More Bitcoin WTFery: Namecoin
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@dohpaz42 said:
@Sutherlands said:
but if it uses the GPU too
Fair enough, assuming the 5x increase in watts for both the Prime95 and furmark, that would become more substantial. But I would hope that a client such as this would not need much - if any - graphics processing and would simply run quietly in the background. It was based on that assumption that I did my guesswork
It wouldn't use the GPU to do display a fancy GUI but to do bitcoin mining. Look up GPGPU.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Sutherlands said:
That's the source of its scarcity. If bitcoins were easy to create then everyone would create an infinite supply. I liked the idea when applied to spam reduction (see hashcash), but bitcoins are stupid; scarcity alone isn't enough to create value. Also, the whole bitcoin concept seems backwards; instead of trying to prevent counterfeiting, the bitcoin system is based on it.@RTapeLoadingError said:
The processing involved in getting the bitcoin is there to decrypt and ensure the block of transactions is good.If I understand the "creating bitcoins" process correctly* it involves performing many useless calculations to get a bitcoin.
Yes, we had the "why the hell does Bitcoin use so much CPU/GPU power?" discussion in the last thread about it. It still doesn't make any sense to me.
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@frits said:
@Jaime said:
No, I think he's right. You need scarcity plus an extensive and well-funded marketing campaign.scarcity alone isn't enough to create value.
You may want to ask DeBeers about that...
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@Scarlet Manuka said:
@frits said:
Exactly.@Jaime said:
No, I think he's right. You need scarcity plus an extensive and well-funded marketing campaign.scarcity alone isn't enough to create value.
You may want to ask DeBeers about that...
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I'm trying to understand if there's any inherent link between Bitcoin's concept of a new currency, and the system they've actually put in place, or if one could in fact store anything in a Bitcoin wallet - e.g US$.
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@frits said:
I'm having a hard time getting anybody to pay anything at all on ebay for my personally autographed portraits. There are only three in existence. Perhaps there's more to this diamond thing than scarcity. If I could successfully equate a commodity I controlled to love, I'd make a billion dollars too.@Jaime said:
scarcity alone isn't enough to create value.
You may want to ask DeBeers about that...
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@Jaime said:
@frits said:
I'm having a hard time getting anybody to pay anything at all on ebay for my personally autographed portraits. There are only three in existence. Perhaps there's more to this diamond thing than scarcity. If I could successfully equate a commodity I controlled to love, I'd make a billion dollars too.@Jaime said:
scarcity alone isn't enough to create value.
You may want to ask DeBeers about that...
Your just not trying hard enough :P. I concede that your technically right-there has to be at least some demand.
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@Sutherlands said:
Now that I'm more awake, I've gotta ask again. What's the central authority or mechanism that prevents arbitrarily creating bitcoins? My impression was that it's only the cost of computing resources (thus my argument), but you obviously disagree. But posts like these seem to support me:@topspin said:
With bit coin the situation is either:
FTFYa) It does cost at least as much to produce as it's worth: scandalous waste of resources for a stupid idea.
b) it does not: everybody can print their own money leading to enough inflation to reach point a)
c) People can't arbitrarily make it.
@Jaime said:
@blakeyrat said:
Yes, we had the "why the hell does Bitcoin use so much CPU/GPU power?" discussion in the last thread.
That's the source of its scarcity. If bitcoins were easy to create then everyone would create an infinite supply.I'm confused if I just don't get it or if I was right up front...
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@topspin said:
Now that I'm more awake, I've gotta ask again. What's the central authority or mechanism that prevents arbitrarily creating bitcoins? My impression was that it's only the cost of computing resources (thus my argument), but you obviously disagree.
The entire bitcoin economy is also based on sharing the transaction logs with everyone who trades in bitcoins. So everyone has to agree that your bitcoins are real. I don't know (or care) enough about the encryption basis of the creation of the bitcoins, but I imagine there's something in there that prevents counterfeiting.
