107 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. Bitcoin ist wie die Tulpenspekulation. Wenn das Internet am Ende ist, ist auch bitcoin am Ende. Also Fiatgeld.

      die leute suchen verzweifelt nach billigen tricks, um den krieg zu überleben...

    1. Die New York Times beschäftigt sich in einem ausführlichen Bericht mit US-amerikanischen Bitcoin Minen. Die 34 Betriebe brauchen jeder mehr Strom als 40.000 durchschnittliche Haushalte. Dabei werden so viel Treibhausgase erzeugt wir von ungefähr 3,5 Millionen Fahrzeugen mit Verbrennermitor. Die Bitcoin-Minen entwickeln neue Geschäftsmodelle, die davon ausgehen, dass sie ihren Strombedarf wesentlich flexibler dosieren können als andere Unternehmen. Die öffentliche Hand muss zum Teil sogar Gewinnausfälle durch Stromabschaltungen finanzieren.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/bitcoin-mining-electricity-pollution.html

  2. Dec 2023
    1. Once Satoshi Nakamoto published his white paper on Bitcoin on the P2P Foundation Ning forum
      • for: adjacency - Satoshi Nakamoto white paper - bitcoin - P2P Foundation Ning forum

      • adjacency between

        • Satoshi Nakamoto white paper
        • bitcoin
        • P2P Foundation Ning website
      • adjacency statement
        • I didn't realize that Satoshi Nakamoto first published his paper on the P2P Foundation Ning website.
  3. Nov 2023
    1. automate transactions

      For example, think about paying your monthly bills. Instead of writing checks and mailing them, you can set up automatic payments through your bank's website. The bank's computer system will send the money to the right places at the right times without you needing to do it every month.

  4. May 2023
    1. Der jährliche Energiebedarf für Bitcoin ist zur Zeit etwa doppelt so hoch wie der österreichische Stromverbrauch. Der Artikel im Standard führt (unkritisch) gleich eine ganze Reihe der manipulativen Argumentationen auf, die von den Crypto Bros verwendet werden, um diese tatsache zu verstecken oder zu rechtfertigen. https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000146147512/der-klimasuender-bitcoin-in-zahlen-und-wie-er-dieses-image

      Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI): https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci

  5. Jan 2023
    1. "The Great Crypto Scam." James Jani, Jan 1, 2023

      Bitcoin to Blockchains, to NFTs, to Web 3.0... it's time to find out if it's really all the hype or just part of one of the greatest scams in human history.

      Original video: https://youtu.be/ORdWE_ffirg

  6. Nov 2022
    1. 顶点代表点对点网络中的节点,边代表两个节点之间的连接。节点类别可以根据节点服务其它节点和客户端的能力进行划分。节点可以充当服务器、客户端,或身兼二职
  7. Jun 2022
    1. Apr 5, 2022 — MicroStrategy (MSTR), a bitcoin-accumulating business-intelligence software company, said it bought another 4,167 BTC for around $190.5 million.microstrategy bitcoinmicrostrategy bitcoin holdingsmicrostrategy bitcoin holdings chartmicrostrategy bitcoin purchase historymicrostrategy selling bitcoinbitcoin pricePeople also search for
  8. May 2022
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  9. Apr 2022
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    1. Joel Monegro 在 Fat Protocols 这篇文章中探讨了一个观点, 那就是 Web2 的结构中, 基于协议的应用的价值非常大, 而协议的价值很小, 区块链中这个情况则会被扭转.

      区块链中协议层的价值占比更大, 给了协议之间的公开性, 数据共享性和互操作性的巨大提升. 例如比特币和以太坊这样的协议 (当然也比如一两年后的 Uniswap 和 AAVE 等) 的价值比链上应用的价值更大, 应用更成功, 人们就会觉得这个协议的潜力还有待发掘. 代币经济在其中起到了一个非常正向的作用. 投资者对协议的投机行为会让协议上的应用生态更加繁荣.

      2016 年, 在以太坊的慢慢崛起下, 人们对整个区块链的 “网络” 有了更多的想象力. 对区块链的构建不再是停留在钱包或交易所等基础设施, 而是开始思考基于一个完备的环境中, 能构建怎样的协议. 这个时候道变成了加密精神, 一变成了项目创作者, 二是社区, 三是生态参与者.

    1. Fred Ehrsam 将重点的关注从比特币聚焦到了以太坊上. 比特币的设计太过于完美, 任何改动都仿佛是画蛇添足, 真正的除了钱包和交易所之外的完备应用无法在比特币上诞生. 以太坊能提供完整的计算环境, 从而支撑起了无数的区块链上应用. Fred 提到了在以太坊上建立的 DAO 组织, 也就是在文章发布一个月后遭到攻击导致以太坊分叉的那个.

      比特币作为 Crypto 的先驱, 让以太坊得以诞生. 以太坊的智能合约相比比特币的 “智能合约” 更加简单易用, 更加方便开发, 社区更繁荣. 同时 Fred 也指出了, 以太坊的核心开发人员比比特币更加健康, 社区心态更加谦虚, 方向上更加有一致性.

      除了这些优点, Fred 也提到了以太坊的一些潜在风险: 资金量还不如比特币高, 尚未经历治理危机 (文章发布一个月后经历了), 因为功能更复杂所以风险更大, 可能会将共识改成 PoS (虽然五年后还是没换), 和网络拓展非常难 (这个问题已被各种 Layer2 慢慢解决).

      Fred 没有给以太坊和比特币是竞争还是互补关系下定论, 他认为以太坊的潜力巨大, 他对任何特定的链都不“忠诚”, 只想要任何给世界带来最大利益的东西.

      Fred 最后总结说 Crypto 的变化速度正在加快. Crypto 的愿景非常大, 要为整个世界创建一个更好的交易网络. Crypto 与互联网本身一样, 不是一家出售产品的公司, 而是一系列有朝一日会连接每个人的协议. 而且, 像互联网一样, 它的发展需要更长的时间, 但影响将是巨大的.

      还有就是他在一年后的 2017 年写了一篇文章, 内容主要是: 区块链是元宇宙的基础层.

    1. “一项神秘的新技术出现了, 似乎不知从何而来, 但实际上是几乎匿名的研究人员二十年紧张研发的结果. 政治理想主义者将解放和革命的愿景投射到它身上; 建制派精英们对它投射蔑视和蔑视. 另一方面, 技术人员, 书呆子被它吓呆了. 他们看到了其中的巨大潜力, 并整晚和周末都在修补它. 最终, 主流产品、公司和行业出现了将其商业化; 其影响变得深远; 后来, 许多人想知道为什么其强大的承诺从一开始就不那么明显. ” Marc Andreessen 说的是什么技术?

