

Mybitcoin.com runs off with everyone's bitcoin. - BinaryAcid
http://mybitcoin.com/

======
keeperofdakeys
Well, the host seems totally offline. Was there content there, or is this
submission's title your personal interpretation? The whois information has a
good chance of being fake though.

~~~
dmn001
The whois information is hidden/protected by this company:
<http://www.privacyshark.com/about.html> which ironically recommends mybitcoin
for payment.

------
dave_sullivan
I'm a fan of bitcoin and really do hope it succeeds and stabilizes. Still, for
supposedly being a community of paranoid libertarian types, they certainly
trust total strangers a lot...

------
Astrohacker
There are some threads on the Bitcoin Forum about it:

<https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=32900.0>

<https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=32984.0>

On the same weekend, the third largest bitcoin exchange site, Bitomat, lost
their wallet.dat and thus lost 17,000 of their customers' BTC in the process:

<https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33457.0>

Sad times for bitcoin.

------
Joakal
I don't see any evidence of the allegation that Mybitcoin.com runs off with
everyone's bitcoin[s] except a non-responding server which isn't conclusive.

What's the case?

~~~
dublinclontarf
The server is not responding and has not been for a few days.

Possibilities:

1) Run off with bitcoin 2) Admin simply doesn't checking on the site often 3)
Admin has died and servers gone down

I'm hoping for 2, I don't have any bitcoin there (removed it about a week
before) but I know a few who do and options 1 or 2 would be very damaging for
bitcoin.

------
ebaysucks
The amount of money involved is quite substantial.

There are rumors that one single person had 25000 bitcoins stored at mybtc.
That's a very painful amount of money to be panicking about...

Another bad sign is that the company behind mybitcoin.com was apparantly set
up off shore and nobody knows who the owner is (AFAIK).

Just like MtGox, MyBTC.com simply was the market leader by virtue of being
first.

------
Auguste
The owner of mybitcoin.com, Tom Williams, has apparently responded on the
BitCoin forums: <https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33646.0;topicseen>

~~~
ebaysucks
Most people think OP of this thread is a troll. The real mybitcoin owner
digitally signs his posts.

~~~
Auguste
Yeah, that's true. I suspect they are right, but given that a moderator (or
admin?) whitelisted the OP
([https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15911.msg419877#msg4...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15911.msg419877#msg419877)),
I think it's possible that he's legit.

~~~
keeperofdakeys
It has now been marked as a troll, the admin was optimistic too.

------
devin
No one saw this coming. </sarcasm>

------
dfc
I cant connect to mybtc. what is the story? Is anyone else having trouble
connecting?

~~~
michaelcampbell
same.

------
mcantelon
How long has it been down?

------
drivebyacct2
Not surprising. Back when there was only one bitcoin app in the Android
Market, I toyed with the idea of publishing some smallish app that interacted
with people's BitCoins or would provide remote access.

How hard would it be to get a pre-paid credit card, publish the app to the app
store and have it simply email account credentials to some random throw away
email address or just skim a tiny amount of BTC in the background?

It's funny, with BitCoin's design and the current user-driven banking
solutions, people are realizing how much control banks have due to the
implicit trust. I don't understand why people continue to naively trust these
online wallets or even exchanges who will hold your BTC for you... they
continue to display poor security habits and haven't done much of anything to
truly earn users' trust.

(Note, these are general comments. I've never heard of this site before and I
have no idea why the site is not currently accessible. For all I know, their
power went out and they're totally legit)

~~~
gamble
> I don't understand why people continue to naively trust these online wallets
> or even exchanges

A huge proportion of Bitcoin enthusiasts are speculators. It's hard to
speculate without using an exchange. Bitcoin is an interesting system in
isolation, but in practice users want the convenience of services that
undermine the original goals of Bitcoin as decentralized currency.

Honestly, every time a story about Bitcoin comes up, I'm reminded of EVE
Online. It seems to be a community entirely made up of speculators and those
trying to scam them.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Yeah, but there's no need to leave your money with the exchange once you've
changed currencies. The problem with MtGox was that someone was effectively
using it as their wallet... probably for convenience, but frankly, it's not
that hard to add/remove BTC from your exchange account so as to not take extra
risk and leave it available for a hacker or snooper to take.