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@topspin said:
People can create bitcoins, but it's hard. It is conceptually similar to creating a file that has an MD5 hash that starts with 100 zeros (when written in binary). It's pretty much a process of increment, hash, check, repeat.@Sutherlands said:
Now that I'm more awake, I've gotta ask again. What's the central authority or mechanism that prevents arbitrarily creating bitcoins? My impression was that it's only the cost of computing resources (thus my argument), but you obviously disagree. But posts like these seem to support me:@topspin said:
With bit coin the situation is either:
FTFYa) It does cost at least as much to produce as it's worth: scandalous waste of resources for a stupid idea.
b) it does not: everybody can print their own money leading to enough inflation to reach point a)
c) People can't arbitrarily make it.
@Jaime said:
@blakeyrat said:
Yes, we had the "why the hell does Bitcoin use so much CPU/GPU power?" discussion in the last thread.
That's the source of its scarcity. If bitcoins were easy to create then everyone would create an infinite supply.I'm confused if I just don't get it or if I was right up front...
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@Jaime said:
People can create bitcoins, but it's hard. It is conceptually similar to creating a file that has an MD5 hash that starts with 100 zeros (when written in binary). It's pretty much a process of increment, hash, check, repeat.
Ok so what is "a bitcoin"? I thought it was just a fixed-point number sitting in an account. But this indicates to me that it's... something else? But it can be divided into hundredths, so...? If I tell someone I have 25.43 bitcoins, what do I actually possess?
Maybe I'm just a tard, but I don't get any of this.
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A new block of bitcoins are created when the "proof-of-work" problem described above is computed on the current transaction chain to a sufficient number of zeros. The ownership of those coins is given to the person or group that solved the proof of work problem (because they added this transaction before solving the problem). If it was a distributed effort, the coins are divided among the participants. If you have 25.43 bitcoins, then the transaction chain contains records that show the entire history of those coins from the time they were created until the time they were assigned to you. The transaction chain has been cryptographically signed by hordes of Internet nutcases, so it cannot be forged.
It's no more strange than the proof required to show that you own your house. BTW, the title search for my house shows that back in the 1800's, the property that contained my lot was yanked from some poor sap deemed "mad" and given to his family.
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So it still comes up to what I said originally: You can arbitrarily create new coins, it's just a very computationally expensive operation.
Then I'm back to: - you either waste more money on energy than the coins are worth or - somebody else will inflate the currency with enough bitcoins until it's no longer profitable.
It doesn't make sense at all: You "create" new value out of thin air by wasting energy to do nothing useful.
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No, you can't. You can only even DO the proof-of-work problem when there has been a transaction. The code apparently also allows for a transaction fee, so if you do the proof-of-work and include transactions, you'll get some number of bitcoins for your effort.
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@topspin said:
Then I'm back to: - you either waste more money on energy than the coins are worth or - somebody else will inflate the currency with enough bitcoins until it's no longer profitable.
It doesn't make sense at all: You "create" new value out of thin air by wasting energy to do nothing useful.
I think the idea is that once they are worth less than the effort to create them, some equilibrium is reached where there is a semi-fixed amount in circulation with a somewhat stable value. Inflation through counterfeiting (well, minting new coins) may be possible but not profitable, and that is a strong disincentive.
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@topspin said:
So it still comes up to what I said originally: You can arbitrarily create new coins, it's just a very computationally expensive operation.
No.
The similar example of what's being computed is "the shortest file for every md5 hash that, in binary, starts with 100 zeroes". There's only so many of those. Once they've all been found, there will be no way to generate new bitcoins.
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Oh well, call me back when it's taken off and I need to change my cash to it. Then I might look into the details.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Sutherlands said:
@RTapeLoadingError said:
The processing involved in getting the bitcoin is there to decrypt and ensure the block of transactions is good.If I understand the "creating bitcoins" process correctly* it involves performing many useless calculations to get a bitcoin.
Yes, we had the "why the hell does Bitcoin use so much CPU/GPU power?" discussion in the last thread about it. It still doesn't make any sense to me.
The reason Bitcoin [b]mining[/b] (generating Bitcoins) is... well, it's semi-arbitrarily chosen so that it takes, on average, exactly 20 minutes (or was it 10? anyway it's some amount of time) to "mine" one block (which generates Bitcoins). Every two weeks (on average - it's based on the number of blocks mined not on real time) the amount of CPU time needed is updated.What "mining" means exactly is finding a value N so that sha256(sha256(block_header + N)) < some-number.
