This week two scientists from Cornell University have put a lot of Bitcoin enthusiasts into a flutter informing them that a technical voidability exists that may make it possible for some individuals to drive into a corner the process of creating the cryptocurrency and might destroy the whole system. News regarding Bitcoin has had an undertone to bounce in price a lot, due to new developments. However the revelation of a probably fatal flaw has not been much registered on its market, that has been on quite the upward swing.
The specifics of the Cornell scientists' report are hard to understand, like everything regarding Bitcoin. However The Bitcoin system principally works through ensuring its users that bitcoins cannot be spent twice. This needs a considerable amount of computing resources, therefore the system pays users who verify the blockchains and to the computing with new bitcoins. This method is called mining. Similar to miners searching for gold, the Bitcoin miners don't know precisely in which moment the reward will appear. From time to time Bitcoin miner have to verify blockchains and in this process he can unlock a reward, declare it, and after this everybody moves to following block.
The supposed insecurity appears once "miners" decide not to tell everyone else that they have finished work with one block. Scientists Ittay Eyal and Ermin Gun Sirer warn that so-called "selfish" miners may keep their reward a secret then start with the following block, having the advantage of other miners. If a big enough amount of linked in one network computers join this pool, they might just beat other miners to the draw simply continuing to receive bitcoins themselves.
This is not the first sort of plan that is supposed to make a possible damage to Bitcoin system. Also there is no proof that someone have tried to carry this process into execution and accomplish it. Skeptics have momentarily mentioned that the methods to exclude this sort of attack already exist.
The chief researcher at the advocacy group at Bitcoin Foundation, Gavin Andresen, already responded with an article which disproofs scientists' words. "Let me start out with how fantastic it is that we are seeing more academic interest and research in Bitcoin-the-system," he gave Eyal and Gun Sirer top mark for an effort in a blog. Andresen added that in the next months he is expecting to see more analysis claiming to have found the solution to make some Bitcoin creating processed even better and he hopes some of them will happen to be right.
Gavin Andresen mentioned that Eyal's and Gun Sirer's analysis is based on "oversimplified assumptions" regarding the way the bitcoin market works. He advised the scientists to continue searching for Bitcoin vulnerabilities but not to go off head when the next paper comes out. The communication between researchers and Bitcoin representatives would be better if everyone concerned is given time to think about further conversation and dialogue, and not being forced to answer the questions immediately, he added.
Special aspects of this certain attack are unclear, however one thing regarding the Bitcoin market is obvious: Demand for analytical derivation exceeds an offer.