Cryptocurrencies: A bubble or harbinger of a cashless world?
ATANU BISWAS, 04 April 2021
The US Treasury described Bitcoin a “decentralised virtual currency”. For every transaction through Bitcoin, for example, some personal information from the user is used to create a kind of password. A ‘hash’ is given for every Bitcoin transaction, with a ‘public key’ and a ‘private key’. Each of these keys is inverse to each other, but it’s not easy to derive one from the other. The ‘public keys’ are available on public domain. Details of each transaction report are available in the database called ‘blockchain’. It is distributed across and maintained by nodes (computers). From this open source, anybody can tell how many Bitcoins are traded at a public key. But, nobody knows who the owner of those Bitcoins is as the security of the ledger cannot be broken. Anonymity and privacy are the characteristics and also the potential danger of cryptocurrencies. Continue reading “Article: Cryptocurrencies: A bubble or harbinger of a cashless world?”
