Bitfinex is down. Bitcoin's down to. Don't worry crypto, we still love you.
Bitfinex hack dropped bitcoin's price by 20% and it will obviously have a long-term impact to the bitcoin community. But is it dramatic? And what lessons should we learn about it?
According to coindesk, (119,756 BTC were stolen) at roughly $69,000,000. It's a huge amount, but can it be dramatic for the bitcoin as technology and for the whole bitcoin-community? I doubt. And here's why.
- Mt.Gox Forever
Once Mt.Gox happened, it was kinda obvious that couldn't result into a single case. In fact, it never started "bitcoin-leak" trend. And that leads us to the important point: it's not a bitcoin, it's all about the particular case of an exchange security system: the way they build their account structure, the way they hold user's keys and bitcoins. In fact, Mt.Gox was a kind of a vaccine: by the hack day it was operating 70% of ALL BITCOIN TRANSACTIONS for that moment. It sounds like super-killer hack. And bitcoin survived it. It looks like nothing can kill it now.
- Your own consensus
I hope you know who are Bitcoin Core and what they doing. So I strongly recommend you to watch this episode of an interview, where he speaks on the topic. You shouldn't be really relying on somebody else's info - that is what bitcoin all about. It may look a bit paranoid until you loose all your life-savings on some Mt.Gox, Bitfinex or any other crypto-thingy. It's obviously dangerous to put your fate in hands of others you don't know (except a trustless tech).
- BitGo kinda thing
I don't have a solid expertise in the crypto-security field, but ones blame BitGo to be a possible source of problem. If you're into, you should check out this reddit post. Though the situation is unclear yet, this may be a threat to BitGo's business model.
- Best time to buy bitcoin
And since the prices are being dropped with the hack, it maybe the best time to buy-in. There are many reasons bitcoin's price can get another spike this autumn, just go and check out this article on EWM.