Why criminals can't hide behind Bitcoin

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Your computer—in collaboration with those of everyone else reading this post who clicked the button above—is racing thousands of others to unlock and claim the next batch. For as long as that counter above keeps climbing, your computer will keep running a bitcoin mining script and trying to get a piece of the action.

Your computer is not 11 reasons men should use bitcoin return of kings through the cavernous depths of the internet in search of digital ore that can be fashioned into bitcoin bullion. The size of each batch of coins drops by half roughly every four years, and aroundit will be cut to zero, capping the total number of bitcoins in circulation at 21 million. But the analogy ends there.

What bitcoin miners actually do could be better described as competitive bookkeeping. Miners build and maintain a gigantic public ledger containing a record of every bitcoin transaction in history. Every time somebody wants to send bitcoins to somebody else, the transfer has to be validated by miners: If the transfer checks out, miners add it to the ledger.

Finally, to protect that ledger from getting hacked, miners seal it behind layers and layers of computational work—too much for a would-be fraudster to possibly complete. Or rather, some miners are rewarded. Miners are all competing with each other to be first to approve a new batch of transactions and finish the computational work required to seal those transactions in the ledger.

With each fresh batch, winner takes all. As the name implies, double spending is when somebody spends money more than once. Traditional currencies avoid it 11 reasons men should use bitcoin return of kings a combination of hard-to-mimic physical cash and trusted third parties—banks, credit-card providers, and services like PayPal—that process transactions and update account balances accordingly.

But bitcoin is completely digital, and it has no third parties. The idea of an overseeing body runs completely counter to its ethos. The solution is that public ledger with records of all transactions, known as the block chain. If she indeed has the right to send that money, the transfer gets approved and entered into the ledger.

Using a public ledger comes with some problems. The first is privacy. How can you make every bitcoin exchange completely transparent while keeping all bitcoin users completely anonymous? The second is security. If the ledger is totally public, how do you prevent people from fudging it for their own gain? The ledger only keeps track of bitcoin transfers, not account balances. In a very real sense, there is no such thing as a bitcoin account. And that keeps users anonymous.

11 reasons men should use bitcoin return of kings Alice wants to transfer one bitcoin to Bob. That transaction record is sent to every bitcoin miner—i. Now, say Bob wants to pay Carol one bitcoin. Carol of course sets up an address and a key. And then Bob essentially takes the bitcoin Alice gave him and uses his address and key from that transfer to sign the bitcoin over to Carol:.

After validating the transfer, each miner will then send a message to all of the other miners, giving her blessing. The ledger tracks the coins, but it does not track people, at least not explicitly.

The first thing that bitcoin does to secure the ledger is decentralize it. There is no huge spreadsheet being stored on a server somewhere.

There is no master document at all. Instead, the ledger is broken up into blocks: Every block includes a reference to the block that came before it, and you can follow the links backward from the most recent block to the very first block, when bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto conjured the first bitcoins into existence.

Every 10 minutes miners add a new block, growing the chain like an expanding pearl necklace. Generally speaking, every bitcoin miner has a copy of the entire block chain on her computer. If she shuts her computer down and stops mining for a while, when she starts back up, her machine will send a message to other miners requesting the blocks that were created in her absence. No one person or computer has responsibility for these block chain updates; no miner has special status.

The updates, like the authentication of new blocks, are provided by the network of bitcoin miners at large. Bitcoin also relies on cryptography. The computational problem is different for every block in the chain, and it involves a particular kind of algorithm called a hash function. Like any function, a cryptographic hash function takes an input—a string of numbers and letters—and produces an output.

But there are three things that set cryptographic hash functions apart:. The hash function that bitcoin relies on—called SHA, and developed by the US National Security Agency—always produces a 11 reasons men should use bitcoin return of kings that is 64 characters long. You could run your name through that hash function, or the entire King James Bible.

Think of it like mixing paint. If you substitute light pink paint for regular pink paint in the example above, the result is still going to be pretty much the same purplejust a little lighter. But with hashes, a slight variation in the input results in a completely different output:. The proof-of-work problem that miners have to solve involves taking a hash of the contents of the block that they are working on—all of the transactions, some meta-data like a timestampand the reference to the previous block—plus a random number called a nonce.

Their goal is to find a hash that has at least a certain number of leading zeroes. That constraint is what makes the problem more or less difficult. More leading zeroes means fewer possible solutions, and more time required to solve the problem. Every 2, blocks roughly two weeksthat difficulty is reset. If it took miners less than 10 minutes on average to solve those 2, blocks, then the difficulty is automatically increased. If it took longer, then the difficulty is 11 reasons men should use bitcoin return of kings.

