General Bitcoin discussion thread (June 2011)

SilasBarta

We've started a habit of creating periodic Bitcoin threads to confine discussion thereof to those threads and prevent excessive proliferation of Bitcoin topics in the discussion section. Here is a link to the last one, which links the other discussions. Lot's to talk about, and another bounce in Bitcoin's value (up to 33 then down to 24), so share your links and thoughts!

re-requisites -> pre- ?

I skimmed it and nothing jumped out at me. I understand public key crypto.

Your blog post made me think an explanation of bitcoin mining and transfer would occur. It never did. There was this:

What role do public key signatures play in Bitcoin? They are used to prove to the network that the owner of address A1 (A1 also functioning as a public key!) really did authorize the transfer of certain coins to the next address. Other nodes in the network, in turn, are able to easily verify that the owner of A1 signed off on the transfer by checking that the mathematical relationship I mentioned above holds among the A1 public key, the message indicating the transfer, and the signature on the transfer. And if this relationship doesn't hold, the other nodes (per the Bitcoin protocol) ignore the purported transfer, acting like it didn't exist, and refuse to tell other nodes about it.

... which isn't a very complete. The only thing I learned (I know nothing about Bitcoin mining or transaction protocols) is that apparently lots of nodes end up knowing about every transaction (paying attention only to transactions moving a particular coin that are signed by its last known owner).

So, I gather your explanation of Bitcoin is yet to be written.

Update: I've attempted a more "big picture" summary of how Bitcoin works as a whole, rather than just the prerequisites.

I'm interested in hearing comments about clarity or accuracy.

1SilasBarta15y

What Tim Tyler said. Remember, the layperson has a HUGE inferential gap between their knowledge and Bitcoin, and closing that gap requires solving the problem -- itself very difficult for most -- of explaining cryptography and what it can accomplish. Otherwise, people can't grasp how the scarcity and security come about.

0[anonymous]15y

What Tim Tyler said. This wasn't intended to explain Bitcoin itself (though it does cover some of that), but to close the part of the inferential distance that most people have to "walk" before they can begin to understand Bitcoin. Like I said in the post, simply understanding the cryptographic aspects is hard enough for most people, and it's something they'll need to understand first before they can understand how Bitcoin works and uses cryptography. One must be careful not to overestimate what the layperson will immediately understand. On the Slate discussion of Bitcoin, for example, some commenters had trouble grasping the idea of sending money through their computer, saying things like, "what, do I put the coins in some slot". It sounds like a stupid question, but it's what a person is likely to say when they don't understand how the scarcity arises and gets redistributed.

6

General Bitcoin discussion thread (June 2011)

6

6

6

General Bitcoin discussion thread (June 2011)

6

6