How do I know this? My friend decided to start mining bitcoins. He doesn't even use them for transactions, he just wants to generate them. And yes, he's crazy.
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@immibis said:
The reason Bitcoin mining (generating Bitcoins) is... well, it's semi-arbitrarily chosen so that it takes, on average, exactly 20 minutes (or was it 10? anyway it's some amount of time) to "mine" one block (which generates Bitcoins). Every two weeks (on average - it's based on the number of blocks mined not on real time) the amount of CPU time needed is updated.
What "mining" means exactly is finding a value N so that sha256(sha256(block_header + N))
If they want to hand them out, why don't they just hand them out? Why waste power/GPU time? That is the question I want answered; I don't care how it works, technically, I want to know why it works that way.
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@blakeyrat said:
I don't care how it works, technically, I want to know why it works that way.
I think the idea is (and I'm just pulling this out of my ass) that the person who designed the Bitcoin mining process believes that having to "do something" in order to create Bitcoins gives them value. The "do something" is stupid and pointless, but some people are weird that way.
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@El_Heffe said:
the person who designed the Bitcoin mining process believes that having to "do something" in order to create Bitcoins gives them value. The "do something" is stupid and pointless, but some people are weird that way.
It's slightly more sane than the value of brand names, where a product increases in value as soon as different set of sigils are printed on it, I guess.
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@dhromed said:
@El_Heffe said:
the person who designed the Bitcoin mining process believes that having to "do something" in order to create Bitcoins gives them value. The "do something" is stupid and pointless, but some people are weird that way.
It's slightly more sane than the value of brand names, where a product increases in value as soon as different set of sigils are printed on it, I guess.
No, it isn't.
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As far as I understand (which is admittedly not far at all) , the system itself is pretty solid. While I doubt the Bitcoin currency will hold up on its own, I can imagine banks buying them for cheap and using them as supplementary transaction verification.
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@El_Heffe said:
@blakeyrat said:
I don't care how it works, technically, I want to know why it works that way.
I think the idea is (and I'm just pulling this out of my ass) that the person who designed the Bitcoin mining process believes that having to "do something" in order to create Bitcoins gives them value. The "do something" is stupid and pointless, but some people are weird that way.OK, so I'm one of those people who think that Bitcoins are stupid, but want people to attack them for the right reasons.
The reason that a huge amount of CPU/GPU power is needed to record a Bitcoin transaction is to prevent double-spending. Say you own a bitcoin, and want to send it to someone else; you go and write a (machine-readable) message saying "I am sending Bitcoin (insert Bitcoin name here) to blakeyrat", and cryptographically sign it so that everyone can prove that you allowed it to move. Now, you could, at much the same time, also write a message saying "I am sending Bitcoin (insert the same Bitcoin name here) to El_Heffe)", sign that, and send it to El_Heffe. Obviously, only one of these transactions is going to be allowed; and the way it's implemented, is that a transaction history is invalid if it contains both of them (so that people recording transaction history will only record one), and whichever version of the transaction history has the most CPU/GPU power put into verifying it is the official one. (Thus, although Bitcoin transfers are instant, it takes a while before you can prove that they've actually happened; standard at the moment seems to be waiting for 180 confirmations, which makes it very unlikely that someone will suddenly come up with a different version of history they've been running a supercomputer on.)
The next problem is that people need some incentive to spend ages grinding their computer to verify transaction histories, so the creation of new Bitcoins was tied towards verifications. Should you produce a full transaction history with a suitably computationally awkward hash, you're allowed to (in practice, always do) create some Bitcoins out of thin air for yourself in it (the actual amount reduces over time, and will some day reach 0, meaning that no new Bitcoins can be created); and if other people include your history in their transaction histories (which is usual as they have no reason not to), you'll get your 180 confirmations and people will treat those Bitcoins as yours. The problem is that this is the system that the original distribution of Bitcoins, which is still very much going on, is based on; and so people are competing to make transaction histories to get a relatively large number of Bitcoins. (As such, the <i>only</i> intrinsic value in Bitcoins is that they measure the worth of the work people do in verifying Bitcoin transactions, which is, umm, a little circular, and the basis for the currency will disappear once the last Bitcoin is allocated, at which point people will have to bribe the transaction verifiers in Bitcoins in order for them to keep going.)
