HUMAN BACKUPS ON THE BLOCKCHAIN

LONDON (InsideBitcoins) – How long is a piece of string? That often depends on what it’s made of. A strand of DNA is a super coiled alpha Helix of around 6 microns in length. If you somehow managed to uncoil it, it would stretch out around six feet, per cell that is; if you uncoiled all the DNA strands in your body and laid them ‘toe to toe’ they’d be twice the diameter of the solar system.
The discovery of DNA remains a landmark in the history of science and now DNA is about to cross paths with another landmark of human ingenuity, the blockchain.
The premise is simple. The blockchain is indestructible and virtually immortal. Data stored on the blockchain is decentralised and universally verified; the ledger cannot be destroyed, damaged or altered in any significant way and information stored on it will in theory remain there forever. Genecoin, a startup in the Pacific Northwest of the U. S. by founders who wish to remain anonymous, intend to use bitcoin’s core technology to allow people to store a backup of their personal DNA. Your genetic data can be spread over the globe and securely stored for future generations to… to do what with exactly?

This post was published at Inside Bitcoins on Nov 11, 2014.

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