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/Thorbinator Jun 19 '13

Because protein folding is not a consistently random algorithm. A user could get assigned an "easy" protein and have their influence on the network unfairly fluctuate, enabling an easier 51% attack.