      1975年的个人电脑, 1993年的互联网, 以及他相信, 2014年的比特币.

      Marc Andreessen, 一个对 Web 真正了解的人 (除了创办 a16z 以外, 他还写了 Mosaic 和创办了网景), 看到了比特币技术的颠覆性, 去中心化, 网络效应, 和对现有秩序的重塑.

      2014 年依旧是对比特币加强认知的一年. Marc Andreessen 这个现代互联网的 “创造者” 奠定了后来者对比特币理解的基础, 之后对比特币的理解与他所设想的未来几乎无异.

    1. 在上一篇文章发布十几天后, Chris Dixon 又表达了自己为什么对比特币产生兴趣的原因. 有些人认为比特币火热单纯是因为自由主义者的支持, Chris Dixon 赞同了很多比特币的早期支持者都是自由主义者, 同时很多重要的计算机领域的运动都是因为意识形态而受到支持.

      他不认为比特币的终极目的是替代美联储. 他觉得如果想用科技改变金融, 那么就不仅仅要在现有的基础上建立新增的服务, 而是要彻底重新构建一个新系统和新秩序.

      他最初认为比特币是一个投机泡沫以及互联网黄金. 但是他突然意识到比特币正在重建整个支付行业. 他非常看好小额支付的应用.

      他最后强调, 科技改善金融的唯一方式就是重建一个不依赖其他现有设施的新服务. 比特币是一个非常有效的改善方式, 是一个值得运行的实验.

      2013 年是 Crypto 的早期基础设施和认知建设的一年, 这一年 Coinbase 拿到了 a16z 的投资. 随着大众对比特币的关注提升, 两种对立的声音开始产生, 一部分人坚定认为 Crypto 是个 scam, 而远见者对比特币的认知开始逐渐清晰, 开始思考 Crypto 的未来.

    1. Fred Wilson 在这篇文章中提到了对比特币的概念的赞同, 认为比特币作为一种货币基于对算法和网络的信心的理念非常好.

      他说在他和他在 USV 的同事看来, 一种公平且透明的网络构建的替代货币是一个即将实现的想法. 他认为比特币值得观察, 但是货币与政府真正脱钩会产生重大影响, 所以还是要谨慎, 但是依旧是一个非常有趣的投资机会.

      对于当时比特币的币价, 他点评到, 可以说比特币失败了 (居然从 29 美元归零到了 13 美元), 也可以说我们刚刚经过了膨胀期望期, 价格回归到了比特币真正的价值. 有趣的是, 目前比特币的价格在三万美元以上.

      这篇文章的评论区也极其精彩, 我们可以看看 2011 年的人对比特币是有哪些思考, 质疑, 和辩论的.

      2011 年是远见者对 Crypto 探索的一年, 比特币开始逐渐吸引开拓者的目光, 而他们认为 Crypto 的主要作用会是一种替代掉央行的替代货币.

  10. Feb 2022
    1. In June, discussing Permacoin, I returned to the issue of economies of scale: increasing returns to scale (economies of scale) pose a fundamental problem for peer-to-peer networks that do gain significant participation. One necessary design goal for networks such as Bitcoin is that the protocol be incentive-compatible, or as Ittay Eyal and Emin Gun Sirer (ES) express it: the best strategy of a rational minority pool is to be honest, and a minority of colluding miners cannot earn disproportionate benefits by deviating from the protocol They show that the Bitcoin protocol was, and still is, not incentive-compatible. Even if the protocol were incentive-compatible, the implementation of each miner would, like almost all technologies, be subject to increasing returns to scale. Since then I've become convinced that this problem is indeed fundamental. The simplistic version of the problem is this: The income to a participant in a P2P network of this kind should be linear in their contribution of resources to the network. The costs a participant incurs by contributing resources to the network will be less than linear in their resource contribution, because of the economies of scale. Thus the proportional profit margin a participant obtains will increase with increasing resource contribution. Thus the effects described in Brian Arthur's Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy will apply, and the network will be dominated by a few, perhaps just one, large participant. The advantages of P2P networks arise from a diverse network of small, roughly equal resource contributors. Thus it seems that P2P networks which have the characteristics needed to succeed (by being widely adopted) also inevitably carry the seeds of their own failure (by becoming effectively centralized).
  11. Jan 2022
    1. the fact that many Bitcoin enthusiasts say bizarre things does not, in itself, mean that cryptocurrencies are a bad idea

      Is this some kind of attribution bias?

    1. And protecting life-supporting cooperation requires suppressing certain kinds of selfishness. Biologists, unlike many economists, grasp when the “greed is good” ethos gets deadly.

      At what scale might such cooperative efforts fail?

      Look at the scale of the bitcoin bros using crypto and bitcoin as a completely selfish endeavor. Has this reached a scale for social failure? (Separate from the end date at which the bitcoin/crypto system completely fails and collapses?)

  12. Oct 2021
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MM5_VlMKG8

      Bitcoin, currencies, and fragility by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

      The most stable currencies are those that are most heavily traded between each other and for actual goods and services.

      Some of Bitcoins' problem may be that it is so narrowly traded that it is far too volatile to encourage others to use it.

  13. Sep 2021
    1. Cryptocurrency Exchange Development

      Build a robust, secure and user-friendly Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform for your traders with our Cryptocurrency Exchange Software. As a best-in-class Cryptocurrency Exchange Development Company, Maticz offer top-notch Cryptocurrency Exchange Development Services on White Label mode to ensure growth-centric digital transformation. Get Complete Cryptocurrency Exchange Software solutions to unlock revenue and growth for your Crypto business.

      Know more: Cryptocurrency Exchange Development Services

  14. Jul 2021
  15. www.nwp.org www.nwp.org
    1. Writing is the currency of the new workplace and global economy

      No, the finance metaphor is so fraught with capital and considerations of the bottom line that I really buck against this. Writing at its best has never been about using it as a currency. It is not BitCoin.

    1. One of the fundamental goals of a blockchain is resolving the “double spend” problem. In a nutshell, this means preventing someone from sending the same coin to two people. However, beyond just simple spend transactions, it applies any time two transactions want to update the same state. This could be someone trying to duplicate Bitcoin, or two people trying to buy the same CryptoKitty. For the sake of generality, we’ll call it the “double update” problem. Fundamentally it’s about ordering: when we see two things, how do we decide which is first, and what happens to the second one?

      The double spend problem is a subset of what can be called the double update problem. How do we order two updates to the same state?

  16. Jun 2021
    1. Organizationally decentralized but logically centralized state will allow for the creation of protocols that can undermine the power of the centralized incumbents.

