KARAN CHOPRA

CRYPTOSCIENCE
THE MONIES OF TODAY
AND TOMORROW

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CryptoScience: The Monies Of Today And Tomorrow
1st edition
© 2018 Karan Chopra & bookboon.com
ISBN 978-87-403-2580-5

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Contents

CONTENTS
1 Cryptocurrency 6
1.1 History 8

2 How Cryptocurrency Works 13

2.1 Technology 13
2.2 Proof of work 16
2.3 Proof of Stake 17
2.4 How Ethereum works 17

3 Response 20
3.1 Institutional 20
3.2 Public 23

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Contents

4 Opportunities with Cryptocurrencies 28

4.1 Financial Savings through blockchain 29
4.2 Time savings 30
4.3 Removal of Middlemen 31
4.4 Changing Loan Stock 32
4.5 New Age of Payments 33
4.6 List of organizations that accept BitCoin 34

5 Threats with Cryptocurrencies 36

5.1 Power Hungry Currencies 37
5.2 Cost of storage 37
5.3 No Rectifying errors in Blockchain 38
5.4 51% attacks 39
5.5 Tragedy of commons 39
5.6 Legal Or Illegal? 40
5.7 Loss and Fraud 41
5.8 Darknet 41

Conclusion 42

References 43

Endnotes 44

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
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1 CRYPTOCURRENCY

Definition
Until last year, it was difficult to find the meaning of the word, “Cryptocurrency” in a
dictionary. Merriam – Webster Dictionary was among the first few resources to add this
word to their dictionary early this year.

While a digital currency is the electronic version of a currency, it is different from

cryptocurrency since it requires no encryption to be generated or transfer. Digital currency
could be your salary loaded onto a debit or credit card or simply currency you win by
playing an online game. The currency is linked to your account and can be used in outlets
that are authorised to transact in them.

On the other hand, a cryptocurrency uses digital encryption for all its usage, right from
creation to transfer. It is not issued by a central financial authority, like a National Bank,
and is globally accepted. Cryptocurrencies are of interest to the public, largely due to the
fact, that ownership of the currency can be independently verified and since the currency
is digital, it can never be seized by an enforcement authority.

For a currency to be called a cryptocurrency, it must meet the following criteria:

• Encryption:
Generation of cryptocurrency requires the use of cryptographic protocols. This is
usually done using computer programming and by people with deep knowledge
of advanced mathematics. The idea behind generating the cryptocurrency in this
manner is to avoid counterfeit currency to be generated, a common problem with
notes that almost all countries face today.
Encryption can also be used to store the identity of the person owning the currency
so that it can be verified when required. The problem cryptocurrency, however, lies
with the criteria applied for owners of these cryptocurrencies. If real identity is
not required to own a cryptocurrency, then flows of currency and their ownership
can never be traced. This works, both, positively and negatively, depending on
circumstances and which side of the battle you are own. (We will discuss this in
detail in Opportunities and Threats of Cryptocurrencies).
• Organic yet finite:
How a cryptocurrency will grow over a period of time is defined in absolute terms
when it is designed. Most cryptocurrencies grow over a prolonged period of time and
become harder to generate (mine) as time goes on. In many ways, cryptocurrencies

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are like precious metals such as gold that you know is finite in number, whether
you mine it faster or slower. The limited quantity of the item increases their value
over a period of time, as the popularity increases and demand slows down. This
is quite the opposite of the regular currency that we use that is hit by inflation
and needs to be printed in higher and higher denomination and more in number
to satisfy market requirements.
• Independent and decentralized :
Another peculiar feature of a cryptocurrency is its independence from political and
institutional interference, at least while it is being issued. There are many factors
that come into play when a government has to decide whether a cryptocurrency
can be legalised and the power and popularity of cryptocurrencies usually mean
that they are seen as a threat to conventional practices and end up on the wrong
side of current laws.
However, on the plus side, a cryptocurrency is generated in a decentralized manner
to ensure that it survives due to actions of its users and is not at the mercy of a single
institution or a governing board. During the design phase itself, the generation and
distribution of the cryptocurrency is well defined and checks and balances are put
in place to ensure that no single miner gets hold of bulk of the currency.
• Ownership:
While counterfeiting a cryptocurrency is extremely difficult, in the online world,
there is always somebody smarter than you who will be able to crack the code at
some point and fake it. Cryptocurrencies come with an excellent option of being
able to trace all transactions that have occurred on the unit since its creation. So,
if a unit is counterfeit and did not originate where it was supposed to, then the
receiving party can verify the originality of the currency.
While cryptocurrencies reveal the identity of its owners, whether the identity is real
or not is the big question and is often the bone of contention between creators and
the administrators. Since cryptocurrencies do not require any KYC (Know Your
Customer) documentation, they can be bought by anyone, anywhere and under any
false identities. Once bought, they can be used with all entities willing to accept
them without any control from financial institutions. With cryptocurrencies, you
could fund a charity or a terrorist organization or gamble away thousands of dollars
anywhere on the internet and nobody would know.
• Exchange with conventional currencies
For any unit of money to be called a currency, it must be exchangeable with another
conventional form of currency such as the USD or GBP or JPY etc. For this purpose,
cryptocurrencies usually set up exchanges where these transactions can take place.
When users of currencies are willing to exchange them for fiat currencies then the
currency has gained sufficient popularity in the market. Hugely popular, Bitcoin
has been exchanged for USD and other currencies for quite some time now but its
recent spike in value has caught everyone’s attention.

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For their own short timeline, it is too early to say which features of cryptocurrencies
are truly their advantages and which are their disadvantages. People may argue
that such alternative currencies undermine the financial institutions that have
been built over many decades and even centuries. However, the popularity of
cryptocurrencies can simply not be denied. At the time of writing this, over 1800
cryptocurrencies exist1 and the number is definitely on the rise.
Almost everybody is aware of the term ‘Bitcoin’. However, BitCoin is just one of
the many other cryptocurrencies that are being mined, bought and sold in the
world as you read this. To truly understand, what cryptocurrencies really have to
offer, why they are so popular, are they worth investing in and what risks they
carry, one needs to go back in time (not very far though) and look at where
cryptocurrencies came into existence and how they grew.

1.1 HISTORY
To trace back history of cryptocurrencies, we do not have to go back very far. The existence
of cryptocurrencies is probably just about a decade long. The concept of cryptocurrency is
a little older but still does not take us more than a few decades in the past.

The rise of computing devices in the early 1980s called for encryption of data, so that
it could be sent from one party to other without being “seen by others.” The algorithms
were quite simple. They would encrypt the data with a key and send it to its intended
recipients. In case, someone pried into the data and wanted to peek at it, they would need
the correct key. Only those, who had the correct key, could visualise the data. Essentially,
data was being ‘blinded’ for everybody else, who did not possess the encryption key. This
is the very basis of encryption that is being used today and companies promise to deliver
for your personal data.

American cryptographer David Chaum was at the forefront of the developing these
algorithms and even enlisted other cryptography enthusiasts to come up with commercially
viable solutions for cryptocurrencies. Later on, he founded DigiCash in the Netherlands,
a company that would produce a cryptocurrency for profit. Since, DigiCash alone had the
right to supply this kind of currency; the central bank of Netherlands severally opposed the
idea. As a truce, DigiCash came up with an agreement to only sell its currency to licensed
banks and lost a large share of its potential market.

In a bold move, Microsoft was keen on partnering with DigiCash to make this currency
legal on its platform so that Windows users would be able to make purchases in DigiCash.
Unfortunately, the partnership never worked out for the companies and DigiCash
closed shop in the 90s.

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Wei Dai, a software engineer, came up with a white paper for a virtual currency, called
B-money, which could be created in a decentralized manner, much like most of the
cryptocurrencies are created these days. The paper also had provisions for anonymity
protection that users like about cryptocurrencies. However, this always remained a white
paper and nothing materialized out.

BitGold used blockchain technology (See Technology section), one more hallmark of the
popular cryptocurrencies that exist today, and was created by one of Chaum’s associates,
Nick Szabo. Just like DigiCash, BitGold could also not reach out to a lot of people and
eventually crumbled with time.

Realising that the time was probably not quite right for cryptocurrencies, entrepreneurs
shifted their attention to more formal forms of currency but in their digital formats. This
change in approach led to the birth and success of the two of the most successful digital
currency services so far, viz., PayPal and e-gold.

PayPal made international payments extremely easy and accessible to all. It continued to use
the standard medium for international exchange of money, US Dollars and all payments
were finally processed through bank accounts in local currencies, allowing users to exchange
money almost instantly (although the actual transaction was much delayed) and over email.
People liked the concept that they could ask or receive payments over an email and eventually
the money would be available in the bank. PayPal succeeded because banks were still not
ready for quick international transfers and confirmations. Yet, PayPal did not introduce a
currency of its own.

The true hero, however, was E-gold. A service that began a couple of years before PayPal,
grew out slower and then reached its peak, before slipping into oblivion. Let me tell you
in greater detail how things went about at e-gold.

1.1.1 THE RISE OF E-GOLD

E-gold began in 1996 with an unlikely alliance between an attorney, Barry Downey and an
oncologist, Douglas Jackson. The company, Gold and Silver Reserve Inc. (G&SR) started off
as a gold buying service, where users would send their old gold jewellery to the company,
in exchange for the company issued “e-gold”. This e-gold could be used to pay out to other
people or encash it in form of physical gold or even US Dollars. Users liked the versatility
of such a system, where they could use their old gold to transact in the online world or
simply convert it to cash.

