The state legislature of Michigan has introduced two bills that stipulate that modification or manipulation of any data on a blockchain would amount to a criminal act. These bills are HB 6257 & HB 6258, respectively.
Provisions of bills HB 6257 & HB 6258
According to HB 6257, any person who alters, falsely makes, counterfeits, or forges any public record with the intention to defraud or injure another person can be prosecuted for a criminal act that is punishable by imprisonment for a period up to 14 years.
HB 6258 on the other hand, seeks to alter the existing Michigan penal code and includes the definitions of DLT or distributed ledger technology and cryptocurrency.
It has defined cryptocurrency as a currency of a digital nature, which involves the use of encryption techniques for the regulation of currency units generation and verification of funds transfers operating independently of any central bank. The Committee on Law & Justice of the state of Michigan is currently reviewing these bills and will decide on the matter soon.
It is already established that blockchain provides fully digitized and unchangeable or unalterable data record. By rule, all parties involved in a blockchain transaction need to maintain a copy of the blockchain. This makes it virtually impossible to unfairly alter a copy of the global ledger to fake any transactions.
Should a blockchain record be altered, all signatures become invalid and the participants in the common network are notified about the alteration immediately. The advantage of a blockchain network is that neither does it have a single vulnerable point for attacks nor can it be altered through a single computer.
Thus, a great amount of computing power would be required for accessing “every instance” to change data simultaneously. If both bills get passed, they will come into effect ninety days after enactment into law.
