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The Next Year in Bitcoin: What 2013 Has in Store

– This is a technology that has been available for nearly a year and in the works since 2011 , but which has still seen no significant real-world application. While bitcoins sent to a normal Bitcoin address can only be spent by transactions signed by the one specific private key associated with that address, a multisignature address is associated with N private keys, of which M must be used to sign a transaction spending from that address. N and M can be set to whatever values are necessary. A simple use case is a 2-of-3 wallet for an escrow transaction. For example, suppose Alice wants to buy an expensive product from Bob, but the two do not trust each other. Alice can send the money to a 2-of-3 address with keys controlled by Alice, Bob and a third-party mediator, who is also potentially untrustworthy. Bob sees that the money is in the address and sends off the product. ...

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