Miners search for an acceptable hash by choosing a nonce, running the hash function, and checking. When a miner is finally lucky enough to find 11 reasons men should use bitcoin return of kings nonce that works, and wins the block, that nonce gets appended to the end of the block, along with the resulting hash.

Her first step would be to go in and change the record for that transaction. Then, because she had modified the block, she would have to solve a new proof-of-work problem—find a new nonce—and do all of that computational work, all over again.

Again, due to the unpredictable nature of hash functions, making the slightest change to the original block means starting the proof of work from scratch. But unless the hacker has more computing power at her disposal 11 reasons men should use bitcoin return of kings all other bitcoin miners combined, she could never catch up.

She would always be at least six blocks behind, and her alternative chain would obviously be a counterfeit. She has to find a new one. The code that makes bitcoin mining possible is completely open-source, and developed by volunteers. But the force that really makes the entire machine go is pure capitalistic competition. Every miner right now is racing to solve the same block simultaneously, but only the winner will get the prize.

In a sense, everybody else was just burning electricity. Yet their presence in the network is critical. But it also solves another problem.

It distributes new bitcoins in a relatively fair way—only those people who dedicate some effort to making bitcoin work get to enjoy the coins as they are created. But because mining is a competitive enterprise, miners have come up with ways to gain an edge. One obvious way is by pooling resources.

Your machine, right now, is actually working as part of a bitcoin mining collective that shares out the computational load. Your computer is not trying to solve the block, at least not immediately. It is chipping away at a cryptographic problem, using the input at the top of the screen and combining it with a nonce, then taking the hash to try to find a solution. Solving that problem is a lot easier than solving the block itself, but doing so gets the pool closer to finding a winning nonce for the block.

And the pool pays its members in bitcoins for every one of these easier problems they solve. If you did find a solution, then your bounty would go to Quartz, not you. This whole time you have been mining for us! We just wanted to make the strange and complex world of bitcoin a little easier to understand. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the long 11 reasons men should use bitcoin return of kings string of numbers and letters in the interactive at the top is the target output hash your computer is trying to find by running the mining script.

In fact, it is one of the inputs that your computer feeds into the hash function, not the output it is looking for. Obsession Future of Finance. 11 reasons men should use bitcoin return of kings item has been corrected.

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Neil Haran Contributor Neil Haran is an angel investor and cryptocurrency advocate. There are many reasons why, but one of the largest barriers to mainstream adoption is the price volatility of cryptocurrencies.

So the question is, why do the prices change so much in the first place? It comes down to supply and demand: Most cryptocurrencies have only a fixed total supply, and yet demand for the coins is uncertain and constantly fluctuating thanks to speculation. The need for stability is not unique to cryptocurrency. Any currency needs to be stable in order to be used as a trusted medium of exchange. The more that prices rise and fall, the more ordinary people will shy away from using the coins for everyday transactions.

Whether they hoard the coins in the hope that prices will rise sharply soon, or they avoid using them altogether for fear that they will lose all of their value, people are not yet accustomed to seeing cryptocurrency as real money. Worse, the unpredictability of prices wreaks havoc on regular money services, like remittance, currency conversion, and the use of ATMs.

In order to use cryptocurrencies, businesses have to hedge their risks by charging exorbitant fees. Bitcoin ATMs can charge up to 15 percent just to convert to fiat currency. This totally defeats the original purpose of cryptocurrencies, which was to offer a cheaper and more flexible alternative to other payment methods. With no advantage over government-printed money, why would the average person use them?

Price volatility has plagued Bitcoin from nearly the beginning. With what we have learned over the better part of a decade, why have cryptocurrencies still not solved this problem of fluctuating prices? Human nature gets in the way, as it tends to do. It is difficult to stabilize prices in a world where people would rather play the market and get instant gratification by re-selling their coins for as high a price as possible.

When building a cryptocurrency from scratch, you first need a solid foundation. From this foundation, the currency can grow and self-correct as it develops. The first piece of the puzzle is being able to reliably predict demand. Having a way to gauge real demand for a coin would go a long way in fixing this problem. This is the core of the problem: With so much speculation, the price for the cryptocurrency will not reflect its actual usage and demand.

It simply becomes a bubble that is constantly on the verge of bursting, and no one wants to risk their hard-earned money on that.

Traditionally, the solution to the problem of stability was to have a central bank. The government could then alter the money supply at will, for example by causing inflation. They need to do this without compromising the freedom of the users and without resorting to inflation. What if there was a currency that encouraged people to cooperate? What if people were incentivized by a spirit of growth, rather than of greed?