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Users also liked the system of e-gold because the founders backed up their services with
actual gold stored in bank lockers. Most of the e-gold was being used for transactions of
metal trade, online auctions, and online casinos and even by political organizations. By
1999-2000, E-gold had achieved ‘critical mass’ of users on the web, the only digital form
of currency to do so at its time.

Unlike the digital currencies of today that begin by harbouring on the illegal side of the
law, till changes in law or practices make them legal, e-gold remained on the legal side
throughout its lifespan. Rather, it was an affiliate member of the NACHA, the institution
responsible for developing and maintaining the network for electronic transactions in the
US. It was also one of the first few services that provided an API (application programming
interface) so that other service providers could process payments using e-gold.

As its popularity grew, users started exchanging their e-gold for US dollars and vice versa
through the parent company, G&SR. Since this put the business of the company at risk,
E-Gold Ltd. Became a company of its own and G&SR started exchanging money with
E-Gold as a customer. This change in structuring of the company opened up new avenues
for e-gold and by the year 2001, more and more money exchangers were now willing to
exchange e-gold for not only US dollars but also other conventionally exchanged currencies
around the globe. E-gold’s appeal, thus, spread, to other countries, making it a currency
recognised by countries other than USA.

Yet another significant achievement of e-gold was the micropayments that it enabled. The
smallest transaction that could be carried out on the platform was to the scale of one-
thousandth of a gram of gold. Hundreds of thousands of micro-transactions were enabled
by the API released by the company. While the currency was e-gold, one could simply ask
a transaction to be carried out in USD, making it extremely convenient for users to transact
on the platform. The service would take care of the rest. By the rise of the new millennium
E-gold transactions began to be settled immediately making them even more popular. At its
peak, in 2004, e-gold had over a million accounts and had spread across the globe, making
it the first ever successful digital currency. Another hallmark of e-gold’s transactions was that
the physical gold was held by a special purpose trust and real time statistics page provided
details of assets held by the trust and transactions that were being carried out.

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The Fall of e-gold

Unlike BitGold and DigiCash, the fall of e-gold was not directly related to its own business
reach or lack of customers. After the September 11 attacks, laws in the US changed, thereby,
requiring G&SR to acquire a money transmitter’s licence from the state. Since the company
did not actually accept cash or cheque remittances, it could not be given such a license and
the company’s business fell into limbo.

E-gold’s attempts to obtain necessary licences to legalise its business were disregarded by
the authorities and its popularity as an alternative currency created further hurdles in its
path. Many of E-gold’s customers did not reveal their true identities to the company while
transacting with their accounts (nor did many credit card holders at that time) but this
soon became a requirement under the new banking laws. Add to this, the fact that e-gold
could be used to virtually buy anything on the internet added to the company’s woes. The
company was indicted in facilitating purchase of child pornography by its users and the
court ordered for seizures of its assets. The adverse publicity led to people rejecting e-gold
payments. Attempts were made to resume transactions as per new regulation. However,
the company was not granted a money exchanger’s licence, following which, all its reserves
had to be liquidated.

In light of the hardships faced by e-gold, it is necessary to state that its contemporary, PayPal,
survived the change in regulation, since it was indeed a money exchanger. In places, where it
could, PayPal offered its services as a bank (Europe & Australia) and followed local regulations
to stay alive in changing times. During this period, PayPal also modified its business model,
went public, and was bought over by eBay, before being spun off again. To point out once
again, although a successful digital payment system, PayPal never introduced an alternative
to currency, thereby, confirming that the timing was still not ripe for digital currencies.

1.1.2 BITCOIN

Bitcoin has gained popularity in recent years and is undoubtedly, the cryptocurrency that
has made its presence felt. One can trace the origin of Bitcoin to registration of the domain
name, bitcoin.org in 2008. Shortly thereafter, a paper was submitted to a cryptography mailing
list titled, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. The author of the paper was a
pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto, the identity of the person, remains unknown, even today.

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Open Source code for BitCoin was released in January 2009 on Source Forge and Nakamoto
mined the first ever Bitcoin on the Bitcoin network. It is assumed that Satoshi mined a
million BitCoin for himself/ herself in the early days, before handing over the code repository
to Gavin Andresen at the Bitcoin Foundation.

Satoshi’s withdrawal from development of the BitCoin has also led to differences in how
Bitcoin should be mined and developed further. Each development is called a fork and has
led to development of alternate coin or ‘altcoin’. There are quite a few altcoins in the market
today and these are different from other cryptocurrencies that are flooding the market.

The way Bitcoin works (of which we will discuss more later on), there is a cap on the
maximum number of BitCoin that will be available in the market. Additionally, the creation
of Bitcoin is decentralized, so no miner can actually control more than 51% of the mined
coins, preventing it from a collapse. However, ownership of BitCoin is still pseudonymous,
just like e-gold, making to susceptible to the same vulnerabilities as those of e-gold.

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
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2 HOW CRYPTOCURRENCY WORKS

2.1 TECHNOLOGY
Just like the digital currency, you require a wallet to use a cryptocurrency. One can easily
create a wallet for any of the cryptocurrencies by following instructions from the network
that handles it. Like any digital transaction to happen, you need to specify the account
number (Wallet ID) of the person sending the currency and the account number of the
person receiving the currency, along with the units to be transferred.

Since Cryptocurrencies are decentralized, there is no central body keeping a track of how
many units of the currency are available and how many have been transferred from one
account to another. This is where the peer-to-peer decentralized network swings into action.
Once a user has initiated a transaction to transfer certain units of currency to another user,
a public announcement is made within the network alerting all users and especially those
who maintain the ‘public ledger’. The public ledger maintains records of all transactions
that occur on the network. So at any given point, all users are aware of exactly how
much of the cryptocurrency is available with each user and nobody can bluff about the
money in his / her wallet.

Being a cryptocurrency, this public announcement of the transaction to be done is made

in bits of code that is encrypted. To decrypt this information, one also needs to provide
a public key that is linked to your account. Members of the network can use this key to
determine the details of the transaction to be performed. At the same time, they can also
verify that the instruction for the transaction was actually given by the account holder,
since only he / she have the private key to create such an instruction. This is much like a
signature for a cheque or a PIN for internet banking that verifies that the instruction for
the transaction has indeed come from the account holder.

Once the instruction of transfer is carried out the data is written to the public ledger.
The ledger contains details of all transactions that have taken place on the network since
its beginning. However, making such a record has two major difficulties which different
cryptocurrencies handle in different ways. For purposes of explanation, I will be explaining
all of these in terms of how BitCoin addresses them. Where necessary, I will also include
examples from Ethereum or other cryptocurrencies.

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Difficulty 1: Size of Data to be recorded.

When a cryptocurrency is created, over a period of time, its units increase in number and
with increasing popularity, so do the transactions. Keeping a record of each and every
transaction will consume a lot of data. To overcome this, cryptography once again comes
to the rescue and beautifully uses the ‘hashing’ function to address the problem.

In many ways, you are aware of how hashing works but are not aware how it helps in record
keeping. In the world of social media usage, we commonly use hash tags without much
thought. We use these tags to help us identify posts (#vacation #WC2018) or align with
some common features or a common message (#MeToo). Actually hashtags are helping us
sort the data and record them under a single banner of the tag.

In the world of cryptocurrencies, hashing goes to the next step of shortening the transaction
to a unique bit of code, called hash. A hash contains all the information needed to identify
a transaction but occupies extremely little space as compared to an entire transaction. If
one would like to verify a transaction, one can simply query the hash on the explorer on
the currency network and all details would be visible.

All hashes are stored in the sequential order in which they occur. So, a hash completed on
1st of Jan would serially be available before a hash conducted on 2nd of Jan. Thus, records of
transactions conducted on the network are part of a sequential chain in a single block, called
the blockchain. A block chain makes it extremely difficult to fake or back date transactions
because; one needs to first hash the transaction and then insert it into the block chain (which
is publicly maintained by more than one user). So, inserting an invalid entry would require
collusion on a large scale on a public platform, which is highly unlikely.

Another reason why fake entries cannot happen is that the process of hashing is not as
simple as it sounds, which is also part of the second difficulty i.e. Data Accuracy.

Difficulty 2: Data Accuracy

Since there can be an unlimited number of people keeping a ledger on the BitCoin network
and hundreds of thousands of transactions happen every day, one needs to make sure that
the blockchain records maintained by everyone are actually the same. If the records do not
match, it is quite possible that users will double spend their currencies, bringing the entire
ecosystem to a grinding halt. To prevent this, the BitCoin system has a simple solution.
Although many users can maintain the records of transactions in the system, the truest
data set is the actual block chain and only one of the many users gets to add the hash of
a transaction to the blockchain.

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
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Now, how can one decide, who gets a go at this? Is it first come- first served? Is a lottery system?

The answer to this is as complex as the cryptocurrency itself. The user who gets to add to
the block chain is the one who solve the hash of the transaction first. When I say solve,
it does not mean create a hash for a transaction. Rather, it is the other way around. The
ecosystem creates the hash for every transaction, which is then given out to all users. Now,
ledger keepers get to work and try to work out from the hash, what the transaction actually
is. Depending on the currency used, the method of resolve the hash differs. However,
resolving the hash basically requires a lot of computational guesswork at the rate of millions
of guesses each second, a capability for only the best of computers in the world.

