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> So, things were clear: the cybercriminal wants 0.4 Bitcoin, which made about 260 Euros at the time of infection, but only 89 Euros at the time of writing (Once again this shows how unreliable the Bitcoin money is, but that is something else).

Fail.



It sounds like the article author used the MtGox price, which is irrelevant at the moment.


Could you expand your comment a little beyond "Fail." to explain to those of us who aren't totally clued up on BitCoin what is wrong with that statement?


The author is using the MtGox price. MtGox is one of the smaller exchanges, and due to their incompetence, their trading system was hacked and Bitcoin withdrawals are disabled. As a result, the price of Bitcoin on Mt. Gox is about 1/5th what it is on all other exchanges. The author is using the mtgox price.


The cash value of Bitcoin declined since last fall, meaning the hacker is making less 'real' money now, if they try to trade the Bitcoin for cash. By hardcoding the asking amount of 0.4 Bitcoin, they are susceptible to the many ups and downs of the Bitcoin/$ ratio.


That's pretty bad, yes, but I was more irked by the author using a blatantly wrong and meaningless price.


Author is clueless about the Bitcoin market.

Not important for the article though.


The day-to-day value of Bitcoin, and therefore its utility as a proper currency, certainly isn't reliable.

For me personally, the time when people can (and do) reliably list prices in BTC (which do not float with BTC/USD exchange rate) is the time when I take Bitcoin's use as a currency seriously.




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