Talk:Bitcoin

Nomenclature convention

See this thread. KLP (talk) 19:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Quote: "Let's use Bitcoin (singular, with upper case letter b) to describe the protocol, network, and software, and bitcoin(s) (singular or plural, with lower case letter b) to describe actual bitcoins, as generated by computers." --Mortense (talk) 07:08, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Gavin Andresen aka Satoshi Nakamoto

An anonymous user threw this little tidbit up on the page, and I'm reverting it due to the fact that this bit of information is unsourced and such a major factual detail that needs some fact checking before it can be confirmed as fact. I admit that the circumstantial evidence seems interesting, but I would either like a link to an article where Gavin admits he is the original author (Gavin has claimed otherwise) or somebody else has "spilled the beans" with "proof" beyond some IP editor throwing this bit in.

All in all, I do believe that Satoshi is a psuedonym for somebody, but I have no proof of that fact or any real clue as to who it might be. Unless it is sourced, it does not belong in this article. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

That IP only seems to vandalize. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.1.73.218 (talk) 21:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd have to agree. It looks like he has tried to make this same edit a couple of other times, and is being persistent to inject this particular tidbit into the article. I would dare say he has failed the spirit if not the letter of WP:3RR and deserves to be blocked for that purpose alone. Further injection of this will have to be considered a sock puppet. --Robert Horning (talk) 22:06, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems extremely misleading to treat Satoshi Nakamoto as a real person, however. Shouldn't there be some reference to the discussions about the fact that he doesn't exist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.90.167 (talk) 05:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

which bitcoin address example to use?

Sorry if this has already been proposed, but as a bitcoin address given as example for the address format, I think it would be nice to use the first address that appears in the block chain:

1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

--Grondilu (talk) 03:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we should use an actual address. Ideally there would be an invalid address, similar to IP addresses, which have invalid address ranges reserved for documentation. Since there's no such thing for Bitcoin, I propose we use a random nothing up my sleeve number, such as the SHA256 hash of the string "Bitcoin" and convert it into the format of an address. — DataWraith (talk) 08:45, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I concur. I see no utility in using an actual address. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:42, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Looking into this, I've learned a bit more about bitcoin addresses. Basically, an address is a 160 bit hash with a checksum to prevent typos. While the change Casascius made to corrupt the address in the article results in an invalid address, that address is not well-formed anymore (http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress complains). Since I'm a perfectionist, I'll be bold and change the address as follows:

• SHA1("Bitcoin") = 42bd6b9eeb1da01504fefe014e16415246c0f66f (160 bit)
• Convert that into an address via http://blockexplorer.com/q/hashtoaddress/42bd6b9eeb1da01504fefe014e16415246c0f66f
  • This yields the address 175tWpb8K1S7NmH4Zx6rewF9WQrcZv2456

At this point the address is valid, and someone could send money to it (although no one could receive it). While I doubt anyone would actually send any, the last character can be changed to 'W' (for Wikipedia), which invalidates the checksum. Trying to send money to the address will now result in an error message from the bitcoin client. — DataWraith (talk) 09:31, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

That's fine.--Grondilu (talk) 23:22, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

For the record, the previous address 1NS17iag9jJgTHD1VXjvLCEnZuQ3rJED9L is actually an invalid address that is given as the example address in the main Bitcoin client (hence its use). (The relevant code being m_staticTextInstructions = new wxStaticText( this, wxID_ANY, _("Enter a Bitcoin address (e.g. 1NS17iag9jJgTHD1VXjvLCEnZuQ3rJDE9L)"), wxDefaultPosition, wxDefaultSize, 0 ); in uibase.cpp of the client)Blue Matt (talk) 00:35, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

There should be mention of the legalities of this proposed currency.

BitCoin is not legal tender, and advertising it as such is against the law. While it may be a decentralised system based on open source technologies; that doesn't change that the rate you can 'mine' BitCoins is determined by a central authority. Where does the power to regulate and control inflation come from? Does it concern any economists that one can only 'create' money, not destroy it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.142.140 (talk) 13:15, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Coins can actually be destroyed trivially: generate a new address, transfer coins to it, and delete the private key for the address. The coins are now unusable. Also, the rate of mining is not based on a central authority. AFAIK it is a well defined function of the aggregate processing power of miners. 90.163.167.157 (talk) 02:01, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

If this is the case, then how can the global maximum of $21 million be ensured? Also, if it is a function of computing power; doesn't this incentivise using massive data centers to mine? If this is the case, it means people with larger clouds win - hardly an even society. Also, I'd like to think there are better things our data centers could be doing than having to use some useless function to generate money for a completely abstract economy. Tyraz (talk) 02:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