When a hash is created, all ledger keepers know the encryption system used to create
the hash and try unlocking the transaction behind it. The user to arrive the solution the
earliest, gets the right to add to the block chain, which is then publicly available to all,
while others get to resolving the next hash that has become available. Since only one
user is writing to the block chain at a time, the data is accurate and does not suffer from
network delays or redundant entries.

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
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Ledger keepers for Bitcoin dedicate a lot of computing power for the simple act of writing a
record to the block chain. As mentioned earlier in the book, there is a constant race between
these ledger keepers to resolve the hash and win the right to write onto the blockchain. To
resolve the hash faster, one needs to invest further into computing hardware, which calls for
more money. Not to forget the huge cooling systems needed for the powerful computers and
the large power bills all of this attracts. The question then is why would one spend so much
time, money and effort into ranking number one and probably get a mention on the leader
board of a cryptocurrency that may or may not make it big someday. Social service? Not really!

The answer to this question lies in the way the BitCoin ecosystem is built up. The ecosystem
actually rewards people for solving the hash and writing to the block chain. Do remember
there is no consolation prize here, so the one, who gets there first, must win something really
precious and they do. The ecosystem rewards hash solvers in BitCoin. The reward costs the
ecosystem nothing because it just allots some of the finite BitCoin to users who are doing
the clerical (computational) job. But what is manages to do, is keep a lot of people in the
ecosystem always checking on the transactions happening in the system, even if they are
transacting themselves. Since people and even companies have been doing this for a while
now for profit, ledger keepers are now called ‘miners’, because they are able to dig up new
BitCoin for themselves by doing the job.

2.2 PROOF OF WORK

Writing to the block chain requires the ‘miner’ to show his proof of work i.e. he has to
submit to the system the final answer that he got after solving the encryption and that must
match the one in the system.

To take the example of BitCoin, the initial few encryptions were easy to solve and could
be handled by personal computers. So, it was quite easy to get people onboard this project
and reward them with large number of Bitcoin for their work. The way the cryptocurrency
is designed is that after a fixed number of coins are released, the reward for such ‘mining’
decreases by half. This is quite similar to the half-life of a radioactive substance, where the
radiation falls to half in a given number of years but other half takes the same number of
years to become one quarter and so on.

Thus, once a given number of coins are given out as reward, the rewards reduce by half.
To add to this, the encryption also becomes tougher to crack, requiring miners to update
their hardware so as to allow them to solve the hash quicker. (We will discuss the effects of
this in detail later). With the rising popularity of the Bitcoin, more and more people join
the network, there is more competition to solve the hash and since the system does not

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reward people who come second, there is a lot of wasted effort in trying to get there first.
People have attempted pooling up resources as a measure to achieve this more efficiently,
yet, one cannot deny the energy being spent in simultaneous effort put in now and until
all Bitcoin is mined. And that is just BitCoin. Any other cryptocurrency that uses a similar
model brings up the same problem. This is where Proof of Stake is helpful.

2.3 PROOF OF STAKE

In the Proof of Stake model, a miner can only mine the currency to the limit of what he/ she
owns on the network. So, for example, a miner owns 1% stake in the entire cryptocurrency
network, then he / she can only mine for 1% of the transactions that occur on the network.
Basically, your mining capacity is limited by the ownership you have on the network. So,
the richer you are, greater is your share of reward. More like a real world scenario, isn’t it?

Proof of Stake is a well-accepted alternative to the Proof of Work method and popular
currencies such as NXT have adopted the system. The other popular cryptocurrency,
Ethereum that started off on the Proof of Work model has also recently shifted its mining
operations to the Proof of Stake model.

Almost all cryptocurrencies work using the blockchain architecture and use either proof of
work or proof of stake as the tool to award individual units. However, while doing so, the
cryptocurrency is actually belittling the potential of the blockchain method. A cryptocurrency
addresses only one facet of our life that blockchain can dramatically alter, i.e. how we make
payments. But it does not look into other areas where block chain could really be helpful.

Monetary transaction is just a small piece of the actual transaction that we do in our
daily lives. We could buy an artefact online and pay for it online in Bitcoin, but the real
transaction is of the artefact being shipped from its current location to your location and
the transaction cannot be termed as complete until the shipment arrives. This is where
Ethereum is different from the rest.

2.4 HOW ETHEREUM WORKS

When you sign up for Ethereum network, you are not signing up to mine a cryptocurrency
alone, you are signing up to take your transactions online and put them up on a block
chain. The block chain will contain records of the entire transaction and also handle the
payments related to the transaction on the network. The transaction is thus public and has
all the information necessary for it to be executed, except the trigger. I think, an example,
will make it a bit simpler.

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Let’s assume you are a start-up that is doing fairly well and are now looking to move your
office from your bedroom into a conventional office space. Using the conventional method,
you would have to find a suitable office space, negotiate a price with the owner of the property,
that would include an advance deposit, then approach a bank for an operational loan that
would be used to pay the owner who would then draw up a rental agreement which both
of you would sign and you would have to start paying the rent from the day you moved in.
While it sounds easy, one knows the troubles that we have to go through to find a property,
negotiate payments, sign rental contracts and notify the bank to make payments etc.

Instead, you could simply create a ‘Smart Contract’ on the Ethereum portal that includes
the property owner, your local regulatory body that oversees rental agreements and the bank
where all parties are aware of the series of events that need to be followed and what needs to
be happen where. So, suppose, you have paid a deposit but the office space needs a coat of
paint, you could quickly edit the contract to state that the moving in would be delayed by
another month and the bank would not release the rent until the property is ready and you
have moved in. Any changes to dates of rental agreement would also be automatically updated.

Creation and execution of the ‘Smart Contract’ actually requires the cryptocurrency of
the network i.e. ether. Users can also decide how much ether is to be used for processing
a ‘smart contract’. Just like BitCoin, 3 ethers are created when a block is processed and
awarded to the one who solves the hash first. Additionally, miners who do solve the hash,
but were not the first ones, can also get smaller portions of ethers.

Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum was actually studying the BitCoin in great detail
for an assignment, when he realized that the blockchain was not being used to its full
potential. So, if you do look at Ethereum closely, you will see that it addresses most of the
problems that have been associated with BitCoin.

Reward for second guessers is an example and so is the proof of work system that BitCoin is
criticised for. A developmental team is currently working on addressing gaps of the Ethereum
system and has decided to move the network to the Proof of Stake system to make it ‘greener ’.

Since Ethereum is not just a cryptocurrency, it can be considered as the basic network on
which other services can be built upon. The office space in the above example could be on
the Ethereum network and you would be able to see its entire history, like the number of
renters it had, duration of their rental agreements and even renting values. Similarly, the
property owner would be able to see your company’s credit history, agreements with other
parties on the network and your reputation on the network. It would be a social network
of sorts, on which others could build their services, like the bank offering an operational
loan or a handyman offering painting services. These services are decentralized and yet like
Apps of today and are therefore called, dApps (decentralized Apps).

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Fees
Like the saying goes, ‘There is no free lunch’, we are aware that miners and validators or
public ledger keepers, whatever you call them are not doing what they do out of their
altruistic nature. Nobody is investing in higher computing power and great power bills just
to see a cryptocurrency flourish or rank # 1 on some public leader board. Cryptocurrencies
are growing and everybody wants a piece of the pie. The way people are moving, the larger
you pie is, the greater the share of the currency comes your way (Proof of Stake) and in
the near future, you will be able to encash the currency in real money. Or if the traditional
currencies collapse due to some reason, you want to be a millionaire the most popular
cryptocurrency system to become the Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Jack Ma of tomorrow!

Since most cryptocurrencies are still in the phase of mining themselves out, they are not
completely established in the market, yet, and popular usage is still in its infancy. We are
aware of the network rewarding miners for adding to the blockchain but what happens,
when the limit of the currency is reached. As of 2017, 80% of BitCoin had already been
mined, so if more and more users are drawing closer towards BitCoin, there is lesser that
each one will get out of the remaining BitCoin, right?

Well, not necessarily. When you perform an international transfer, the bank usually specifies
how much you are transferring, how it much it thinks the value in the other currency
will be and the transaction fees that you need to pay for carrying out the transaction. The
same principle is followed for cryptocurrencies too. Whenever a user decides to initiate a
transaction, he / she is liable to paying a fee for it. But this is where the ecosystem differs
from a conventional payment system.

On a cryptocurrency network, the user can define how much fee is he or she willing to
pay for getting the transaction onto the blockchain. By paying a little extra, one can simply
prioritize the transaction and the miner who solves the hash, will get this additional reward
along with what the system generates. On the Bitcoin network, a block is added every 10
minutes or so and if there are a large number of transactions that are happening at the
moment, your transaction could take a while. By upping your transaction fee, you are
assigning your transaction a priority. That’s it.

In the future, when all BitCoin are mined and the currency is finite, the computing
resources that are being used to mine BitCoin now will be used to process the transactions
that happen on the network allowing ledger keepers to earn the currency, even when they
are not actually doing the transaction. An added benefit of having multiple miners is that
there will always be a miner who is willing to solve the hash for the transaction at a lower
fee, so users will never be overburdened by transaction fees in the future.

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3 RESPONSE
Cryptocurrencies are not yet here and do not arouse interest from everybody. Yet, they
challenge the very basic way of life that we are used to today. When you step out from your
house, the single most important thing you carry is your wallet. The wallet has your ID,
local currency notes and a few credit and debit cards that provide you the security blanket
for the trip outside. But blockchain technology has the potential to change all of it and has
initiated the process with the way one handles money. No doubt the banks are startled. Let’s
look at their response to the rise of Cryptocurrencies, before we go to the common man.

