There’s been a lot of buzz around the most recent events surrounding QuadrigaCX.  For those of you who aren’t aware – QuadiragCX is a Canadian Bitcoin Exchange that have recently lost access to their customers funds. The entire incident is all rather suspicious, but we will not be diving into that drama over here. You can simply google “Quadriga Scam” to find out more. In this post, however, I want to discuss the risks that people tend to ignore when dealing with exchanges like QuadrigaCX.

Specifically I want to talk about Counterparty Risk.

In usual Mango-style, we’re going to break this concept down piece by piece. To understand what is Counterparty Risk, we first need to discuss precisely what is “Counterparty".

• If you loan money to a friend, then your friend is the counterparty  (Credit Risk)

• If you put money in the bank, then the bank is the counterparty

• If you deposit money into a broker (or exchange), then the broker is the counterparty

Alright, so what is Counterparty Risk?  Counterparty risk is the risk that you are bearing incase the person on the other side of the transaction cannot fulfill their end of the deal 

Put briefly:
Counterparty Risk is the risk that the counterparty defaults or goes bankrupt.

In the previous section we listed a few examples of counterparties. In each one of those cases, you were also bearing Counterparty Risk. Let’s use those same examples when pertaining to Counterparty RIsk:

• You lend money to a friend and he cannot pay you back

• You put money in a bank, and the bank goes insolvent (due to bank-run, financial collapse etc)​

• You deposit money into an exchange, and the exchange gets hacked or loses all your funds.

By now, you’re seeing that it’s all pretty straightforward. Whenever you engage in a transaction with another party (counterparty), you are bearing the risk that the other party may not be able to deliver when the time comes to fulfill their end of the transaction

I’ve received this question a few times now: What is the difference between counterparty risk and credit risk?

Counterparty risk is actually a subset of Credit RIsk. 

So essentially – Counterparty risk is a form of Credit Risk. Credit Risks typically refers to the risk you assume when the counterparty cannot payback a loan (for example when you buy bonds). 

So, now we understand what Counterparty Risk actually is. But let’s go over a few examples how bad Counterparty Risk can get. A lot of people have lost a lot of money because they didn’t take counterparty risk seriously enough. Here are a few recent examples of counterparty risks that took a bad turn:

1. The Flash Crash of EUR/CHF:  Several brokers actually went broke overnight on this one. In 2011, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) put a price floor on the EUR/CHF pairing. Essentially, they pegged the EUR/CHF at atleast 1.2 in an effort to facilitate cheap exports.  This caused a lot of traders to take advantage of the price floor.

However, after a series of events – the SNB suddenly removes the price peg and the exchange rate dropped by 20% within the first minute. This caused a massive flash-crash. Traders not only lost their entire balance, but their accounts actually went into the negative! They owed more than they actually had.

2. The Mount Gox Hack: Mt. Gox was a major cryptocurrency exchange back in the day. In 2014, it suddenly suspended all trading without any clear explanation other than “maintenance”. Apparently, a security breach/hack caused the exchange to go insolvent. They soon announced bankruptcy and closed trading altogether. Traders who had their funds in there lost everything.

3. Death Of QudrigaCx CEO: This is the most recent event/example of counterparty risk at its truest form. QuadrigaCX is a Canadian Cryptocurrency Exchange. A few weeks ago, the CEO of the exchange dies while on vacation in India (apparently!). It was then uncovered that he was the only one who could access all the customer funds in the exchange. Furthermore, his laptop could not be found after his death  – making it impossible to access the cryptocurrency which was stored in a secure cold wallet. Almost $150 million dollars of customer funds have been lost. Some people lost their entire life savings.

While Counterparty Risk can be a scary thought, there are several ways to mitigate counterparty risk.  Taking the appropriate steps to mitigate these steps will keep your finances in tact even if a Black Swan event takes place.

1. Divide your funds among Banks that insure your money:  Most banks provide deposit insurance on a your money up to a certain amount. You can reduce your counterparty risk exposure by placing your money in several different banks. This will ensure the most coverage.