      Organizationally decentralized but logically centralized

  17. May 2021
    1. CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY makes it much easier to set up trustless CoinJoins than previously because participants agree on a single output which pays all participants, which will be lower fee than before. Further Each participant doesn't need to know the totality of the outputs committed to by that output, they only have to verify their own sub-tree will pay them.

      Again, this is misleading. The participants still need to agree. Doesn't matter if they're agreeing on a bunch of outputs or on a single output that then spends to a bunch of outputs. And the fees won't be lower, they will be higher.

    2. Increased Channel Routes In the Lightning Network protocol, Hashed Time Locked Contracts (HTLCS) are used in the construction of channels. A new HTLC is required per route that the channel is serving in. In BOLT #2, this maximum number of HTLCs in a channel is hard limited to 483 as the maximum safe size to prevent the transaction from being too large to be valid. In common software implementations such as LND, this limit is set much lower to 12 HTLCS. This is because accepting a larger number of HTLCS makes it more difficult for transactions to confirm during congested periods as they must pay higher fees. Therefore, similarly to how congestion control is handled for normal transaction, lightning channel updates can be done across an CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY tree, allowing nodes to safely use many more HTLCS. Because each HTLC can have its own relative time lock in the tree, this also improves the latency sensitivity of the lightning protocol on contested channel close.

      Lightning implementations limit the number of HTLCs because otherwise the commitment transaction becomes too expensive.

      This trick would make the redeeming of these HTLCs more expensive, just the expenses would happen across the time instead of all at once.

      Doesn't seem like an improvement to anything. Just adds cost and complexity.

      And most HTLCs are not economical to redeem anyway.

    3. Non-Interactive Channels When opening a traditional payment channel, both parties to the channel must participate. This is because the channel uses pre-signed multi-sig transactions to ensure that a channel can always be exited by either party, before entering. With CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY, it’s possible for a single party to construct a channel which either party can exit from without requiring signatures from both parties. These payment channels can operate in one direction, paying to the channel "listener" without need for their private key to be online.

      Again not Lightning channels, and then one needs two transactions just to create the channel -- and then it only works on one side?

      Maybe this is a good idea if user A wants to send a bunch of payments to user B in that single channel that doesn't interoperate with anyone else, if it's really non-interactive. But I can't imagine concrete relevant use cases.

      Generally requiring interactivity is an issue when the receiving end is a user that doesn't have an online wallet so Lightning doesn't work for them on that case -- it's hard to imagine many cases of services opening these wasteful channels to each user, or friends opening this kind of channel between themselves just to send a few bucks.

    4. Using CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY for Channel Factories is similar to the use for Congestion Control, except the leaf node transactions are channels instead of plain payments. The channel can be between the sender and recipient or a target of recipient's choice. Using an CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY, the recipient may give the sender an address which makes a tree of channels unbeknownst to them. These channels are time insensitive for setup, as all punishments are relative timelocked to the penultimate transaction node. Thus, coins sent using a congestion controlled transaction can still enjoy instant liquidity.

      If this refers to Lightning channels then it can't work because they're necessarily interactive anyway and they can already be opened in batched transactions so I don't understand how this is supposed to work or be an improvement.

      Since "Lightning" is not mentioned here it seems these are some other kind of channel that is less useful than Lightning channels.

    5. Channel Factories

      I think this is a misuse of the term "Channel Factories" which referred originally to multiparty channels powered by Eltoo. The idea there was not to make channels (although the name implies that) but to actually have a super channel with child channels inside it. These child channels can later exit the super channel and become their own, but that's a worst case scenario. Ideally they don't have to do this because they will just keep working within the super channel and not consume extra blockchain space.

    6. When there is a high demand for blockspace it becomes very expensive to make transactions. A large volume payment processor may aggregate all their payments into a single O(1) transaction commitment for purposes of confirmation using CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY. Then, some time later, the payments can be expanded out of that UTXO when the demand for blockspace is decreased. These payments can be structured in a tree-like fashion to reduce individual costs of redemption.

      So the idea here is to actually increase blockchain space usage while simultaneously adding the requirement for the users who are withdrawing to have a wallet that understand OP_CTV and the way these transactions are batched? Sounds like a bad idea.

      Even if I'm wrong on the specifics the general argument sounds weak: instead of making a single big transaction that will cost relatively less (or pay relatively more on fees for that) the idea is that exchanges will prefer to make a larger number of smaller transactions to reduce the immediate cost but increase the cost in the future? And then most users will have to wait anyway.

      Why not make a single big transaction and just wait until it clears from the mempool?

      Even if I'm wrong twice on the above and this is actually a good idea, this sounds like a super niche and debatable use case and it's hard to imagine anyone supporting it.

  18. Apr 2021
    1. But in ancient Mesopotamia, beginning around five thousand years ago, people used clay tokens to record transactions involving agricultural produce like barley or wool, or metals such as silver. Such tablets performed much the same function as a banknote. Often, through the centuries, traders have devised such tokens or bills without government involvement, especially at times when coins have been in short supply or debased and devalued.

      more BTC historical context.

    2. What is the right historical analogy for all this? Allen Farrington argues that Bitcoin is to the system of fiat currencies centered around the dollar what medieval Venice once was to the remnants of the western Roman Empire, as superior an economic operating system as commercial capitalism was to feudalism. Another possibility is that the advent of blockchain-based finance is as revolutionary as that of fractional reserve banking, bond and stock markets in the great Anglo-Dutch financial revolution of the 18th century.

      Historical context for bitcoin

  19. Feb 2021
    1. Bitcoin is the workhorse of the cryptocurrency world. So where does bitcoin store this nearly $100 billion of value? It stores it on the most robust computer network ever formed. It's a secure payment system enabling billions of dollars in transactions daily. Bitcoin is a reserve currency for the growing cryptoasset world. That means that you can use it as a final settlement when it's time to cash out. Still, bitcoin is a favorite punching bag for almost every armchair analysts. It's a bit of a paradox. Bitcoin's meteoric rise in price makes it easier, not harder, for new investors to justify buying some. It's become too big to ignore. The bigger bitcoin gets, the more uses it has.

      Bitcoin

  20. Nov 2020
    1. It’s very slow (sometimes a transaction takes nine minutes, sometimes nine days!), a lot of hassle (try it for yourself – cutting open hard plastic packaging with scissors is more user friendly), and very unstable (its price rose to €17,000 euros; dropped to €3,000; rose again to now €10,000).

      Bitcoin transactions are slow & the currency is very unstable

    2. Not only that, but the decentralised utopia that Nakamoto dreamed about, namely avoiding trusted third parties, is still far out of reach. Ironically, there are now three mining pools – a type of company that builds rooms full of servers in Alaska and other locations way up above the Arctic circle – which are responsible for more than half of all the new bitcoin (and also for checking payment requests). 

