As the internet transactions becomes more ingrained into our daily lives the questions of speed, cost and privacy quickly become prevalent. Companies such as Target, JP Morgan and Home Depot have all been victims of cyber hacking that has compromised the personal data of millions of consumers (Roberts 2017). The problem with internet transaction security is two fold, first transactions are managed by several entities, such as the retailer, the credit card company, and the bank, that all have the potential to be compromised, and second the transactions all require providing more information to complete the transaction than necessary. Now imagine there was a technology that could complete an internet transaction instantaneously, with out …show more content…
It can be programmed to record any transaction of importance, from birth, death and other public census data, deeds and titles, and as the most interesting application, financial data. Many governments and businesses have starting implementing blockchain technology, which will allow the companies records to be completely public. It will eliminate the possibility of embezzlement, tax fraud and other shady accounting practices. It will allow constituencies to view budgets and government spending to see where their tax dollars are going and eliminate waste and hidden spending and create more trust in the fiduciary system. In addition to the financial records, blockchain has the capability of directly transferring money between parties via crypto currency. While there currently several crypto currencies that are being used for the purposes of discussion we will be using Bitcoin, which is the largest and seemly most popular …show more content…
Each bitcoin is only listed in the blockchain ledger. While standard online transactions are processed through banks and may take days to process, Bitcoin transactions are processed by individuals, directly to other individuals or to corporations. The ledger is maintained by users and are not governed by any state or corporation, rather by the rules that are established by the Bitcoin software (Popper 2015). Bitcoins are stored in either a virtual wallet directly on a users computer, or on the cloud. All Bitcoin users have a Bitcoin address, similar to an email address, in which Bitcoin can be sent to and received. Bitcoin can be sent to anywhere in the world and unite traditional transactions, do not have the same amount of personal information attached as bank or credit card transactions do. Also, unlike bank and credit card transactions, with Bitcoin transactions there is not a minimum transaction and usually there is not a fee associated with the transactions (Popper 2017).
Currently Bitcoin is trading on the NYSE for just under $11,000 per Bitcoin, a price that was in the $3000 range at the beginning of the year. Bitcoins can be divided into fractions and spent in more places than you may think. For example Expedia, Microsoft, Overstock and even certain Subway locations accept Bitcoin
Bitcoins emerged following the 2008 financial crash where banks were accused of mishandling clients’ funds, duping them and charging abnormally high fees. This prompted innovators to think of a way of solving the issue so that it would not happen again in the future. As a result, bitcoin pioneers thought of creating a currency that would put the transacting parties only in charge of their finances by eliminating middlemen, cancelling interest fees and ensuring that transactions are transparent. Bitcoin was therefore invented to facilitate the efficient transfer of money between two parties with no intermediary in-between at a cheaper cost and higher speed. Since their creation in 2009, bitcoins have grown tremendously. During the launch in 2009, bitcoins were worth a few cents, but as of January 2018, a single bitcoin was trading at about
Owning bitcoins can be directly related to having a bitcoin address and an specific digit which controls the bitcoins known as a key. Most if not all bitcoin addresses are accompanied with the private key to make the bitcoins available for controlling. In order to protect your bitcoins you must secure the private code that correlates to its control. If the key is lost or accidentally changes possession to another person that knows the code, the bitcoins can be lost for good without ever being replaced.
Imagine a world where there are no banks or even a need for wallets. This may sound like a nice freedom at first until illegal activities sky rocket; including the drug and sex trade. The economy will crash and millions of people will be left high and dry with a worthless currency. This type of chaos will not only devastate the United States but will also be seen world wide. With the way technology has been advancing this could be a very plausible future, thanks to Bitcoins. Bitcoins are a new form of digital currency in which the consumer uses and stores all of their money on a computer. This allows for quick trade, not only within your own country but others as well (Ethley par. 2-4). Although there may seem to be great benefits that Bitcoins offer, they are actually more damaging then beneficial. Bitcoin use will have a huge negative effect on the economy, they are filled with security issues, and support criminal activity due to their anonymous nature.
Identity theft is a term used for describing criminal that uses individual’s identity without consent. A common crime of identity theft would be identity fraud. Many of the crimes are regularly connected with money-related issues (Reyns, 2013). With technology being commonly used nowadays we are getting more dependent on it for business, financial, medical, and other forms. As a result this became a target for identity thieves as well. The Internet provides us information and accessibility, but information being stored on the Internet eas...
Bitcoin is a form of digital currency that is similar to physical cash stored in a digital form. It is the first fully implemented cryptocurrency protocol utilizing an open source peer-to-peer payment system. As a transfer protocol, it fundamentally functions as a money transfer medium that sends bitcoins from user to user without the need of a third-party intermediary and the system is protected by peer-reviewed cryptographic algorithms. This cryptographic digital currency simultaneously provides users a method to exchange money for free or a nominal fee, which is mutually beneficial for retailers and consumers. The main concern is that it can be used for illegal activities such as the purchase of drugs, weapons and other illegal goods. Albeit true, the concern also exists with all other forms of regulated currency, such as cash and wire transfers. Anonymity is one of the greatest Bitcoin perks, however, nothing is as untraceable as cash. It is the solution to the leading economic and security issues that have left everyone vulnerable, particularly in the wake after the Target security breach in which hackers stole unencrypted credit card and debit card data for 40 million customers’ as well as their pins over the span of two weeks before it was detected. In addition, these hackers were also able to obtain the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of 70 million customers (Andreesen 6). If Bitcoin were to be used as the standard form of payment, the transaction data does not identify the purchaser’s identity and all information is encrypted. It is the most secure payment method and is a more secure future. Bitcoin is a technologically innovative soluti...
