Bitcoin has been around for almost a decade and is a popular form of digital currency. It is a decentralized system that is not backed by any traditional institutions or FDIC insurance, so it is natural for users to be concerned about its security. Bitcoin transactions are recorded in a digital ledger called blockchain, and the constant review of the system by users has made it difficult to hack bitcoins. However, hackers can still steal bitcoins by accessing the digital wallets of bitcoin owners.
The Bitcoin network has proven its robustness against failures and attacks, and the blockchain itself is economically and technically impervious to corruption. While the Bitcoin blockchain cannot be hacked by itself, people are often hacked through software wallets. Wallets are essentially bank vaults on the blockchain, and anyone can see the wallet or vault number, but the content is only available with an opening phrase or password. This password is known as a private key, and if a malicious miner were to successfully execute an attack, it would drop the price of Bitcoin, devaluing the Bitcoin they just stole.
As the price of Bitcoin continues to rise, the hash rate and security of Bitcoin will also continue to increase. A 51% attack is an attempt by a Bitcoin miner or group of miners to replace or alter past Bitcoin blocks. Bitcoin nodes apply these functions and, if any of these rules are violated, Bitcoin's reputation and reliability would be jeopardized. Each transaction is assigned a cryptographic key during this confirmation process, and decrypting the key would allow you to take possession of those bitcoins.
However, Bitcoin has maintained its position for almost ten years and is very likely to retain its reputation and store of value. The only way for Bitcoin to shut down completely would be to get rid of the Internet altogether, which at the moment seems impossible. These economic incentives, along with Bitcoin's main design, have prevented a 51% attack from succeeding against Bitcoin. A popular theoretical vulnerability to Bitcoin cryptography involves the implementation of a practical quantum computer. If a single entity had exclusive access to a quantum computer and decided to mine bitcoins, it would likely dominate the mining industry and would have the ability to execute a 51% attack on Bitcoin.
These nodes are scattered all over the planet and contain all the Bitcoin transactions that have been made so far.
