I'm curious. Where exactly do you see a security flaw in Bitcoin? Exchanges run by former magic the gathering admins don't count. What flaw is there is there in the security of the currency, I'm curious.
I'll add that the crypto will one day be broken (even brute force will eventually work once CPU/GPU have progressed far enough). And when it is, there is no reason you couldn't just sit back cracking those wallets in secret before funneling the coins your way. A significant weakness of the anonymity of the network means no one really "owns" a wallet in the traditional sense. They are essentially communal.
You're right that sha256 will one day be in jeopardy, but there's no reason why the system can't update itself well before then. If sha256 is broken, all it takes is for people to update their clients and only start accepting sha3, etc.
Previously, breaking a crypto was nice, but not instantly and anonymously profitable as it is with Bitcoin. It will be interesting to see how it plays out when it happens.
Exchanges run by former magic the gathering admins don't count.
Not sure what's meant by that dig, but worth pointing out that a lot of former (and some current) Magic pros do quite well in financial work. In fact, an eerie number of them seem to graduate from Magic, to poker, to finance.
Seems like an obvious selection bias, IMO - much like chess or RTSs or first person shooters. The kind of geeky person who plays Magic and has the brains to do very well even against fellow geeks - is it such a surprise that a good fraction of them might do well when they turn their efforts to poker or finance?
He's referring to how the most popular Bitcoin exchange site, mtgox.com was formerly a trading site for Magic The Gathering cards, "Magic The Gathering Online eXchange"
This site was hacked a few days ago causing much chaos in the Bitcoin community.
Agreed, I personally know 2 people who make their living playing poker...both are former magic players. It was explained to me like this...magic has so many different variables the odds on different hands are very complex, poker by comparison is very easy (odds wise vs. magic). I used to watch one of them play online, 3 monitors with 8 tournaments running per screen at the same time, I think he was in the top 50 worldwide for a bit there (not to mention winning a very large sum in one of the poker tours).
Both of them moved out of country when the Poker stars crackdown happened so they could keep playing.
When I mentioned I liked Blackjack they laughed and said "...odds are terrible...you might as well play the stock market..".
