Bitcoin Forum

In reality, there are no coins in the blockchain, there are only transactions between bitcoin addresses.
The bitcoin transactions need to be signed using public-key cryptography, which means you sign them with a private key that is never revealed and broadcast the signed transaction in order for it to be validated and accepted chronologically so that you cannot double-spend coins at a time where the unspent transactions in the blockchain balance sheet are already spent.

In the blockchain there are only timestamped transactions between bitcoin addresses. Holding the private key of a bitcoin address allows you to spend its funds if they were not spent in previous transactions.

The coins are just the balances where the unit is BTC (with 8 decimal points) inferred from all previous unspent transactions to that bitcoin address.

When bitcoin reaches parity with gold in terms of "market cap", one BTC will be worth the same as 10 Kilograms of certified Gold.

You cannot split coins because there are no coins, only signed transactions with a minimum of one satoshi available plus fees.
There are no coins. Only balances associated with a bitcoin address inferred from transactions confirmed and part of the blockchain.

You need a race that is computationally expensive to generate consensus and bury transactions in the past irreversibly, otherwise, you would need a central authority (third-party), to tell the balance corresponding to each bitcoin address.

-remotemass

Lol I'm going to bet that this technical fact is going to be misunderstood by a good number people, thinking that OP's post is a sort of anti-bitcoiner FUD argument or the "yes, bitcoin is digital so it's not real coins" responses.

But yea, bitcoin addresses technically don't have variables with values such as "bitcoin_wallet = 0.05;" like how bank accounts and centralized money services have.

Interesting analogy. But if we think about it. There is no real coins we are dealing with but a digital print of coin represent the figures and numbers which comprises the bitcoin quantity.

But this is a good arguement, cause possibly there is a reason why bitcoin coined as coin instead of something tangible right? Good statement, but wanted to hear some more deeper explanation about this.

Well, it doesn't exist in reality and it wasn't tangible unlike gold but isn't fiat do the same? There's no real fiat it's just a piece of paper and worst is, they can print more and more of it creating inflation, it wasn't the same to bitcoin. Bitcoin is a medium of exchange in the internet and as a store of value. We are heading digitally and I'm expecting and always optimistic that Bitcoin will be adopted by many.

Technically there are real coins in Bitcoin but every transaction that has to do with electronic get be held and sending an online bank transfer to someone in Malaysia what you send to her is just some digit which she will collect as fiat and that's just the situation of Bitcoin.
Having said that, if you googling the word "crypto" it means “hidden" which the coin in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency is "hidden currency" (cant be physical touch/experience) that the ordinary human mind cannot understand which is the reason why some people will never understand the benefit of Bitcoin until it too late.

Interesting to see it expressed that way, but really I suppose it's just a definition of what a blockchain is, so any transaction can in theory be followed back to an initial point of origin.


I don't know. There are alternatives to PoW. Proof of Capacity is an interesting one. Plus there is the DAG approach - but then I suppose that's getting away from blockchain a bit.

I am quite confused about what does exactly means real coin that OP mentioned above. Does it mean physical coin? If so then yes there is no physical coin. But it doesn't mean there is no real coin because there is a real algorithm to determine the coins or mean the coins. If you are familiar with mobile banking or internet banking, have you notice is there any real fiat? Aren't they just using an algorithm to determine the real amount which would be cashout from the bank or authorized party? Same Bitcoin working but with decentralized blockchain technology. You can still cash out here from ATMs or banks. So how are you cashing Bitcoin if there is no real coin?

Of course, this is not anti-Bitcoin actually but just a statement of truth. In the real world we are living, it would be nearly impossible to be explaining Bitcoin the way it really is and so we are coming up with terms that can easily be understood even by a common man. The term coin is something we can easily relate and that is why the term Bitcoin as it would be so hard to be explaining to non-technical people if we tell them that there are not really coins but "there are only transactions between bitcoin addresses." And this is true in most industries especially those involving money, banking and finance.

Some people do really think bitcoin coins are real digital coins. They think that bitcoin coins are very large random numbers with special proprieties that need to be mined and that you keep your coins safe and hidden in your bitcoin wallet. The truth is that the bitcoin wallet only protects and hides your private key of each bitcoin address.

This topic caught my interest at first I thought that it was an anti-BTC post but it was just a fact given to us by OP.
And at some point I really got interested on others reply just like this.

