That’s the Darkest Day of Bitcoin.
In the history of human technology and economic development, new things that ultimately have a great impact will be ‘chaotic’ at first. For example, the Internet and the on-cusp blockchain.
In the early days of bitcoin development, critics often viewed it as a tool for laundering money or buying illegal goods. Critics argue that because technology is decentralized with highly point to point operation, criminals will use it. You’ve probably heard of Silk Road, an underground market for illicit drugs. In October 2013, there were 13756 commodities at the top of the Silk Road, priced at bitcoin. These products are usually shipped by mail and are accompanied by guidelines to avoid being detected by the authorities. When the FBI seized the site, the price of bitcoins began to plummet, and crypto currency became a byword for crime. That’s the darkest day of bitcoin.

Because of Silk Road, dark networks first entered the public view. The more technical name of ‘dark net’is the ‘hidden server’, and the number of domain names is 400 to 500 times that of the surface network,and visitors will not leave any trace on it. Some of these networks are legitimate, and many have hidden secrets. To get into the world, you need a special passport, which means your browser needs to learn another ‘language’. Once you step into the realm, your appearance, status, geographic location, contact information, moral bottom line, will all be simplified into one word — anonymous.
The existence of cryptocurrency may also be the key to the growth of the dark net, in which desire is unfettered. This has also become an ‘original sin’ in the development of cryptocurrency, because it seems to represent a highly free and uncontrolled way of trading.
Of course, there are two sides to everything, and it is precisely because of the unique attributes of digital money that makes it a key that may open the future.
Anonymity
One of the characteristics of digital money is electronic cash. First of all, it is cash, with all the attributes of cash, and the most important attribute is anonymity. Second, it is electronic cash, which does not have the physical structure of banknotes and coins, so it is convenient for people to trade and circulate. The cash we know and the digital currency imagined by Satoshi Nakamoto are consistent in anonymity. Digital currency such as Bitcoin has the function of hiding addresses, because of the feature, traders can make sure that no traces are left in the transaction. These digital currencies have a stable address for receiving funds. Even if the payout address can be traced, it’s just a string of characters and can’t be traced back to the original owner. This ensures the privacy of all parties involved in the transaction, and there will be no delay in the transaction process. Encrypted currency is the best choice because of its anonymity when traders demand safer and more reliable means if receiving funds.
Safety
The security mechanism of digital currency relies on a cryptographic algorithm — — hash algorithm. The hash algorithm ensures that data cannot be tampered with and high consistency, privacy protection algorithm ensures the privacy of the transaction process. The accounting mechanism of digital currency relies on a set of consensus algorithm, which is used by all peers in distributed network to reach consensus. It ensures that without the help of centralized organization, the accounting can be guaranteed to be true and accurate independently and there will be no duplication of costs. The operation of digital money relies on smart contracts. As a computer program that can automatically execute the contract, smart contracts guarantee the efficient and low-cost operation of financial transactions, which are also algorithms at work. Therefore, the core of digital money is a set of high credibility, consistency and transparency, strict rules and discipline, both fair, open and fair mathematical algorithm.

Ductility
The running foundation of digital money is distributed network. Although this is not a characteristic of digital money, distributed network technology determines the characteristics and utility of digital money to some extent. Distributed network is the product of mobile Internet era. With the development of big data and Internet of Things, distributed networks will also enter the lives of ordinary people. In the future, everyone’s life, study and work will be inseparable from the distributed network. The core of distributed network is, open source, encryption; consensus, sharing; point-to-point, decentralization and self-organization.
In fact, we are already enjoying the benefits of the distributed network. For example, the Didi Chuxing Technology Co business model already has the rudiments of distributed networks. It is an excellent case to analyze the advantages of distributed network technology. including elements of shared economy, open source organization, point-to-point service, etc. Distributed network will realize distributed data storage, distributed public computing, distributed autonomous decision-making, distributed value sharing, etc. The core technology of distributed network is Open Source Stack, Encryption algorithm, Consensus mechanism, Timestamp, Distributed storage, Peer-to-Peer network, etc. It is the technical basis of blockchains or distributed ledgers, and also determines the operational effectiveness of digital money.
As long as digital money is used in legal places, it can maximize the convenience it brings. After all, technology has no position, demand and inclination. All kinds of chaos caused by digital money, in the final analysis, lies in the lack of governance mechanism, not the digital money itself.
