Bitcoin security features that make it stand stronger than Fort Knox among digital investments

Security is among the biggest deals when it comes to investments. Well, according to the Global Risk Report 2024 by the World Economic Forum, cybersecurity will remain a big deal in 2025, with continued attacks being witnessed in 2025 against tech-enabled resources. Cybersecurity experts predict threats like ransomware attacks and AI-based threats might exponentially increase this year, but on the same note, security personnel are on the lookout.

The supremacy of Bitcoin

In the midst of all these, one digital investment reigns supreme: Bitcoin. Being the original crypto, it has withstood the test of security over time. In fact, it remains among the most secure cryptocurrencies of all time, following the Proof of Work consensus mechanism to validate transactions. You’ll just realize that, unlike many blockchain platforms, Bitcoin has never been shut off at any second since it started running in 2009.

This security detail is among the many factors that have made the token have the highest value ever for a crypto token. Actually, just back in December, the token’s price surpassed the $100K mark, a feat that was once thought impossible. You can easily check the Bitcoin price today and see how well the token is performing. However, in this article, we’ll be dealing more with the security features that make this blockchain and token stand tall.

Transaction hashing

Now, when you are transferring Bitcoin (the digital currency) over the Bitcoin blockchain, that transaction is normally converted into a random string of letters and numbers. This encryption is known as hashing, with the string being referred to as a hash.

But first, let’s give you a brief history of Bitcoin hashing. Now, you see, back in 1995, the US NSA developed a Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) known as SHA-1. However, this hashing algorithm was found to have a number of vulnerabilities to known attack vectors, prompting the development of SHA-2. Now, Bitcoin uses SHA-256, a member of the SHA-2 family hash functions. This is among one of the most widely used cryptographic hash functions globally because of its security features.

Hashing is basically the conversion of a message into a secret code. For instance, if you want to encrypt the word “bottle,” the hashing function will take the word and spit a random string like “Byj889hjHK0w800672aGG8.” In order to decipher the code, you’d have to actually know what key actually encrypted the message.

Looking at Bitcoin, if you would check some "unconfirmed" transactions, you’d realize that the details of each (both sender and receiver) are hashed.

Bitcoin mining and PoW

After you have sent bitcoin from one wallet to another, the blockchain has to update to show that now the tokens have changed locations. This happens through the process of mining which is a whole series of complex steps.

To start with, your transaction is locked up into a block containing other unconfirmed transactions, like 2000 of them, all hashed. Now, that block is locked by a madly complex puzzle that can only be solved by powerful computers. Next, miners are given the chance to compete to solve the puzzle, a process we now call ‘proof of work’ (PoW).

After a crazy process, one miner solves the puzzle, and after proving to the network that, indeed, they have solved the puzzle, they are rewarded with a number of bitcoins, including the transaction cost of your transactions. By doing this, the miner confirms the transaction block. You can be sure that this puzzle is so complex considering that powerful computers have to run billions of computations on a 64-character string of letters and numbers.

Additional transaction block confirmations

You thought mining made transactions secure; now, wait for this one. You see, it takes approximately 10 minutes for miners to complete one PoW puzzle and confirm one block of transactions. Now, if an attacker wanted to reverse your single transactions, they’d have to have more than half the computing power of the whole network just to push back against the other miners. Apparently, this is possible in theory, but it’s not yet been done.

But why is this the case? To start with, it would cost you too much money to get that much computing power. So, the work is not worth the pay, considering this just works for a single transaction. In addition to that, the attacker has only ten minutes to complete the job. After that, they have to deal with two blocks, making it twice as hard. This means that your bitcoins become more secure after every ten minutes of mining where a block is to be solved.

Now, here is the most interesting part. After six blocks have been confirmed, let's just say one hour after your transaction, there is absolutely no way (mathematically speaking) that someone can infiltrate your transaction through a network attack. If that’s not security, then what is?