The way I read the article, the “worth millions” is the sum of the ransom demand.
The funny part is that the exploit is in the “smart” contract, ya know the thing that the blockchain keeps secure by forbidding any updates or patches.
With crypto, you hold your own money
You own a cryptographic key that a bunch of strangers have decided points to a spot on a ledger. These strangers have no legal connection to you, but things have been working out pretty well so far because your incentives align.
As a bunch of Ledger owners are finding out, there are reasons for FDIC insurance of banks and that reason is so that people don’t have to be exposed to the dangers of storing all their money under their mattresses. Everyone recommends getting your crypto into a hardwallet, but what happens when a Ledger update bricks it? Or the company decides to backdoor it to escrow your “private” keys? And what can you do with those hardwallet funds besides HODL? Can you imagine if every time you wanted to spend part of your dirty fiat savings, you had to expose all of it to danger to do so?
As a bunch of Ledger owners are finding out, there are reasons for FDIC insurance of banks and that reason is so that people don’t have to be exposed to the dangers of storing all their money under their mattresses
The FDIC is a scam. If JPMorgan or Wells Fargo failed they would not have enough to cover the loss. In fact they only hold ~2% of what they insure which would leave 98% of people with nothing. The only reason the FDIC is not bankrupt is because a cascade of banks have not failed all at once
what happens when a Ledger update bricks it?
The recent incident was a software supply chain attack. I am not aware of a bricked update but thats not saying much since i dont follow them closely
the company decides to backdoor it to escrow your “private” keys?
You lose all trust in them as you should and no longer use their products.
what can you do with those hardwallet funds besides HODL?
That is the point of a hardware wallet to hold your funds securely until you want to use them.
expose all of it to danger to do so?
Your hardware wallet acts as savings and use a hot wallet as a spend account with less money in it.
I’m just saying what I saw over at https://old.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/search?q=Lost+my+btc+upgrade&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all
Obviously I haven’t checked up on all of those, but it does seem to happen a bit. I’m not sure how frequently would be considered okay here, but that’s the sort of thing that shouldn’t happen.