So tl;dr: the only intrinsic value of Bitcoins is in encouraging people to verify your Bitcoin transactions, and there's current massive competition to verify transactions in order to get Bitcoins, which are only useful for getting other people to verify transactions for you. (Or to trade to someone else who somehow thinks that they're valuable.)
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Thanks for the explanation, but:
@ais523 said:
you go and write a (machine-readable) message saying "I am sending Bitcoin (insert Bitcoin name here) to blakeyrat", and cryptographically sign it so that everyone can prove that you allowed it to move.
Now we're back to Bitcoins being whole "things" that can be shuffled around. But they aren't; they can also be subdivided into tenths, hundredths, etc. So my message isn't: "send bitcoin Foobar to ais523", but "send 5% of bitcoin Foobar to ais523", and later, "send 5% of bitcoin Foobar to El_Heffe". So what happens in that case?
I understand your explanation, but... it's still missing something because if it were true then a bitcoin account would always have whole numbers.
@ais523 said:
The problem is that this is the system that the original distribution of Bitcoins, which is still very much going on, is based on; and so people are competing to make transaction histories to get a relatively large number of Bitcoins.
I'm pretty sure the system wasn't designed to create a currency for everybody to use; I'm pretty sure it was designed for the first 5-10 people in (who can create bitcoins much faster) to get rich and cash out while the cashin's good, while at the same time they can laugh at latecomers wait weeks and build up huge power bills for a single bitcoin. It's like greed and cruelty in currency form.
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@blakeyrat said:
Thanks for the explanation, but: @ais523 said:
Well, your message wouldn't cause a problem. But ais's message would. Which is what it's designed to prevent. If I have .05 bitcoins in my wallet, and i send .05 bitcoins to 2 different people, then that's what it's preventing.you go and write a (machine-readable) message saying "I am sending Bitcoin (insert Bitcoin name here) to blakeyrat", and cryptographically sign it so that everyone can prove that you allowed it to move.
Now we're back to Bitcoins being whole "things" that can be shuffled around. But they aren't; they can also be subdivided into tenths, hundredths, etc. So my message isn't: "send bitcoin Foobar to ais523", but "send 5% of bitcoin Foobar to ais523", and later, "send 5% of bitcoin Foobar to El_Heffe". So what happens in that case?
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So, what if you built some highly distributed system like Folding@home, in Javascript, and put it obfuscated into some web ads/analytics or someplace with a lot of traffic. (Or use a botnet.) You could have millions of hapless users unknowingly churning out fresh bitcoins at almost no cost to you.
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@Sutherlands said:
Well, your message wouldn't cause a problem. But ais's message would. Which is what it's designed to prevent. If I have .05 bitcoins in my wallet, and i send .05 bitcoins to 2 different people, then that's what it's preventing.
But the point is that if I sent 5% of Foobar to someone, Foobar still has 95% of its value in my account and 5% in theirs. So I should be able to send another 5% to ais523 without any problem, right? That should be legit, and when all is said and done, I have 90% of Foobar, and both El_Heffe and ais523 have 5% of Foobar.
The explanation works if bitcoins are a whole "thing" that can't be subdivided, but they can be subdivided so there must be something missing in the explanation.
Really, the most mysterious thing about bitcoin is how nobody can explain it in a simple fashion, heh.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Sutherlands said:
Forget percents. If you try to send bitcoins to 2 different people that total to more than you have in your wallet, that is what it is preventing.Well, your message wouldn't cause a problem. But ais's message would. Which is what it's designed to prevent. If I have .05 bitcoins in my wallet, and i send .05 bitcoins to 2 different people, then that's what it's preventing.
