According to Mike Hearn, a major Bitcoin developer, the Bitcoin currency is a failed project.
In fact, Hearn has even taken the steps to sell all of his Bitcoin, and he's ready to step away from the currency for good.
"What was meant to be a new, decentralized form of money that lacked 'systemically important institutions' and 'too big to fail' has become something even worse: a system completely controlled by just a handful of people," said Hearn in an article for Medium. "Worse still, the network is on the brink of technical collapse. The mechanisms that should have prevented this outcome have broken down, and as a result there's no longer much reason to think Bitcoin can actually be better than the existing financial system."
Currently, Bitcoin is the longest-running blockchain and digital currency, as noted in a report by CoinDesk. Despite this, Hearn emphasizes that the project should be considered dead, and that people should abandon their Bitcoin.
According to Hearn, not only is the currency a failure, but it's set to suffer a major collapse. This is not all that hard to believe considering Hearn's post, combined with the fact that Cryptsy, a major Bitcoin exchange and storage service, recently announced that it was freezing all transactions after reportedly losing millions in a cyber attack. In fact, these two things largely contributed to an almost 10 percent decrease in Bitcoin value on Friday.
Hearn suggests that the 1 MB limit per block, which has been imposed in order to ensure that transactions can be easily processed and that the system can run smoothly, is a key flaw in the system and one that should have been removed long ago. In fact, according to Hearn, the reason that it hasn't been removed is because there are a number of key miners — people who use a special software in order to earn Bitcoin stand to lose a lot if the flaw is indeed removed.
Of course, it's important to note that Bitcoin isn't really dead. Bitcoin markets are still alive and functional, and Blockchain, which is the platform on which the currency relies, is still fully operational. Not only that, but Bitcoin has been declared dead plenty of times before, yet it has stuck around each and every time.
While Bitcoin isn't dead, however, it's certainly arguable that the ideals for which it originally stood are dead.
Via: Engadget
