3 ms·

Thanks (and @wcoenen), that's interesting. Thinking further on the risks of bitcoin, is it possible that the algorithm itself could have a yet to be discovered

• Cederfjard 14y ago
  I was thinking the same (but my understanding of all of this is still very weak). Isn't it a major assumption that these "extremely difficult mathematical problems" remain extremely difficult until all Bitcoins have been mined, 120-130 years in the future?
  • TimJRobinson 14y ago
    The algorithm can be changed as long as 50%+ of the computers in the network agree to it. So if flaws are found it isn't the end of the currency.
• mrb 14y ago
  Crypto weaknesses are always possible. But generally speaking, widely-deployed algorithm like SHA256, ECDSA, etc (which Bitcoin relies on) don't become suddenly broken one morning. Research progresses slowly (eg. weaknesses found in round-reduced versions of these algorithms), giving ample time to the community to plan for an upgrade when it becomes clear that one of the algorithms will become broken soon. Bitcoin is also very conservatively designed. For example an address is computed with a RIPEMD160 hash of a SHA256 hash, so one would have to break both algorithms with preimage attacks to be able to generate address collisions allowing an attacker to steal coins from an arbitrary address. Because of this conservative design, it gives it a "safety cushion" to have time to anticipate cryptographic changes if they are needed.