Bitcoin Forum

Originally posted here: http://bitmex.tumblr.com/post/23037662600/the-bitcoin-drama

I mined my first block in April 2010. There weren’t any mining pools to join or any expensive hardware to buy. You just ran the original client running in the background taking advantage of that idle core you thought you needed. This is when the network difficulty was significantly lower and before Bitcoin landed in so many pop culture news outlets.

The many security events that have happened in the Bitcoin community and most recently with Bitcoinica has had me thinking much lately about security. Security is not a mathematical certainity. Even the Bitcoin blockchain itself has it’s vulnerabilities, and while most are inconceivably unlikely, the fact still exists. And this is when we are dealing with a highly logical and controlled environment.

The certainity of security goes down even more when you have less control of your environment. This is the essence of security, you must be able to predict and control what happens. The ability to do this is significantly lowered when dealing with third-parties or those you don’t know or aren’t able to trust for lack of information. With all the hype and low-cost of running applications “in the cloud” (marketing sucks), there is a trade-off. You have less control of your environment and thus less security.

If Bitcoin is still around 5, 10, or even 15 years from now then I’m sure we will have a much more secure environment than of that which exists currently. And we will have those who took the risks first to thank for it. This situation isn’t unique to Bitcoin, all we have to do is look at a couple major industries like finance where the banks blew up and essentially are still insolvent or the oil industry which while drilling miles deep under the ocean caused massive ecological damage. This is the natural order of things. A forest grows, burns, and starts over, so will Bitcoin.

NOTE: BitMe does host it’s testnet environment “in the cloud”

The evolution of Bitcoin, to me, is one of the most fascinating and exciting things to me. One person's idea (solution) has spurred so much other innovation in others. And you're right, the same thing will happen in the realm of security and the void will get filled with new ideas and ways of thinking about the new problems. The road to future innovations and advances will be paved with the carcasses of fallen comrades, but the rest of us will be better off and more secure from their loss.

+1

This is all the effect of the "magic" that is a market regulated by it's consumers (some call it a free market) vs a market regulated by a monopoly on violence.

It's what I love about Bitcoin above all else, a real world example of how innovative, efficient, safe, affordable and so much more such a market is.

I believe "creative destruction" is the appropriate term :) It is indeed very exciting to me as well to see this sort of productive chaos. The foundation to all this is whether a money such as bitcoin can actually work. It seems to work, and everything that happens around it will be in a perpetual state of trial and error. But if the core is solid, the scaffolding will rise.