3.1 INSTITUTIONAL
We have been relying on banks and financial institutions for almost every transaction that
we do in our daily lives. Whether it is paying for the groceries at a supermarket, getting
yourself a take away or investing in a car or a house, you need a bank or a financial institution
everywhere. At the dawn of computing, when the paper currency was threatened, banks
invested in electronic modes of payment to stay relevant and institutions like MasterCard
and Visa came into prominence. None of this happened overnight but progressed as a series
of events over many years. With cryptocurrency too, banks have adopted various stances,
right from calling it a scam to working with them. Let’s look at them, one by one.

Around the years 2012 and 2013, as popularity of the cryptocurrencies began to rise,
trading exchanges sprang up in different parts of the world. Here, you could exchange
your cryptocurrency for any popular fiat currency such as US dollars or Euro or the British
Pound. This became a quick way to get your hands on the cryptocurrency of your choice
by simply creating an account and buying them for real money. During this time, even the
western countries did not really have any regulation and allowed such exchanges to be set
up. Like any other currency, cryptocurrencies in exchanges are volatile and their values dip
and rise depending on their supply and demand.

Many users signed up at these exchanges not only to get their hands on the cryptocurrencies
but to also trade in them as if they were stocks. Trading in stocks comes with its own risk
but is regulated by the government. Since cryptocurrency trading was not regulated, financial
institutions called for heavy regulation to be imposed on them, thereby slowing down the
upward trajectory of cryptocurrencies. This is a classic case of recognizing that the new
entrant to the game was actually a threat to the conventional institutions and imposing
regulation was a good way to slow its growth.

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Although, BitCoin started off in the late 2000s, it was hardly noticed till mid-2017 when
the value of the currency suddenly started soaring against the US dollar. It was only then
that mainstream media picked it up as well and questions about the long term future of
the banking and financial institutions were asked.

Although these institutions had been tracking the various cryptocurrencies, their response to
the queries were well practised and intended to create harm to the perceived value of these
coins. Major figures in the banking and investment sectors began bad mouthing the BitCoin
(the most popular of the lot) comparing it to the ‘Dot Com’ bubble and prophesizing that
it was doomed to fail.

In September 2017, CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, raked up a media storm by calling the
BitCoin a ‘fraud’. Later on the CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink, pointed out to the popularity
of the BitCoin in illegal trade and black markets by calling it ‘an index of money laundering’.

Media was quick to call out the bluff of these financial institutions, since there is sufficient
evidence to show that the bigger organizations are indeed interested in cryptocurrencies and
do not want to be left out of the game. A very clear sign that the big boys of wealth and asset
management are indeed interested in cryptocurrencies is the patent application2 filed by JP
Morgan in the year 2013, to replace the current fee based system with an transaction fee less,
where anybody can make a payment to anybody on the network, without requiring details
such as account number, etc. Needless to be said, the entire operation has to be conducted
on an encrypted network using a digital currency, which in other words, is a cryptocurrency.

Additionally, after the notorious statement made by its CEO in September 2017, JP Morgan
actually made purchases on the BitCoin network. While the institution argues that the
purchases were made on behalf of a client, it is quite unlikely that the organization would
conduct such a transaction for an item it was convinced was a fraud. Not to forget that
some of the top managers of JP Morgan have quit the organization3 to start their own
BitCoin or Blockchain related ventures.

With rising popularity and slow development of legislation, banks and financial institutions
realise that time is running out for them to accept that tide is going to change. They can
ward off public interest in cryptocurrencies by calling them ‘fraud’ or ‘volatile’ or ‘illegal’,
but they can no longer remain on the fence when it comes to cryptocurrencies and the
technologies that power them. Citigroup CEO, Michael Corbat, in an interview in November
2017, called on the governments to intervene and mitigate the risks that BitCoin could
cause to traditional financial systems. On the other side, Citigroup is relentlessly working
on CitiCash, a common currency that will facilitate faster international transfers.

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Since development and adoption of technology is a time consuming process and at least
BitCoin is on the rise, if not other cryptocurrencies, banks also do not want to lose out
on investment opportunities. Since large investment groups have diabolical plans, financial
institutions are also trying to develop some trading options that allow users to trade on
BitCoin and their ilk, without actually investing in them. If you are aware of stock trading,
futures trading allows you to invest in the future prospect of the stock and hedge your money
there. If the stock does well, you actually end up making money and financial institutions
are trying to implement something similar. Europe has been relatively open to such ideas,
allowing cryptocurrency companies to open offices, trading exchanges and even funds where
investors can trade in cryptocurrencies.

The best response, however, is the one that some of the institutions have slowly begun to
show. If you can’t beat them, join them! Financial big wigs are giant organizations and their
attitudes do not change overnight. Decision making is also a slow process and it might
take them another 2-3 years to fully accept that cryptocurrencies offer more than just store
value. Whether these delays are primarily only due to the processes they follow or because
they have something to hide, is known only to the top management of these institutions.
Even if in they are late entrants to the game, they definitely have deep pockets that will
enable them to get off to a flying start when they do.

In the meantime, start-ups and smaller institutions are pairing up bring the advantages of
these technologies to conventional institutions and offer them a chance to change. Whether
cryptocurrency will completely erase banks or not is a question that needs to be answered in
another decade or so, but right now, there is much to be explored about these technologies
and it is the small steps that we take today that will determine how the future turns out.

Companies like Ripple are allowing banks to experiment with technology that runs
cryptocurrencies and inculcate best practices into their own processes. By developing newer
systems to address conventional banking issues, companies like Ripple are ensuring their
own survival in the wake of a crackdown by governmental agencies tomorrow, while also
offering a helping hand for traditional institutions to try, adapt and include new technological
changes into their own systems.

From outright denial to secretly working on alternate products, from investing money in
the markets to investing time and effort in working with technology providers, financial
institutions have responded in dramatic and drastic ways to cryptocurrencies and their
technology in a relatively short period of time. It seems obvious that banking and financial
institutions are definitely under pressure to change their methods and their practices to
align themselves with technological developments. It is also clear that these institutions are
willing to change, in order to survive, this technological overhaul that is now due. It is not
a matter of if, but only when and who, decides to incorporate newer technology into their
systems and moves ahead with the times.

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At their current stage, cryptocurrencies are not really a threat to financial institutions but
are definitely not something that the institutions can dust off.

3.2 PUBLIC
Conventional currencies are issued by the government and strongly controlled by the
institutions in the country. In the extremely connected global world that we live in today,
currencies are also affected by policies and occurrences in different countries that one trades
with and the nature of the trade. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008,
faith in public institutions had dwindled and countries and currencies were still out of the
recession. Banks and financial institutions had become overly cautious about everything and
were reluctant to invest in anything that did not sound fool proof.

The timing of birth of the BitCoin in 2009 and other alternate currencies afterwards meant
that banks and other institutions were not going to invest in a cryptocurrency. Another
factor for the banks refusal to commit anything to the alternate coins that the system was
opening doors to an arena where the banks held global monopolies. Whether you want to
print notes or withdraw them, you can do neither without using a bank as an intermediary,
which charges you fees for depositing as well as withdrawing money (although not so blatantly
every time). Then why would any bank invest in technology that would take away their
distinctive advantage. That basically left cryptocurrencies with just one option to become
popular, i.e. reach out to the public.

The problem with this, however, was the complexity of the currency itself and its cryptic
nature. As I write this, the BitCoin is at the peak of its popularity and as you read it, it is
still the single most popular cryptocurrency that we have known. Yet, chances that you have
chosen to read this book are because you want to understand in depth, how the currency
works are quite low and your real purpose of reading it is trying to understand the risks
that are associated with it and whether it looks like a safe bet for your investment.

Imagine explaining the complexity of the cryptocurrency to a layman a decade ago, and
persuading him or her to buy a currency that does not exist in physical form. The promise
of decentralizing how money is transferred and banks can be made obsolete are not even
considerations for the lay man for whom the very existence of society would be questioned,
if you took away institutions like banks and municipal offices. Since such a large cohort of
laymen was lost, the adoption of cryptocurrencies was left to a limited number of geeks who
invested their time and money in the concept and not necessarily the outcome. When I do
say, ‘invest’ it is important to note that nobody is investing dollars into cryptocurrency at this
point in time. They are only investing their faith and resources to see how the system works.

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The earliest accounts of cryptocurrency adoption exist only in the tech world where tech
enthusiasts and influencers have showcased currencies like BitCoin more like a demonstration
of how the system actually works. The reward of BitCoin for updating the block chain also
interested some people but once again, these were technology enthusiasts who were eager to
get some credit, solve some hash, check the computing prowess of their assembled hardware
and not interested in financial gain out of these transactions. It was only in 2010, when
Jed McCaleb started offering exchange services against real currencies for BitCoin users that
the general public realised that the currency had real world value too.

BitCoin started off on the Mt. Gox exchange at about 8 cents to a US dollar and reach
parity with the currency by as early as March - April 2011. People who probably invested
in the BitCoin in July suddenly saw huge potential of the BitCoin as a growth asset and
the word about BitCoin started spreading in the common public domain. Demand for
the BitCoin quickly grew rapidly increasing its value to US $31 by July of the same year.
To put it in context of the real world, markets were still trying to make a comeback and
people were looking for safer bets to park their money and trust in banks was low, since
majority of them needed bailing.

