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Comment by meric | Hacker News Reader

Banks in 1800's were also prone to robbery too.

Which is why our banks don't operate like they did in the 1800s. We've got better security, interbank electronic transfers, and a government backed insurance system which guarantees the safety of deposits up to a fairly large amount (in the US, at least).

If you're arguing that the state of Bitcoin is analogous to banks in the 1800s, that's fine as a perspective on the relative state of advance; to me, it's a wonderful way of saying I should keep my money as far away as I can from BTC.

It's an observation; Bitcoins are in its early stage of development akin to banks in the 1800's.

The next question is whether Bitcoin exchanges will follow the same path of increasing security that banks did, or whether there are structural differences that will cause Bitcoin companies to remain a "market for lemons".

Computer security is in its early stage of development, akin to bank security from the 1800's.

Computer security is actually fine; there's plenty of solutions in academia for lots of modern problems.

The issue is that the uptake of these solutions is slow, because of reasons like backward compatibility and poor software engineering and govt meddling.

The problem is that Bitcoin developers and exchange operators haven't bothered to learn from hundreds of years of banking history.

Are you sure you want to compare cryptocurrency exchanges' safety to 19th century banks?

In the 21st century, customers of traditional banks usually don't lose any money when a bank is robbed.

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