[English translation] A "trustless" system for cryptocurrency transactions?
Below is the Japanese translation. Please read it.
A "Trustless" Consensus via Distributed Ledger?
Tawanda Kembo, an early Bitcoin investor and founder of the Golix cryptocurrency exchange, explains in plain terms how Bitcoin is trustless by answering a question from Quora. His 2014 statement remains valid today, because it precisely explains how, by using Bitcoin, you can transact without needing to trust intermediaries.“Before Bitcoin existed, we had to trust third parties to maintain ledgers of who held how much money. Such trusted third parties include MasterCard, Visa, and your bank.
Suppose Alice wants to send 100 pounds to Bob. This trusted third party would withdraw money from Alice’s account and credit it to Bob’s account. They update the ledger, and we can only trust that this trusted third party will handle it correctly.
But by using Bitcoin, everyone can hold a copy of this ledger, and there is no need to rely on a single institution, organization, or third party.”
Suppose Alice wants to send 100 pounds to Bob. This trusted third party would withdraw money from Alice’s account and credit it to Bob’s account. They update the ledger, and we can only trust that this trusted third party will handle it correctly.
But by using Bitcoin, everyone can hold a copy of this ledger, and there is no need to rely on a single institution, organization, or third party.”
Kembo says thousands of Bitcoin nodes make this possible. He further explains that since each node stores the ledger of all transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, transactions can be authenticated and the ledger continuously updated without the need for a centralized trusted authority.
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