As countries and banks got the help they wanted to themselves on track, the sharp attention
towards the BitCoin turned into a prick and broke the first BitCoin bubble. By the end
of the year, one could get a maximum of US$2 for the BitCoin. After slow growth for a
year, BitCoin made news again in April of 2013, when it reached its value rose to US$266,
drawing more public attention. In November of 2013, value of a BitCoin rose sharply to
$1242, before crashing down to $600 the very next month, rising again and then falling
again in January of 2014.

As more currency exchanges began to spring up, Mt. Gox faced the heat from financial
institutions, which forced its closure and dropped BitCoin value to $550. With the Chinese
government also deciding to take action against the BitCoin, the value of the currency
dropped further to $200 in March 2015. It took thee BitCoin another year and half to
reach appreciable value of $600 in July 2016, after which it continued to climb steadily till
it reached $5000 in September 2017. Chinese government machinery swung into action to
crackdown on some fraudulent cryptocurrencies dropping BitCoin value to half its price.
Within a month though, the currency had regained its lost mojo and continued its onward
march to hit the $8000 mark in November 2017, and $17000 mark in December of the
same year. Earlier this year, the value of the BitCoin halved one more time dropping to
$6000, where it has stabilised until the time of writing this.

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A quick glance at these numbers shows that although BitCoin sees a steady growth for
prolonged periods of time, it has a tendency to suddenly drop and lose value. Yet, the
increasing value of the BitCoin shows that people do trust it as an asset to invest in. Since
BitCoin is already a prized commodity, the general public is wary of putting all their eggs
in one basket and also keen to explore other cryptocurrencies that are hitting the markets.

Initial Coin Offerings

When a company goes public, it does so to raises funds and gives the public an option
to invest into them by offering a share for a price. This is called an initial public offering
(IPO), where each share is sold at a determined value after which the company goes public
and market terms and management decisions determine the value of each share. The main
purpose of the IPO is to raise funds from the market so that the company can invest in
its R&D, its operations, its infrastructure and plan for its growth.

Cryptocurrencies, although, not companies, also need to strategize their R&D, operations
and growth. BitCoin was initiated by a pseudonym, whose identity is not known, but is
operated by people with verifiable identities and office spaces. Although, it does require

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Response

a central authority to monitor its creation and distribution, cryptocurrencies have not
yet reached their real potential and need to be improved upon. As we already know,
the whole process of generating, distributing and keeping records of cryptocurrency is a
resource hungry operation and requires money to fund it. Not all cryptocurrencies have
been lucky like BitCoin to make it big in the real world but that does not mean they are
bad. Rather some are even better in design and require the incubation and development
time to emerge as a strong contender.

In order to fund these themselves, creators of cryptocurrencies have now started Initial Coin
Offerings or ICOs. Members of common public can invest in an upcoming cryptocurrency
by putting in their real money, which then gets converted into the new cryptocurrency. As
the new network grows and gets adopted, owners are promised rewards for their contribution.
For currencies, using the Proof of Ownership model, it makes sense to invest in a larger
sum of the new cryptocurrency to gain from its growth.

Offering an ICO allows creators of cryptocurrencies to bypass the regulatory channels

of raising money (largely banks). Mastercoin was the first cryptocurrency to do in
2013, but 2014 saw the Ethereum network offer an ICO and is one of the popular
cryptocurrencies in the market today.

What it also achieves is the democratizing the ownership of the cryptocurrency. Since, each
investor contributes only a small amount to the entire fund; his or her share is also small,
thereby creating more owners of the currency. The other way to look at this is that the entry
point for someone to invest in a new cryptocurrency is quite low and anybody can support
any cryptocurrency of their choice by signing up for their ICO. At the time of writing
this, billions of dollars have been invested in cryptocurrencies in the year 2018 alone4. The
success rate of ICO s in 2017, however, has been around 50%. Unfortunately, there are
also perpetrators in the market that are taking advantage of investor naivety in this market.

Scams
The rise of BitCoin in recent years has been showcased as the potential of cryptocurrencies
in the commodities market and a lot of people are trying to make some quick money in
trading cryptocurrencies. While this is a good way to make money, it is not the real purpose
of cryptocurrency and is a fact either lost or unknown to many.

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
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There are many who are willing to bet on yet another spike of the BitCoin while others
who are desperate to find the second best thing in the market to gamble their money with.
Cons in the local markets promise windfall profits in short term with the likes of BitCoin
and have turned out to be only on Ponzi schemes.

The lack of awareness on part of the investors and complexities of cryptocurrencies mean
that people have invested in ICOs that never existed and only the so called promoters have
managed to make money.

Yet, these are not failings of the cryptocurrency, because, this is not its purpose and only
those who invest in it with the right research and for the right reasons, benefit from them.

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4 OPPORTUNITIES WITH
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
The growing popularity of BitCoin has brought into light the potential of cryptocurrencies
and how they can change the very way business is done in the world today. Using a
cryptocurrency is currently regarded as ‘cool’, but is actually helping a lot of people work
around the existing systems.

Why would any institution want to work around existing system, you may ask? Well, the
answer to that is ‘sanctions’. Institutions that are extremely disruptive are often hit by hard
sanctions that aim to stifle the spread of information to others. I will give you two examples
for this, one that is extremely popular and has the potential to hurt a lot of people, while
the other is relatively much smaller but has been subject to a lot of litigation. In many
ways, both have been rescued by the rise of cryptocurrencies, largely the BitCoin.

Let’s start with the less popular of the two. In September 2011, a neurotechnology researcher
from Kazakhstan, Alexandra Elbakyan, decided to take on the publishers of the academic set
up, who charge users close to $30 to access a research article. Her solution to the idea was
rather cumbersome, where she would personally send out papers to people who requested
them on her site called Sci-Hub. As popularity of her website grew, Elbakyan had collected
over 40,000 papers and more requests started pouring in from around the globe. Elbakyan
knew she had to automate the process retrieving research papers and making them available
to users for free; giving rise to the version of Sci-Hub that is popular today and provides
quick access to hundreds of thousands of researchers around the globe. Donations to keep
the website alive poured from all over the globe.

Then a series of litigations in 2015, forced a freezing of accounts for Sci-Hub, along with
blockades on domain names and internet services. While Sci-Hub found itself another
home on the Tor Network, it needed to remain in public eye to ensure that the common
man could still access its website. Sci-Hub found an ally in BitCoin when banks refused to
process their donations and has continued to survive the storm and help researchers with
the help of BitCoin.

The other story is quite a popular one and has the all the ingredients for making not one
but many period dramas worthy of many Oscar nominations. The story begins in the year
2006, when the Sunshine Press in Iceland began a website that would go on to become of
the largest whistle blowers of modern day era, Wiki Leaks. Since its beginning, WikiLeaks
has actively published information contained in highly secretive government ‘cables’ exposing
communication between governmental departments and even governments. A non-profit
organization, WikiLeaks functions primarily on donations that it receives.

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WikiLeaks has been subject to a lot of praise as well as criticism for its revelations but
faced a major blockade in 2010, after releasing diplomatic cables related to wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Major Banks as well as payment agencies stopped processing donations for
WikiLeaks after which the organization was forced to look for alternatives and found refuge
in BitCoin. Satoshi Nakomoto, the founder of BitCoin, also went public denouncing the
adoption of BitCoin by WikiLeaks and the effect it would have on the BitCoin network.
However, by June 2011, WikiLeaks had begun accepting donations in BitCoin. In 2017,
Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, sarcastically thanked5 the US government for the 2010
economic blockade as their investment in BitCoin had provided them with greater than
50000% return. As of 2017, WikiLeaks had a donated kitty of 4025 BitCoin, equivalent
to US$ 26.6 million6. At some level, the WikiLeaks’ adoption of BitCoin has helped
the cryptocurrency gain popularity among the public as well. However, in the scenario,
BitCoin has helped WikiLeaks stay afloat and carry out their publication work when all the
conventional (Bank of America) and modern (Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, PayPal) methods
of payment stopped processing WikiLeaks’ payments.

To conclude these examples, the adoption of cryptocurrencies can be hugely beneficial to

some users. Whether cryptocurrencies are ready to replace fiat currencies is not a question
that needs answering right now. The penetration of cryptocurrencies in our daily lives is still
either negligible or minimal at the most and they have a long way to go before becoming
main stream currency. But, instead of looking at them as a fall back option for existing
systems, one can really make use of the pros of the cryptocurrencies to improve transactions
that occur in our day to day lives. We shall go through some of these, one by one.

4.1 FINANCIAL SAVINGS THROUGH BLOCKCHAIN

Throughout this book, we have discussed how cryptocurrencies can challenge the status quo
of banks in our society and probably even question their existence in the future. While this
is a good point to ponder over for cryptocurrency enthusiasts, banks, too, have been asking
these questions. Superficially, banks may seem to be in denial of the role cryptocurrencies
will play in shaping their future, but at an internal level, they have not only begun
investigating the harm that cryptocurrencies can cause to their existence but also started
devising ways of adopting features of cryptocurrencies that can ensure that banks remain
relevant in the foreseeable future.

Traditionally, banking transactions were done manually and lot of records were maintained
locally by the offices operating in those areas in a highly decentralized manner. With the
rise of internet and online storage systems, transactions began to be recorded in systems
and data moved to more central locations, where hardware infrastructure could be raised

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at a cheaper price and improvements could be implemented quickly. This, however, created
centralization of records, meaning local offices needed to connect with the computing
infrastructure in a different location to carry out day to day activities and increased auditing
to ensure that transactions recorded into the systems, were indeed, happening on the ground,
thereby increasing operational costs.

