and alternate currencies as a whole.
There was a whole bunch of ruckus about Mt Gox and the double spending attacks.
Double spending is a huge issue. It is a problem that has plagued the internet since the old Compuserve days and the original bounty was place to come up with a decentralized digital banking system.
We all know that Satoshi solved this issues by making every user the security, the man is brilliant.
But,
The USD is the LARGEST double spending attack victim by policy and law.
When you put a $ into the bank, at best they keep 10% on property. The rest they gamble on Bitcoin or other commodities or loan the money out to crackheads too by a house with no way to pay the money back, though the loan was guaranteed from Fanny Mae (the old system that tanked the housing market). Then THOSE recipients put their money into a bank account that is only retaining 10% at best, etc...
Welcome to "Fractional Reserve Spending".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_bankingWhoa, wait a second, this is double spending.
This is triple spending!
This is exponential spending!!!
Mt Gox used a custom wallet which borked the technology, but the technology hereditarily blocks double spending by default.
Just another reason/way/method math and code does it better than humans.
You can't beat Bitcoin.