Distributed Ledger

The Distributed Ledger

The irony here is that a technology that was born of a means to promote an alternate currency. The basis of the development was to create a system that did not depend on Nation-State policies and as such was independent of such manipulations. The consequences of which was the creation of something that by its very nature was somewhat anonymous, hard to trace the transactions, and was something that the criminal world embraced readily. Now Nation-State organisations, due in large part to the activties of those criminal elements, are now considering "BitCoin" technologies to combat the insecurities in the current banking systems.

My initial interest in this topic was born from an investigation into the hardware and feasability of BitCoin Mining. This was a "Nerd-Centric" activity that was presented as both a "get rich quick" scheme and a way to make money with little on no effort on the part of those that were prepared to purchase the hardware to perform this mining. This in itself lent itself to being expoited by those that set themselves up to sell the mining equipment. The problem with this was that the faster and faster the hardware got the more difficult and scarce the BitCoin to be obtained by that method became.

Are digital currencies fraud-proof?

An extract from "Innovations in payment technologies and the emergence of digital currencies By Robleh Ali"

" The current design of digital currencies is predicated on the assumption that fraud - the creation of false transactions - can only be achieved by an agent, or coalition of agents, controlling a majority of computing resources on the mining network over a sustained period of time (a '50%+1 attack'). However, a number of researchers have suggested that it may be possible to defraud such schemes while possessing less than a strict majority of computing power. Potential weaknesses have been identified in two key areas: (i)the position of an attacker in the network; and (ii)the strategic timing of when an attacker chooses to release messages to the rest of the network. "

My viewpoint in 2019

What with Brexit there is not much coverage of this topic in the news. You would think that in a time where the £ is poised to fall even more than it has there would be those that would be promoting an alternative currency? Or has the Emperor got no clothes?

Also when I search for Lloyds and Distributed Ledger I find an articl that says that they (Llyods Bank) have banned their customers from purchasing BitCoin with their credit cards! However, I think that there is a little confusion between the bank, the insurance underwriters and the foundation. When I heard the radio program in 2017 I did not find out which it was.

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Background to this page

2022 there could be some movement here. There seem to be more reports of NFT in the news, not that the news media know what to make of it.

It will interesting to hear what Robleh Ali at MIT is now advising the Bank of England.

The Distributed Ledger

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