Bloomberg TV Talks to Mark Williams and Andreas Antonopolous

Bloomberg TV Discusses Bitcoin 

Former Federal Reserve Bank Examiner Mark Williams, BlockChain chief security officer Andreas Antonopoulos and Bloomberg’s Matt Miller took part in a live discussion on Bloomberg TV.

The “Street Smart” program focused on the vulnerability and security of bitcoin due to the recent denial of service hacking attacks on Mt.Gox and Bitstamp.

Williams claimed that digital currencies were untraceable and that if a coin were to be lost, the currency is lost and gone from existence. Miller corrected Williams by telling him bitcoin was a traceable currency. Miller said:

“Absolutely wrong. They’re traceable currencies, even more traceable than US dollars. You can see exactly where they’ve come from and where they’re going.”

The BlockChain allows anyone to track every bitcoin transaction.

Williams went on to share his concerns saying that on any given day, 20% price swings, up or down, on Bitcoin exchanges seems to be a norm and such volatility can be harmful to investors.

Antonopoulos reassured that the bitcoin network and the BlockChain were not effected by the attacks. He says the attacks have only added to the fear-mongering surrounding the digital currency community.

The topic of the limited amount of bitcoins that could be circulated was then brought up by Trish Regan. Her concern was that a mastermind hacker could develop more bitcoins and hack those as well.

Antonopoulos then explained that the bitcoin protocol couldn’t operate this way. He says that the protocol works off trust based on computation rather than access control. Bitcoin coding would not accept such an attempt.

“You can’t forge or print bitcoin on your own.”

As of now, over 12 million Bitcoins are in circulation. A total of 21 million Bitcoins will ever be produced up to the year 2140. No bitcoins can be mined beyond that point.

Williams was then asked about how he believes bitcoin could become more secure and brought to the mainstream. He said hyper volatility would have to stabilize. The fluctuation in value allows bitcoin to reach high and low prices almost instantaneously.

Antonopoulos responded by saying, “When Nasdaq has a flash-crash we don’t think it’s the end of the dollar.”

Bitcoin price has fallen from trading at over $900, just a week ago, down to $600. On BTC-e.com, the price even dropped all the way down to $102, for a few minutes, due to either a panic sell or a mistake in sell order by a wealthy trader. 

Matt Miller ends the discussion saying jokingly that he will buy bitcoins at $102 each if anyone should be interested in selling them that low.

As time goes on, Miller and Antonopoulos remain optimistic about bitcoin overcoming skepticism on digital currency. Many experts believe that these attacks have only temporarily stunted what is to be a boom in bitcoin’s future.

Click here to watch the discussion on Bloomberg TV.