But the point is that if I sent 5% of Foobar to someone, Foobar still has 95% of its value in my account and 5% in theirs. So I should be able to send another 5% to ais523 without any problem, right? That should be legit, and when all is said and done, I have 90% of Foobar, and both El_Heffe and ais523 have 5% of Foobar.The explanation works if bitcoins are a whole "thing" that can't be subdivided, but they can be subdivided so there must be something missing in the explanation.
If you sent "5%" of a bitcoin to two different people, but only had "5%" of a bitcoin, that would cause a problem.
@blakeyrat said:
Really, the most mysterious thing about bitcoin is how nobody can explain it in a simple fashion, heh.
No, the mysterious thing is how you don't understand a simple explanation.
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@blakeyrat said:
Really, the most mysterious thing about bitcoin is how nobody can explain it in a simple fashion, heh.
If I'd gone completely batshit lunatic and wanted to make a crypto-based pedophile currency, and if I had the terrible taste to do it in the completely idiotic manner Bitcoin has done it, I'd implement it such that the currency is not atomic. Unlocking one crypto block records in the global transaction register that I have 1 "coin". Thereafter, the only crypto involved is the signing of each transaction - nothing is actually exchanged or stored in any "wallet" (except your crypto keys).I suspect this is the way the lunatics have gone and done it. I have not researched this, but it's consistent with the rantings of all the Bastard Lunatics that espouse the virtues of shady-assed pedophile currencies.
Incidentally, this signing of the global transaction register is why everybody needs a complete copy of the entire global transaction record to carry out any transfers - to verify that the signing chain is good all the way up to the initial decryption.
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The global transaction log prevents double-spending. If only the spender and receiver signed a transaction, then it would be easy to simply make the same transaction with multiple recipients. With thousands of third-parties to every transaction, that becomes exceedingly difficult. Also, bitcoins are divisible down to 0.00000001 bitcoins.
BTW, it's easier to not think of it as transferring bitcoins to someone, but rather to think of it as "making the community aware that the currency has a new owner". Because you are only "signing over" the currency, double-spending and proof of ownership are both important issues that don't exist with physical currency. On the other hand, theft is much more difficult. Think of it like buying a real estate; you have to record the transaction in public.
There is probably no non-insane solution to the problem that bitcoin solves. That's likely why no-one else has ever tried to solve it. Well, that and the fact that the "problem" requires a serious distrust of authority in order to be relevant.
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@Faxmachinen said:
As far as I understand (which is admittedly not far at all) , the system itself is pretty solid. While I doubt the Bitcoin currency will hold up on its own, I can imagine banks buying them for cheap and using them as supplementary transaction verification.
Banks aren't in the habit of spending money on worthless numbers. Unless you count CDOs.
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@Jaime said:
The global transaction log prevents double-spending. If only the spender and receiver signed a transaction, then it would be easy to simply make the same transaction with multiple recipients. With thousands of third-parties to every transaction, that becomes exceedingly difficult. Also, bitcoins are divisible down to 0.00000001 bitcoins.
BTW, it's easier to not think of it as transferring bitcoins to someone, but rather to think of it as "making the community aware that the currency has a new owner". Because you are only "signing over" the currency, double-spending and proof of ownership are both important issues that don't exist with physical currency. On the other hand, theft is much more difficult. Think of it like buying a real estate; you have to record the transaction in public.
There is probably no non-insane solution to the problem that bitcoin solves. That's likely why no-one else has ever tried to solve it. Well, that and the fact that the "problem" requires a serious distrust of authority in order to be relevant.
I just think of it as recording transactions. Because Bitcoin (the protocol) doesn't even have a concept of currency amounts - the only requirement is that the sum of the outputs of a transaction is equal to the sum of its inputs.
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@blakeyrat said:
Really, the most mysterious thing about bitcoin is how nobody can explain it in a simple fashion, heh.
Each transaction has inputs and outputs. Inputs contain private keys and reference past outputs of transactions. Outputs contain public keys. The sum of the inputs of a transaction must equal the sum of the outputs of the transaction. The private key of an input must match the public key of the referenced output.
You don't store money as such. You only store references to past transaction outputs, and their private keys.