2. Don’t send your entire trading account to an exchange: If you’re a trader, it may be in your best interest to trade with only a portion of your funds and leverage the rest. For example you can send 20% of your account to the exchange, and keep the 80% in your bank. With a 5x leverage, you can trade the same amount while still protecting yourself in case the exchange goes down. If you’re looking for an good cryptocurrency exchange that allows for leverage trading, we recommend Deribit

3. Credit Checks & Deposit Requests: If you’re renting out your apartment, or loaning money – it’s best to do credit checks on the counterparty. If you’re a landlord you can ask for security deposits. Banks and credit card companies do a credit check on your financial history for this very reason – to reduce their counterparty risk. They will assess their counterparty risk when dealing with you as a counterparty, and accordingly offer you an interest rate. Landlords do the same and ask you for a security deposit. The interest rate and deposit rate will cover any losses that they may incur in case you don’t fulfill your end of the deal (i.e payback credit card, and not damage property)

When we engage in any sort of trade/ transaction with a counterparty, it’s more often a means to an end. In the process of achieving that end we often forget to account for counterparty risk. 

The rules & regulations that govern many counterparties ( banks, exchanges, businesses) usually evoke the feeling of safety and reliability amongst many of us. And while the crash of banks, exchanges and business is improbable, it is still possible.

Given that our world is highly reliant on counterparties for the purpose of trades and transactions, we can’t eliminate counterparty risk entirely. However, we can mitigate counterparty risk by doing the following: (limited to the scope of examples in the post)

1. For those who are “banked” – Do not put all of your eggs in one basket. Divide your funds among Banks that insure your money

2. For those of you who trade – Crypto, Forex etc – Don’t send your entire trading account to an exchange. Change the narrative around margin trading and use it to mitigate counterparty risk.

3. loaners/landlords – Do a Credit Check, or ask for a Deposit Request

In short, always think of a means to protect your wealth in the case of a black swan event. Black Swan events are notorious for taking you for everything you’ve got and more.

The double-spending problem has been a conundrum in the digital-cash realm for decades. In fact, it was the double-spending problem that held back the advancement of peer to peer digital cash. It wasn’t until the arrival of the Bitcoin Network that a p2p decentralized digital currency really began to be viable. 

Many of us “know” that Bitcoin solves the double spending problem, but we still struggle to explain how Bitcoin solves this problem. In fact, it was only yesterday that I received this email from a regular Mango Reader:

“Hey Shawn,

Your cautionary post on the Bitcoin Doubler Scam got me thinking about the double-spending problem. 

Wont a miner be able to “double spend” his bitcoin by simply broadcasting a transaction on the  network and then quickly mine a block that sends the same bitcoin to another merchant?

Thank you,

Juan”

Anything digital can be copied – anything. And more importantly: it can be copied exactly. This is a huge problem in the digital space when pertaining to digital rights management and… digital cash. Pirated movies, pirated music, pirated software etc. have all been birthed from our ability to copy anything that is in digital format. To most of you, this has been a blessing in disguise.

But imagine if digital cash could be pirated as well?
What would be the implications?
Hyperinflation, for one.

This is one of the primary reasons why we still rely on central authorities for our financing needs. The central authorities (like banks) maintain a ledger where they keep tab of everyone’s expenses. They ensure that double-spending doesn’t occur (..or try to!)

However, centralized solutions pose a single-point-of-failure problem. They can easily be hacked or compromised externally (bribed).  But for decades, it was the only solution we had – until Bitcoin came into the picture.

Satoshi Nakamoto proposed an elegant solution in his whitepaper where he explained how the Bitcoin Network would solve the double-spending problem.

Similar to centralized solutions, Bitcoin also uses a ledger to keep track of transactions. However, this ledger is stored across the globe at multiple locations (called nodes).

This global ledger is called the “Blockchain”.

Why? Well, because it’s simply a chain of “blocks”.  Each of these blocks contain transactions that have taken place in the network.

New transactions that are broadcasted to the network are picked up and put into these “blocks” by miners. Once the block is created, a miner will initiate his mining process where he attempts to solve the Cryptographic Puzzle.

The miner who solves the puzzle first wins the “right” to submit his block to the blockchain (the global ledger). They then move on to the block of new transactions.

This is where Juan’s question comes into play. He’s asking about this hypothetical scenario that explains the (misunderstood) double spending problem.

