> 1271.88 BOOTY belongs to users (~$9,300 total), and the rest belonged to SpankChain.
Somehow my sympathy for anybody who invests in a cryptocurrency called BOOTY that's stored on a SpankChain is somewhat limited. Particularly since, once again, the money wasn't really "hacked" or "stolen", just taken by somebody who exploited a contract. Code is law, right?
> It was our decision to forego a security audit for the payment channel contract.
...and I don't have a lot of sympathy for SpankChain people either.
I remember meeting one of the technical cofounders of SpankChain the weekend of their ICO. He was very tired but excited to be done with the project and onto his next ICO idea. He was adamant about not having his name attached to it. It didn't strike me as a very serious project for that reason, among others.
Could someone explain what's happening in the update at the top? It sounds like they got in touch with the guy who stole their money, convinced him to give it back, and then...tipped him a total of $9000 as a reward for...something? That can't be right, can it?
The $100B adult entertainment industry has faced routine discrimination at the hands of banks, payment processors, and financial institutions. These service providers simply
refuse to service those in the adult industry. In 2014, JPMorgan Chase closed the bank accounts of several high profile porn stars and their families without justification . In 2015, Visa and Mastercard stopped processing payments for advertising on Backpage.com. Paypal is notorious for closing the accounts of performers and seizing their funds. This discrimination and censorship has persisted despite the FDIC declaring it unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment.
Making matters worse, middlemen in the adult entertainment industry have historically extracted exorbitant fees due to a lack of competition in the space. The popular adult-friendly payment processor CCBill takes a 10.8-14.5% cut of payments and charges a $1,000 'high-risk’ registration fee annually, pricing out many potential entrepreneurs. Most adult camsites take between a 30-50% cut of performer earnings, and adult content marketplaces such as ManyVids take a 40% cut or more.
Blockchains represent a viable alternative to the discrimination and inefficiencies of legacy financial institutions. Public blockchains are globally distributed systems of record that provide permissionless access to anyone with an internet connection. Anyone, regardless of their profession, can use a public blockchain to store their funds and transact without fear of having their accounts shut down. Blockchain transactions also have strong finality guarantees, so the fraudulent chargebacks used as justification for classifying adult entertainment businesses as ‘high-risk’ are effectively impossible. Further, blockchains such as Ethereum, which support smart contracts, can be used to decentralize the business processes of expensive middlemen and render them obsolete.
Somehow my sympathy for anybody who invests in a cryptocurrency called BOOTY that's stored on a SpankChain is somewhat limited. Particularly since, once again, the money wasn't really "hacked" or "stolen", just taken by somebody who exploited a contract. Code is law, right?
> It was our decision to forego a security audit for the payment channel contract.
...and I don't have a lot of sympathy for SpankChain people either.