Page 34 - English Tehelka Issue 1&2

technology

itcoin has become The most mysterious part of bit- tion and physicality, both, at the The tidal surge in Bitcoins value
almost a bona fide cur- coin is its failure to be present phys- same time with the usage of the few is directly associated with the
rency for the dark web ically. But, this act of avoiding vi- words such as ‘timestamps’, ‘peer- drug dealers who began tak-
now. But this is a half- sionary-capture is often associated to-peer’, ‘electronic cash’, and ‘hash- ing payments in Bitcoins in the
B truth. Dark web is one with any digital currency. People of- based proof-of-work’. Dark Web.
of the main reasons why today one ten ask, what does bitcoin look like? A purely peer-to-peer version of Very recently, when the
Bitcoin equals nearly eighteen thou- Does it really have a physical shape electronic cash would allow online computers were taken over by
sand dollars. Wind back three years like any currency note or coin? We payments to be sent directly from ransomware, the hackers also
ago; it was low. Five or six years ago? see images of Bitcoins around us - one party to another without going took payments in Bitcoins. But,
Considerably low. Eight years ago? It in print, on the web, photographs through a financial institution. Digi- it cannot be said that bitcoins
was only 39 cents! This tidal surge in in newspapers. Actually, they are tal signatures provide part of the are only used by criminals.
value is awfully baffling! all info-graphics representing a solution, but the main benefits are Rather a small part of it. Then
In eight years the value jumps conception. lost if a trusted third party is still re- what about the regular cur-
just over many thousand times. A bitcoin is a digital token and quired to prevent double-spending. rency? Recent Panama papers
Looks absurd, but, it’s the reality. crypto-currency. Hence, it must not We propose a solution to the and Paradise Papers leaks have
And there was a rock-solid support have a physical blessing. You can double-spending problem using a shown us the scourge of black
of the dark web behind it. money. After all, criminals are
The anonymous Dark Web, there everywhere.
which is only available through the Now, the question is, can
TOR browser, was the game chang- The Baffling Bitcoin: A any government shut down
er. In 2014 alone, the daily sales vol- this bitcoins networks? The
ume in six dark net markets rose to answer is a ‘Big No’! If US gov-
USD 6,500,000. And that too after ernment shuts it down, it
the FBI had banned ‘Silk Road’. Ripple of Excitement rejoin the network at will, accepting of thousands of computers and it’s will keep operating from another
When FBI stopped ‘Silk Road’ the longest proof-of-work chain as called blockchain. country. This is because it’s a huge
in 2013, they found an astonishing proof of what happened while they There is no doubt that there is a network of computers spread over
report. Between 2011 and 2013, ‘Silk and Unease Together were gone. criminal connection. Silk Road was the whole world and the number
Road’, the DE-facto ‘E-Bay of Drug To resist double-spending there too. Although it was blocked, of connected computers is around
Sales in Dark Net’, had made 1.2 bil- Satoshi uses the concept of peer-to- new names came up — sprouting 10,000. This number-game can-
lion dollars. In those two years, they peer computer networks. At present like newly grown buds. Criminals not be solved by guessing. If every
would mainly depend on drug sales. What is Bitcoin and how big is its network that has caused the nearly ten thousand computers have enough reasons to use it. Any- nation agrees, which is impossible,
The exchange currency was Bitcoin. mania around it? Is it a legitimate currency or can it be misused maintain these peer-to-peer net- body can open a bitcoin address and it goes underground.
So the price of Bitcoin also skyrock- works. And the longest chain sup- start sending bitcoins. No central As Satoshi mentioned in his
eted in last two-three years. A value by criminals? Is cryptocurrency the wealth of the future? sanjib ports the whole system in a unique authority is there. There is no in- white paper, behind bitcoins oper-
of about 39 cents to over USD 18,000 sinha answers questions surrounding the mysterious Bitcoin way so that hackers wouldn’t pen- stitution like Reserve Bank of India ates the highly advanced concep-
in just eight years is really startling etrate the system. This is controlled that could monitor the transactions. tion of mathematics. So it’s not easy
but the increasing drug demand by advanced mathematics. And for ti create bitcoins on your own. As a
justifies it. Since it mainly handles send one bitcoin to another user peer-to-peer network. The network that reason, sometimes it seems user, you can’t add more bitcoins to
illegal drug sales, a tidal wave of dis- electronically only. A bitcoin can timestamps transactions by hash- confusing for the general peo- Bitcoin indicates your account. Even developers who
belief also sticks around it. The ex- be divided out into eight decimal ing them into an ongoing chain of ple. Bitcoin is the digital token or a major trend in maintain the database of all bitcoins
perts feel it’s fluppy. This downiness places – 0.00000001 bitcoins. That hash-based proof-of-work, form- crypto-currency and at the same transactions – the blockchain, can-
is the biggest disadvantage. is the smallest fraction and referred ing a record that cannot be changed time, it’s the name of the payment human behaviour. not do that. The discrepancy would
Whether this bubble bursts to as one Satoshi. It is believed that without redoing the proof-of-work. network. This network stores and We’re now be noticed and ignored by others.
or not, it indicates another major Satoshi Nakamoto was the anony- The longest chain not only serves moves this mysterious currency. It’s programmed that way.
trend in human behaviour. We’re mous founder-creator of Bitcoin. as proof of the sequence of events Consider a traditional payment net- relying more on At the same time, experts feel
now relying more and more on Although for many years there has witnessed but proof that it came work like Mastercard and Visa. They machine-code people are buying them because
machine-code rather than other not been any trace of Satoshi. He has from the largest pool of CPU power. are usually run by a single company of the hype comparing it to Tulip
human-operated institutions like just gone up in a puff of smoke. As long as a majority of CPU power or any person. rather than other Mania and the dot-com crash. Can
banks backed by the government. But his white paper on bitcoin is is controlled by nodes that are not The conception of bitcoins is to- there be a catastrophic fall in price?
For the upcoming generation and still available on the bitcoins official cooperating to attack the network, tally different. The whole system human-operated It’s unlikely to pose a great threat to
digitally transformed people, the website. You can download and read they’ll generate the longest chain is decentralized. It’s run by a huge institutions like the global economy. The amount of
old custom of ‘currency-changing- it. In his seminal white paper on and outpace attackers. The network network of computers around the money tied up during the time of
hands’ seems to be hackneyed. So, bitcoins, in the beginning, Satoshi itself requires minimal structure. world. As Satoshi wrote in his white banks backed by dot-com bubble was bigger.
Bitcoin or any other crypto-curren- wrote a historical paragraph in his Messages are broadcast on a best ef- paper, the record of transactions are the government
cy is trending. ‘Abstract’. It defines the abstrac- fort basis, and nodes can leave and constantly updated by the networks letters@tehelka.com

tehelka / 31 january 2018 34 www.tehelka.com tehelka / 31 january 2018 35 www.tehelka.com

34-35 Bitcoin Sanjib Sinha.indd 2-3 12/01/18 4:07 PM