Wow, so much ignorance of the way blockchains work. And I do not mean that as a slam, but your statements acknowledge none of the safeguards that are built into the system. It is already bigger and more powerful than ANY other dedicated network on the planet, and the decentralized arrangement makes it practically invulnerable to theft. It has been calculated that at least 80% of the network would have to agree to "hack the system" and nowhere near that amount will ever happen, because we ALL have a vested interest in it working properly! BUT, (and this is a big BUTT) it is believed that the US govt. seized the Silk Road btc holdings, and all they can do with it is use chunks of it to try and affect prices, by selling at strategic times.
Counter to that, there has been a lot of positive input by governments around the world, in fact, JAPAN has recognized BTC nationwide, hoping it will bolster their economy! PLUS, the 2020 Olympics are in Japan, so there is an expected uptick from that alone. Projections are for steady increases over the next 3 years, and this is a big part of that.
Now I'm not trying to start a flame war, and I'd like to see you come back with some concrete ways that governments (or central banks, whatever you wish) can do to disrupt crypto currencies. I know they can pass laws against it, but not even China is doing that, in fact, quite the opposite. I have read that they are encouraging crypto currency usage...
As far as your manipulation of Silver and Gold, I fully agree. But the blockchain is beyond the control of governments. It is also speculated that an "E-Dollar" may be rolled out soon, using blockchain technology. IMO, that would be the best way of "controlling" cryptos, giving a "better alternative" for people to invest in. I would likely get into that one as well, at least for some early gains, it could really pay off if one invest early and gets out at the proper time. At least partially out. Might want to keep some for daily use...
Ignorance? These are words of Konstantinos Karagiannis
CTO, Security Consulting, Americas, BT.
But is it safe?
My RSA 2017 talk, “Hacking Blockchain”, includes a fair amount of time explaining historic and current attacks faced by all implementations of the technology. A lot of these attacks are old school, focusing on supporting technology and not on the blockchain itself.
Consider attacks against credentials used at an online cryptocurrency exchange. Such exchanges act as hot wallets, or storage of funds available for transacting online at any time. Traditional authentication hacking of these sites can lead to illegal transactions. Some attacks are even more creative, such as the ability to force a cold or offline wallet to become hot and therefore a target for fraudulent transactions.
The major issue I cover, though, is the inherent flaw on page one of Satoshi’s paper. That elegant if pesky line about “computationally impractical to reverse” transactions. You see, the crypto behind cryptocurrency is actually public key. We are likely less than three years away from this being completely hackable by a quantum computer.
Facing reality.
Fantasy? Hardly. Labs around the world have already proven that quantum computers can run Shor’s Algorithm and almost instantly find the private key of a public key pair even 4,096 bits long. Because of how public key works in most blockchain implementations, including Bitcoin, this would mean any time a transaction occurs, a quantum computer has everything it needs to obtain a user’s private key. Spend a single cryptocoin, and any entity with a quantum computer can download that currency’s blockchain, see your transaction, and in a few moments spend the rest of your funds.
The threat seems even worse if you consider blockchains designed to prove ownership of land or other critical identity-related transactions. A private key attack here can lead to an irreversible type of identity theft, at least within that blockchain ecosystem.
The NSA has already warned against the use of non-quantum-safe encryption. Its’ time to realise we may be rushing towards putting everything on a digital house of cards rather than an unbreakable chain. Let’s fix blockchain’s inherent flaws now, before it’s too late.
If you want to see our Blockchain demo in person, why not visit Innovation 2017, our technology and innovation exhibition taking place in June.