I study Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology ... and I live in Iowa
Hello,
I am fairly new to Steemit and still trying to figure all of this out.
This post relates to my journey into the bitcoin/blockchain space and where it began. In July of 2013, I began hearing about bitcoin from various tech forums and websites. Online the word bitcoin would show up randomly and then disappear for a while. I had heard about a bitcoin wallet and I was doing some research on it. I wanted to figure out how to get a wallet and be able to use it - because that is what I had learned.
Around the end of 2013, I had started to hear about Mt. Gox. At the time, Mt. Gox had over 70% of all the wallets worldwide. Everyone else seemed to be using it so I figured it must be OK. I learned that you could purchase bitcoins and then you would have to hold them in your wallet. What I didn't realize at the time is that Mt. Gox was both an Exchange AND a hosted wallet company.
History tells us that you should not keep your bitcoins stored in an exchange. Its basically a hosted wallet and a tempting target for hackers everywhere. No one told me this. Luckily for me, I couldn't figure out how to get a wallet on Mt. Gox ... otherwise I would have been one of many victims that would lose their coins to gox.
Since 2013, there have been a lot of exchanges that have fallen. There are many different articles of hacks that have happened. But still people fail to realize the dangers that are out there.
There have been a lot of scams as well. I have started tracking a lot of them on my website. I have spent a lot of time doing research and also talking with other people new to bitcoin so that they can learn more about how it works and what dangers there are out there.
I am fascinated by - not just bitcoin - but also by blockchain technology. I hope to be able to use my knowledge about this new tech, but have not yet found out what I'm going to do. There are a list of projects I'm starting up. If you are interested in hearing more about them, just leave a comment or send me an email
Take care and be safe out there ...
Thanks for sharing your story with us @brockton
Thanks @vishal1 ! And thank you for stopping by
Hi, maybe you can advise me how to recover my Bitcoins which were stolen from my wallet at Gatehub.com
I'm also new to Steemit and hope that I could get lots of info about Bitcoin and other Bitcoin investment initiatives. Let us know which projects you are working on.
Thanks.
Hello! It sounds like gatehub.com is a hosted wallet. I often advise users against using online hosted wallet sites like that one. Hosted wallets get hacked all the time. (Mt. Gox all the way to the recent Bitfinex) My advice is to contact the admins of that site to see how they are working to recover its users' funds. I wouldn't waste too much time on it unless it was a significant amount. Good luck!
http://btc2020.com/2015/12/25/bitcoin-101-hosted-wallets/
I actually have a Slack where we are working on a large number of different projects. I am also involved in the www.bitland.world project. Lots of stuff going on. Shoot me an email to know more: brockhager@gmail.com
Hi, I have contacted them, but they stated that since my wallet was not a Gatehub wallet, they were unable to help. I also contacted Ripple company for my XRP, and guess what, they were also unable to help. Then, I contacted the FBI and I'm still waiting on answer from them. It is actually very depressing. Do you have any idea who may be able to assist in such a case?
I think you should keep trying to talk to Ripple if it was there wallet. I'm sorry I can't be more help to you. The security of wallets is meant to be placed on the users as much as possible.
I am in a similar situation with another wallet of mine. I have been emailing the people in charge of the account and I don't know if I will ever get access to my funds.