Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490K Swindle
popey.com
Edit: There’s a short follow-up to this post: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: Follow up. tl;dr: A Bitcoin investor was recently scammed out of 9 Bitcoin (worth around $490K) in a fake “Exodus wallet” desktop application for Linux, published in the Canonical Snap Store. This isn’t the first time, and if nothing changes, it likely won’t be the last. This post turned out longer than I expected. So if you don’t have the time there’s a briefer summary at the bottom under “In summary (the tl;dr)” along with my suggestions on what Canonical should do now.

A Bitcoin investor was recently scammed out of 9 Bitcoin (worth around $490K) in a fake “Exodus wallet” desktop application for Linux, published in the Canonical Snap Store. This isn’t the first time; if nothing changes, it likely won’t be the last.

  • gila@lemm.ee
    1·
    9 months ago

    It’s sad, but as a crypto user I’d be sketched out enough about using a centralised hot wallet app like Exodus in an official capacity, let alone entering my private key in something installed via a 3rd party app store. This probably happens on the Play Store a few times a week, and that’s on a bigger platform with a full security review process. It’s ultimately unavoidable.

  • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
    0·
    9 months ago

    Bitcoin is just a scam in general.

    “Bro, I’ll sell you this really complicated number. No one else has it.”

    “What can I do with it?”

    “Sell it for more money to a bigger fool than you.”

    "I’m in.*

    • RmDebArc_5@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      “Bro, I’ll trade your food for this fancy piece of paper”

      “What can I do with it”

      “Trade it for more food with a bigger fool than you”

      “I’m in”

      (Not saying that you’re wrong, just your argument is stupid)

      • rbn@feddit.ch
        0·
        9 months ago

        The problem with most crypto compared to regular money is that it’s often seen as an investment. However, one of the most important factors for a currency that is used in everyday transactions is stability and predictability. Money is supposed to ease trading goods and services as a universal middleman. It’s not supposed to make someone rich who invested first.

        Of course there’s also inflation and deflation with regular money but as soon as that’s getting out of control, it typically leads to serious economic issues.

        • You999@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          9 months ago

          Not to sound like a shill or anything but that’s what’s great about monero. Its actually used on a daily basis as money because it wasn’t designed to be an investment vessel. Unlike most crypto currencies monero is one a few if not the only crypto currency that could suffer from inflation as there is an unlimited supply however this works out in avarage uses favor as there’s no scarcity based value which means there’s less speculation trading leading to a more stable price. I’m not sure what the long term effects of having an unlimited supply of monero is but their justification is that it’s a predictable fixed ammount added which will prevent hyper inflation.

          Once again I’m not a crypto shill, I’m literally saying investing in crypto is a bad idea and to only use it for it’s utility.

        • gila@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          It’s seen as an investment, yes. Those are important factors for a currency, I agree.

          Is there a part where you meant to connect these dots to substantiate the first statement about it being a problem that it’s seen as an investment?

          Edit: I get it, you’re saying it’s a problem with the idea that Bitcoin should be used as a currency in everyday transactions. I don’t think that’s a popular use case for Bitcoin, though. I wouldn’t use “digital gold” for everyday transactions, similarly to how I wouldn’t use real gold. That’s not really a problem with Bitcoin though, more of a misunderstanding of it

    • Handles@leminal.spaceEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      That’s not fair. You can also ruin the environment with it, it’s baked into the technology.