As part of their journalistic training, sixth grade press members have written a series of opinion articles, news articles, and primers on the real world for members of TASMUN to read. Our first article in this program is Ian Hsu’s explanation of Bitcoin.

By Ian Hsu
Online data such as Bitcoin, a type of currency, needs to be protected. Why should it be protected? Because Bitcoins are worth a lot. On January 26, 2018, for example, Japan lost 534.8 million dollars just by getting their Bitcoin stolen.
This is a lot of money even for an entire country! Imagine Taiwan losing that much money! That is the result of data not being secure enough. Some people might have data that is much more important than money: if you don’t protect that information, they might be used by other people.
However, blockchains help prevent this issue. A blockchain is basically a locker with a million locks that you have to open at the same time to delete or take the information or data. Lots of people lend the blockchain company their computer to help out. making it highly secured.
“Why do people want to help with blockchain?” you might ask. That was why Bitcoin was invented. Bitcoin was first invented by an unknown person or group of people under the name Satoshi Nakamoto as a reward for people through the process of mining. It was given to the first owner of the computer that finished this process. Since there were not many Bitcoin, they were highly valued. People used to just use regular computers to go through this process, but now as technology improves, people use or even by a lot of very high-tech computers just for mining. One example is North Korea, they are making earns between $15 million and $200 million by creating and selling cryptocurrencies, or online currencies.
Imagine your private information was being posted in social media and is available for everyone to see! How terrifying would that be! Blockchain solves the problem. Therefore, using blockchain to protect very important information is a very good strategy.