A report published in 20177 by Accenture and operations benchmarking company, McLagan,

found that adoption of block chain technology could help investment banks drop up to
70% costs in functions such as financial reporting, compliance and business operations.
Together, these measures could save investment banks anywhere between $ 8 – 12 million
a year. Belgian Bank KBC had already taken an initiative to adopt blockchain into their
banking methods and developed a prototype trade finance tool, which is called Digital Trade
Chain (DTC). The DTC connects all parties of international trade such as buyers, sellers,
transporters, banks etc. into a single chain transaction, where all parties get the information
they need to process their part of the transaction. KBC’s efforts have now received a boost
with major banks such as HSBC, Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and some other names from
the banking sector have put in their investments for collaborative development of the DTC.

4.2 TIME SAVINGS

If you work in a large organization or have had to deal with one of them, you must have
surely come across the painful long processes that need to be followed and the amount of
time they consume. Granted, these processes are made to ensure that work is completed in
line with company policies and governmental regulation, but it is your time that it consumes.

Imagine a world where instant mobile payments were not yet possible and you had to carry
cash everywhere you go. From the commute to your work to coffee you pick up, lunch, the
Uber you book or making your monthly payments to NetFlix, your phone and utility bills
and even your internet services. Imagine standing in queues to get the simplest of things
that you do on the go every day, using cash everywhere and then having to visit the bank
every time to withdraw more cash to fill up your wallet and power through another week of
making only cash payments. Once again, while other things would get done, it would have
heavy collateral, your time, that would be spent waiting in queues at offices, in the bank,
precious time that you could have utilised something much more meaningful for yourself.

Although we do not realise it, a lot of our time is spent waiting for things to happen and a
lot of effort is spent in communicating decisions of one governmental department/ institution
to another. This is especially true for businesses that require multiple approvals to run and
involve people across multiple departments to work in sync for work to be done on time.

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Something as small as buying a home requires people across so many organizations to work
together and you to connect them for communicating updates of each step to the next
party of the transaction. Ethereum’s smart contracts provide a template on how efficient
transactions can be made and information placed in a central location that is accessible for
all parties and automatic triggers sent to concerned people to carry out their part of the
transaction. May be renting a house in the future would just require you to sign up one
‘smart contract’, which would also include the movers and packers to arrive at your doorstep
on the day of shifting, without even having to make a phone call!

4.3 REMOVAL OF MIDDLEMEN

Continuing with the previous point, where a lot of people could save their time using
technologies that power cryptocurrencies, there is also an additional advantage where a lot
of middlemen will be removed from transactions, making them cleaner and rewarding the
original seller. To continue the same example, an individual looking to rent out his house
could completely eliminate an estate broker by putting out his smart contract online. Since
the history of the house would be displayed in a transparent and the credentials of the
interested party also available for the house owner to see, one would simply not need a
broker to mitigate the transaction.

One might also say that such use of technology would lead to massive job losses and that
is something we cannot afford, in the name of development. While this is true in some
cases, a lot of middlemen are added to the chain, simply to make profits and not because
they add value to the transaction. A simple example is the supply chain in India where
farm produce travels from the farm to the end consumer in the city. To begin with the
produce is first procured by a local business owner at the local market and then transports
it to nearest town. Here, another dealer buys produce from various local dealer in bulk and
moves it further to the city. Once again, a buyer procures goods from lots of town suppliers
and then sells it to smaller distributors who further distribute them to smaller distributors,
who either sell the produce door to door or in a small weekly market. At each level, the
middle man adds on to the cost of the produce, without really adding to the value of the
produce. The cost is ultimately borne by the end user but does not really reach the farmer,
who has actually produced the goods. With the rise in supermarkets, newer supply chain
systems are now making their way into the system but systems like blockchain will facilitate
removal of many middlemen in many supply chains.

Similar is the story of digital content makers who bank on traditional distribution systems
for distribution of their content, even in the digital age. Rights to content are given off
very cheaply by artists while distributors make bulk of the money while making individual
sales and paying less royalty to the artists. Transparency can be improved in these systems

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by using technology that allows artists to see actual sales of their content and how much
money is due to them. Further improvements can help artists sell their content directly
to the connoisseurs without involving middlemen at all. Modern day tools like YouTube,
Instagram, Twitter have already put artists in direct contact with their followers and only
a few intricacies need to be sorted to make global financial transactions feasible and
cryptocurrencies can fully support them.

When I mentioned intricacies that need to be sorted during payments, it is largely the
payment handling systems that need to evolve. If you would like to purchase something,
you require a credit card (issued by a bank), which will process payment in either your local
currency or US Dollars and then charge you a currency mark-up on the transaction amount.
The same transaction is reversed on the sellers side and he/ she too ends up paying up the
bank something for facilitating the transaction. 1-3% may not seem a lot for you and me for
a transaction but when you add up all the millions of transactions happening everyday all
over the world, you are talking 1-3% of global GDP and these are billions of dollars on an
everyday basis in transaction fees alone, going largely to a handful of organizations. This is
surely avoidable and cryptocurrencies can help us do so. Since the systems are decentralized,
transaction fees would be put back into the system and redistributed among with owners,
which will be the public and not a handful of people/ organizations.

4.4 CHANGING LOAN STOCK

While most people have been lamenting about the inefficiencies and archaic systems that
banking and financial institutions follow to process payments, there is a big function that
these institutions fulfil in the society. i.e. lending money. One simply cannot deny the role
of these institutions in making funds available to individuals, establishments, big and small
and the multinational corporates. Lending does help economies run and therefore, we simply
cannot wish away these institutions right away.

Cryptocurrencies need to grow in a really big way before they can be lent to individuals
or corporates. But in the meantime, some businesses have found some innovative ways to
use cryptocurrencies, themselves, as stock for receiving loans of fiat money. So, if you are
a cryptocurrency owner with a pile of your cryptocurrency but need fiat money now, you
can get a loan for your coin at its current market rate or an adjustment against it.

Of course, this is not happening at your local bank but since the value of popular
cryptocurrencies is now appreciating, people are willing to lend money to you against your
asset of cryptocurrency, something that was hard to be believe even a couple of years ago. In
case, you have invested your time and efforts in a lot of cryptocurrencies, you can pool them
together in a wallet like Celsius8 and even earn an interest on them. All you need to do is

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Opportunities with Cryptocurrencies

deposit your altcoins into their wallet, sit back and relax as your altcoins grow in number.
From here, the altcoins will be lent to someone, who needs them for fiat money that comes
to your account and not given to some faceless financial institutions. As cryptocurrencies
get more popular among the public, lending them directly will gain popularity as well, all
without the intermediaries called banks.

Another area, where cryptocurrencies are getting into is trading of stock itself. In the
traditional setup, all transactions need to be channelled through exchange authorised brokers,
who earn a commission for each transaction that you do, whether you gain or lose. With
the Spectre Project9 , you can enter the new age of broker less trading, where all transactions
are recorded on the blockchain and you do not pay brokerage to anybody for carrying out
a transaction on your behalf. All transactions happen on Ether, the currency that powers
Ethereum and all transactions are smart contracts that are executed by the system. Currently,
gains from transactions are stored in your account in Ether and can be withdrawn at all in
globally renowned currencies like GBP, USD, and EUR etc.

4.5 NEW AGE OF PAYMENTS

A common critique of the cryptocurrencies is how they live in the realm of computing
alone and have not yet made it to the real world, where people can use them in day to day
transactions. Add to it the delay in successful completion of a cryptocurrency transaction,
such as 10 minutes, means that people are unlikely to take up cryptocurrency usage in daily
lives. Imagine waiting in a queue for 10 minutes in at a Subway/ Metro train station, just
because the guy before you chose to pay in BitCoin!

TenX10, a Singapore based tech company has tried to simplify the process of using cryptocurrency
through a mobile app that converts your cryptocurrency into fiat money that can be used
to make mobile payments on the go. While this is a good option for mobile phone users
and in local markets, if you are a global traveller, then things can get a little difficult. Local
wallet options do not necessarily work around the globe and what if you travel deep and
wide to countries that are still heavily reliant on their banks and payment gateways.

The answer to this has actually come from a Lithuania based company called Spectre Coin11
that allows you to not only carry your cryptocurrencies on their mobile wallets but also
spend them at stores using their SpectreCoin cards. Yes, you need to get another card, but
only if you would like to spend your cryptocurrencies in 150+ countries, 30+ fiat currencies
with support for 20+ deposit and withdrawal methods. If you are a business willing to
accept cryptocurrencies then SpectreCoin can help you there as well.

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Opportunities with Cryptocurrencies

These new age payment methods are bridging the gap between the cryptocurrency and
the current world till the cryptocurrency wave takes over. In the meantime, if you are a
cryptocurrency enthusiast, here are the list of organizations that have taken to cryptocurrencies
and accept them whole heartedly for transactions (Largely BitCoin for now).

