Which btc threat vectors concern you most, if any? \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Which btc threat vectors concern you most, if any?

2332 sats \ 23 comments \ @stack_harder 4 Dec bitcoin

Of all the talked-about risk vectors, which bother you the most?

Most people say the quantum computing thing, but everything, including all banks would be toast then anyway, plus bitcoin can be upgraded with quantum-proof algos.

I think the one that seems possible to me is some scenario where the gov wants to control it and uses the etfs to do a fork and we have a fork war again. Maybe this would amount to nothing, it would be very negative though , i can only imagine the fud

another one would be maybe the consolidation of mining, or even lightning node runners.

finally, i think apathy and maybe general nihilism on the part of generation TikTok leading to reduced interest and network effects, then again, fiat world and inflation will at some point get so bad that it should lead to more of an awakening.

What do you guys think?

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245 sats \ 5 replies \ @freetx 4 Dec

Two biggest risk factors are:

(a) A major custodian (like Coinbase) is hacked. This could produce such a backlash that Wallstreet + Regulators came out and said: "Digital Assets are inherently incapable of being properly held securely in custody accounts" and that would effectively end most official support for it.

(b) Future code updates introduces a critical catastrophic bug that is exploited - imagine millions of coins either permanently lost or stolen. While this could possibly be mitigated via a variety of different ways, it may set back public adoption by a few decades.

99 sats \ 3 replies \ @stack_harder OP 4 Dec

apparently 98% of CB customer funds are stored in offline, geographically distributed cold wallets, which are disconnected from the internet

the liquidity stuff in hot wallets is insured, to a point, so i don't think that would be super catasropihc

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 5 Dec

Xapo

Coinbase purchased Xapo cold storage a few years ago

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @freetx 5 Dec

Exactly. Its xapo custody.

Back in the day Xapo was buying old military missile silos (I think) that they were using as their off-grid key storage facilities.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @freetx 4 Dec

Yes, but internet is not required. You just need enough insider employees who can coordinate their efforts in non-detectable ways.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 5 Dec

My guess is Coinbase and MSTR and others such as bitgo have catastrophic insurance

369 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 4 Dec

There's no risk to bitcoin that isn't also a risk of new and likely violent dark ages. The only question is how much influence are people willing to pursue that timeline wielding?

Technical nits are ego driven virtue signals at this stage, few can accept that Bitcoin's destiny is well-beyond the control of advocates and developers.

Fear and distrust of government is justified, but the framing is naive to ignore what levers an evil (or simply self-interested) government has already chosen not to pull.

There are state-level hardware backdoors in just about every laptop, phone, and server that could be programmatically exploited to start sweeping coin (as well as dragnet decryption of comms). This would be a nuclear option, effectively destroying the internet as we know it as hardware supply chains would have to be rebuilt over decades after the usurping power is otherwise contained. This could be more devastating in many ways than an EMP attack, depending how the exploits are used. The only deterrent is the desire for the state to sandbag these exploits for secret targeting of entities over time, and avoiding reprisal.
[They] could also reveal that Satoshi was an O-Plan and some NSA think-tank controls 30+% of supply, not including rat-hole financial firms they also control. Unintuitively, this could be good too. It's either a white-hat op -> world reserve currency good result, or rat poison -> rug-pull bad result. If it went bad, there's ultimately no wealth except defensible productive land, and thus we accelerate toward a violent timeline. The deterrent for the bad outcome is again a reprisal response to the overreach, at the expense of the soft-control happy path.
Deflationary collapse by simply stopping the money printers, allowing in effect triggering of a global margin call. Most all property would transfer to the creditor of last resort, the globalist bankers. It's just like Bitcoin never existed in that case because its just another way to disappear fiat. Same deterrent as above, people in the system not at the very very top would be unlikely to survive it.

TLDR; technical and cultural risks are illusory, it's in the hands of game theory.

176 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 4 Dec

complacency, a coma brought on by bitcoiners getting wealthy and lazy, undermining efforts to maintain the qualities that give bitcoin value
wrench attacks against bitcoiners without multisig and guns

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder OP 5 Dec

wrench attacks against the kids and grandkids of the OG class

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @j7hB75 4 Dec

Major exchange hacks
CBDC competition
A mining pool or conglomerate of mining pools controlling 51% or more of the hashrate
Bitcoin ETFs accelerating the subversion of Bitcoin by creating a larger attack surface for an executive order 6102 on Bitcoin

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @BlokchainB 4 Dec

Home invasion and a zero day bug that renders the network obsolete

84 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder OP 5 Dec

if i had the fiat equivalent of serious money, i would just spread it over different hardware wallets, then if someone busted in, hand over access to a dummy wallet with a few Gs in it

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 5 Dec

$5 Wrench

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LNRocks 5 Dec

Miner centralization.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @telcobert 4 Dec

For Europe, a bad threat is still missing: ECB is progressing rapidly with their CBDC, the digital Euro. Over time, the technical capabilities and their political pull will allow them the de-monetise all Bitcoin on/off ramps in Europe, just like European banks have started to de-bank the accounts of bitcoiners and companies involved in bitcoin, on grounds of extreme bureaucratic overhead with any transaction even smelling of bitcoin. Sooner or later, the ECB will want to use this power to secure their Euro monopoly in Europe.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder OP 5 Dec

The ecb is shuch a pile or shit that this one doesn't bother me too much,. while true, there is still no way they have of stopping p2p bitcoin buying and selling, they also have no way of working for btc directly and i think, really, at some point, they will just piss off enough powerful and wealthy hodlers to exit euopre

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 4 Dec

Miner centralization. A few companies controlling hashrate is a threat that concerns me. Which is already a problem. Just hoping the problem improves as more people adopt bitcoin.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @zapsammy 4 Dec

not enough stackers to make it easier to live on bitcoin among zombie normies
governments becoming honest in more gullible people's eyes (i.e. better deceptions)

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder OP 5 Dec

normies being zombies and govs not being honest - can't see this changing any time ever lol

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @zapsammy 5 Dec

the one great work is to keep tabs on events and show them to anyone willing to look, while staying alive to show them, by any means necessary

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 4 Dec

Zero

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 4 Dec

Oh that's easy. My biggest fear is that I'm too uneducated on the subject to even see a threat coming.

Bitcoin is an octopus with many tentacles. The more I learn, the more I realize that I don't know shit.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ama 4 Dec

Non, really. We need to take precautions, though. Self custody and privacy are paramount, IMO.