1. Miner Joe has only 10 bitcoin in his wallet
2. Miner Joe sends those 10 bitcoin to Merchant Alice
3. The network & miners pick up the transaction.
4. All the miners put together a block with this transaction:  “Joe sends 10 BTC to Alice”
5. But sneaky Miner Joe makes a block with this transaction instead “Joe sends 10 BTC to Bob”
6. Miner Joe wins the cryptographic puzzle, so his block goes through.

Why? Because Joe’s block with his transaction : “Joe sends 10 BTC to Bob” got added to the chain. This means that the blocks containing the transaction: “Joe sends 10 BTC to Alice” did not get added – and was never considered at all.

Remember, Joe won the Cryptographic Puzzle race, so his block gets added to the chain, while everyone else’s block is rejected.

Ah, but what if Joe was not the only one who solved the puzzle?
Often, more than one miner may solve the cryptographic puzzle. This means that multiple blocks may be added to the chain at the same point – resulting in a blockchain Fork. 

So what if another miner – Miner Collin – also solved the cryptographic puzzle. We would now have two blocks with the following transactions:

Joe’s Block:  Joe sends 10 BTC to Bob

Collin’s Block:  Joe sends 10 BTC to Alice

Would this be a successful double-spend? It may look like it – but nope, this is not a successful double-spending attack.

The blockchain has forked into two different chains, one with Joe’s block as the newest block; and the other with Collin’s block as the newest block. It is here that the Bitcoin Network will have to pick one of the chains as its main chain. How does it pick it? It will essentially use the Longest Chain Rule.

I explain the Longest Chain Rule using a simple analogy in the post above. But I’ll quickly go over it here.

Essentially, the network will pick the chain that is the “longest” as it’s main chain. This means that the network will have to wait for a few more blocks to be added to the chain before a decision can be made.

If the chain with Joe’s block outpaces the chain with Collin’s block, then Joes block will be valid since it will be in the winning chain. Collin’s block, however, will be considered “orphaned” and invalid.

Even if the opposite happens, it won’t matter – because only one of the two transactions will be considered valid. So the double-spending problem doesn't really come into play here.

But what about Alice? Is she at risk here? In fact, Alice is actually at risk of being victim to a pseudo double-spending problem. I say “pseudo” because it is not so much a double-spending problem within the network, but “outside” of it.

Two transactions were broadcasted to the network:

Joe’s Block:  Joe sends 10 BTC to Bob

Collin’s Block:  Joe sends 10 BTC to Alice

Joe’s block was added to the blockchain and Collin’s block was orphaned. But remember, transactions are broadcasted to the network – regardless of whether they get added to the chain or not.  So Alice will have received a network message saying “Joe sends 10 BTC to Alice”

As a merchant, Alice may get tricked by this and give Joe some merchandise. However, this is not a fault of a network – but more so a human error. The bitcoin was not officially “double spent” inside the network.

This is precisely why it is always recommended to wait for “Confirmations” on your transactions. Each “confirmation” represents an additional block being added to the block which contains your transaction. 

Every time a block gets added (a confirmation), it means that there is an increased probability of your transaction being in the Longest Chain. At around 5-6 confirmations, you can be pretty sure that your transaction is safe – you won’t be at risk of a double-spending attack.

Yes, a double-spend is technically possible in the Bitcoin Network. However, it's going to be extremely difficult and expensive to pull it off.

If Miner Joe wanted to actually commit a double-spend, he'd have to start mining his own private chain secretly. In the original chain he'd send the 10 bitcoin to Alice. But in his private chain he'd send the 10 Bitcoin to Bob.

He'd then  wait for Alice to receive her six or more confirmations. In the mean time, he would have to ensure that he mines fast enough so that his private chain outpaces the original chain.  If his private chain becomes the longest chain, the rest of the network will switch over to mining on his chain instead – because of the Longest Chain Rule.  This way he can pull off a successful double-spending attack. 

However, this is a lot easier said than done. In my post on Proof Of Work - Determining Majority Power, I discuss how CPU Power is a crucial part of the consensus process. Miner Joe would need to expend a lot of energy and have a lot of computing power to actually outpace the Bitcoin Network. 

It's possible – but far too expensive! A double-spending attack would need a lot of CPU Power

He would essentially need at least 51% of entire networks hashpower to outpace the network eventually. Remember, he has to solve a cryptographic puzzle for each an every block. And he only has a chance to win each block. His chance to win, however, is directly proportional to his hashpower. This is why the community tries to ensure that no particular mining pool has too much control of the Bitcoin Network. Anything over 50% makes the network vulnerable to an attack!

