Bitfinex, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world, has worked with BitGo, a bitcoin security and technology company, to create an infrastructure that allows near real-time verification of balances that at the same time improves security.
The system is similar to the infrastructure used to verify proof of ownership on gold exchanges. The Bitfinex will be able to verify bitcoin customers’ balances in near real-time verification, whilst the funds and private transactions will be protected by a multi-signature and institutional two-step authentication.
“The industry has been clamoring for exchanges to adopt the multi-sig model, and we’re proud that Bitfinex selected BitGo’s platform to do it. This new level of transparency and security makes breaches such as those of Mt. Gox impossible,” said Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo.
The introduction of the new system marks a radical departure from its previous security measures, which were the physical equivalent of having one key to unlock all the contents of the bank. Now, users will have their own unique key as well as having all the funds individually segregated on the public blockchain.
The segregation is expected to remove as much shared pool security risk as possible.
“The trading community has long sought individually verifiable accounts without sacrificing security or performance. With the help of BitGo’s multi-signature technology, the Bitfinex team is very excited to be the first exchange in the world to automate Bitcoin settlements using ‘On-Blockchain’ customer segregated wallets,” said Zane Tackett, director of Community & Product Development at Bitfinex
Whitepapers
Related reading
Travel industry must keep up with consumers’ payments demands
Payments providers must keep up with the fast-paced change of consumer demands in the travel sector, according to Kevin White, Mastercard’s director ... read more
Nissan joins in-car payments race
Payments services providers and fintechs have unleashed a flurry of collaborative innovations over the course of the past decade in order to ... read more
Ripple courting banks, paytech and big fintech to beat Swift to emerging markets
Midway into 2019, Ripple is broadening its clientbase in order to boost growth and capture emerging market volumes, according to Marcus Treacher, ... read more
UK SMEs need to embrace technology revolution
Modulr CEO Myles Stevenson and Seamus Smith, executive vice president of worldwide payments and banking for Sage, on why now is the time to embrace digitisation
