Blockchain technology is arguably one of the greatest technological advancements of its era, but as technology improves at an exponential rate, can blockchain security keep up? Blockchain security has become a controversial topic in the crypto space due to the large amount of malicious attacks that have recently taken place. Solutions need to be created that can further advance encryption capabilities. How are blockchains secured? Blockchains are secured via a multitude of different consensus mechanisms, but virtually all, Bitcoin included, share the same underlying security protocol called cryptography. Bitcoin, for example, uses an algorithm known as SHA-256. The SHA stands for secure hashing algorithm and is an example of a common hashing algorithm used in cryptocurrency and for other encryption purposes in operating systems such as Unix and Linux. The algorithm functions such that any input into the algorithm creates an output of 256 digits that are relevant to the data inputted. Therefore if it is provided the same input, the same 256 digits are achieved every time. If any of the data were to be changed, the outcome would be completely different. Another important element is that there is no known, reliably successful method of performing the computation the other way around, meaning that by simply having the 256 bits long output, it is practically impossible to come up with the input. Interestingly, SHA-256 hashing is ac...
