Report warns cryptocurrencies could bring the 'internet to a halt'

The report, entitled Cryptocurrencies: looking beyond the hype, found cryptocurrencies suffered from a "range of shortcomings" including the extreme degree of decentralisation, which wasted huge amounts of power. The paper argued to use digital currencies as an everyday means of payment would result in huge storage capacity issues, which could bring "the internet to a halt" as millions of users exchanged files. The report said: "To process the number of digital retail transactions currently handled by selected national retail payment systems, even under optimistic assumptions, the siz...