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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 05 2017, @09:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the What's-in-YOUR-wallet? dept.

Bitcoin peaks above $5,000 for first time

Bitcoin has crossed the $5,000 (£3,862) threshold for the first time. The virtual currency peaked at $5,103.91 in the early hours of Saturday, according to CoinDesk's price index. The record high helped push the total value of publicly traded crypto-currencies - including Ethereum and the Bitcoin-offshoot Bitcoin Cash - to more than $176bn. However, there has since been a sell-off. At time of writing, Bitcoin was 12% off its peak, at $4,485.

According to coindesk.com, one Bitcoin is worth $4085.63 at this moment (20170905_023428 UTC).


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  • (Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday September 06 2017, @03:00PM (1 child)

    by Snow (1601) on Wednesday September 06 2017, @03:00PM (#564154) Journal

    IMO, a private blockchain is worthless. A SQL database will outperform it every time.

    The value comes from a public, permissionless, immutable record. That record can then be used to provide proofs (proof of ownership, proof of existence [insert the hash of a document], proof of payment). Smart contracts can be built upon that (ie. a casino that is provably fair, or a trading platform with proven reserves).

    When people talk about taking control of a blockchain, the damage that can be done is largely limited. Outright stealing of funds is not possible. An attacker cannot forge the signatures required to move funds they do not own. The best they can do is mine empty blocks and essentially perform a denial of service attack. There is little incentive to do so, and it would be expensive. In an emergency, the attackers chain could also be invalidated with a simple command line.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @08:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @08:24PM (#564252)

    In an emergency, the attackers chain could also be invalidated with a simple command line.

    So basically everyone must trust the devs to not fuck everyone over? If you can mess with the blockchain in any way then it is possible to accomplish near anything on it. Might require some massive botnets, but corrupt one dev to take a fall and you could do some serious damage.

    Every time I hear about BC updating code or changing the blockchain I wonder how any sane person can trust the system. Throw in the various "services" that have cropped, the transaction fees (wtf??) and there is no way in hell I'm touching that boondoggle.