FTB #05 - My Heart Bleeds for Two Factor Authentication

The HeartBleed bug is making waves across the internet, and has already been implicated in at least one BTC heist.  CryptoCoinNews has a detailed account of coin being stolen from BTCJam.  We take a quick look at the tumbler network the coins were fed into.

Follow the Bitcoin 1.2 Released. Now on the Mac App Store!

Follow the Bitcoin version 1.2 has been released.

The biggest news is that the app is now on the Mac App Store [link].  I had to change the icon to appease a reviewer, but I hope to get the old icon back.

You can also install the app as a plain old installer.  I have installers for Windows [exe][msi], Mac [dmg] and two bundles for Linux [rpm][deb].  Follow the Bitcoin version 1.2 is also free as in speech, so you can also install and run the software from source yourself [zip][tar.gz].  You will need Java 8 and a cursory knowledge of Gradle to build it from source.

Download	MD5 Sum
Windows .EXE	27553c582085f8a1419df5686302a1c0
Windows .MSI	99f4c6338422c9770a7ac7d17db510ce
Mac OSX .dmg	306d8a73e06481b5bbb811dff01bd91b
Linux RPM	b054980cb066ca2195f56db25c2a3dd4
Linux deb	12ca47614be5632de8f3ac1e7b6676ab
source in a zip	f53a335c03684f1ad7dcc914e56bb03c
source in a tar.gz	870380e6d9c4ed9bc4441b29f57f28e6

There is one principal new feature in this release: some rudimentary analysis functions.  You can climb and descend Split Pyramids (like the one form Mt. Gox).  You can also follow what I term Spend and Change trails.

I hope to have a video about Spend and Change next week, but this week I jumped at the chance to show a tumbler in action.  Expect to see that video later today.

Edited to add MD5 sum table.

FTB #04 - Not All Pyramids are the Same

There was at least one other pyramid that showed up on the blockchain the same weekend as Mt.Gox found their 200K.  But I don't think this is Mt.Gox bitcoin, and I don't think it is Dread Pirate Roberts bitcoin either, although it has the taint.

The BitcoinTalk thread I first showed: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=310600.0
And another wild speculation thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=508683.0 - note that the old Mt. Gox leak lines up with some of his pre-sweep deposits.

And the Github project for this tool: https://github.com/shemnon/FollowTheBitcoin

Mt. Gox Pyramids were not a closed system

Last week Mt. Gox all but admitted the 200K in pyramid splits were theirs, and that they were moving bitcoin that was reported to the Japanese authorities over their civil rehabilitation.  The implication was it was all money Mt. Gox already had.  Not so fast.



While I have only identified pocket change (not even enough to buy Dorian lunch anywhere, maybe a candy bar) there is definitely coin that did not exist in Mt. Gox's system prior to the split and merge games they just did.  Principally because it was mined until after Mt. Gox went into bankruptcy.  You don't need to presume malice, because it most likely represents standard distributions from GHash.  Maybe.

Minesweeper 2010

Hat tip to Brews and Bitcoins for posting this one over on reddit.

Looks like some old miner swept up 20 of their old bit coins to distribute to some close friends, or pay off a mining pool payout.  Blockchain.info has no information in ownership or mining claim.

The reason I posted this, however, is to look at the mind numbing appreciation of the value of bitcoin over the past 4 years.  A mere $250 of mined coin from over four years ago is worth over a half a million dollars today.  Yowza.

If you want to play around with this yourself you can download the 1.1 release of my "Follow the Bitcoin" toy at Github.

Yes indeed, that is a pile of MtGox Coins

I was supposed to be taking this week off for a spring break trip to Legoland Cryptofornia, but this story was just too big to pass up.





Those big piles of bitcoin being pyramid split two over the past weeks?  Yes indeed, as I first saw on CoinDesk, and later saw confirmed on their own web site, Mt.Gox claims to have just that much bitcoin in their control.  To add more layers of authenticiry, a large transaction that is widely believed to belong to Mt. Gox.



In the age of the blockchain "transaction logs or it didn't happen" is the new "pics or it didn't happen."

Zeno's Paradox in 180K Bitcoins

In this CryptoCrumb we walk down then up the (alleged) MtGox pile of 180k bitcoins to show two related trees, one of 180k and one of 20k.