      Blockchain isn't also yet fully free from third-parties to check the payments

    3. This is pretty inefficient. And it would be a lot less complicated if you trusted someone to manage your data (a bank, for instance). But that’s not what Satoshi Nakamoto did, which is what the inventor of bitcoin calls himself. He thought banks were bad news. They can make money disappear from your account. So he invented bitcoin. And bitcoin works, it exists, and according to the latest count, there are nearly 1,855 other bitcoin-like currencies out there.

      Why bitcoin was created to replace banks

  21. Oct 2020
  22. Sep 2020
    1. "The First Amendment and Supreme Court decisions protect the news media in their reporting on matters of public interest, so you really have to show actual malice and disregard for the truth that would be very blatant and very provable," said Gene Policinski, senior vice president of the First Amendment Center.

      https://web.archive.org/web/20200901145543/https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/

      Our mission: providing resources to help the public understand how their First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition work, and how they can be protected.

      FIRST AMENDMENT EXPERTS The First Amendment Center’s nationally recognized experts David Hudson, Lata Nott, and Gene Policinski regularly provide the media with information and commentary on First Amendment and free expression issues. Interested in contacting one of our experts? Please email media@newseum.org or call 202/292-6200.

  23. Aug 2020
    1. Ethereum and other smart contracting blockchains have failed to scale or provide any tangible benefits over the bitcoin blockchain itself. We are building a smart contract platform the way it should have been built the first time. On top of bitcoin.

      Smart k

    1. The main job of TXO is to take a raw Bitcoin transaction and transform it into a structured format on top of which we can run all kinds of powerful query, processing, and filter.
    1. Bitcoin purists would no doubt bristle at the encroachment of this centralized Bitcoin LBMA; not your keys, not your bitcoin. But the Bitcoin LBMA would attract most bitcoin liquidity. Institutional investors, say Grayscale or Paul Tudor Jones, will always prefer to buy bitcoins that are part of an approved chain of custody, just like they’ll always prefer to buy the LBMA’s good delivery gold. 

      But they didn't. Because they didn't they entered a more secure network

  24. Jul 2020
    1. powping (https://powping.com/about) Features

      1. VALUE EXCHANGE NETWORK Provide value and get Bitcoin micropayments, or send Bitcoin to others for providing value. Or simply socialize, or tell stories. Any activity that has a perceived value to someone else can get a micropayment.

      2. FREE TO PLAY You do NOT need Bitcoin to get started. Anyone can INSTANTLY join the Bitcoin value exchange economy without spending any money or buying Bitcoins.

      3. BITCOIN NATIVE PowPing is powered by Paymail, a Bitcoin-native identity system. All actions on PowPing are cryptographically signed by your Bitcoin wallet's Paymail and encoded in Bitcoin transaction format. They are stored on the PowPing server and anyone can export and use them as absolute evidence.

      4. PEER TO PEER ON STEROIDS Take advantage of all the Bitcoin magic without having to pay any money for storing stuff on the blockchain. Settle evidence on the blockchain only when money gets involved through tipping.

      Philosophy

      1. FREE, OPEN, PUBLIC We are an open community for everyone, not an exclusive group. Every interaction and every message on the site is open and public. And every action is FREE (except for when you want to tip). You DO NOT need Bitcoin to get started. The entire world is invited. Bring your "normal friends" to the party!

      2. MONEY IS BY-PRODUCT We do not focus on "monetizing". We focus on creating the best community for frictionless value exchange through social interactions. Money is just a by-product that naturally happens wherever there's value exchange.

      3. INTERACT, NOT SHOUT We encourage interactions rather than talking down. It's not where a small number of important people talk loud and the rest listen. Most of the value creation and exchange will take place in the comments section.

      4. PEER TO PEER ACCOUNTABILITY We are a community where people are held accountable for actions they take and statements they make. Every action you take is immutably signed by your Bitcoin wallet's Paymail and publicly distributed through the social network. Because of the public nature, everything on the site is a cryptographic evidence. All you need to do is be nice and keep your words.

      5. LONG TERM NETWORK VALUE We aim to build a long lasting value network where people make and nurture lasting and productive relationships. This is not a place designed to extract short term profit from people.

      https://hyp.is/8zABhsVwEeq10ItzxA0Rzg/powping.com/about

  25. May 2020
  26. Oct 2019
    1. ) Blockchain MemoryWe let LL be the blockchain mem-ory space, represented as the hastable L:{0,1}256→{0,1}NL:\{0,1\}^{256}\rightarrow \{0, 1\}^{N}, where N≫N \gg 256 and can store sufficiently-large documents. We assume this memory to be tamperproof under the same adversarial model used in Bitcoin and other blockchains. To intuitively explain why such a trusted data-store can be implemented on any blockchain (including Bitcoin), consider the following simplified, albeit inefficient, implementation: A blockchain is a sequence of timestamped transactions, where each transaction includes a variable number of output addresses (each address is a 160-bit number). LL could then be implemented as follows - the first two outputs in a transaction encode the 256-bit memory address pointer, as well as some auxiliary meta-data. The rest of the outputs construct the serialized document. When looking up L[k]L[k], only the most recent transaction is returned, which allows update and delete operations in addition to inserts.

      This paragraph explains how blockchain hides one's individual identity and privacy, while giving them a secure way of using the funds. In my opinion lot hacker ransomware are done using block-chain technology coins, this and one more paragraph here is really interesting to read about how blockchain helps protect personal data. and i also related this this hacking and corruption or money laundering

  27. Sep 2019
  28. Jul 2019
  29. Jun 2019
    1. The company has sky-high hopes that Libra could become the foundation for a new financial system not controlled by today’s power brokers on Wall Street or central banks.

      Facebook want another way to circumvent government? Well, let's circumvent Facebook.

    1. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

      We hope you enjoy our curations of blockchain content across the internet as well as our guides. You can find us at https://ethdocs.github.io and join the conversation!

  30. Mar 2019
    1. Understanding Monetary Premiums in Programmable Value Networks

      The TLDR is: Zuller proposes that social capital and financial capital form a virtuous circle for cryptonetworks, allowing first movers such as ethereum to gain a decisive advantage against competitors. Ethereum's accumulated social and financial capital make it difficult for a challenger to emerge as a general-purpose decentralised smart contract platform.

      My thought is Zuller's analysis of social capital ignores the long established body of work on on the topic, and this analysis could be better applied in the case of ethereum. I also think bitcoin is an interesting study in the effects of social capital and the viability of a decentral crypto network.

    2. DFINITY, Near, Polkadot

      These projects are all funded or founded by individuals with significant social and financial capital. They are therefore well positioned to challenge ethereum's dominance.