To send someone some bitcoins, you create a new transaction that inputs from as many previous transactions as you want, and includes their private keys. These outputs are removed from your wallet. You then generate a new keypair, put one half in the new transaction's output and give the other half to the person securely. If there's some left over, you create another output with another keypair and add the private key to your own wallet.
That's not all of the details, obviously - for one thing, you can't generate the keypair yourself or you'd know their private key and hence be able to access their money. But it's close - I think.
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@Jaime said:
There is probably no non-insane solution to the problem that bitcoin solves. That's likely why no-one else has ever tried to solve it. Well, that and the fact that the "problem" requires a serious distrust of authority in order to be relevant.
What problem does bitcoin solve, other than how to enrich a small group of people at the expense of a larger group? We already have many ways of solving that problem, most of which are far less ridiculous.
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@Someone You Know said:
Bitcoin is designed to protect the holders of a currency from the central authorities that control the currency supply. Granted, it's a problem that most people don't view as a problem, but money supply abuses have caused serious problems, like the recent hyperinflation in Zimbabwe.@Jaime said:
There is probably no non-insane solution to the problem that bitcoin solves. That's likely why no-one else has ever tried to solve it. Well, that and the fact that the "problem" requires a serious distrust of authority in order to be relevant.
What problem does bitcoin solve, other than how to enrich a small group of people at the expense of a larger group? We already have many ways of solving that problem, most of which are far less ridiculous.
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@immibis said:
@blakeyrat said:
Really, the most mysterious thing about bitcoin is how nobody can explain it in a simple fashion, heh.
Each transaction has inputs and outputs. Inputs contain private keys
And... right there you lost the general public. Protip: if you're using jargon like "private keys", you're not explaining something in a simple fashion.
You also didn't cover the "so how does it work with partial bitcoins?" angle, unless you did and I didn't understand it because you didn't explain it in a simple fashion.
@Jaime said:
Bitcoin is designed to protect the holders of a currency from the central authorities that control the currency supply. Granted, it's a problem that most people don't view as a problem, but money supply abuses have caused serious problems, like the recent hyperinflation in Zimbabwe.
That problem was due to dumb thugs being the central authority. Nothing to do with the fact that the central authority exists. And dumb thugs would have (and did) ruined whatever governmental function they had authority over...
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@blakeyrat said:
@immibis said:
This one's really easy. The bitcoin spec states that all transactions will allow bitcoins to be fractionaized down to eight decimal places. So, if you want to give someone one ten-millionth of a bitcoin, go ahead.@blakeyrat said:@blakeyrat said:
And... right there you lost the general public. Protip: if you're using jargon like "private keys", you're not explaining something in a simple fashion.
Each transaction has inputs and outputs. Inputs contain private keysReally, the most mysterious thing about bitcoin is how nobody can explain it in a simple fashion, heh.
You also didn't cover the "so how does it work with partial bitcoins?" angle, unless you did and I didn't understand it because you didn't explain it in a simple fashion.
@Jaime said:
Of course. The people that get into bitcoin for non-speculative purposes believe that the Federal Reserve is run by people that will do the same thing. No one said they weren't paranoid.Bitcoin is designed to protect the holders of a currency from the central authorities that control the currency supply. Granted, it's a problem that most people don't view as a problem, but money supply abuses have caused serious problems, like the recent hyperinflation in Zimbabwe.
That problem was due to dumb thugs being the central authority. Nothing to do with the fact that the central authority exists. And dumb thugs would have (and did) ruined whatever governmental function they had authority over...
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@Jaime said:
This one's really easy. The bitcoin spec states that all transactions will allow bitcoins to be fractionaized down to eight decimal places. So, if you want to give someone one ten-millionth of a bitcoin, go ahead.
Yes, but if each bitcoin is a hash and you can only form bitcoin transactions out of existing bitcoin transactions, then-- you know what? Fuck this. The answer is: NOBODY GODDAMNED KNOWS.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Jaime said:
A bitcoin isn't a hash. Calculating the hash earns you 50 bitcoins. You cannot point to any single thing as a bitcoin just like you can't go to the bank and ask to touch your pile of money.This one's really easy. The bitcoin spec states that all transactions will allow bitcoins to be fractionaized down to eight decimal places. So, if you want to give someone one ten-millionth of a bitcoin, go ahead.
