Data Security Is Becoming the Sparkle in Bitcoin

Some couples opt for a traditional wedding, while others go for the Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. But David Mondrus and Joyce Bayo may be the first to have incorporated Bitcoin.

Before about 50 guests at a Walt Disney World hotel in Florida recently, the couple used a Bitcoin automated teller machine to record their written vows on the currency’s so-called block chain — an open ledger that permanently stores information.

“A diamond is forever, a marriage is forever, but when was the last time anyone looked at their wedding vows?” Mr. Mondrus said. “This technology allows us to get that data and store it in a way that is retrievable and noncorruptible.”

As Bitcoin’s price has declined over the last year, critics have been quick to declare the virtual currency dead. Bitcoin’s true value, though, might be not in the currency itself but in the engine that makes it possible.

But there are also those wary of moving too fast. Though enthusiastic about the block chain’s potential, a group of Bitcoin supporters, many of them early adopters, wants start-ups to focus first on strengthening existing Bitcoin applications, like digital wallets and trading platforms, before developing other uses for the underlying technology. Exchanges, where traders can meet to buy and sell Bitcoins for dollars, euros and other currencies, have been especially vulnerable. Anxiety from the collapse last year of Mt. Gox, a prominent exchange based in Japan, is still high. And a security breach in January at Bitstamp, another exchange, sent further ripples of doubt through the Bitcoin industry.

“People are rightfully talking about the block chain,” said Jeremy Liew, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that has invested in a number of Bitcoin start-ups, including Blockchain, a digital-wallet provider and software developer, and BTCChina, a Chinese exchange. “The question is how do you realize the first opportunity here?”

“You can’t jump to the top of the stairs,” he added. “Everything is a process.”

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The New York Times