Here’s a really excellent video on the basics of blockchains and how they work.
The explanation is exceptionally clear and methodical, with practical examples throughout. It’s slightly technical, but too much so, and doesn’t assume any prior knowledge.
And calls for regulation of crypto-currency exchanges are starting in BC, where Quadriga was registered.
There are bitcoin apps for phones, but they don’t solve the hard parts of bitcoin, which are security and easy integration with the money we normally use.
A simple phone app on par with Venmo would have to seamlessly convert from the money you want to send to the money you want to receive and have some kind of insurance backstop that would mean you don’t have to wait for 40+ minutes to have reasonable assurance that the transfer actually happened.
The reasons that hasn’t happened are legion. Some are technical, some are political, some are financial, some are regulatory. Arguably, a hallmark of cryptocurrencies is that every problem is simultaneously technical, political, financial, and regulatory. It’s a mess.
It wouldn’t surprise me if some cryptocurrency ends up being in more common regular use in the future, but it certainly hasn’t been Bitcoin. If anything, Bitcoin is further from that than it was a few years ago.
The Cash App includes bitcoin as a method of payment, right along with bank accounts and credit cards.
I’ve heard it stated that Bitcoin is more of a proof-of-concept that happened to be just good enough at just the right time to take off.
Technically this is true of all software that has taken off.
Anybody remember those Mondex cards? You were supposed to actually buy stuff using it, though, not engage in currency speculation.
Say what? A young guy dies of Crohn’s disease? A quick reading if the Wiki shows that Crohn’s disease is, well, a PITA but not fatal unless you have a bowel obstruction or bowel cancer. Neither of those kill you quickly, and an affluent Westerner could get to a decent hospital.
Death certificate? No problem in a Third World country.
Why does it look as if he did a runner and the laptop will only have digital garbage on it, once the password is finally cracked?
For a well-off Canadian you would expect the body would be transported back to Canada for burial. Was it?
This is not accurate.
Crohn’s disease can lead to perforation of the bowel and thus release of gut bacteria into the bloodstream. The sepsis that can result is potentially lethal itself.
But when you add that insult to the system of a person who’s been on immunosuppressant therapy for their Crohn’s (a mainstay of modern therapy), rapid and overwhelming sepsis would not at all be unexpected (and especially for a Westerner in India working among the poor, exposed to all types of immunologically unfamiliar and/or nasty microorganisms).
One day after entering into “receivership” (I don’t know the technical term), Quadriga “accidentally” put about $500,000 of cryptocurrency into an inaccessible cold wallet.
Given the amount of debt the company is in, that’s small potatoes, but how is that even possible when it’s now being controlled by Ernst & Young? On a related note, the company has bank drafts (that banks refuse to honor) that aren’t being held by the company or Ernst & Young, but private individuals. The company didn’t even have its own bank account (and the bank account someone else opened for it was frozen). The company didn’t keep accounting records.
I never invested in crypto, but I wish I had known about this company beforehand. Maybe I wouldn’t have been surprised. (The frozen bank account saga is a year old.)
JPMorgan is getting into some sort of cryptocurrency business. (Love the 2nd par in that article.)
Not a bitcoin type mining thing but a blockchain system for international transactions.
Blockchains? That is so 2017.
More like 2010. How do banks not have 50+ years of experience in secure digital transfers of money, anyway?
I found myself asking that very question when I moved across country and found myself without any access to any money at all for three weeks.
Here is the Ernst & Young report:
https://documentcentre.eycan.com/eycm_library/Quadriga%20Fintech%20Solutions%20Corp/English/1.%20Monitor's%20Reports/4.%20Third%20Report%20of%20the%20Monitor/Third%20Report%20of%20the%20Monitor%20dated%20March%201,%202019.pdf
Thanks for the update, I figured there was more to this.
Next question: did the founder actually die in India or is he on the run with the money? Is his wife in on this?
I think that we can make a pretty good guess to the answers to both questions.
Why would they have needed to crack his laptop? Wasn’t all the evidence in the public blockchain?
Since, it seems, much of the bitcoin business is related to crime, does it follow that some seriously pissed-off criminals are looking for Mr Cotten?
Wouldn’t they need to know the wallet or wallets to track?
The passphrases or private keys for the wallet or wallets are probably what he had encrypted. Wouldn’t you need those to do any tracking? I’m not really sure.
I suppose you could look for the transfers of large amounts in the relevant time frame, but he could have had the coins stored in small amounts in a large number of wallets.
I have no idea what the total volume of transfers is on any given day. Is it large enough to camouflage the transfer of millions of dollars worth if it’s done in small amounts?
He’d have the problem of laundering 137 million in Bitcoin and turning it into goods or cash but I suppose that there are places in the world that would welcome him and shield him with a few well placed bribes.
Converting that much to cash all at once would probably drive the price down so he wouldn’t get 137 million, but he’d probably do it in smaller amounts each time he needs more cash.
In any case they’ve cracked it so now I think they should be able to track it.