What to Make of MIT’s “Let’s Destroy Bitcoin” Plan

“Let’s destroy Bitcoin.”

MIT Technology Review’s suggestion for the destruction of the world’s dominant Cryptocurrency whose net worth  has appreciated over hundreds of folds  since its January 2009 launch came as a surprise for many.

Author Morgan Peck highlights three different ways that could be possibly used to bring down Bitcoin.

For the first scenario, she suggests central banks should adopt distributed ledger technology (DLT) in order to launch their own Cryptocurrency thereby reducing the market value for Bitcoin and other major Cryptocurrencies.

However, even though central banks are seeking ways to digitize their national currencies, it could be possible that this could increase the popularity of Bitcoin, something that will not favor national banks.

In the second scenario that Peck suggested, the digital economy change into a mass-barter system wherein almost every firm launches its own Cryptocurrency and a blockchain-based system that trades them automatically  when customers need to make transactions even where such tokens may come from some totally different entity.

However, a loophole in this scenario is that these individual company tokens will need an underlying blockchain to protect them and enable bartering, and such blockchain would possibly need its own digital currency.

Lastly, MIT’s guide suggests that the coming together of Facebook or other social media will make them a stronger that will be able to put forth their own digital currency  to rival Bitcoin and push users to use their alternate version of the software.

But the flip side is the  incentive Facebook will have to make this possible. It will be very expensive for Facebook compared to creating its own token and sharing it through a multi-billion dollar initial coin offering.

Mass usage could result to increase in Bitcoin values. This will also attract new miners to enter the market, preventing Facebook from getting sufficient portion of the Bitcoin mining incentives to counter an effective attack of the network.

With all of the various scenarios scrutinized, it is possible for mischievous players to try to bring down Bitcoin, but all past moves made have not been successful. All things considered, users can put their mind to rest.