Security & Trust

The start to 2019 has been an interesting time in the world of cryptocurrency. There has been issues with exchanges being hacked and shut down which resulted in the loss of millions of dollars worth of crypto. There are still “scams” being promoted on social media sites promising to double returns on crypto.

What can we learn from this? Well, clearly some of these issues are security related. Whether it is flawed code or poor business decision making, users have not always been protected. Security should be in the forefront when developing and managing Ethereum DApps. Business leaders and developers can only build solid infrastructure and trust with users if there are appropriate security measures in place. That may mean testing and re-testing products over and over until there are no flaws. Or, it may mean delaying the release of new applications.

Theoretically, transactions that occur on the blockchain should be secure as they are immutable. Ledgers that cannot be edited must provide users with trust. How do we measure, evaluate and rely on this when we have cases where millions of dollars are being compromised, stolen, or lost? Even in the ideal case, we expect people to adopt this “trustless” technology, but there still needs to be trust in the development of the products being used. Users have to trust that there are no bugs, flaws, or compromises in the software.