[JLMounce]

Originally Posted by poncho-mike

So if you have bitcoin stored on your computer, and your hard drive gets destroyed, do you lose the bitcoin you have stored? The bitcoin is not destroyed, but it may not be recoverable. The ledger knows where the bitcoin is, but if you can't remember your wallet code, you can't access it. Just like if you bury your cash out in a field somewhere. It's always still there, but you may not be able to find it in the future if you forget where you put it.

What about if there is a war and somebody deploys an EMP pulse? The entire internet, all intranets and local networks worldwide would have to be simultaneously effected. At that point we're all in a word of crap, and currency in general will be meaningless. You're going to be bartering in food and ammunition.

Let's say you have a bitcoin wallet at some brokerage, and their records get destroyed through hacking? How secure is owning bitcoin? If you give out your wallet information to somebody else and they misuse it or lose it, that's on you. It goes without saying you should never give your wallet information to anybody. This is no different than having your money in a brokerage account controlled by Edward Jones. If they mis-invest it and lose all of it, you're screwed.

I don't like the idea of having thousands of dollars tied up on something as insecure as my computer. There's no need for your wallet to be on your computer. The ledger knows how much is in your wallet. You can literally write down your wallet address and your passcode on a postit note and retrieve it later on. This is known as cold storage. Just don't lose that note!

Questions answered above in bold.