Premature infatuation with blockchain overlooks security weaknesses in the platform that underlies Bitcoin digital currency.
In the rush to make bigger and grander claims for the disruptive potential of blockchain, too many commentators are neglecting the foundations. If they think blockchain is important, then it’s all the more important they understand what it does well, and what it just doesn’t do at all.
Blockchain has one very clever, very innovative trick: it polices the order of special events (namely Bitcoin spends) without needing a central authority. The main security aspect that blockchain provides is not tamper resistance or inviolability per se; you can get those any number of ways using standard cryptography. Rather it’s the process for a big network of nodes to reach agreement on the state of a distributed ledger, especially the order of updates to the ledger.
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