Bitrated, a startup bitcoin company based in Israel, is working to bring trust back to bitcoin after the cryptocurrency has been mired by negativity in recent years. As a cryptocurrency, the lack of regulation for bitcoin has been seen as both an advantage and disadvantage.
For one, the anonymity of transactions has been seen as a more secure approach for payments by some while others see it as a change to participate in illegal dealings. The use of the blockchain as a ledger for transactions, which is the unique selling point of bitcoin, has also been frequently questioned.
Bitcoin Company Proposals
Some say that exposing the parties involved in transactions and increasing regulation on the bitcoin industry could solve the security threats while others think that this could be damaging to the very nature of the cryptocurrency. Bitrated aims to create a trust platform that could upgrade the security of bitcoins while keeping transactions anonymous.
Currently, Bitrated runs a reputation management system, a multi-signature verification for payments, and an arbitrated marketplace that allows for payment reversals. These components are modelled based on a web of trust, which involves a social graph of relationships among its users.
The bitcoin company also makes use of trust scores called Bitrating in order to have metrics for how trustworthy users are. This employs an algorithm that uses information from the client’s social media profile, such as Reddit, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Founder Nadav Ivgi says that his bitcoin company is hoping to leverage existing social media accounts into adding security features and reputability to transactions. “Some of that information is about identifying throw-away sockpuppet accounts, some is about verifying the user identity – by leveraging the fact that services like PayPal and Coinbase already verify the user’s identity and expose it via their API – and some is more likely related to trustworthiness,” he explained.
