Bitcoin spoof Dogecoin loses real dollars
Financial Services
What began as an Internet meme involving the inner thoughts of dogs bewilderingly blossomed into a virtual currency, and perhaps just earned some street cred, as the victim of a heist.
On Christmas Day, Dogecoin storage service Dogewallet apparently lost 30 million coins, worth between $10,000 and $20,000 total.
Dogecoin was initially created as a joke, according to its creators.” But it is functional, BuzzFeed reports, and thousands of people have invested small amounts of money in it. The 14 billion coins that have already been “mined” using computer algorithms are worth millions of dollars on paper.
Dogewallet’s operators shut down the site and posted this explanation: “We’re currently looking at logs and have found thousands of attempts to hack our systems,” the message said. “All invested user balances will be fully compensated.”
Hackers recently have bludgeoned similar sites that warehouse Bitcoins for users of the most popular cryptocurrency, including Instawallet and Inputs.io.
“With the largely satirical Dogecoin, stakes are considerably lower. Nonetheless, users are angry, suspicious of Dogewallet’s explanation, and responding with uncharacteristic seriousness,” BuzzFeed reports.
Some Reddit users cast their suspicions on the site’s operators.
One of the co-founders of the currency wrote: “Why are you using a new account [to refund coins]? Why are your old accounts deleted? Why was your [Facebook page] delete? This is mucho fishy.”
Another Reddit commenter posted, “Theres twenty eight million coins in the investment pot alone! its a scam, theyve run away with the lot, bet they cashed um in for bitcoin. how long before the whole dogecoin empire crashes?”
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