CovOps
Location : Ether-Sphere Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator Humor : Über Serious
| Subject: Once You Use Bitcoin You Can’t Go ‘Back’ — And That’s Its Fatal Flaw Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:19 pm | |
| Bitcoin is the world’s most popular digital currency — not just a form of money, but a way of moving money around — and the darling topic du jour of the tech industry right now. [WIRED has its primer on what bitcoin is and how it works here.]
As a security researcher, I admire bitcoin-the-protocol. It’s an incredibly clever piece of cryptographic engineering, especially the proof-of-work as a way of maintaining an indelible history and a signature scheme which, when properly used, can limit the damage that might be done by an adversary with a quantum computer. But I believe bitcoin-the-currency contains a fatal flaw, one that ensures that bitcoin won’t ever achieve widespread adoption as a currency.
The flaw? That bitcoin transactions are irreversible. That is, they can never be undone: Once committed, there is no “oops”, no “takeback”, no “control-Z”. Combined with bitcoin’s independence — it is a separate currency with a floating exchange rate — this flaw is arguably lethal to money systems.
More: http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/11/once-you-use-bitcoin-you-cant-go-back-and-that-irreversibility-is-its-fatal-flaw/ |
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