Under the ideal model, a network of cooperative businesses and services would coordinate with each other as a single unit.

The coin would be shaped democratically by this co-op shaped not controlled. Every user would have incentives to help the network grow as a whole, and the use of a blockchain would help make the process be fair.

Instead of rampant online speculation, users would visit local exchanges to buy and sell the currency. Having to look other users in the eye can make a world of difference.

Face-to-face exchanges at trusted locations means that the sale of a coin can be more easily limited, and this can act as a throttle to gauge demand. Having stable locations to exchange the currency also creates consistency. It removes the guessing game of wondering where you can buy and sell your coin.

The advantages are not just purely economic, either. Unethical or illegal businesses will tend to be voted out of cooperative networks with face-to-face exchanges, however, which can go a long way toward legitimizing the currency. It would still be possible to run such enterprises of course, but they would never be part of the co-op. This kind of approach can only work if there are dramatically more local exchanges than online exchanges.

It would mean that the local exchanges would dictate the pricing of the currency. Marketing is a powerful force, and as such it needs to be handled with care. On the one hand, founders naturally want to attract investment early on. This will raise the price of the coin and help pay for infrastructure, as well as boost the growth of the coin.

On the other hand, historically the earliest investors in cryptocurrency have been extremely low quality — they are the speculators who doom the currency in the long run and scare away mainstream users. With speculation, capital infusion is needed to keep the currency stable, which can be a significant task.

Take Bitcoin for instance: What will the end game be? However, there are a handful of interesting coins that have invested in strategies that nudge them in a specific direction.

This is a strategy that is centered around creating value with unique products and services that are associated with the currency. In this way, you could say that the currency is backed by something that people actually want. For example, the MaidSafe network incentivizes users to provide something of value to the network storage space , and offers the use of apps and services in return for coins. This naturally leads to better cooperation. People want to create value and channel their efforts toward the growth of the currency that they have in common.

Similar to the central app strategy, this method establishes a user base first, and then introduces the currency. Bitshares and its array of associated startups is a good example of this.

Several networks with varying currencies — Steemit and their STEEM currency, Peerplays and their tokens, for instance — slowly built their user base and value exchange system, and now they plan to adopt a central currency with Bitshares. This allows them to create a stable base first before pooling their resources. Finally, the best way for a currency to create that all-important foundation of true users is through bootstrapping.

Just like a business startup, a currency like this would need a user base that believed in a common mission. It would need everyone in the system to be able to see the inherent value of the coin, and to understand that it could be worth much more than the value it is traded for in its early stages. An example of one of these grassroots efforts is FairCoin. FairCoin focused from the beginning on building infrastructure for everyday users.

Because of the strong relationships among members of the co-op, they can have thousands of ATMs, debit cards and exchanges that make mass adoption much easier. An approach like this allows the currency to slowly build itself in the background without the need for a spotlight and the barrage of speculators that come with it. This offers the huge advantage of stability from the very beginning, though it does pose the problem that FairCoin has to bootstrap with less capital than most coins.

In other words, FairCoin traded the excitement of volatility and greed for a quiet, long-term stability. The only problem is that people might not notice! Drama catches the human eye, after all. This makes the price even more uncertain, and uncertainty is like poison for a currency.

On the other hand, if you have a large community and a co-op on top of an immutable blockchain, then a hard fork is extremely unlikely — and unnecessary. Cryptocurrencies like MaidSafe, Bitshares and FairCoin all represent solid communities that are incentivized to cooperate instead of speculate. This means that the coin can be worth more than its market price; it has a high inherent value within the system itself. This makes it so that users have very little reason to defect from the existing community.

A hard fork would mean giving up many benefits of the co-op, so people stay loyal to the original vision of the currency.

They are not a miracle of the market — they require a carefully constructed foundation. A stable currency needs a stable ecosystem first. Some of those users will be interested in the actual currency, but others will be undesirable speculators that just leech off the system. A currency needs to grow with the people, not past them. Look at the state of Bitcoin and its inflated prices. The everyday person can no longer either mine the coin or expect to use the coin in everyday transactions without high fees or risk.

It has been given up to the speculators. With a truly stable currency, on the other hand, you can have currency conversion, remittance, ATM withdrawals and other financial services with lower fees than fiat systems.

In other words, it can be used as intended — as money. This is what will ultimately attract a mainstream audience and will actually incentivize them to make the switch to cryptocurrency. Neil Haran is an angel investor and cryptocurrency advocate.