A bitcoin is a digital document encoding a solution to one of a class of computational problems. The problems are hard to solve but the solutions once obtained are easy to verify. The identity of the Bitcoin user solving a problem is encoded in the problem itself so different users will never end up creating the same coin. Thus, the verification becomes easy and the rate of creation of new bitcoins can be kept in check. To transfer a bitcoin, its current owner appends a digitally-signed message of the form “I transfer t...
Cryptocurrencies are much confused mostly especially with their features. They are software-based currencies that are computerized using specific software. Bitcoin for example, is built and mined from the ground like gold and made to be decentralized as well as anonymous feature. All the users are legible to access the software as they are all open and made public for any user to access. This mean s that the cryptocurrency operators have allowed all users the freedom to perform any activity on the websites that deal with cryptocurrencies.
The documentary Banking on Bitcoin from director Chris Cannucciari was a documentary released in 2016. Throughout this documentary Cannucciari asserts that the cryptocurrency Bitcoin is the future. Using Bitcoin experts and enthusiasts, this documentary is working to persuade people that Bitcoins peer to peer non-centralized system is the future and should be used over traditional banking methods. The targeted audience for this documentary is businesses, government officials, and anyone interested in the Bitcoin technology. The tone of this documentary is ardent while also informative.
It is important to note, that while Bitcoin can be very difficult to understand, most people don't fully understand most of today’s technologies that influence their everyday lives, such as telephones, cell phones, the internet, and computers. Why is a Decentralized Payment System a Big Deal? " Regulation of money supply needs to be depoliticized. especially as it applies to virtual currencies" - Al Gore While Bitcoin is a currency, it is really better to understand it as a public ledger. This ledger, which is viewable by anyone, records every transaction within the network, and verifies the transaction from every computer on the network.
Here is the graph of the value of Bitcoin since its creation, we define the value is globe Bitcoin price index(GBX) – Bitcoin(BTC) to United States Dollar(USD).
But Bitcoin (capitalized as a concept, lowercased when referring to units of the currency, according to American Banker) is another animal entirely. It is the first and most famous of a large and growing family of so-called “cryptocurrencies.” Others include Litecoin, Feathercoin, Songcoin (“designed for The Music Industry”), Auroracoin (Iceland only) and Dogecoin (“the fun cryptocurrency”)—but Bitcoin is by far the largest. Its origin is traced to a 2008 paper written by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. Newsweek recently claimed to have located the real one, but he promptly denied it, so the whole thing remains quite mysterious.
According to Zakary M. Seward (2013), “Virtual currencies have been viewed as a form electronic money or area of payment system technology that has been evolving over the last past 20 years” (Seward, 2013). Virtual currency such as Bitcoin are not issues by central bank; instead they are created or mined by a group of anonymous programmers under the name Satoshi Nakamoto (Barry, 2014). Bitcoin can be sent and received through the internet, similar to sending cash digitally. The currency is exchange through the decentralized Bitcoin network, without going through an external financial institution or government. Virtual currency is a big problem. People from all over the word can exchange virtual currencies for traditional currencies through the online services. Many clients exchange goods and services by using virtual currency such Bitcoin. If people buy bitcoins, they don’t physically purchase goods by handing notes or tokens to the seller. They are used for electronic purchases and transfers. A lot of big companies use the form of virtual currency. For example, Apple provides iTunes users the option of buying prepaid iTunes gift cards that contains credits that can be redeemed for music and movies. You...
Bitcoin holds value in a fundamentally different way than conventional currencies. As John O McGinnis, a law professor at Northwestern University, and Kyle W Roche, a lawyer at Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, explain, “All modern fiat currencies depend on trust in a
Firstly, an insight into crypto-currencies, what they are and how they can benefit the worlds economy. A crypto-currency is ‘digital medium of exchange’(RhettandLink) - managed through extensive encryption techniques known as cryptography. Comparable with fiat money, no group or individual can stunt, increase or abuse the production of crypto-currencies. No economic systems can regulate the production or value of the currency, the system that crypto-currencies are based upon was created by Satoshi Nakamoto - purposely creating Bitcoin which the practise of fractional reserve banking would be virtually impossible. Bitcoin is currently the most successful crypto-currency to date - created in 2009, this anonymous decentralized digital currency has been the target of several raids and hacking sprees; the media are contemplating the significance of Bitcoin in our current worlds economy. Whether it has potential of overruling fiat-currencies or if it’s just a puerile project created by the aberrant Satoshi Nakamoto.
The internet offers high speed connectivity between countries, which allows criminals to commit cybercrimes from anywhere in the world. Due to the demand for the internet to be fast, networks are designed for maximum speed, rather than to be secure or track users (“Interpol” par. 1). This lack of security enables hacker...