It is the case. The global maximum still applies regardless of computing power. As for your other criticism, think how productive it is to drill holes to extract gold. Not much, right? And the one with more drilling power finds more gold. Yet we do not think it is unfair. It's the same concept. Useless function? People are trading bitcoins at around 5 usd lately.. 90.163.167.157 (talk) 05:13, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

If "people are trading bitcoins at around 5 usd lately", then by definition US finance and tax laws apply. So in addition to wasting computer resources "mining" bitcoin, we are now wasting human resources, in the form of attorneys, accountants, judges, law enforcement officials, legislators, economists, etc. who must now engage in the processes specified by these laws. ;-) Znmeb (talk) 17:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Bitcoin is not legal tender but it's definitely not illegal. Its existence doesn't violate any intrinsic human rights; quite the opposite it represents the ultimate freedom of humans to trade voluntarily and privately. Legal tender only means that a government recognizes a form of money as official. Just because gold is not legal tender does not make it illegal, and the same applies to Bitcoins. The only relevant mention of legality in the article should be governments ignorant enough to declare Bitcoins illegal. Malamute (talk) 21:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Bubble and POV

"Bitcoin's peer-to-peer topology and lack of central administration make it infeasible for any authority, governmental or otherwise, to manipulate the value of bitcoins or induce inflation by producing more of them.[citation needed]" without any mention about Economic bubble [1][2][3] is POVish Bulwersator (talk) 12:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Why is it "POV-ish"? The statement is factually accurate and doesn't seem to be related to economic bubbles. I'm going to delete the POV dispute marker, I think you need to explain your objection better or just edit the page yourself. A discussion of bubbles might be worth putting in to a separate section, but I'm not sure if it'd have anything useful to say beyond "Bitcoin is an asset and therefore can experience bubbles". Mike Hearn (talk) 18:54, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I restored it as possibility of bubble is hidden in truncated criticism section (and bitcoin bubble is frequent opinion so omitting it violates WP:UNDUE). It should be in lead. Sorry for bad English, Bulwersator (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I can see why it would be POV-ish, that's due to the suggestion that the value cannot be "manipulated". Sure, it can't be manipulated by producing more of them, but from the looks of things, they can be easily manipulated just by creative trading due to the small size of the market. Fair to say that BTC can't be counterfeited, but that's about it. Casascius♠ (talk) 00:53, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, whatever, but could you guys fix the article instead of just putting a marker there? If you think there needs to be a bigger discussion of bubbles go right ahead and add one. Or maybe if the middle clause about "manipulation of value" is deleted it'd be OK? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Hearn (talk • contribs) 11:19, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Terminology: generating, blocks, batches

The three key terms "generating node", "block" and "batch" are not properly explained in the article.

The section Bitcoin#Block-chain_and_confirmations defines a block as a file containing a list of recent transactions. It refers to generating nodes without explaining the term. Are these the nodes that generate bitcoins as explained in the later section Bitcoin#Generating_bitcoins?

That section talks about generating nodes as well as block-generating nodes, without explaining the difference, if any. The section further talks about batches of bitcoins produced by generating nodes, suggesting that "generating nodes" are "nodes-that-generate-batches-of-bitcons". Later in that section it talks about candidate blocks and says "one block gets generated every ten minutes", suggesting that a batch and a block is somehow the same thing. Is that true?

Finally, in Bitcoin#Transaction_fees, we learn that nodes "include transactions in the blocks they generate", apparently using the word "block" in the sense of "file-containing-list-of-transactions" and the word "generate" in the sense of "producing-files-containing-lists-of-transactions".

It would help a lot if this terminological confusion could be cleaned up. Thanks, AxelBoldt (talk) 14:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Inherent bias

Pro-bitcoin people are more likely to write about it than anti-bitcoin people, and more likely to give the attention to those writings necessary to get them published in a reliable source. Therefore, we should pay particular attention to including anti-bitcoin points. I'm not suggesting lowering the standards of RS, but just seeking out RS's which cogently put forth those anti-bitcoin arguments which can be easily found on non-RS such as blogs, Quora, etc. Currently, the only point in the "criticism" section is about deflation; we should find sources for the points which have been removed (initial allocation, lack of intrinsic value, lack of liquidity/convertibility, and lack of stabilizing authority). 187.143.153.84 (talk) 14:27, 24 May 2011 (UTC)