Hackers Needed to Save Bitcoin?

What’s the Latest Development?

The catastrophic hack last Sunday on the world’s largest Bitcoin marketplace exposed hundreds of accounts and led to the theft of about $8.75 million in virtual money. Is this latest megaheist an example of how unstable the market has become? Bitcoin works like cash, so if a hacker steals your digital wallet, it’s gone for good. Security is thus a big deal for the future of Bitcoin.

What’s the Big Idea?

Adam Clark Estes says that from the start, Bitcoin has been “a fairly utopian project” and gained the support of heavy-hitting online communities like Anonymous and LulzSec, who’ve been accused, apparently wrongly, of masterminding the heist. “Of course, the groups famous for some of the most prominent security breaches of the past year might not seem a group to trust. But they might be the only ones with the collective power to turn the Bitcoin experiment around,” he says.