-TheNineClub
"And there is no real money on your bank account, only numbers someone wrote down on a computer."
It was also one of the reply that I would say but you already stated it and explain it much more detailed that I could.

The ancient bitcointalkers discussed it too 🙂

Ofcourse.
I guess the coin was used to relate it to money and make the idea easily understandable.

If you want your bitcoin in physical coin form, you could by safely printing any denomination of your Bitcoin private keys on a physical coin hidden or cryptic. Example, you print $1 worth of bitcoin, use that to buy coffee or give it to someone as gift. It can continually be distributed in this manner until the private key is exposed probably by scratching off a silver panel that hides it.   The material for the coin could be plastic.. and the silver panel could contain codes to prove whether it's from genuine source or whether it has been scratch before.    Just an idea by the way. Don't know if it has been tried before. I believe it is possible though.

Yes, that's bitcoin for you.

After all, balance in your bank is just a number. Fiat is just a paper.

If we follow your point of view then we can say there are no coins in my bank account, there are no coins in my credit debit and there are no coins in the credits offered by the banks.

Is important to mention how the money is already virtual, if you think all the money in the world is back up by coins then you are wrong. It's easy for govs to print bills and create coins, but that doesn't represent the total amount of money that we have in the world.

Yes you are right there are no coins in Bitcoin.This is how Bitcoin and other altcoins works as they have no physical indentities unlike fiat which is printed on paper.The funds are stored in your wallet in the form of database known as UTXO which means unspent transaction output and its the balance that a person has in his wallet which he can spend by providing digital signature and proof of ownership in the form of private and public keys stored in the wallet.The UTXO increases when you receive funds and decrease when you sign a transaction meaning when you spend your so called coins.Its just for simplification to normal people that Bitcoins are digital coins but in reality they don't have any physical existence but just funds stored in the form of UTXO in your wallets.

The misconception here is that the OP is talking about that there are no real coins in bitcoin or cryptocurrency and this is because bitcoin is a digital currency which is said by the OP that this is not real. Meaning if the money is not tangible then it is not a real coin so digital currency or digital coin are not considered as a real coins. Which is the concept is wrong. Bitcoin is a digital currency and compared to fiat, it would be hard to use on the stores as we know that the stores must accept first bitcoin in order to use it in transactions or you must convert your bitcoin into fiat currency in order to use it preferably.

There isn't anything "physical" in bitcoin if that's what you mean otherwise we refer to transaction outputs both commonly and in code as "coins". a coin or output can have a value between 0 to 2100000000000000 satoshis.

this is wrong. transactions aren't between addresses. but a transaction is spending one or more UTXO to create one ore more new UTXOs. these outputs may not correspond to any address at all. for example a non standard scriptpub or OP_RETURN outputs are not addresses.

this is correct but technically incomplete.
to spend a "coin" or UTXO one has to provide the "unlocking script" that can spend that output. in standard transactions this will include providing one or more ECDSA signatures.

this is wrong. coins as i said earlier are the outputs which contain both an amount (value of the output) and a script (the locking script).
in fact there is no "balance" defined in bitcoin protocol

the unit is actually satoshi

bitcoin is not supposed to reach parity with anything least of which a precious metal mainly becaue it is a currency.

technically wrong. you can split the amount of a "coin" between multiple new outputs.

again there is no such thing as "address balance" in bitcoin. there are only coins some of which are unspent aka UTXOs that are kept in a database build by each node known as chainstate.

in virtual money it is not real money. different from fiat which has its shape and type.
but bitcoin has a value like fiat money,
you are correct bitcoin is only a balance, but it is the same with fiat if you save you also only see the balance in the savings book
the point is bitcoin has no physical form because bitcoin is virtual money

One token developer thought of it.

One token address = 1 token. 1 is a default value of token for one address that ever created. It is fair default value but non sense and crazy. It is  bad than min balance in bank account to keep it alive. People have to make a min deposit when they open their bank account.

That was what I was thinking too but the OP is just explaining the technical aspect of bitcoin and what it really is. Imagine in the near future, bitcoin is minted in coins that serves as wallet too and there is no way to extract them out of that coin but we know that it has X value based on what the minted coin says and then we finally did a full circle.

Ok. I understand now why this was posted. I think that I can't answer to that correctly thoguh. I would need knowledge of the Bitcoin code to be precise in my reply. However, it is seems that this is the outcome of the whole system of the Bitcoin software and the blockchain. The balances that have as source all the transactions permanently recorded and stored in the blocks.

