Could anything ever lead to the destruction of cryptocurrencies?

This paper revisits some major orthodoxies which lie at the heart of the bitcoin cryptocurrency and its numerous clones. In particular, it looks at The Longest Chain Rule, the monetary supply policies and the exact mechanisms which implement them. The authors claim that these built-in properties are not as brilliant as they are sometimes claimed.

A closer examination reveals that there are engineering mistakes which other cryptocurrencies have copied rather blindly. This could eventually lead to the destruction of cryptocurrencies. More precisely, the authors show that the capacity of current cryptocurrencies to resist double spending attacks is poor and most current cryptocurrencies are highly vulnerable.

Satoshi did not implement a timestamp for bitcoin transactions and the bitcoin software does not attempt to monitor double spending events. As a result major attacks involving hundreds of millions of dollars can occur and would not even be recorded. Hundreds of millions have been invested to pay for ASIC hashing infrastructure yet insufficient attention was paid to network neutrality and to insure that the protection layer it promises is effective and cannot be abused.

In this paper, the authors develop a theory of programmed self destruction of cryptocurrencies. They observe that most cryptocurrencies have mandated abrupt and sudden transitions. These affect their hash rate and therefore their protection against double spending attacks which we do not limit the to the notion of 51% attacks which is highly misleading. Download the paper to find out more.