Hope this post helps! And keep the emails coming, guys! 🙂

There seems to be a scam going around that is picking up popularity. It’s called “Bitcoin Doubler”. I would have liked to believe that no one would be naive enough to fall for this. But then I realized that there are many new entrants in this space. Unfortunately, many of them entered at the peak of the 2018 bubble.  

As a result, people seem to be desperate to recuperate their losses at any cost. Ignorance + Desperation typically leads to careless actions.

Hi Shawn,

I was wondering what you think of Bitcoin Doubler sites?

They claim to be able to double my bitcoin instantly. Is this possible?

Thank you!”

“Hey Shawn,

I received an email from a Bitcoin Doubler Expert who says he can double my bitcoin in 1 hour.  He says he is an expert in bitcoin and can double my bitcoin if I pay him.

Would like your thoughts,

Cheers!”

Now, hopefully, most of you are as surprised at these questions as I was. But if you’re not – I’ve clearly not been doing my job well enough.  Either way, I’m going to fix that in this post. But before I go any further, let me state in bold:

If you have any doubts or questions regarding this – don’t hesitate to email me. It’d be a real shame for any of you to get scammed – especially if you’re a Mango Reader. I mean… Bitcoin Doubler? Jesus Christ man…

Bitcoin Doubler is simply a scam. That’s all there is to it. Any website or person claiming to be a “Bitcoin Doubler” is trying to steal from you.  The website (or person) will coax you into sending them funds. Once you do, you will not hear from them again.

There are several variations of this scam. Some of them claim to double your bitcoin in one hour for a fee . Others claim to allow you to “bet” your bitcoin for a chance to double it. Then there are some that are simply MLM-like scams (which can be even more dangerous). Let’s quickly go through some of these “bitcoin doubler” scam variations

In this variation of the scam, someone will likely email you and claim to be some sort of “Bitcoin Doubler Expert”. The person will use garbage terms like “black hat hacking” and will attempt to convince you that he can hack the network to double your bitcoin instantly. He will make lofty claims about having a “bitcoin doubler script” that he coded himself. All you will have to do is pay the person a fee for his efforts to develop the script. He may even try to sell you his magical bitcoin doubler script. Sigh.

Do not fall for this. No one can hack the Bitcoin Network to double your bitcoin for you. Bitcoin isn’t something that can be “hacked”. I won’t go into why in this post. It is tamper proof, immutable and decentralized. The weakest link to the Bitcoin network security is the actual user himself – i.e: The only way for you to lose your Bitcoin is if you give it away. So anyone claiming to “double your bitcoin” by hacking the network, is essentially trying to say that he is going to hack someone else's Bitcoin and give it to you. That is not possible.

This variation of the Bitcoin Doubler Scam feeds not only on desperate people – but on reckless gamblers as well. These websites will claim that you can double your Bitcoin if you place a “bet” with your Bitcoin.  Most of these websites claim that your chance of “doubling” your bitcoin is more than 50%. The Bitcoin Doubler website will ask you to place your bet by sending your Bitcoin to their Bitcoin Wallet address. Once you send them your Bitcoin, it will be gone for good.

These guys are bit more “clever” with their scam. They have a good answer if you ever try to contact them. Since it is technically a “bet”, they can simply claim you lost the bet – and the victim is likely to believe them. You will also notice that a new Bitcoin Wallet address is generated each time you visit the website – this is a huge red flag! It allows them to cover up their previous victims.

This particular variation of the Bitcoin Doubler scam can be particularly insidious. The victim may actually be coerced into falling for this scam by his own friends or family – who are most likely victims of the scam too. It’s pretty much the same model as a Multi-Level-Marketing model (aka pyramid scheme). The scammers convince people to go out to their friends & family and trick them into sending them Bitcoin as well.

While it’d be really nice to double your bitcoin instantly, life just doesn’t work out to be that easy. Be wary of anyone proposing to double/ multiply your bitcoin. Bitcoins are of limited supply, and the bitcoin blockchain is one of the highest standards of security achieved thus far. One can't just simply create bitcoin through sheer will of doubling their stack.