Bitcoin Goldrush Sees Few Winners And Way Too Many Empty Wallets
At the time of writing, the value of Bitcoin, the ‘hot’ cryptocurrency, has collapsed to 38 per cent of its peak value of almost 20,000 dollars just six weeks ago.
Now the market price languishes at less than 7,500 dollars.
More than a few folk who rushed in for a bonanza have lost their shirts.
Banks are starting to ban use of their credit cards for Bitcoin purchases because they fear customers racking up huge and unmanageable debts should the value of their electronic wallets complete collapse.
The idea of online currencies may have become attractive because if the hype surrounding their underlying Blockchain technology.
This is supposedly as secure as a diamond merchant’s underground vault.
By spreading encrypted financial ledger transaction records over multiple servers operated by different organisations, no one player can get at a whole record and interfere with it. Even someone who hacks into multiple servers will need longer to crack the multiple encryptions than the drilling took in Hatton Garden. However, whilst Blockchain records might have tougher protection than Fort Knox’s granite walls, a safe is only as reliable as the bloke with its keys.
It seems that some of the gateway software that deposits and retrieves cryptocurrencies from Blockchain’s catacombs is not so robust.
As a result, fraudsters stole £350 million in cryptocurrencies in just seven high-profile incidents during 2017.
Then came the big one – a fortnight ago hackers walked away with £378 million in Bitcoin from a leading major crypto-trading exchange in Tokyo.
This, it seems, is irrecoverable.
Like many a goldrush of old there are few winners and all too many empty wallets. More Bitcoin, anyone?
