Quote:
Originally Posted by TomCollins
You are ignoring what I am saying. Suppose you have the power to crack encryption. Do you attack Bitcoins and maybe get a hundred thousand out (at best)? Or do you attack banks and get millions or more?
Yes, if you are holding coins and they get stolen, you are screwed, and people are getting attacked this way. But Bitcoin has not been hacked. It is no different than if someone steals cash out of your wallet.
If you had a Bitcoin bank, you could get all of the protections you are seeking. Comparing Bitcoin to a bank account is the wrong compare. Compare Bitcoin to having cash in your house. If that gets stolen, you are screwed no matter what.
If you want extra protections with cash, you use a bank. If you want those protections with Bitcoins, you use a Bitcoin bank that has insurance. Obviously nothing like that exists now, but nothing is to say it couldn't in the future. I don't recommend the average person on the street buy a significant amount until there is, though.
I agree with the notion that because there is more to be stolen from banks, the probability of you account getting violated is higher at a financial institution and they are more prone to be hacked/attacked due to the value of the accounts to hackers. But again, that is irrelevant. I care about the safety of my funds rather than the potential for hackers to hack or not hack my financial institution.
Also, Bitcoin is a new concept, hence may not be a target of hackers yet, but the issue, again, becomes when they get larger and more people have 'trusted' them with their funds and there is substantial sums of money to be 'stolen', then they will become a bigger target of hackers.
What I am trying to get across is that given the fact that there is NO RECOURSE in Bitcoin system for hacked/lost/stolen funds, this system is a non-starter and will never become prevalent.