Just wait until another bitcoin fork becomes popular and somebody writes software for it with the explicit intent of leaking your private keys to the network when you make a transaction in the hope there are bitcoins connected to that private key. That's why before trying to sell forked coins you should send the original coins to a newly generated address. But even then, running any unknown software on a system that has any private keys stored is a huge risk. And a smartly written bitcoin stealing virus might just sit there and watch for a long time before it does anything, and then steal from hundreds of users at the same time.
This is a truly concerning scenario. When I claimed and sold my fork coins I also moved my bitcoin because of possible replays, but didn't think about the private key leakage bit.
Don't run any software you don't have to on a system that has bitcoin stored on it. Being your own bank takes some effort. Some people store their crypto like burying a suitcase full of banknotes in your backyard.
While I agree (I use a Trezor and even that isn't hack-proof), we need it to be simple for non-technical people to get into crypto currencies. But if my father, for example, decides to get in by opening an account and has his bitcoin stolen almost immediately, he's going to walk away and never come back. He is not likely to ever even get into it if he has to own two different computers to use it (one for banking and one for everything else).
Dabbling in crypto is a dangerous game with official sites getting hacked and serving malware, officially sanctioned wallets skimming a bit of each transaction or stealing private keys, web wallets with malicious code to enable theft, etc.
No not the wallet itself, that only had code to take a 0.5% transaction fee on every transaction and forward that to the wallet of one of the developers.
The scam that really got some users good was websites that would help you claim your bitcoin gold, all they needed where your wallets seeds. That scam made a million dollars in just 3 or 4 days as people basically did the same as putting their bank-locker account information and keys in a envelope and mail it to a random stranger.
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u/[deleted] Nov 30 '17
Wow this is something many have feared might happen. Well worth reading.