Ask HN: The DAO hack – Where does the real money go?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11929403

by winteriscoming • 10 years ago

8 9 10 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I am a complete newbie when it comes to crypto currency and the current DAO hack is something that I haven't yet fully understood. From what I have read so far, someone hacked TheDAO which is a crypto currency based program and made away with some amounts of "ether" which then translate to X amounts of real money ($$).

How does the culprit encash that amount or rather where does it really end up? In some (real money) account(s)? Or does it stay as crypto currency which can then be used to buy stuff (online)? And there's no way to track how a particular account/address ended up with that much worth of currency?

cprecioso• 10 years ago

This was answered in the comments of the link sent previously, but basically: it's gone to a public blockchain address, of which everyone knows the public key but only its owner knows the private one. Also, the blockchain is pseudonymous, so nobody knows who the owner of the address is.

Therefore, everyone knows where the ether are, but only its owner can touch it. He can use them as if they were legitimately obtained (they are, depending on perspective) and go to an exchange to buy dollars (or euros or whatever), or exchange them with other addresses for goods and services.

Anyone will be able to audit these movements of money (at least the ones that stay inside the ether blockchain), although there exist some cryptocurrency laundering schemes.

winteriscoming2• 10 years ago

Thank you.

thrill• 10 years ago

I don't believe any gold was involved.

vorotato• 10 years ago

lol if you think that gold has any real value

hanniabu• 10 years ago

If you can sell it,then it has value

max_2• 10 years ago

Here is what exactly happened https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4os7l5/the_big_th...

winteriscoming2• 10 years ago

I don't claim to be the smartest of software developers, but I have been around in software development for more than a decade and I have been able to grasp most of the technical articles that I read out of curiosity. But I have to admit, the past few days I have read a bunch of articles around this, including this one, which try to make it simpler to understand, but I still don't have a grasp of the basic concepts around this :) Makes me wonder, are there enough people out there, who really know how this works and how to develop for such applications.

max_2• 10 years ago

I hope this podcast helps...https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-297-...

please let me know if it does/doesn't

Ask HN: The DAO hack – Where does the real money go?

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