      By contrast, consider Satoshi Nakamoto's launch of the bitcoin network. As a pseudonymous persona with no history attached to it, Nakamoto had no social capital to speak of. This social capital had to be bootstrapped through a corpus of communications on the cryptography mailing list, and other fora.

      So bitcoin was launched with minimal social capital, by contrast to ethereum.

  31. Feb 2019
    1. 一直使用加密技术现身本就给中本聪披上神秘的外衣;即设计出比特币系统又对其未来发展有着全面考虑,则让他被贴天才标签。难怪有人会认为中本聪是外星人、AI或神秘组织。但你若继续深挖,便会逐渐打消这些念头;慢慢发现中本聪并没有我们想得那么神,也没有所谓的科幻和阴谋色彩。

      <big>评:</big><br/><br/> 中本聪是「神」吗?<br/><br/> 在回答这个问题前,应当扪心自问:我们是「人」吗?在技术原教旨主义大行其道的年代,技术从业者的世界观亦逐渐被这一行行二进制符号定义、控制、编码。既然如此,精神领袖是否有必要在三次元世界存在对应的物质实体?中本聪真实身份的探寻者们忽视了比特币主网络上线运行那一刻的即时意义——在那一刻,Satoshi Nakamoto 的身份迷思就已倾然瓦解。这使人联想到艺术家丹尼尔 · 布伦(Daniel Buren)对于「在场」(on-site)概念的演绎——他的作品总是诞生在它所处的位置上,而不是如同绝大多数艺术家那样在工作室实现后再转移到展厅展示。布伦在艺术上是成功的,但这群探秘者却给自己设下了一道无解谜题。

    1. 現在比特幣區塊鏈大小已經來到了220 GB,或許大家會認為這是一個不大的數字,但假設在比特幣運作的那一年開始區塊鏈一直保持在滿載的狀況下,以每十分鐘增加1MB計算到滿十週年的今天,應當要超過525.6 GB,十年前的525.6 GB 是一種奢侈,當今的社會一人1TB、2TB 的硬碟或許是一件很正常的事情。 對我而言,「這是中本聰跟儲存和計算成本的對賭」,他在賭硬碟空間的製作工藝促使的單位空間的成本降低這件事的速度比較快,還是區塊鏈成長的速度比較快,倘若區塊鏈的成長速度較快的話,我相信這世界上不存在儲存完整區塊鏈的硬碟,這使得去中心的區塊鏈更難以被實現出來。 所以對我而言,如果要再創造一個新的區塊鏈的應用,必須要尋找一個低訊息產出速度,也就是低 TPS,且單位訊息的大小不能太大,越小越好。以降低頻率、降低單位訊息大小的方式抑制區塊鏈大小的成長速度,屆時巡找的目標或許就是一個低頻率高單價的應用場景。

      <big>评:</big><br/><br/>在中国人的习武观里,讲究「天下武功,唯快不破」。快,即应变迅速,无论是在追求高 TPS 的技术环境,还是在需要快速迭代的商业世界,「快」都不失为一计上策。 <br/> <br/> 但是要如何才能保使自己在迅速登上高度的同时,不失风度?中本聪给出的答案从侧面应证了日式「侘寂」(wabi-sabi)美学对此问题的态度——「接受短暂和不完美」。中国人能否在自己的哲学智慧里寻到一个类似解呢?我看是有的,所谓「上善若水,以柔克刚」。

    1. 若先不論這些國家實踐國家數字貨幣的可能性,比特幣這種無主權的貨幣背後的區塊鏈技術,確實勾起了這些反美國家的興趣。 在數位化時代下,透過分散式帳本技術,它賦予了國家發行具有主權性質的密碼貨幣的能力,這也讓國際政治之間的糾紛多添了一些變數。 一方想要透過區塊鏈自建金融體系,一方想要強烈抵制這樣的行為,區塊鏈作為達到開放性金融(Open Finance)的一種「手段」,而美國作為目前世界的霸權,反美政權有機會挑戰該國對於世界經濟的「完全主導權」?還是對於透過區塊鏈創造金融壁壘的想像只是曇花一現?值得關注。

      <big>评:</big><br/><br/> 「比特币这种无主权货币背后的区块链技术,赋予了国家发行具有主权性质的密码货币的能力」,此番境遇,放到加密货币市场遇冷的 2019 年初来看,着实有股「有心栽花花不开,无心插柳柳成荫」的意味。分布式账本技术真的能在国际政坛间再度搅起波澜吗?区块链技术真能引导现有体系走向开放性金融(Open Finance)吗?或许,人类自身的求生欲会给予上述提问一个肯定的答复,但是这种充满跳跃性的惊喜感赖以维系的前提在于——比特币是一种无主权的货币,信息技术能够自由流动。

    1. 駭客入侵了 DNS 的服務商,欺騙惡意將用戶從一個站點重定向到虛假網站點,在竊取用戶的敏感個人資訊後,使用它來訪問用戶的帳戶。 簡單的舉例來說,你在前往銀行的路上迷路了,有人假冒警察給你指了一條通往假銀行的路,你在存錢之後輸入了銀行密碼,假銀行就拿著你的密碼去真銀行領錢。照理來說,真銀行不該負責,而是真警察沒有做好被假冒的風險防護。(唯一不同的是,在網路世界你必須要詢問 DNS 才能知道銀行的所在) 因此,遭受攻擊的是 DNS 的提供商,而不是交易所本身。照理來說,交易所沒有承擔責任的義務。

      <big>评:</big><br/><br/> 比特币诞生初期,就有人欢呼 “We don't need banks anymore”。时至今日,对此愿景翘首以盼的拥趸也大有人在,只不过他们把目光移向了比普惠金融更高阶的开放性金融,措辞也变得更为「绅士」:By crypto like Bitcoin we can “bank” the unbanked(为那些没能享受到金融基础服务的底层民众提供服务)。试问,假以时日加密货币登上舞台,人类是否还需要银行?如果需要,这种状态还会持续多长时间?在未来,银行这条清结算渠道是否会演化成其他范式,而非被取代? <br/><br/> 对此,许多人认同「非黑即白」的二元论答案,或者再暧昧一点,他们会说,要达到质变的最终目的,不过是时间长短的问题。「将 DNS 提供商比作警察,交易所比作银行」,如是比喻固然沿袭了旧世界的工程化思维,却无疑给了这群人当头一棒。

  32. Jan 2019
    1. 本网站上的信息不构成传达任何类型的要约,也不应被视为或理解为出售或购买任何证券,商品或其他金融产品的要约。此外,BitDeer不构成投资顾问且BitDeer网站上的任何信息均不构成投资建议的提供。BitDeer不保证网站表达或暗示的任何目标、假设、期望、策略和/或目的已经或将要实现,也不能保证网站描述的活动或任何表现会和网站之前描述的方式一样已经持续或在未来持续。

