This was bound to happen.

[randomness]

Reported on TechCrunch yesterday under the headline "Such Hack. Many Dogecoin. Very Disappear. So Gone. Wow.":

Dogecoin, the virtual currency that was named after a silly meme but has been described as a potential successor to Bitcoin, was successfully hacked for the first time today, with Dogewallet users losing an estimated 21 million Dogecoins.

...

Each Dogecoin is currently worth about US$0.00057. Together, the stolen Dogecoins are the equivalent of about $12,000, which is not a massive amount, but still a loss for users who spent a lot of time accumulating the virtual currency.

...

Along with several hacking attempts on Bitcoin wallets, the Dogecoin incident is a reminder that all online wallets are vulnerable to hacking.

Comments

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It's true that all electronic financial accounts are vulnerable to hacking, but the difference with most accounts denominated in conventional currencies is that we as a society have created elaborate systems which can usually make good account holder losses sustained by hacking. The recent security breach with Target accounts is a good example of this. I'm getting lots of notices about how I won't be losing any money if some problem charge shows up on my account as long as I notify my card issuer in reasonable time. This even though I haven't actually charged anything at Target during the period of time in question.

By contrast, there's very little recourse in most cases of hacking with these new currencies, partly because systems like that haven't been put together for those currencies, and partly by design.

This turns out to be something of a problem.