People who are not familiar with this will think that bitcoin is a tool to fool people. Yes, there is not any physical BTC. Also, there are not any BTC in the blockchain. Blockchain is just storage to record the transactions. Blockchain is tamper-proof so you cannot change it. Once it is validated it is there forever.

My understanding of this has always been that it was just a token, representing the tx's that were made on the Blockchain. So you own the Private Key that gives you permission to transfer that token to another address. I have never looked at it as a digital coin... but rather the representation of Bitcoin addresses, where you have the access to shift it from one address to another.  ::)

I think the general thinking behind this was that it was an actual digital coin, because it was just easier for the people who were used to fiat coins to conceptualize this as a digital coin.  ;)

As you said transactions in the blockchain that represents the bitcoin or a coin (as a unit). Of course, it isn't the coin that has a physical characteristics but it is still "real coin" that can be transacted digitally. And for us to be able to move these digital coins, for us to be able to make it possible to use, we need some blockchain transactions and miners. This shouldn't be put into some complication analogies. Its a digital coin.

next revelation you have yet to make

in bitcoin transaction and bitcoins blockchain... there are no bitcoins/btc

..
transactions only use satoshi units of measure
its data is satoshis
no btc is found in the tx or block data

the users software takes the satoshi unit measure from the data and converts the number into a basket number ofbtc for user benefit.. its a gui representation, only seen in the user software display

If by real you mean tangible property then you are right. There are no 'coins' in bitcoin but a bunch of 1s and 0s. But let me tell you this, is value something that is real and absolute? Like at the very least matter? Because if it is then the paradox of value shouldn't exist, yet of course, it does. So to say that bitcoin is an intangible coin without intrinsic value is like saying "gold is not valuable because value isn't something that physically exists in all things and is a basic construct humans made to indhce capitalism".

That's exactly what I am pointing out: bitcoins are not a bunch of zeros and ones. Only key/pairs and transactions are numbers and code.

Some people do really think bitcoin coins are real digital coins. They think that bitcoin coins are very large random numbers with special proprieties that need to be mined and that you keep your coins safe and hidden in your bitcoin wallet. The truth is that the bitcoin wallet only protects and hides your private key of each bitcoin address.

There is no such thing as digital coins or tokens in the bitcoin protocol. You find the balance inferring it from the irreversible past transaction buried in the blockchain. Even satoshis only exist in the orchestration of transactions and their scripts. But thanks for making me aware that BTC is just a GUI feature. I was not much aware of that.

OP “remotemass” is horribly incorrect.  On a quick skim, I see that only BrewMaster corrected OP’s misinformation (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5322630.msg56526341#msg56526341).  Does no one else on this thread know how Bitcoin works!?

This is important for users to understand.  Coin control is an important skill for:

• Protecting your privacy.
• Optimizing your transactions to reduce fees.

Yes, you can split and merge coins.  Knowing how that works is basic Bitcoin competence!

Any decent wallet software has an interface to show you the list of coins in your wallet, and to let you manually select coins to build a transaction.

In technical terms, “coins” are also known as UTXOs (Unspent Transaction Outputs).

The key point hereby is the difference between Bitcoin’s UTXO model, and the account model used by Ethereum and some other currencies:


remotemass, stop spreading technical misinformation.  Go to Beginners & Help (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=39.0), learn how Bitcoin works, and don’t try to teach others until you know what you are talking about.  You haven’t learned anything in the past nine years (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128593.0), but it’s not too late to start!

---

WRONG.  Each UTXO (“coin”) can be spent only once.  The balance of a UTXO can neither increase nor decrease.  That is why change addresses are used:  If the total amount of all the UTXOs used as inputs in a transaction exceeds the amount that you want to spend, then you need to send change back to yourself as a new UTXO (= a new coin).

---

The part that you quoted is totally wrong.  If you seek knowledge, disregard what remotemass said.  Bitcoin addresses do NOT have balances.  Rather, the reverse is the case:  In simple terms, each coin usually contains the address which is allowed to spend it (the address that received the coin).  The coin can only be spent by the holder of the private key for that address.

That is the simple explanation—perhaps oversimplified.  The way that it actually works, each UTXO contains a spend script (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script).  To spend the coin, information must be provided that makes the script evaluate to a true value (nonzero item on top of the stack).  The most common types of script simply require a digital signature from a public key which, when hashed, matches the hash contained within the script.  In the user interface, that hash is expressed as an address.  The blockchain does not contain any addresses; an address only is a UI feature.