      <big>评:</big><br/><br/>在第 004 期「公论日报」里,我们曾讨论过比特大陆裁员一事引发的道德争议。那期的点评以一句 “Be nice” 画上句号,但这位「家道中落」的矿机制造商的故事并未就此停止——近日其推出了矿机分时共享平台「比特小鹿」,一时坊间盛传「大鹿变小鹿,探索自救之路」。 <br/><br/> 如今看来,这位仁兄也玩起了「金融」衍生品游戏,而 TOS 用户协议里这句话所散发出的魅力,对于比特币玩家来说又是那么的似曾相识。当玩家们还在盘算成本犹豫进场时,仁兄已经找到了一份两全其美的双保险。

    1. According to Capital, customers can purchase Bitcoin for the sums of 50, 100 or 250 euros. The tobacco shop then provides a ticket with an alphanumeric code and a QR code, which can then be used to obtain the purchased bitcoins via Keplerk’s website. The magazine adds that Keplerk collects a 7 percent fee on each payment, 1.25 of which then goes to the tobacco shop.

      <big>评:</big><br/><br/> 大众获得加密货币的渠道越来越广,这是件好事吗?抛开「万事都有好坏两面」的哲学论断不谈,我们似乎没有理由认为这是件坏事——加密货币愈加普及和流行,愈加深入日常生活,从而间接影响到人们的思维观念。但值得关注的是,在这五花八门的渠道里,有多少被中心化的力量操控着?当比特币像烟草一样成为专营专卖的「商品」和重要的财政收入来源,当大头交易所托管了市面上流通的绝大部分数字资产,「去中心化」的理想可能又将化为一纸空谈。届时人们关心的不是「怎样构筑新的价值体系」,而是「怎样挣更多的钱抽更好的『烟』」。

    1. The great thing about proof is that it requires no belief. Don't believe, verify!

      <big>评:</big><br/><br/>比特币工程师 Lopp 的此番回应是一件很刺激的事情,就像听到尼采说「上帝死了」一样令人激动。在 19 世纪,便有人说:「上帝是一个无用而且很花钱的假设,因此我们不需要他」。200 年后,依然有人扛着如是的观点大旗在卖力宣扬革命。这说明什么?<br/><br/>说明后资本主义时代,人的精神依然处于被压迫、剥削、异化的状态。价值是必须能够被验证的东西,and that's why we have fewer and fewer nice things.

    1. Second, the majority cannot change the rules of Bitcoin. In a sense, they can create new consensus rules, but that would be a hard fork, which requires everyone to upgrade. They’re free to try to convince the rest of the network that their rules are better, but as sovereign individuals, Bitcoin users have no obligation to follow such rules. The power of whom to follow lies entirely with the owner of the node.

      <big>评:</big><br/><br/>What did Jimmy specifically mean when he talked about the group of “Bitcoin users”? And similarly, how to define the gap between the military and the civilian when we talk about some certain power to follow?<br/><br/>可供参考的是,在《人性的弱点》一书里,作者卡耐基反复强调着「人始终只关注自己的利益」。更好的规则?更好的秩序?在利益面前皆为浮云。选择站队的权力确实由个体掌握,但这并不影响到权力是否会被团体以违背个体意志的方式行使。更何况个体意志并不总是「弱者」的代名词,「作恶」也绝非市场垄断者一家之嫌。

  33. Dec 2018
    1. Blockstream announced through a press release that they have added a fifth satellite to their network. Their broadcast can now reach most of the world. Their previous satellite formation allowed them to share their blockchain broadcasts to most of North and South America, Europe and Africa. Company’s fifth satellite allows them to reach the Asia-Pacific region, including China, India, Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and Australia.

      <big>评:</big><br/><br/>战争,灾害,外来星体撞击——人类对未知的恐惧迫使科技在人文主义的荫蔽下谨小慎微地拓展边界,如履薄冰。假设最糟糕的情况下,地球上所有节点同时离线,所有无线沟通渠道中断,届时比特币网络会荡然无存吗?<br/><br/>发射卫星来同步比特币网络的做法在许多人看来是不可理喻的,甚至有点病入膏肓的可笑,但这艘「诺亚方舟」所承载的纯朴愿景,足以破封我们现世所面临的诸多困境。没有什么是永垂不朽的,如果有,那将是太阳系最后一个比特币区块,以射线的形态在浩瀚银河里砥砺前行。

  34. Oct 2018
    1. We must be careful to distinguish between blockchain ledgers and proof-of-work, because they are separate things that just happen to have been combined to make Bitcoin. There are energy-efficient ways of managing blockchain ledgers, such as proof-of-stake algorithms. Some of these algorithms are already being implemented by rival cryptocurrency schemes

      . . .

      PoW is obscenely wasteful, consuming more electricity than all of Ireland to generate an endless stream of mathematical garbage.

  35. Jul 2018
  36. Jun 2018
    1. Further, the lack of clear development funding methods in Bitcoin is often seen as problematic. The core network software exists as open source code on Github, but it is difficult for developers to directly monetize their contributions to the codebase. Funding for Bitcoin Core developers was entirely donation driven until 2014.
    2. Bitcoin has no formal governance structure, and decisions to alter the protocol are made entirely off-chain, typically by insiders/early adopters and heads of large mining operations.
  37. Apr 2018
  38. Feb 2018
    1. The Past, Present, and Future

      can bitcoin be duplicated? If it is possible, what makes such currency reliable?

    2. Bitcoin transactions are censorship resistant. This means that no one, including banks, or governments, can block you from sending or receiving bitcoins.

      This is what makes Bitcoin such a prominent method of payment for illegal trading since it is unable to be traced and very easily to be sent. This is very efficient for places such as the Black Market and the Dark Net, places where things that are no good take place.

    3. Cryptocurrencies are decentralized digital currencies secured with cryptography
    4. Today, however, most bitcoin exchanges are made through online trading platforms

      Why is that? Why doesn't bitcoin have a centralized website where money can be converted instead of third party websites handling this? Could it be because these third party websites have already mined the bitcoin and now they are at the liberty to sell it?

    5. cryptography

      When it says that cryptography secures the digital currency, does that mean that cryptography is some form of the inscription that we discussed?

    1. The part left out is that a concept behind bitcoin is that there is a built in exchange rate. As the currency appreciates, you are spending more in power. In larger operations the cost of operating banks of ASIC bitcoin miners drastically increases when adding the cost of cooling tons of GPUs.

      How will quantum computing affect bitcoin?

