1 BTC = $8.2k, it’s up 735% this yr UPDATE 5/19: BTC @ $42k :damn:

[the bossman]

Very few security leaks compared to the amount of transactions that take place and if there is a security issue, people are held accountable. Issues are a phone call away if there is a dispute or fraudulent activity.

this could not be further from the truth. Internet has a big security problem and has a lot of room for improvement. A lot of web applications today have huge vulnerabilities. We know this because we now have major security breaches every single year. Experian had a big ass security breach last year exposing sensitive data of 143 million - damn near half the country. We're talking all your personal info including social security numbers and birthdates. Who was held accountable? Three execs sold 2 million worth of stocks before they announced the breach and the CEO resigned with his cushy 18 million dollar pension.

Target, Yahoo, Sony, eBay. The list is endless. They all maintain centralized servers and databases of all their users' personal info. Like it's ridiculous that just 1 single company’s system being compromised, exposed sensitive info that potentially compromises the identity for nearly half the damn country. The very nature of crypto and blockchain is decentralization which would help prevent shyt like this in a big way.

Adding one more layer on top means you're making a more complicated system, which is something people don't seem to care for.

so long as it's easy to use, nobody cares. very few people know how a car works under the hood, so long as it drives. no matter if it's electric or gas-powered. doesn't matter how complicated the system is underneath.

you don't need to know how TCP/IP or HTTP works. so long as facebook shows up when you click on the button that's all you care about.

 

[TrebleMan]

this could not be further from the truth. A lot of web applications have huge vulnerabilities. We know this because we now have major security breaches every single year. Experian had a big ass security breach last year exposing sensitive data of 143 million - damn near half the country. We're talking all your personal info including social security numbers and birthdates. Who was held accountable? Three execs sold 2 million worth of stocks before they announced the breach and the CEO resigned with his cushy 18 million dollar pension.

Target, Yahoo, Sony, eBay. The list is endless. They all maintain centralized servers and databases of all their users' personal info. Like it's ridiculous that just 1 single company’s system being compromised, exposed sensitive info that potentially compromises the identity for nearly half the damn country. The very nature of crypto and blockchain is decentralization which would help prevent shyt like this in a big way.

Regarding the first bolded point: that's pretty much been the biggest problem in software history and has been worked on for awhile. That said, the thing is people have been getting their money recovered by the banks themselves. One of my coworkers had somebody buy $4k of shyt from amazon and dude brought it up with the bank and it was all taken cared of. If somebody takes from your blockchain address, what happens then?

Regarding overall security:
How secure is blockchain really?

But the security of even the best-designed blockchain systems can fail in places where the fancy math and software rules come into contact with humans, who are skilled cheaters, in the real world, where things can get messy.

So much for the theory. Implementing it in practice is harder. The mere fact that a system works like Bitcoin—as many cryptocurrencies do—doesn’t mean it’s just as secure. Even when developers use tried-and-true cryptographic tools, it is easy to accidentally put them together in ways that are not secure, says Neha Narula, director of MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative. Bitcoin has been around the longest, so it’s the most thoroughly battle-tested.

People have also found creative ways to cheat. Emin Gün Sirer and his colleagues at Cornell University have shown that there is a way to subvert a blockchain even if you have less than half the mining power of the other miners. The details are somewhat technical, but essentially a “selfish miner” can gain an unfair advantage by fooling other nodes into wasting time on already-solved crypto-puzzles.

Another possibility is an “eclipse attack.” Nodes on the blockchain must remain in constant communication in order to compare data. An attacker who manages to take control of one node’s communications and fool it into accepting false data that appears to come from the rest of the network can trick it into wasting resources or confirming fake transactions.

Finally, no matter how tamperproof a blockchain protocol is, it “does not exist in a vacuum,” says Sirer. The cryptocurrency hacks driving recent headlines are usually failures at places where blockchain systems connect with the real world—for example, in software clients and third-party applications.

No different from your very first point. Like I said earlier, I am a working software engineer and solving that part is the billion dollar question. People have been programming for a long time and still have yet to solve that.

I remember there was an argument in this thread about crypto's security and sure enough not a few weeks later somebody exposed flaws. Humans will always find ways to expose flaws.

To the last point:

so long as it's easy to use, nobody cares. very few people know how a car works under the hood, so long as it drives. you don't need to know how TCP/IP or HTTP works. so long as facebook shows up when you click on the button that's all you care about.

I agree, however why would anybody want to manage both USD and bitcoin for example? Like if there was an option to choose Bitcoin when I go to use my debit/credit card at Target, why would I choose the crypto option, especially considering many people are only using potential crypto gains to make investments elsewhere in USD?

Like I said earlier, I haven't ruled out investing in crypto, but I'm waiting for it to drop further. It's way too volatile right now and I'm pretty sure it'll drop further. I'll sell when it hits a point I'm comfortable with the return I get at that point. I'm highly skeptical of mainstream adoption though.

 

[dontreadthis]

is it over brehs? or is that a minor setback for a major come up??

 

[mamba]

is it over brehs? or is that a minor setback for a major come up??

It’s over.

I don’t see any indication that widespread adoption is near.

 

[TrebleMan]

It’s over.

I don’t see any indication that widespread adoption is near.

This right here pretty much sums up what I've been saying too:

https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@cryptovestor/when-will-crypto-mass-adoption-occur

The real lesson here is that there is a special type of user required for truly decentralized, public blockchains. This user is:

• Patient
• Values privacy and data control to a level that “normal” people would consider “weird” (conspiracy level “weird”)
• Understands the trade-offs and is willing to accept any losses due to user error

When you consider the number of individuals who truly fit that profile, it’s a rather small crowd in comparison to what you hear from many enthusiasts. The adoption of decentralized blockchains is often compared to the adoption of the internet: Many doubted the internet at first, but it later ended up shaking up both the economy and the world. Will we see the same for Bitcoin and its decentralized peers?

