Euro Pacific Capital CEO, Peter Schiff’s comment suggesting Bitcoin might be the next target following a hack of multiple VIP Twitter accounts has been ridiculed by bitcoiners.
Seemingly relishing the prospect of a bitcoin hack, Schiff a gold bug and a well-known bitcoin critic, signs off his Twitter post by urging his followers to stick with gold. The criticism from Schiff took place after a number of popular Twitter accounts were hacked on Wednesday afternoon.
It looks like all verified Twitter accounts have been hacked by someone running a #Bitcoin scam. For once not being verified has its advantageous. I wonder if this is a harbinger of Bitcoin itself being hacked? Better to play it safe and just buy #gold.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) July 15, 2020
Some members of the bitcoin community immediately reacted to the old nemesis by pointing to Schiff’s apparent ignorance.
Dmytro Volkov, CTO at Cex.io explains that the request to transfer bitcoins, rather than dollars, stems from the popularity, prevalence, and ease of transferring cryptocurrency.
In particular, Volkov questioned the logic used by Schiff in his latest attack:
“What actually did happen? Twitter got hacked and perpetrators asked to transfer funds. If they had asked to transfer dollars, then, following the logic of Mr. Schiff, should we have said that the dollar is doomed? It is, at least, illogical to link causes and effects in such a way.”
Volkov suggests that the hacking of accounts “is only related to the vulnerability of Twitter’s infrastructure” and the ways people interact with it.
There is no connection with the reliability of bitcoin.
Volkov’s sentiments are shared by several Twitter users that reacted to Schiff’s initial comment. One comment asked why hackers had not asked for gold.
Also attacking Schiff’s comment is George Donnelly, Business Development Manager at Bitcoin ABC. Donnelly says the comment once again exposes his ignorance.
“Peter Schiff, as usual, demonstrates he knows next to nothing about bitcoin. I’d like to see him send some verified gold online. You can send the provably scarce, real Bitcoin Cash online, which gives it greater utility than Peter’s clumsy, if beautiful, gold,” asserts Donnelly.
Meanwhile, Volkov also sought to make clear what this hacking might mean and how this is not feasible.
“It means hacking the cryptographic algorithm on which bitcoin works. If this algorithm ever gets hacked, and the hacker becomes capable of completing a transaction without the original private key, then it will mean trouble not so much for bitcoin, but for everyone who uses such algorithms,” Volkov stressed. “These are HTTPS-secured websites, bank payments, authorizations, etc. Hacking the algorithm would be a global problem, and bitcoin is hardly a priority target for hackers here.”
Volkov concludes that there is no reason to believe that “the algorithm can be cracked with the current level of development in mathematics and computing devices.”
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