Bitfi, the McAfee led cryptocurrency wallet and the alleged unhackable wallet that was set to change the entire landscape for cryptocurrency storage has finally caved in and retreated, the company and John McAfee himself, have now confirmed that the wallet is indeed vulnerable to hacks.
This comes after a campaign set out by Bitfi and McAfee to challenge hackers to access the wallet, for an incredible bounty. Though, McAfee specifically stated the reward on offer was not a bounty, as the wallet was unhackable so therefor a bounty would be impossible. However, as you might have guessed, it did transpire that the wallet was hackable, and a number of people and entities managed to maliciously access Bitfi wallets, one user even managed to install and play a version of the video game doom on it.
Whilst it seems no bounties have been paid out (McAfee set up a lot of loopholes within the reward incentive), at least now we can rest easy knowing that the team at Bitfi are no longer living in a dream world and understand that they do have a responsibility to employ a security team to ensure that their product is able to keep their customers assets safe.
Important announcement from Bitfi: pic.twitter.com/SD4ZCJxvLn
— Bitfi (@Bitfi6) August 30, 2018
In what almost looks like an apology, Bitfi have tweeted that they are now set to hire an experienced security manager “who is confirming vulnerabilities that have been identified by researchers.”
Most importantly, according to the announcement:
“Effective immediately, we will be removing the ‘unhackable’ claim from our branding which has caused a significant amount of controversy. While our intention has always been to unite the community and accelerate the adoption of digital assets worldwide, we realise that some of our actions have been counterproductive to that goal.”
Counterproductive!? That’s putting it lightly.
Bitfi and McAfee have remained antagonistic and very resistant to the community that has constantly challenged their dangerous theories that a wallet could be unhackable. I think this whole thing has been one big publicity stunt to ensure the name of Bitfi gets heard. If so, you might ask has it worked? Who knows, I don’t think so.
I actually think that the community is only ever going to see this product as a bit of a joke after all of this.
