"A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network."
"Millions of websites, online stores and social networks are operating with a major security hole in place, exposing user information and financial information to hackers. That is because a core safety mechanism used to secure the internet has a flaw in it. Worse still, it has been in place for over two years and experts are unsure if it has been exploited for criminal or espionage purposes."