Bitcoin Forum

Other => Beginners & Help => Topic started by: moneymuncher on October 09, 2013, 03:45:49 AM



Title: I have questions; I hope you have answers (WARNING: VERY NOOB)
Post by: moneymuncher on October 09, 2013, 03:45:49 AM
I am having trouble understanding some of the more technical aspects of creating and sending bitcoin.

1. What is hash / hashrate?

2. How does "double spending" happen?

3. How does the network "confirm" a transaction?

4. How does blockchain.info get all of its information about transactions? If I wanted to access those transactions could I (assuming I know how to program) write some code that would mimic blockchain?

5. I've seen faucets that ask for an inputs.io email address. How can bitcoins be sent simply with the knowledge of an email address?

Hope you can help

Thanks



Title: Re: I have questions; I hope you have answers (WARNING: VERY NOOB)
Post by: Vod on October 09, 2013, 04:32:08 AM
I am having trouble understanding some of the more technical aspects of creating and sending bitcoin.

1. What is hash / hashrate?

2. How does "double spending" happen?

3. How does the network "confirm" a transaction?

4. How does blockchain.info get all of its information about transactions? If I wanted to access those transactions could I (assuming I know how to program) write some code that would mimic blockchain?

5. I've seen faucets that ask for an inputs.io email address. How can bitcoins be sent simply with the knowledge of an email address?

Hope you can help

Thanks



Search google for "bitcoin" and you can answer a lot of these questions yourself.  Don't be lazy.   ;)


Title: Re: I have questions; I hope you have answers (WARNING: VERY NOOB)
Post by: nahtnam on October 09, 2013, 05:11:31 AM
Welcome! I don't have any answers for you except for 5. When you sign up, you give your email address, and these faucets are linked to inputs.io which has your email... Therefore you can send via email... I hope that makes sense...


Title: Re: I have questions; I hope you have answers (WARNING: VERY NOOB)
Post by: DannyHamilton on October 09, 2013, 05:46:13 AM
1. What is hash

A mathematical calculation used to create a new block for the blockchain.  Specifically bitcoin uses the SHA256 hash.  Details about this calculation can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA256

hashrate?

The speed at which a piece of computer hardware can perform the hash calculation.  Typically measured in terms of number of completed hash calculations per second.

2. How does "double spending" happen?

It depends on the definition of "spending".  In bitcoin, true double-spending is not possible.  That is the crypto-currency problem that bitcoin solved.  In general, when people talk about double-spending with bitcoin they are talking about a two separate transactions that are broadcast onto the bitcoin network each spending the exact same unspent output but with differing sets of new outputs.  At most, only one of the two transactions will make it permanently into the blockchain. The other attempt will simply cease to exist.

3. How does the network "confirm" a transaction?

A miner somewhere solves a block that contains the transaction and then broadcasts that block to be added to the blockchain that every full node maintains a copy of.

4. How does blockchain.info get all of its information about transactions?

They run full nodes and scan all blocks and transactions received.  They then make a permanent indexed database entry into their own database for each piece of information so they can quickly provide details on the website and through their API interface.

If I wanted to access those transactions could I (assuming I know how to program) write some code that would mimic blockchain?

Yes.

5. I've seen faucets that ask for an inputs.io email address. How can bitcoins be sent simply with the knowledge of an email address?

I don't know much about inputs.io  I suppose they may perhaps store a user's email address and link it to the account that they maintain.  Then when someone sends bitcoins to inputs.io and tells inputs.io to credit those bitcoins to the account that is associated with a particular email address, inputs.io can look up the email address in their database and credit the account appropriately.

Hope you can help

I tried.

Thanks

You're Welcome.


Title: Re: I have questions; I hope you have answers (WARNING: VERY NOOB)
Post by: DannyHamilton on October 09, 2013, 05:51:16 AM
Please take the time to read through the following resources.  They will answer many of your current questions, and many questions that you haven't even thought to ask yet.

The original "Satoshi Whitepaper".  This is a MUST READ for anyone who wants to understand the details of bitcoin:
http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Bitcoin lexicon:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126798.0

The forum NEWBIE README.  Please take the time to follow the links in this post and read the resulting content.  It is labeled "NEWBIE README" for a reason:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=177133.0

The Bitcoin Wiki:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page