Following a meteoric rise in value over the winter of 2017, Bitcoin’s price began to drop early this year, leading many economists and investors to speculate that the cryptocurrency bubble is about to burst spectacularly.
Yet a recently published analysis by German researchers highlights how one of the digital currency’s greatest strengths could lead to its downfall, regardless of monetary value.
According to their report, governments across the world could be forced to outlaw Bitcoin due to users’ ability to store illegal and disturbing content within its open-access transaction ledger, called the blockchain.
The problem? To buy, sell, or trade bitcoin, every user must download a copy of the blockchain in its entirety, meaning that they are technically in possession of all the undeletable content contained within.