  39. Nov 2017
    1. First,itisundecidablewhetheranactisindeedcapableofproducingasubjectthatitnames.Forthatreason,withoutguarantees,itmustbedoneregardlessofitsactualeffects,fortheeffectsofcitationanditerationareasmuchaboutbringingthepoliticalsubjectthusnamedintobeingasaboutmakinganattempttoremindourselvesthat‘I,we,theyhavearightto’mustbeperformed.Second,withoutnamingthepoliticalsubject,withoutcitinganditeratingyetagainthat‘I,we,theyhavearightto’,itseventualeffectwillnotbeaccomplished,thatis,bringingtheforceoflawintobeing.

      [...] Our argument is that bills, charters, declarations, and manifestos would have stronger imaginary force if they also derived their performative force from everyday acts through the Internet: how people uptake positions as citizens of cyberspace, how they respond to callings to participate in cyberspace, how they create openings for constituting themselves differently, how they struggle for and against closings, and how they make digital rights claims in or by performing digital acts.[85] They would also have more performative if not legal force if they arose from not only a universal commitment but also regional commitments to understanding how the figure of the citizen is being articulated differently in cyberspace and how this figure is essential for bringing the force of law into being. The most significant space for thinking about the politics of the Internet and the political subject it has given rise to—the digital citizen—is the space between the inscription of rights and their enactment.

      Hasta qué punto las criptodivisas y criptocontratos son una reiteración de este "yo, nosotros, ellos" y sus acuerdos a través de un algoritmo? La idea de inscribirse o excluirse son las únicas posibilidades. El resto de la política ocurre en repositorios de código y en "propuestas de mejora" técnicas.

      El caracter recurrente del Data Week es una manera de hacer enactivos los compromisos que nos juntan como comunidad. La página es un acto de enunciación que es reiterado a través del Data Week

    2. Iftherewereawaytobypassexistingfinancialinstitutionsandachieveperson-to-personpayments,itwouldbeamoreradicalinventionthantheinventionofmoney.Bitcoinnotonlyresignifiesanonymity,extensity,traceability,andvelocityofadigitalactbutalsorupturestheexistingmonopolyovertransactionsheldbyfinancialinstitutions.Theinterestingaspectofthesystemisthatitrequireskeepingalltransactionsonapublicledgersincethisistheonlywaytomaintainproofofitswork.Yetalthoughalltransactionsarepublic,thepartiesinthesetransactionsremainanonymous,representedonlybypublicencryptionkeys
  40. Sep 2017
  41. Jul 2017
    1. Greece Arrests Russian Suspected of Running $4 Billion Bitcoin Laundering Ring

      ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek police arrested a Russian man suspected of running a money laundering operation involving turning $4 billion from illicit business activities into the digital currency bitcoin, they said on Wednesday.

  42. Apr 2017
  43. Jan 2017
    1. Early open source was about the idea that code is ownerless, enforceable by license, which theoretically leads to resilient software.Modern open source is about 1) building and 2) collaborating in public.The conversation has shifted from protecting the rights of a user to adopt the software as they wish (now the norm) to protecting the rights of the author or community that stewards the code (still TBD).

      Early Free Software (predating Open Source) was about protecting community rights: in this case the ones of the hacker communities and authors sharing the software. The extreme depolitization of modern open source, particularly in USA and The Valley, brings hide politics and governance, as is documented in the bitcoin case, the hidden politics of the "apolitic" money. So, there is some kind of pendulum movement from plain Open Source to its re-politization showing again a concern for governance and sustainability of software as a commons.

  44. Oct 2016
    1. Twenty five hundred years ago the pressure of trade forced the minting of the first coins. Eleven hundred years ago the weight of all those coins forced the printing of paper money. Seven hundred years ago the challenges of international trade forced the development of bills of exchange. And fifty years ago the mainframes gave birth to the credit revolution.

      Right now we’re on the cusp of a similar revolution. Because our smartphones want our money. They don’t want to have to talk to a bank for an authorisation. They just want to hand over the cash. But they can’t, because we haven’t got money that fits into a smartphone. Yet.

      Sometime in the next few years, one of these big central banks is going to introduce its own blockchain-based money — blockchain money issued by a government. It’s been nicknamed ‘fedcoin’.

  45. Jun 2016
  46. May 2016
    1. Recent posts by Adrian Hope Baille and Sina Motamedi have got me thinking again about the idea of the Federal Reserve (or any other central bank for that matter) adopting bitcoin technology. Here's an older post of mine on the idea, although this post will take a different tack.

      This post seems to have gotten the conversation started across some important sites about the idea of a federal backed cryptocurrency in the US.

  47. Feb 2016
  48. Jan 2016
    1. It is the third bucket that contains the most ambitious applications: “smart contracts” that execute themselves automatically under the right circumstances. Bitcoin can be “programmed” so that it only becomes available under certain conditions.

      In other words, it can facilitate a deferred payment system that works when the payer provides payment in escrow, like Kickstarter and other crowdfunding systems. It could manage deposits on purchase-and-sale agreements and handle escrows on legal judgments, without a third party holding title to the money. The core financial system itself could hold the money.

      Could it be made into a complete deferred payment system for managing loans, mortgages, and coupon bonds? I don’t know how, since the source of those payments is outside the bitcoin system and generally doesn’t exist at the time of the loan or bond purchase. But imagine if a financial system was entirely built around a programmable trust system, then financial instruments themselves become a part of the logic of a company’s assets and liabilities. When a corporate bond coupon comes due the company treasurer doesn't create a transaction, instead the coupon payment is automatically transferred to the holder of the bond by the financial system itself. That is, the structure of the bond has been integrated directly into the financial system for automatic execution.

      If a future government were to implement blockchain technology and legislate its adoption throughout the financial community (perhaps as an option, in parallel with the pre-existing system), it could 'write the code' for legally certified instruments like corporate bonds, mortgages, car loans. It could further write legally permissible derivatives of those instruments (yes, derivatives have tremendous value in reducing risk, when used wisely).

      At that point, financial companies like Vanguard or Fidelity could issue mutual funds whose prospecti assert that the only kind of instruments held by the fund were those certified by the government to use the legislated systems. This could reasonably allow safe and less expensive adoption of powerful financial instruments with far less risk to the system.

      Sure there are plenty of flaws and dangers in this kind of a system. But could they be worked out to create a safer, less expensive, more transparent and more accessible financial system than we currently have? Would it help engender some of the trust that has most recently been lost?

    2. This has implications far beyond the cryptocurrency

      The concept of trust, in the sociological and economic sense, underlies exchange. In the 15th-17th centuries, the Dutch and English dominance of trade owed much to their early development of instruments of credit that allowed merchants to fund and later to insure commercial shipping without the exchange of hard currency, either silver or by physically transporting the currency of the realm. Credit worked because the English and Dutch economies trusted the issuers of credit.