4.6 LIST OF ORGANIZATIONS THAT ACCEPT BITCOIN

• KFC Canada
• Overstock.com – A company that sells big ticket items at lower prices due to overstocking
• Playboy
• Subway - Select stores
• Microsoft – Users can buy content with Bitcoin on Xbox and Windows store
• Reddit – You can buy premium features there with
• Virgin Galactic – Richard Branson company that promises space tourism in 2019
• CheapAir.com – Travel booking site for airline tickets, car rentals, hotels
• Expedia.com – Online travel booking agency
• Gyft – Buy gift cards using Bitcoin
• Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopaedia with 4 570 000+ article
• The Internet Archive – web documentation company
• Bitcoin. Travel – a travel site that provides accommodation, apartments, attractions,
bars, and beauty salons around the world
• Pembury Tavern – A pub in London,
• England Old Fitzroy – A pub in Sydney, Australia
• The Pink Cow – A diner in Tokyo, Japan
• The Pirate Bay – BitTorrent directories
• EZTV – Torrents TV shows provider
• Whole Foods – Organic food store (by purchasing gift card from Gyft)
• Jefferson’s Store – A street wear clothing store in Bergenfield,
• N.J Helen’s Pizza –  Jersey City, N.J., you can get a slice of pizza for BitCoin by
pointing your phone at a sign next to the cash register
• A Class Limousine – Pick you up and drop you off at Newark (N.J.) Airport
• Seoclerks.com – Get SEO work done on your site cheap
• Mint.com –  Mint pulls all your financial accounts into one place. Set a budget,
track your goals and do more
• Fancy.com – Discover amazing stuff, collect the things you love, buy it all in one
place (Source: Fancy)
• Bloomberg.com – Online newspaper
• BigFishGames.com – Games for PC, Mac and Smartphones (iPhone, Android, Windows)
• Suntimes.com – Chicago based online newspaper

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Opportunities with Cryptocurrencies

• San Jose Earthquakes – San Jose California Professional Soccer Team (MLS)
• Crowdtilt.com – The fastest and easiest way to pool funds with family and friends
• Lumfile – Server company that offers free cloud-based servers
• JC Penney – have to use eGifter.com
• Etsy Vendors – Original art and Jewellery creations
• Fight for the Future – Leading organization finding for Internet freedom
• Dish Network – An American direct-broadcast satellite service provider
• The Libertarian Party – United States political party
• Yacht-base.com – Croatian yacht charter company
• Euro Pacific – A major precious metal dealer CEX – The trade-in chain has a shop
in Glasgow, Scotland that accepts BitCoin
• ShopJoy – An Australian online retailer that sells novelty and unique gifts
• Grooveshark – Online music streaming service based in the United States
• Braintree – Well known payments processor
• MIT Coop Store – Massachusetts Institute of Technology student bookstore
• SimplePay – Nigeria’s most popular web and mobile-based wallet service
• Shopify.com – An online store that allows anyone to sell their products
• Naughty America – Adult entertainment provider
• Mexico’s Universidad de las Américas Puebla – A major university in Mexico
• Polish Airlines – A worldwide airline based in Poland
• Lionsgate Films – The production studio behind titles such as The Hunger Games
and The Day After Tomorrow
• Rakutan – A Japanese e-commerce giant
• T-Mobile Poland – T-Mobile’s Poland-based mobile phone top-up company
• Stripe – San Francisco-based payments company
• Green Man Gaming – Popular digital game reseller
• Save the Children – Global charity organization
• NCR Silver – Point of sales systems
• PureVPN – VPN provider

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Threats with Cryptocurrencies

5 THREATS WITH
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Every coin has two sides and so does every tale. If anybody told you that the cryptocurrency
was a fairy tale come true and had not risks attached to it, they would be lying. For all the
opportunities that cryptocurrency promise, there are a fair number of hiccups and threats
attached to their usage. Once again, you have likely not heard about them, because the
world is swayed by the bling of the BitCoin and its rising value in US dollars. But most of
the cryptocurrencies have a fair bit of risk attached with them. Risks that can flatten out
the demand for the currencies or even make them crash to nothing, if things don’t go well.
In the last section of this book, I will be listing out these major threats of cryptocurrencies
that need to be taken in consideration, while adopting and using them.

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Threats with Cryptocurrencies

5.1 POWER HUNGRY CURRENCIES

Going back to where the BitCoin started and the Proof-of-Work model that it uses, a
transaction is called complete, when somebody solves the hash and the computer that solves
the hash gets a reward. As more and more people want to get the new BitCoin entering
the system, there are more miners in the market today than there were back in 2009-2010.
As more and more people try to solve the hash, there is a large amount of computing
power and thereby, electricity that is spent in the race for the new BitCoin. While some
people can justify the cost of mining by comparing it to the cost of the BitCoin in today’s
market, the fact remains that we are putting too much energy into mining a currency that
has not attained global appeal.

As per estimates from Morgan Stanley12, BitCoin mining alone would consume 140 terawatt-
hours (TWh) of electricity in 2018, almost 1% of global demand. That is a lot of energy
going into a currency that will be useful in the future, while many parts of the globe still
remain unconnected to the power grids. As more people become aware of BitCoin and
people are pooling resources to mine these currencies, electricity demands will rise further.
Most of the demand for BitCoin is now coming from the developing markets and power
demands are largely met here by using coal which further damages the environment. A few
miners have been mindful of the dangers of mining and have set up mining camps in areas
where power is generated using renewable sources of energy but there is definitely much
more than needs to be done.

However, it is not just power alone that for which demand is increasing. As the hash gets
tougher to crack, more computing prowess is also desired to crack the hashing process faster.
As BitCoin gained popularity over the last couple of years, the prices of graphic processing
units (GPUs) have been doubling and tripling and demand outscoring the supply many
times. Newer models of processing units have barely reached the markets before running
out of stock. And all this is just data for BitCoin alone. There are over 4000 alternate coins
that have joined the market since 2009 and we simply do not have the data to know how
much energy, we are spending on these currencies.

5.2 COST OF STORAGE

Proponents of cryptocurrencies are gung-ho about the decentralized nature of data storage
that blockchain uses. The advantages of such storage may be a great many, but there is also
a downside to this and the very redundancy which was the boon of cryptocurrency, might
become its bane in the future. This might not be obvious right now, because there are a
few cryptocurrency users around the world but as we grow to the level of global usage, the
blockchain will get bigger and bigger. Add to it the high number of transactions that will
take place on the network, means that the block chain will keep growing in millions of
blocks every day and they all have to be stored.

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Threats with Cryptocurrencies

The last time, people faced problems storing their data, the Cloud was born. It was much
easier to pool up data of all users and put it in one place than create large individual storage
devices for all. The reason Cloud storage works is because users are willing to pay a certain
sum every month for the data to be retained. Well, not all of us pay for our Google Drive
or DropBox storages, but people with massive data do and in some way fund our storages
too. But with the BitCoin, all parties are going to be equal with no Big Brother to foot the
bill for the free users. Even if one would assume that the cost of storage was shared by all
transactions, data in the blockchain dates all the way back to 2009. Why would anybody
want to pay for what happened before they were even a part of the blockchain.

Since the genesis block of 2009, the size of the blockchain has grown to 163 GB as of
March 2018 and is just beginning to grow. A back of the envelope calculation13 by a
software engineer shows that if BitCoin takes over as our primary currency, we would
generate around 350 GB data every single day. Now, that is a lot of data to be maintained
in a redundant manner in a decentralized fashion and it would only make sense to put in
a central location and the bill is shared amongst all transaction. If all users agree to this, as
benefactors of blockchain technology, putting the data in one place basically goes against the
very idea of decentralized storage of data. The BitCoin would exist but not the way it was
meant to be and that would probably cause a drop in its acceptability amongst users, who
would rather find it easier to stick to the current system of using banks and fiat currency
for their day to day transactions.

5.3 NO RECTIFYING ERRORS IN BLOCKCHAIN

What do you do if you pay a merchant twice or carry out an incorrect transaction; make
a payment to a wrong account? Contact your bank and see how the transaction can be
reversed, right? That’s how simple it is. Not with Blockchain.

The very point of using a blockchain is to make records that are permanent and cannot
be modified at a latter point in time, either by you or any other user. Once a transaction
is done, it remains there forever, whether it is a mistake or a fraudulent move. Yes, even
fraudulent moves. In June of 2016, a hacker managed to get his hands on $ 50 million
worth of Ether from an organization that had raised $160 million worth of Ether. The hacker
was able to use vulnerability in the code of Ether to get a large chunk of Ether diverted
to his wallet. The question that was then raised was whether somebody should intervene
and restore the transaction or should the block chain be allowed to continue the way it
was. Ether users were split on this now face a fork in the Blockchain, where certain users
continue to using the original blockchain, whereas some users use the new fork that was
created, with the $50 million worth of Ether put back in the system. This is an extremely
tricky situation, since such incidents can cause major ramifications in world affairs, if the
cryptocurrency goes global.

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Threats with Cryptocurrencies

Accenture, the consulting firm, on the other hand has found the solution to such problems14.
They claim that they have found methods to edit the blockchain that will be used by financial
institutions so that any errors of data storage, illegal activity, operational errors or regulatory
concerns can be addressed. Once again, this is quite the opposite of what the block chain
stands for, intervention by some regulatory / authoritative body in day to day affairs.

5.4 51% ATTACKS

A 51% attack is a theoretical attack on a block chain, where 51% of the computing power
is controlled by a single entity with the singular aim to slow down hash conformations from
other users and modify the transactions of the blockchain to its own benefit. Since block
chain is a decentralized system, it is unlikely that 51% of the users would come together
with a singular idea of making changes to the blockchain, but in case they came, 51% is
the theoretical number that would make the attack more likely to succeed.

