What is Bitcoin Like Today?

In many ways, Bitcoin is much like those early ways of keeping track of money and goods with ledgers. Susan Athey, Economics of Technology Professor, Stanford GSB, compares Bitcoin to a spreadsheet — a more modern form of a ledger. No one computer is holding the ledger, but copies are located all over the world. Bitcoin is an interesting subject: what makes Bitcoin secure is the way no one computer can be hacked to change what’s inside the spreadsheet.

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Bitcoin enables its users to change the entry on the spreadsheet to reflect a gain or loss in funding. To do so, you need a “key,” or password, that allows access. You must have the password to authorize the movement of your Bitcoin to someone else. Unlike other forms of payment, however, the Bitcoin’s value fluctuates.

How to Send Funds with Bitcoin

On Bitcoin’s exchange, you can view how many Bitcoins you may receive for a dollar. In a matter of minutes, you can use a service to complete your transaction. When you send your Bitcoins, the end user can then exchange those received Bitcoins quickly to receive the same amount in return, in whatever their home currency is.

It is no more difficult than sending an email — it’s also just as fast as sending an email. There’s currently no faster way to move money from one person, especially in small amounts, to another person than with Bitcoin. You can bet that financial institutions are taking note. Bitcoin may be what spurs these slow-to- change behemoths to find ways to move money faster.

What Will the Future of Bitcoin Be Like?

No one is exactly sure what the future of Bitcoin will look like, but there’s talk of research about creating government-sponsored digital currency. There’s also talk of the US government trying to identify users taking part in Bitcoin exchange. Bitcoin may have recently dropped, but it more than doubled over the course of 2016. As to where Bitcoin will continue to head in 2017, only time will tell.

Developed as a substitute for government-backed currencies or the precious metals like gold and silver that have traditionally been used as money, cyber-currencies promise the anonymity of cash combined with the convenience of online buying and trading. Because altcoins aren’t typically linked to a credit card, bank account, or any other identifying marker (unlike, say, Paypal), altcoins promise to keep purchases private. And because they aren’t linked to a specific country, they should help spur global commerce because there won’t be any of the ordinary friction caused by currency exchanges. But despite the opportunities that these new currencies offer, critics note that it can be a bit hard to find merchants that accept them.

Read More: How to Ensure That You Remain Anonymous Online

For now most of the action surrounding altcoins is confined to producing and investing in them. While alternative currencies are generally defined as anything that provides an alternative to the dominant national or multinational currency systems, including both barter and private currencies (like, say, trading stamps), cyber-currencies are generally understood to be completely digital and decentralized in in their creation, trading, and control.

Since the barrier to entry in the altcoin world is low, the key is to convince users that your currency has integrity in both its creation (so units maintain their value) and its ledger system (so units can’t easily be stolen). Bitcoin has convinced many investors that it has mastered these two critical elements, and so in the years since it was first developed, Bitcoin has increased in value, relative to other indexes. But there continues to be a sense of overall distrust of Bitcoin and other altcoins among many in the financial world, as well as by many economists and those in positions of power in governments across the globe.

Whether you are choosing Bitcoin and similar alternative currencies to protect your privacy or as an investment in the future, PSafe Total was developed to help you. Its anti-virus feature will quickly and constantly scan your phone to find and fix all security breaches. So go ahead and explore the world of altcoins: with PSafe, all your data and other information is safe and secure!

Although the specific malware used in this attack is relatively new, Bitcoin theft is not. Since the cryptocurrency was created, malicious hackers have invented malware programs designed to rob Bitcoins from unsuspecting (and often unprotected) individuals. In 2014 alone, the U.S. tech security firm Dell Secureworks discovered approximately 80 different types of malware made specifically to procure Bitcoins.

How Bitcoin Stealing Malware Works

These programs work in several ways, and a fair amount of them can be operated by people with little to no experience in coding or programming. All they have to do is buy cheap, effective tools that can target vulnerable devices. In the hacker underground, someone can purchase PredatorPain, a highly infectious piece of malware that functions as a file, and credential-stealing Trojan program, for about $144 BRL (or $44 USD). Another program, SovietMiner, is designed to steal wallet files, and force infected devices to mine Bitcoins.

More specifically, it adds transaction records to Bitcoin’s public ledger of past transactions for the hacker’s profit. The latter costs about $48.89 BRL ($15 USD) per month. With general wallet-stealing malware, the virus searches for wallet files stored on the victim’s computer, and subsequently uploads applicable files to a remote server, where the hacker can extract the keys from said files, and obtain coins by signing a transaction to transfer the money to their account.

Safety First

Malware programs can infiltrate computers in several ways, but the most common method is to bug USB drives. The malware hides folders and files on the USB, replaces them with shortcuts, and effectively controls the infection of other devices that connect to the USB port.

While all this information may seem daunting, you should know that it’s within your means to protect yourself from these data breaches, and online attacks. By installing PSafe Total on your Android phone, you give yourself everything you need to defend your device from this sort of infectious malware. Don’t hesitate, and do what you can to protect yourself today.