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by throwawayReply 3109 days ago
If the consequence of my account being compromised is the bank adjusting the numbers in the ledger back then the bank are welcome to enforce such rules.

If a bank said that customers were responsible for the money stored in the bank and that the bank could not undo transactions (from the POV of the genuine client) then we'd be demanding much stronger banking passwords.
2 comments
nikanj 3109 days ago
Actually getting tens-hundreds of millions out of the traditional banking system is _hard_. Transactions can always be reversed, and you'll never pull out millions in cash without some serious questions asked.
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bfuller 3109 days ago
The exchanges can just change a couple numbers in their database and reverse the hack... r-right?
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throwawayReply 3109 days ago
Yes, if people accept fractional reserve banking for bitcoin. I'd actually assume that's how most exchanges operate under the hood but many people who buy into bitcoin for ideological reasons won't accept that.

A consequence of making that formal is that the total owned amount of bitcoin would be more than 21m, because the hacker would own bitcoin and the users would own bitcoin on the exchange.

As long as there isn't a bank run, that discrepancy would not be a problem, but it would deflate the currency, also seen as unacceptable to bitcoin purists.

edit: access -> accept.

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