Yes, but if each bitcoin is a hash and you can only form bitcoin transactions out of existing bitcoin transactions, then-- you know what? Fuck this. The answer is: NOBODY GODDAMNED KNOWS.
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@Jaime said:
@blakeyrat said:
@Jaime said:
A bitcoin isn't a hash. Calculating the hash earns you 50 bitcoins. You cannot point to any single thing as a bitcoin just like you can't go to the bank and ask to touch your pile of money.This one's really easy. The bitcoin spec states that all transactions will allow bitcoins to be fractionaized down to eight decimal places. So, if you want to give someone one ten-millionth of a bitcoin, go ahead.
Yes, but if each bitcoin is a hash and you can only form bitcoin transactions out of existing bitcoin transactions, then-- you know what? Fuck this. The answer is: NOBODY GODDAMNED KNOWS.You can't? I sometimes go to the bank and ask for my money in pennies so I can bath in them
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@Jaime said:
A bitcoin isn't a hash. Calculating the hash earns you 50 bitcoins. You cannot point to any single thing as a bitcoin just like you can't go to the bank and ask to touch your pile of money.
Jesus, I know it's not a fucking physical item, I'm not fucking retarded. I asked way back in this thread "what is a bitcoin" and nobody fucking answered, so if I got confused over what a bitcoin is it's because nobody fucking answered that fucking simple fucking question when I fucking asked it.
Look, whatever: obviously either the system is a gigantic piece of shit, because it's so complex nobody understands it, or the system is a gigantic piece of shit because the only people who can understand it are austism-spectrum disorders who can't speak fucking plain English.
Bitcoins are magic beans. Fairies deliver them to people who have extremely high power bills due to keeping 50 GPUs online 24/7. Transactions are conducted via magic wand. There. Solved.
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@Jaime said:
@Someone You Know said:
Bitcoin is designed to protect the holders of a currency from the central authorities that control the currency supply. Granted, it's a problem that most people don't view as a problem, but money supply abuses have caused serious problems, like the recent hyperinflation in Zimbabwe.@Jaime said:
There is probably no non-insane solution to the problem that bitcoin solves. That's likely why no-one else has ever tried to solve it. Well, that and the fact that the "problem" requires a serious distrust of authority in order to be relevant.
What problem does bitcoin solve, other than how to enrich a small group of people at the expense of a larger group? We already have many ways of solving that problem, most of which are far less ridiculous.
But it only solves that problem if everyone using it is doing so for that reason — otherwise, users who are only out for themselves will extract a profit at the other users' expense, and destroy the system in the process. Which is what's happening. Maybe they need to institute some kind of test for new users that enforces a certain minimum level of paranoia.
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Blakey, let's try it this way:
There's no such thing as "a bitcoin", they don't exist even virtually. What you have is a number, your account balance.
A "bitcoin transaction" is announcing to the whole world one of two things: Either "I transfer <amount of X (may be fractional)> to <Recipient>, so my balance is now X less, his is X more" (note, you don't "send coins" as in items, you just say your account balance goes doen, and his goes up), or "Yo, I've burned $15 in electricity to uncover a valid hash, here it is for proof, so my balance grows by 1 (or 50?)". In either of these cases, thealla crazy lot (tens of thousands?) of other bitcoin users world must scream back "Yes, I confirm!" for the transaction to become "valid and true".
When you receive someone else's transaction, you compare with that huge-ass list of transactions you have already, and check if it fits the next place on the list. That's done with some crazy crypto scheme. If it fits, you scream "confirm", if it doesn't, you scream "fake".
I believe you were looking for some "concrete" value, like the hash you mentioned, that'd represent "a particular coin". To me it seems that the hash is more like a lottery ticket, you cash it in, and it's gone. And once all possible "accepted hashes" have been broadcasted and added to everyone's copiesof transaction log, no one can "win money" again, there can't be more added to the system, you'll be able only to exchange what you already have.
Disclaimer: I haven't read a single article about bitcoin, it's all inferred from the TDWTF threads.
