are fine. BUT if a major disaster, war, or extremely bad political decision were to happen then faith in the government could plummet.

If you were to go back in time to the 70s, few would believe you about the Soviet Union falling within 20 years. In fact, they would say the same thing you just said "The world will end before the Soviet Union will fall". Chernobyl happened, major truths of the world reveled, a Nation fell. The NSA was shown to spy on Americans, a crack forms, now can the US government patch the crack or is it the start of the break? I do not know.

As for the "government producing enough to pay debts" part, that is not how it works. The people produce to make a living, the government taxes to pay for government services (army, police, roads, schools, ect). But, if the economy gets bad, tax revenues go down, and the government can not pay its debts. Bringing us back to my first point, a major disaster/war/bad policies can cause economic instability, and the US is still recovering from the last economic down turn.