In the recent past, there have been attempts on Krypton and Shift, two ether based
cryptocurrencies, where pool of users have tried to gain the 51% hashing power and tried
to steal some of the cryptocurrencies15. The result of this was that the miscreants were
identified, the cryptocurrency they stole was destroyed from the network and people went
back to their lives after a couple of days of chaos. As more and more users join the network,
there is now a doubt of 34% attack, too, and we still have to see what such an attack can
result into. While this is not a failing of the cryptocurrency by itself, it is still a risk that
people have to contend with.

5.5 TRAGEDY OF COMMONS

Currencies such as BitCoin, which are limited in total supply, over a long term, are likely
to be affected by tragedy of commons. Currently, the network rewards users who complete
the hashing process with new BitCoin. However, the mining reward is programmed to
decrease as more and more BitCoin become available. As more and more people join the
network, the number of BitCoin transactions will increase and miners will start relying on
transaction fees as their source of reward.

The larger the number of miners, the quicker the hashing process will get. However, by
the time BitCoin supply is maxed out, the number of miners will also be high and as a
result of competition, the transaction fees will remain low. At some point, it will no longer
be sustainable to function on transaction fees alone and miners will start dropping out of
the network, resulting in slower hashing speeds, greater times for transaction confirmation
and thus, lowering public demand and lack of interest in the BitCoin, after a major peak.

39
CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Threats with Cryptocurrencies

BitCoin’s founder Satoshi Nakamoto, too, anticipated this way back in 2010, itself, but
predicted that number of transactions in two decades would either be very high or not at
all. There is still some time, before BitCoin hits this stage and remedial measures could be
put in place. Ethereum, for example, does not have a maximum supply.

5.6 LEGAL OR ILLEGAL?

BitCoin and Ether are by far, the most popular of cryptocurrencies. For anybody looking
to invest their fiat money into them, these might be the safest bets. They are popular, used
widely and have been around for a good period of time. Instead of hedging your money
with some new cryptocurrency, you are better off investing in BitCoin or Ether, because you
at least know that they are cryptocurrencies and not just some fraudulent one. Having said
that, governments around the world are still unsure about the usage of cryptocurrencies and
their legal status. Sooner or later, governments will have to sit down and decide what the
status of these currencies will be. The decisions taken then, will affect BitCoin and Ether
the most. With a stroke of a pen, the President or Prime Minister of your country might
just legalize or criminalize cryptocurrency and your investment will either appreciate or
reduce to nothing. This is the true nature of cryptocurrencies as of today.

Cryptocurrencies, world over, are mired in controversy, likely because, they threaten the
status quo. Conventional institutions would like to get the money off their back as soon as
possible, whereas technology enthusiasts, reformists, visionaries are looking at cryptocurrencies
to fix problems that ail financial institutions today. While countries like US and India
have neither declared cryptocurrencies as legal tender or banner them outright, China has
banned alt coins as of 2014. Russia recognises cryptocurrencies as legal but not as a means
of payment within the boundaries of the country. Russia looks at cryptocurrencies, as a
means of getting around US sanctions and processing payments bypassing the SWIFT system.
Reports suggests that Russia has also helped Venezuela create the ‘petro’, a cryptocurrency,
that is helping the country evade US sanctions and allow countries to pay their oil bills to
Venezuela, without the need for US dollars.

How cryptocurrency is valued in your part of the world depends on a lot of local factors.
Europe and especially, Switzerland, has seen the most activity, when it comes to initial coin
offerings for new cryptocurrencies. Companies offering the ICO’s often register themselves
as non-profits in Switzerland, making a mockery of the system. Yet liberal outlook of the
financial authorities in Switzerland means that companies will continue to operate in such
a manner and Switzerland will allow an environment to experiment with cryptocurrencies
and further innovate on existing technologies. So, an upcoming cryptocurrency that

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Threats with Cryptocurrencies

seems like a fraud will still be allowed to operate by financial authorities in the country,
hoping that something good may come out of the entire exercise. Thus, the status of all
cryptocurrencies in the near future is still volatile and we cannot really guess how they
will turn out over the long term.

5.7 LOSS AND FRAUD

One of the greatest problems with a cryptocurrency is that of a loss. Just like a corrupted
file on your computer, a cryptocurrency lost is loss forever. There is no way to recover it,
irrespective of the cause of the loss. A bank may restore your stolen credit at its own cost,
but a cryptocurrency will never do the same. This is exactly why, in 2013, when BitCoin
users in China could not login to their online trading accounts on the GBL platform, $5
million worth of BitCoin were lost forever. The very next year, $473 million worth of BitCoin
were stolen off Mt. Gox, forcing the company to file for bankruptcy. Since these exchanges,
lacked government authorisations, users lost their money or BitCoin and could not even
complain. The rise of cryptocurrencies will also usher in a new wave of cyber-attacks, aimed
at pocketing your currency and without strong government backing; it is likely that the
cryptocurrencies will always remain at such risks from cyber thieves. As discussed earlier, once
written to the blockchain, the currency belongs to the thief, until he decides to spend it.

5.8 DARKNET
The pseudonymous nature of cryptocurrencies makes them extremely useful, when you are
in the market for the wrong goods. Darker places of the world wide web, found an unlikely
ally in BitCoin, which made payments easy on the dark side of the web. Users, now, had
better tools to pay for services offered on websites like Silk Road and the appreciating value
of the cryptocurrency meant high value transactions could also happen with lesser BitCoin
now. Until September of 2013, BitCoin alone fuelled transactions from close to 150,000
users. Over 600,000 BitCoin were used for payments on Silk Road, amounting to $1.2
billion revenue for the website16.

41
CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Conclusion

CONCLUSION
We live in a crazy world. We are churning out new pieces of technology, almost every
single day and it is accessible to people almost immediately. However, with any of these
new technologies of the cyber world, whether it is the social media or artificial intelligence,
it is difficult to draw a line, where technology stops being helpful and causes more trouble.
The same is true with cryptocurrencies too.

A decade ago, Satoshi Nakamoto, made public a code that had the potential to change the
way to do our transactions. Instead of trying to apply it for the better systems, we used it
to compete out each other, pocket rewards and then power transactions of the Dark Net.
When that was not enough, we leveraged it against the fiat money and used it as a piece
of commodity to trade in. But all is not lost yet.

While countries debate whether they should legalise BitCoin/ Ether and their kind or not,
people are already putting to use blockchain technology to improve the way we do things.
From supermarkets to supply chains, blockchain have entered various spheres of our lives
and are making their presence felt. In a few more years, blockchain can make our systems
more transparent and our lives much easier. Whether, cryptocurrencies will occupy centre
stage or not, the age of cryptoscience has surely dawned and promises a brighter future.

42
CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW References

REFERENCES
• https://www.moneycrashers.com/cryptocurrency-history-bitcoin-alternatives/
• https://medium.com/koinex-crunch/a-brief-history-of-cryptocurrency-889fed168555
• https://www.cryptocurrencyarmy.com/cryptocurrency-explained/the-history-of-
cryptocurrency/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/12/06/a-short-history-of-bitcoin-
and-crypto-currency-everyone-should-read/3/#527d80ee61c7
• https://medium.com/@ConsenSys/blockchain-underpinnings-hashing-7f4746cbd66b
• https://www.coindesk.com/information/how-ethereum-works/
• https://shift.newco.co/digital-currency-and-blockchain-how-are-financial-institutions-
responding-71091b2772c3
• https://www.draglet.com/how-the-financial-industry-responds-to-cryptocurrency-craze/
• https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/media-centre/articles/blockchain-new-tool-to-cut-costs.html
• https://www.businessinsider.in/Blockchain-tech-could-save-top-investment-banks-8-
billion-a-year/articleshow/56626775.cms
• https://www.pymnts.com/blockchain/2017/blockchain-tracker-cost-saving-opportunity/
• https://weisscryptocurrencyratings.com/news/blockchain-delivers-huge-savings-of-
time-and-money-986

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CRYPTOSCIENCE: THE MONIES OF
TODAY AND TOMORROW Endnotes

ENDNOTES
1 Financial Times May 2018 : https://www.ft.com/content/29dcb760-5787-11e8-b8b2-d6ceb45fa9d0
2 https://letstalkbitcoin.com/jpmorgan-chase-building-bitcoin-killer#.Uqc7IuKmZL_
3 https://news.bitcoin.com/after-the-boss-calls-bitcoin-a-fraud-jp-morgan-buys-the-dip/
4 https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/en/initial-coin-offerings-surge-in-2018-with-13-7-billion-al-
ready-raised/
5 https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/919247873648283653
6 https://www.trustnodes.com/2017/11/01/wikileaks-received-26-million-worth-bitcoin-donations
7 https://www.businessinsider.in/Blockchain-tech-could-save-top-investment-banks-8-billion-a-year/ar-
ticleshow/56626775.cms
8 https://celsius.network/
9 https://spectre.ai/
10 https://www.tenx.tech/
11 https://spectrocoin.com/en/
12 https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2018/01/18/powerhungry-bitcoin-miners/
13 https://hackernoon.com/if-we-lived-in-a-bitcoin-future-how-big-would-the-blockchain-have-to-be-
bd07b282416f
14 https://www.accenture.com/cr-en/insight-editing-uneditable-blockchain
15 https://cryptohustle.com/krypton-recovers-from-a-new-type-of-51-network-attack
16 https://web.archive.org/web/20140220003018/https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/UlbrichtCrimi-
nalComplaint.pdf

44