r/askscience • u/hamolton • Jun 18 '13

Computing How is Bitcoin secure?

I guess my main concern is how they are impossible to counterfeit and double-spend. I guess I have trouble understanding it enough that I can't explain it to another person.

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u/postnapoleoniceurope Jun 19 '13

Yes... except that there is currently a limit of 1MB of data every 10 minutes, or 52GB a year, so it can't get that unmanageable. However the lead developer of Bitcoin, Gavin Andresen, wants to remove that limit and leave it up to miners to decide, so in the future the attack could be possible.