The Missing Man and the Missing Millions
If you haven’t been following this,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47454528
in a few short bullet points:
- Crypto exchange has a few problems
- Owner of exchange “dies” in India
- Crypto wallets with £105m can’t be accessed “because he was the only person with the password”
- Wallets get opened.
- Hey presto! There’s nothing in them
Now call me cynical but if the money had been there, I would have said that maybe he was dead. But the wallets were apparently cleaned out months before and there are a whole lot of unauthorised wallets that the coin might have gone to. One person access = danger, under all circumstances. It’s why quoted companies usually don’t have the same person as Chairman and CEO. You only have to think of Robert Maxwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell
This is exactly why people don’t trust crypto-currencies. For a start more than one person should have had the password available to them and indeed maybe in this kind of fiduciary situation it should have been accessible only with two or more private keys. That raises all sorts of questions as well about storing passwords, and indeed it is one of the areas where we at Scotcoin are working to achieve some sort of standard.
From our own perspective security is more important than anything. The whole point of crypto-currencies is that you can rely absolutely on what the blockchain tells you, via its decentralised approach. If that trust breaks down, what is the point?
To be fair, as far as I know, it has always been an “inside” job where things have gone wrong. But part of the problem that there has been with ICOs and exchanges is that there has been no over-arching regulatory set up to make sure everyone plays fairly by the rules. In the wild west the cattle barons made their own rules until the Federal Government imposed their laws – and profited immensely. The same situation pertains within the world of digital currencies at the moment. The nature of the beast attracts charlatans and card sharps. Until regulation is everywhere there will always be poor benighted people who lose out. That’s one reason that Malta and its legislation is so important for the future and development of blockchains and crypto-currencies.
We at Scotcoin embraced regulation and disclosure a long time ago, and we fully expect to be able to comply with any and all regulations as they are enforced. Just one more reason to believe there is a solid, secure future for Scotcoin. Get your Scotcoin here or give some to a friend or valued employee with a Gift Voucher.