Unfortunately, I heavily doubt it – at least not the way people think it will. For mass adoption to be possible, a certain level of centralization is required (see what happened to the internet) which then begs the question of where on the spectrum should a service or application be? How decentralized do you need to be to reasonably protect the data and privacy of a user while still offering them competitive performance, convenience and support?

For the use-case of money, it should theoretically be as decentralized as possible because a trustless and secure environment should be paramount above all-else for financial transactions, where real value is directly transferred. Yet as discussed above, creating this environment also leads to some serious compromises that many users won’t be willing to make, especially as they have gotten used to being careless due to being hand-held by the likes of credit card companies, the banks and Paypal.

Plus like also mentioned in the article, the speed of transactions will never be able to match the speed of transactions from a centralized system. That algorithm of backtracking to verify everything is very costly. Two things about most people: they love to hear the sound of their own voice and they want shyt now.

It also mentioned my previous point:

Still, there is no denying that even for the most passionate of Bitcoin users, it is still frustratingly difficult to pay for most goods or services with Bitcoin. Whether it is because of the block times, network congestion, the graphical interface, the number of merchants who accept it, the complexity of returns, the price volatility or the additional fees that come with utilizing Bitcoin, there is no shortage of reasons that many people don’t use the currency today.

Additionally, I think because so many people got on when it started going supernova, that the fall right after that has soured the mass majority of the population.

First impressions are lasting impressions.

 

[the bossman]

Regarding the first bolded point: that's pretty much been the biggest problem in software history and has been worked on for awhile. That said, the thing is people have been getting their money recovered by the banks themselves. One of my coworkers had somebody buy $4k of shyt from amazon and dude brought it up with the bank and it was all taken cared of. If somebody takes from your blockchain address, what happens then?

How does that help you when your social security number and other info just got compromised? Some random dude in Russia has enough information to apply for new loans or new lines of credit in your name without you knowing. Your bank isn't taking care of that. No matter how you slice it, it's a major costly multi-billion dollar problem. One of the biggest factors that lead to these breaches is having all that information sitting on centralized servers/databases.

No different from your very first point. Like I said earlier, I am a working software engineer and solving that part is the billion dollar question. People have been programming for a long time and still have yet to solve that.

I remember there was an argument in this thread about crypto's security and sure enough not a few weeks later somebody exposed flaws. Humans will always find ways to expose flaws.

this article talks about one exploit that impacted Ethereum and was patched. same xploit doesn't work on bitcoin in any practical way. and talked a bout a bunch of DNS/web servers that got hacked while they were connected to crypto wallets/exchanges. all in all, nothing major that would pose any serious roadblock to progressing towards mass adoption for crypto.

I agree, however why would anybody want to manage both USD and bitcoin for example? Like if there was an option to choose Bitcoin when I go to use my debit/credit card at Target, why would I choose the crypto option, especially considering many people are only using potential crypto gains to make investments elsewhere in USD?

Like I said earlier, I haven't ruled out investing in crypto, but I'm waiting for it to drop further. It's way too volatile right now and I'm pretty sure it'll drop further. I'll sell when it hits a point I'm comfortable with the return I get at that point. I'm highly skeptical of mainstream adoption though.

The Internet took 30 years to get to this point. I'm not sure why anyone would expect crypto space to have everything figured out in less than 10. Each year the tech gets faster, more robust, etc. It will become less volatile especially as institutional money enters in and government institutes more regulations. Hell up until last month it was less volatile than Amazon & Netflix.

It's obvious adoption will come if you just pay attention to what's going on in the industry. Nasdaq & NYSE would not be moving into the space for no reason. so can btc be used as a currency for everyday transactions here in the US? theres no real need here right now. In countries like Venezuela & Iran where theres mad hyperinflation? absolutely. not to mention other use cases happening in the supply chain industry. overall this shyt is still in the early stages.

 

[null]

"the space"

 

[the bossman]

This right here pretty much sums up what I've been saying too:

https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@cryptovestor/when-will-crypto-mass-adoption-occur



Plus like also mentioned in the article, the speed of transactions will never be able to match the speed of transactions from a centralized system. That algorithm of backtracking to verify everything is very costly. Two things about most people: they love to hear the sound of their own voice and they want shyt now.

It also mentioned my previous point:


Additionally, I think because so many people got on when it started going supernova, that the fall right after that has soured the mass majority of the population.

First impressions are lasting impressions.

this is starting to sound like the Bill Gates saying we'll never need more than 640k RAM or 56k is the fastest we can go on the internet. give it time.

 

[stave]

What do you guys think of ETC since it's in the toilet right now? Do you think there will be a upswing in it

 

[ShotgunSoto]

It’s over.

I don’t see any indication that widespread adoption is near.

LOL. It’s been “over” 12 times already, and each time it had a higher value.

 

[null]

LOL. It’s been “over” 12 times already, and each time it had a higher value.

Yep, the British Economy will stay #1 forveva !!!

 

[Carlton Banks]

Where's breh that said ECA was the future?

 

[MollyGalaga]

Bruh, this teaches me so much

 

[MollyGalaga]

It went UP

then it went DOWN


kind of figured that shyt,


everybody was going in, but now they going nuts


ah well

Spoiler

Satoshi Nakamoto might've commited that if he hasn't already.

 

[HabitualChiller]

Where's breh that said ECA was the future?

I know his pockets hurting