      Francis Fukuyama, a philosopher and political economist at Stanford, wrote a book in 1995, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, on the impact of cultures of trust on entrepreneurial growth. Countries of ‘low trust’ have close family culture who limit trust to relations: France, China, S. Italy. Countries of ‘high trust’ have greater ‘spontaneous sociability’ that encourages the formation of intermediate institutions between the state and the family, that encourage greater entrepreneurial growth: Germany, England, the U.S. – I own the book and (shame on me!) haven’t yet read it.

      I thought of this article in those contexts – of the general need for trusted institutions and the power they have in mediating an economy, and the fascinating questions raised when a new facilitator of trust is introduced.

      How do we trust? Across human history, how have we extended the social role of trust to institutions? If a new modality of trust comes available, how does that change institutional structures and correspondingly the power of individuals, of institutions. How would it change the friction to growth and to decline?

      Prior to reading this article, I had dismissed Bitcoin as a temporary aberration, mostly for criminal enterprises and malcontents. I still feel that way. But the underlying technology and it’s implications – now that’s interesting.

    1. the journalistic fetish for ‘impartiality’, which frequently means that anyone who has a strong opinion is ‘biased’, so ‘equal time’ is given to the ‘two sides’, without considering the possibility that if one side is a small minority who the experts are all strongly opposed to it might be because they are, you know, wrong.

      In any reporting on a controversy in science or technology a journalists job is first and foremost to find out whether there’s overwhelming support for one side among experts and if there is to report that straightforwardly.

      I don't know enough about bitcoin to have an opinion about this controversy. Regardless of that, this is a very good point. "Impartial" shouldn't mean giving equal credence and equal time to fringe viewpoints -- unless they are coming from some noteworthy experts with strong evidence.

      Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo, says they need to increase the blockchain size immediately.<br> http://belshe.com/2016/01/18/bitcoin-blocksize-and-the-future/

    1. http://r3cev.com/s/Watermarked-tokens-and-pseudonymity-on-public-blockchains-Swanson.pdf

      Yet if a network is comprised of known and trusted entities with legal, off-chain obligations to fulfill, then you have a set of different security assumptions to build around. And in the case of financial institutions, a feature such as proof-of-work via mining, which is currently core to public blockchains is an unnecessary and even redundant.

      This paper explores several of the drawbacks and challenges of using public blockchains for securing off-chain titles and concludes that these types of networks are not fit-for-purpose for globally regulated financial institutions.

  49. Dec 2015
  50. Nov 2015
    1. 80 percent of those transactions are mere speculation, where bitcoin is traded as a commodity in search of a profit. That 20 percent figure is actually much higher than in previous years, but Coinbase hopes to push it higher still. This morning, in an effort to nudge bitcoin toward the mainstream, the company unveiled the country’s first bitcoin debit card. It’s called the Shift Card, and it lets you spend bitcoin at any merchant—both online and off—that accepts an ordinary VISA card.
    2. The more people who use bitcoin, the more useful it becomes—the closer we get to a place where we can send money across the Internet as easily as we send texts or emails.
    1. Blockchains can also implement business rules, such as transactions that take place only if two or more parties endorse them, or if another transaction has been completed first.
    2. Blockchains are also the latest example of the unexpected fruits of cryptography. Mathematical scrambling is used to boil down an original piece of information into a code, known as a hash. Any attempt to tamper with any part of the blockchain is apparent immediately—because the new hash will not match the old ones. In this way a science that keeps information secret (vital for encrypting messages and online shopping and banking) is, paradoxically, also a tool for open dealing.
    3. The blockchain is an even more potent technology. In essence it is a shared, trusted, public ledger that everyone can inspect, but which no single user controls. The participants in a blockchain system collectively keep the ledger up to date: it can be amended only according to strict rules and by general agreement. Bitcoin’s blockchain ledger prevents double-spending and keeps track of transactions continuously. It is what makes possible a currency without a central bank.
    4. But most unfair of all is that bitcoin’s shady image causes people to overlook the extraordinary potential of the “blockchain”, the technology that underpins it. This innovation carries a significance stretching far beyond cryptocurrency. The blockchain lets people who have no particular confidence in each other collaborate without having to go through a neutral central authority. Simply put, it is a machine for creating trust.
    1. I accept bitcoins for the same reason that I accept normal money. Mainstream money is used to replace a specific trust relationship with a general one. I take British pounds from a specific person because I trust that I can exchange those pounds for something else within the general British pound-using community. Likewise, I take the bitcoins from the specific buyer because I trust that the broader Bitcoin community will accept them from me in exchange for something of intrinsic value. The main departure from normal electronic money is that Bitcoin uses a decentralised network in place of a central hierarchy. The advantages are anonymity, a sense of freedom and, it has been argued, a more resilient system.
  51. Aug 2015
  52. May 2015
    1. Let’s suppose that the miners working on fork B are the next to successfully mine a block: After they receive news that this has happened, the miners working on fork A will notice that fork B is now longer, and will switch to working on that fork. Presto, in short order work on fork A will cease, and everyone will be working on the same linear chain, and block A can be ignored.

      Why the blockchain cannot fork (for long).

    1. Bitcoin gives us, for the first time, a way for one Internet user to transfer a unique piece of digital property to another Internet user, such that the transfer is guaranteed to be safe and secure, everyone knows that the transfer has taken place, and nobody can challenge the legitimacy of the transfer. The consequences of this breakthrough are hard to overstate.
    2. Since Bitcoin is a digital bearer instrument, the receiver of a payment does not get any information from the sender that can be used to steal money from the sender in the future, either by that merchant or by a criminal who steals that information from the merchant.
  53. Apr 2015
    1. Which world currency is currently experiencing among the most dramatic deflationary spirals anyone has ever seen? Bitcoin itself, the ‘existential threat to the liberal nation state’. 32 Any sane person putting their life’s savings into Bitcoin among all world cur - rencies right now is as foolish as a Dutch person buying tulip bulbs. That is because the problems with currencies actually aren’t formal, or mechanical, or algorithmic, despite what Bitcoin propagandists desperately want us to believe. They are social and political problems that can only be solved by political mechanisms. T
    2. Despite their frequent use of the word ‘democra - tization’, such efforts are profoundly anti-democratic, insisting that the introduction of devices and software by a self-identified technocratic elite trumps duly-enacted laws and law enforcement mechanisms, and that a kind of market – a market in adoption of such services – is the exclusive method society should use to judge the provision of these services.
  54. Nov 2014
  55. Jan 2014
    1. Get someone integrate it into bitcoin/litecoin/*coin

      Who does that someone have to be?