Ethereum Is Popular, but It’s Probably Not Perfect

[Pegasus]

Ethereum has always been well known for its smart contracts and technical capabilities, and that reputation is spreading to some of the biggest retailers and financial companies out there.

A Network That’s Known for a Lot

Among the new companies that are building or have built business platforms across the Ethereum Network include JPMorgan, Amazon and Microsoft Azure. JPMorgan, for example, used the Ethereum Network to build its digital USD, which ultimately came to be known as JPM Coin. It was a strange sight in many ways, considering the CEO and Chairman of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon had repeatedly let the public know of his distaste for crypto in the past.

Dimon had often referred to bitcoin as a “fraud” that was “worse than tulip bulbs.”

JPMorgan says that it wants customers to have the opportunity to tokenize fiat “instantly and confidentially.” JPM Coin is also allegedly a stable currency, meaning it’s tied to USD and thereby less prone to the volatility one often witnesses with bitcoin and other mainstream forms of crypto. JPMorgan has also stated that it is looking to expand its blockchain division through the end of the year.

In the case of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company has used the Ethereum platform to develop a new “open-blockchain standard” by adding it as an “option for its Amazon Managed Blockchain.” While ether tokens cannot be used to pay for items or services through Amazon, a new system supporting Ethereum is expected to be released sometime during the summer months.

Amazon’s goals are to give several companies an opportunity to add blockchain technology to their platforms without developing the technology themselves. Amazon also seeks to support millions of transactions at once through the new network.

Microsoft Azure is also built atop the Ethereum platform. Azure allows companies to keep all their technical tools in one place, relatively similar with Office Suite. However, Microsoft has also expressed an interest in developing further Ethereum-based tools and items for customers to use in the cloud, meaning a lot of companies will have the chance to expand their global business operations.

Despite its popularity, Ethereum seems to have one major drawback. Many of the companies or individuals that utilize the Ethereum Network have not bothered to patch up specific security problems, which means that the network is potentially vulnerable to a 51 percent attack.

This Needs to Be Fixed!

Karsten Nohl, a researcher with the cybersecurity firm SRLabs explained in a statement:

According to our collected data, only two-thirds of nodes have been patched so far… One month after this alert, we used data from Ethernodes.org to assess the security of the Ethereum node landscape and found that around 40 percent of all scanned parity Ethereum nodes… remained unpatched, and thus are vulnerable to the mentioned attack.

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