Thursday, August 17, 2017 by Ethan Huff
http://www.risk.news/2017-08-17-reality-check-bitcoin-isnt-governed-by-the-laws-of-mathematics-it-can-be-altered-at-any-time-by-greed-driven-software-developers.html
There’s this notion going around that, even though the popular online cryptocurrency Bitcoin isn’t necessarily backed by anything of tangible value, that it still has reliability because it’s only available in limited quantities thanks to built-in limits to its mining potential. But tech entrepreneur and cryptocurrency enthusiast Kevin Lawton says this is a myth, warning that the alleged “laws of mathematics” that ensure Bitcoin’s viability are technically changeable via software updates.
In a series of interviews with the Health Ranger that were recently published by Natural News, Lawton explains the many vulnerabilities inherent to Bitcoin, offering his insights as to what the future might hold for the world’s most well-known cryptocurrency.
For those who are unfamiliar with what Bitcoin even is, Lawton offers a rundown of what cryptocurrencies are and where they came from. He segues into explaining how Bitcoin serves as a viable “proof of concept” to show that cryptocurrencies can be viable, but argues that Bitcoin isn’t the iteration that will actually stick. Its problems include the fact that it’s just a fiat currency like the Federal Reserve Note, except that it’s digital.
There are also many other alternatives to Bitcoin that Lawton says work better, and that Bitcoin isn’t necessarily anything special. The recent hard-fork that occurred on August 1 further illustrates how major changes can be made to Bitcoin almost on a whim – in this instance, Bitcoin was split with “Bitcoin cash,” which drastically altered the value of actual Bitcoin in an instant.
“In Bitcoin, there are huge scalability issues in terms of transaction speed,” Lawton notes about further problems with the Bitcoin platform. “It’s been ongoing for years now. There is a set of ideas from the developers on how to fix this, and there is a set of ideas from the miners and payment transactors on how to go about fixing this … They are sort of like two camps, and they have really split off.”
Oddly enough, despite the possibility of Bitcoin being changed by software developers over time, Lawton says that the platform can’t be changed in the ways it needs to be – transaction speeds being among these – because there’s no central governing authority like there is for Federal Reserve Notes. Upgrading the Bitcoin infrastructure, in other words, isn’t as feasible as it needs to be to operate on a global network.
Then, there are competing cryptocurrencies like Ethereum that, because of its unique design and infrastructure, is changing the cryptocurrency concept entirely. In part two of his interview with the Health Ranger, Lawton explains how Ethereum functions as a product of “ether,” which serves as the digital fuel to operate various programs across the Ethereum network.
This might sound promising in terms of its potential to enhance the functionality of global platforms, but even this model is flawed. According to Lawton, nearly every program, or “smart contract,” that functions on the Ethereum network exists as a code deployment system to create even more cryptocurrency coins, nearly all of which are used as speculative “get rich quick” investment schemes.
At the current time, there really aren’t any real world applications being deployed via Ethereum that are helping businesses or anyone else to get real tasks accomplished, in other words. They’re simply in existence to produce more cryptocurrencies, which isn’t going to further the mission for which they were developed in the first place.
“They are nothing more than a spreadsheet,” Lawton says about all the hype over Ethereum network and mining model.
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Tagged Under: Tags: bitcoin, cryptocurrency, mathematics, Myths, scarcity, Software