Also, I still think that's one seriously fucked up scheme.
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@bannedfromcoding said:
Blakey, let's try it this way:
There's no such thing as "a bitcoin", they don't exist even virtually. What you have is a number, your account balance.
A "bitcoin transaction" is announcing to the whole world one of two things: Either "I transfer <amount of X (may be fractional)> to <Recipient>, so my balance is now X less, his is X more" (note, you don't "send coins" as in items, you just say your account balance goes doen, and his goes up), or "Yo, I've burned $15 in electricity to uncover a valid hash, here it is for proof, so my balance grows by 1 (or 50?)".See, that actually makes sense. And you didn't once have to use the term "private keys".
@bannedfromcoding said:
I believe you were looking for some "concrete" value, like the hash you mentioned, that'd represent "a particular coin". To me it seems that the hash is more like a lottery ticket, you cash it in, and it's gone.
That I think is what I was missing before.
@bannedfromcoding said:
Also, I still think that's one seriously fucked up scheme.
Oh no doubt. Any scheme where you have to wait hours for hundreds of computers to make an independent confirmation that you weren't just ripped-off before finishing a transaction seems, by definition, fucked up. Banks seem to manage this ok in real-time with their electronic currency schemes.
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@blakeyrat said:
Look, whatever: obviously either the system is a gigantic piece of shit, because it's so complex nobody understands it, or the system is a gigantic piece of shit because the only people who can understand it are austism-spectrum disorders who can't speak fucking plain English.
False dichotomy: actually, it's just so shit that I can't be bothered to explain it to you.If I could be bothered, I'd probably say something about how it's completely understandable that you're confusing the bitcoin protocol/medium-of-exchange/transaction history/what-have-you with bitcoin-the-monetary-unit-based-on-kiddy-porn because that's exactly what the kiddyfiddlers do whenever they explain bitcoins. They are actually two different things, though.
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@serguey123 said:
I sometimes go to the bank and ask for my money in pennies so I can bath in them
Scrooge McDuck is alive and well..
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@bannedfromcoding said:
Blakey, let's try it this way:
The only person to explain it in a way that actually makes sense is someone who doesn't know anything about Bitcoins.
There's no such thing as "a bitcoin", they don't exist even virtually. What you have is a number, your account balance. A "bitcoin transaction" is announcing to the whole world one of two things: Either "I transfer <amount of X (may be fractional)> to <Recipient>, so my balance is now X less, his is X more" (note, you don't "send coins" as in items, you just say your account balance goes down, and his goes up), or "Yo, I've burned $15 in electricity to uncover a valid hash, here it is for proof, so my balance grows by 1 (or 50?)". In either of these cases, the
alla crazy lot (tens of thousands?) of other bitcoin users world must scream back "Yes, I confirm!" for the transaction to become "valid and true".
When you receive someone else's transaction, you compare with that huge-ass list of transactions you have already, and check if it fits the next place on the list. That's done with some crazy crypto scheme. If it fits, you scream "confirm", if it doesn't, you scream "fake".
I believe you were looking for some "concrete" value, like the hash you mentioned, that'd represent "a particular coin". To me it seems that the hash is more like a lottery ticket, you cash it in, and it's gone. And once all possible "accepted hashes" have been broadcasted and added to everyone's copiesof transaction log, no one can "win money" again, there can't be more added to the system, you'll be able only to exchange what you already have.
Good Job, old chap
\
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@bannedfromcoding said:
Blakey, let's try it this way:
There's no such thing as "a bitcoin", they don't exist even virtually. What you have is a number, your account balance.I thought the coins did work like items, and the divisibility is along the lines of "I send the first half of bitcoin #500 to blakeyrat" (or "I send the parts from 30% to 30.02% of bitcoint #500 to blakeyrat", if I'm feeling stingy). I'm not entirely sure about that, though.
The coins have nothing to do with the hashes, though, except that finding a hash that verifies the history so far lets you add yourself some coins in the history. (It's not like there's only a finite number of hashes either; otherwise no further transactions would be possible. It's just that after a while, you can't gain coins from compiling transaction histories.)
Scarcity value - Wikipedia
