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from the we-only-want-your-network-not-your-currency dept.
The New York Times reports that several large banks, as well as the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, and the Nasdaq exchange are working on reusing the software ideas from Bitcoin to facilitate high-finance money transfers.
The Bitcoin network, on the other hand, is run by a decentralized network of users who jointly keep track of transactions and update the records in real time, with no single user or company in charge. The records of all transactions are kept on a public ledger — essentially just a big, publicly available spreadsheet — known as the blockchain that is visible to anyone and has, at least so far, proven impossible to tamper with.
Much of the work being done inside banks, and in other industries, is looking at whether the blockchain technology can be used independent of the Bitcoin virtual currency, which was the first thing to be recorded on the blockchain ledger.
This is probably not what anyone involved in Bitcoin had in mind, but open-source software tends to adapt to new applications extremely easily.
(Score: 2) by Adamsjas on Tuesday September 01 2015, @03:10AM
I can't imagine the banks allowing mining, and they would probably create all possible "coins" right away, distribute them and start bartering them back and forth in payment for loans and such. Then of course, there would come a time when it was necessary to mint up some more, the a little bit more, still more, till the whole thing is nothing than the mess we already have.
Have we not learned that bankers can't be trusted to handle real things, let alone imaginary things?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @03:24AM
OK then. If you don't trust banks, withdraw all your fucking money and stuff it under your mattress. Do it right now, or you're a hypocritical motherfucker. You're a motherfucker, aren't you? Aren't you? Motherfucker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @03:46AM
Or deposit it in a credit union.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @03:59AM
No no no credit unions are evil because they pay interest and usury is immoral. So here's the deal. We gonna do another Occupy except this time we're all going to dress up as Jesus and kick the holy shit out of every fucking bank and credit union with our mighty sandals of holiness.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday September 01 2015, @05:11AM
No no no credit unions are evil because they pay interest and usury is immoral.
Usury is CHARGING interest. Paying interest isn't, especially when its a credit UNION, and the money goes to members.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday September 01 2015, @05:32AM
They can't pervert crypto-currency, they would just have their own blockchain. Yes they would likely mine all the coins because bartering them back and forth IS the plan. As for "inflation" type scenarios, inflation is a necessary aspect of growth, just because it has been mishandled in the past (and present) doesn't mean the idea is wrong. I don't see how this could go badly unless there turns out to be a way to hack the blockchain.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Informative) by Snow on Tuesday September 01 2015, @05:31PM
Except that defeats the entire purpose of the blockchain. The blockchain is supposed to be public knowledge, and easily verifiable. It get's its security from the fact that there is no single controlling power. The miners are independent. If the bank maintains their own version of a blockchain, then really, it's just a terribly inefficient SQL database.
Now, if all the banks got together and collectively made their own blockchain, then we could be on to something. But... there would be a lot of competing interests and that would be neat impossible. If it's not decentralized, then just use a normal database... there is no advantage to use a blockchain.