The Byzantine General's Problem, Bitcoin, Colored Coins, and Adam Back. Connections and Contributions

Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Economics - Monetary theory and policy, grade: 5,7/6.0, University of Liechtenstein, früher Hochschule Liechtenstein, course: Is Bitcion the Future of Money?, language: English, abstract: This seminar paper discusses the Byzantine General's Problem and its relation to Bitcoin. In this problem, an army is surrounding an enemy city with various separated camps, which have to communicate with each other in order to agree on an attack strategy. There are unknown traitors among this army who can corrupt the message exchange and thwart consensus. The generals of the separated camps have to agree on a strategy. However, there are loyal troops/generals and disloyal traitors who can corrupt the message. The problem they are facing is how they can find out which message is true. If they do not have a solution they also do not come to a consensus and the traitor wins the battle.