Hey, thanks a lot for your answer. I just read it, and I am glad that sometimes I revisit previous posts to read more replies.
I am starting to understand this a little better right now but I still think I miss some important details. I had the wrong impression that public key and public address was one and the same.

I read the bitcoin wiki link but I am still not sure. I have to read and understand it completely first no matter my limited coding knowledge (it looks very detailed and I can understand most of it). For sure, I learned that the address is not on the blockchain and only on UI after hashing the public key with SHA256 and RIPEMD160 cryptography. I will need to learn the sequence of Opcodes to understand it better but it is a lot more clear to me now.

I also found this topic in the forum that explains it very well. How Bitcoin Addresses are generated? Understand the Math behind Bitcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5223167.0)

Bitcoin is actually more similar to real physical coins than to bank accounts where money is just a number in a database. I present you - the Coin Analogy (https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/Coin_analogy). UTXOs are like coins, they can be melted together into a bigger "coin", or split into smaller "coin". Satoshi is like an atom of a coin - the smallest possible part. Addresses are not accounts, they are more like mailing addresses where you send coins, so one address can hold many coins.

I think there is actually a coin and it goes far above from being mare signed transactions into the blockchaines as we view it. The world and the physical nature for which we know and take coin as has somehow clouded our thoughts on the nature for which we assume a coin to take and with bitcoin being intangible or codes, it very much disputes with its existence but truly, there is. There is bitcoin and I'm proud to won a few, lol.
So, the miners do there jobs of mining and confirming the transactions while, we just be about normal with our currency.

blockchain data. raw tx data, utxo data contains no btc
its all satoshi's

its the users GUI (graphic user interface) that converts the hard data of many sats into bucket terms like:
btc, mbtc ubts bits (depending on the user interface setting)

there is no melting down into smaller coin or atoms of coin.
sats are the unit of measure. and btc is just a graphic interpretation not a data unit

First of all I have no idea yet how this works. I said in a previous post, that I need to learn the code, and find out how exactly this is represented. I read so many replies, and each one has something contradicting with another. All of you seem to be early members and of course I would expect from you to understand Bitcoin better, however, I see a conflict in opinions and no actual representation of how this is displayed in the code.
I am sure you have the best of interests to help all of us understand, so if possible I would like to ask to point me where I can actually find out. The code for example. I will take my time and study it.
Looking at previous posts it is all about being offensive to the OP or other comments, yet each one is very different with the rest. Everyone is pointing something they think they know.
I take your comment is correct, but don't you think that most in bitcointalk are just saying things they may not know exactly if they are correct or not?

take any transaction in the blockchain and look at the raw data
this link i just found in a 3 second google search explains the transaction format.. though there are many explanations.. all saying the value is measured in satoshis
https://miro.medium.com/max/1560/1*BMwZ3vTqo6lZffflf94cow.png (https://miro.medium.com/max/1560/1*BMwZ3vTqo6lZffflf94cow.png)
https://klmoney.wordpress.com/bitcoin-dissecting-transactions-part-2-building-a-transaction-by-hand/

find a transaction
type it into here
https://nioctib.tech/
in the </> tab it shows GUI translation (human readable format).. click the raw tab to see the real data
find the green highlights halfway down.. thats the raw hex format of the output values

it requires unpadding them into int32 little endian
so.. save time simply put that hex into
https://www.scadacore.com/tools/programming-calculators/online-hex-converter/
and then look for the int32 little endian and you will not see bitcoins with 8 decimals but satoshi amounts

the hex format of output value is hex measured in satoshis

you can do it the manual way too. but hope i saved you some time by showing you tools to get the raw data and convert is easily

Seriously?! I use to think that the are varaibles that hold our value and the subtraction/addition is done depending on the transaction carried out. If so, then how does your bitcoin wallet read a specific value? Imo, it is stored and updated in a variable. Lol... Seems it's getting more confusing.

"S-so you are telling me that there is actually no fractions of golden circuit-themed coins inside my Smartphone ?"  :o

Thanks Franky, this will take some time but it will certainly help a lot. It is weekend, so it's perfect to start reading!

Basically, and also I think OP is trying to tell us that Bitcoin has no raw value backing behind like a fiat currency that doesn't have really any backing but faith from the people and the government. My question is what if we make coins that doubles as cold wallet to store bitcoin, does it count as real coin?

bitcoin only exists in your head
it only exists in your mind