Indeed, all these hacks (imo) is a huge reason people are not getting into and behind btc like they should be.
I certainly wouldn't say "should be". Many people are rightly skeptical of the entire Bitcoin space given the "hacks" and should stay away. This is in fact evidence that people on mass are capable of learning and voting with their wallets. The market for Bitcoin exchange services has been improving for over 5 years. Mt.Gox itself was a significant improvement over bitcoinmarket.com for offering bank transfers as the older exchange suffered with a growing number of PayPal scams. This "should be" betrays the general impatience we have for this evolution. We want the awesome creatures the system will eventually deliver today. Alas, I doubt there is a way to hurry this process, not if you want it done well. Worryingly, it seems many disagree with me and champion government regulation as a way to reach awesome exchanges much sooner. They seem oblivious to the fact that the horrific lack of efficiency and market competition in the traditional financial system is mainly due to overbearing government regulations, regulations which are not only supported by but often even written by the established banks (only one new banking licence was granted in the UK in the last 100 years!). Deposit insurance has freed us from caring about the safety of our bank deposits but I believe it has also fostered a number of terrible unintended costs (global economic problems and heavy debasement programs). |
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It's actually calculating the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Are you suggesting that satoshi is a mouse? |
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The bright side is that all these poorly managed incompetent exchanges get washed away. There really need to be a stronger regulation on exchanges, then i bet 80% of these exchanges wouldn't pass the test.
Exactly this, no regulation, no framework, no recourse. It's one of the reasons, I'm actually fine with the Bitlicense and AML/KYC rules being applied to exchanges and services of the like. Without regulation, you get the wild wild west, and bad operators just up and leave when they'd make their dime, and claim it was "hacked". It's one of the reasons I'm not too hard on exchanges like Gemini which actively seek regulations for themselves and hope to use state approval to advertise and bring in customers fed up with losing money in the wild west. However, this is no reason to back Bitlicense or AML/KYC rules. As far as I understand it, the Bitlicense is not optional, a significant loss in freedom of choice and potential efficiency (the market is cut out of the process of determining efficient regulations) for no real gain in safety (I'd argue indeed a long-term loss in safety). Furthermore, AML/KYC rules wouldn't have prevented the loss of these 3000 BTC. All AML/KYC would have done here is cause hassle for Kipcoins customers, put a bunch of passport scans in the hands of potential fraudsters, and cost taxpayers money paying the salaries of bureaucrats to make this all happen. |
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I think Sergio was just trying not to derail the thread. Poor guy's just too damned interesting for his own good. I'm not so considerate. Searching the forum yielded a topic started by Cryddit about a year ago where he posted the source he receive in private correspondence with Satoshi about 2 months before Bitcoin's first release. One can see that indeed the "bits" field (variable name: "nBits") represented the number of leading zeros required of a block's hash. The beginning of the block generating code (mining) we see that the hashTarget is set as the binary number: (nBits) '0's followed by (256 - nBits) '1's. We then see the loop which performs a double-hash and checks the result against this target. //
// Search
//
uint256 hashTarget = (~uint256(0) >> pblock->nBits);
uint256 hash;
while (nTransactionsUpdated == nTransactionsUpdatedLast)
{
BlockSHA256(&tmp.block, nBlocks0, &tmp.hash1);
BlockSHA256(&tmp.hash1, nBlocks1, &hash);
if (hash <= hashTarget)
{
In the function GetNextWorkRequired we see that blocks were to be spaced 15-minutes apart while target was to be readjusted roughly once every 30 days. nBits could only be increased or decreased by 1 (corresponding to a difficulty precisely doubling or halving) and it would only change if the target was considered out by more than a factor of 2 (so if the 2880 blocks between re-targets arrived in fewer than 15 days or more than 60 days according to the timestamps). Even I'm starting to feel guilty now so I'll throw OP a bone. "bits" was indeed originally a measure of "difficulty" (a logarithmic measure) and it was an integer. The header of main.cpp contained: ///static const unsigned int MINPROOFOFWORK = 40; /// need to decide the right difficulty to start with
static const unsigned int MINPROOFOFWORK = 20; /// ridiculously easy for testing
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Not entirely true, as that unspent output need never be touched. I can move my other coins which I had in this address to another which is now clean, without touching the dirty dust that you sent me.
If I send it to a cold wallet address of an exchange where another 7000 BTC are stored, is it still simple to sort it out? Of course, if received to a fresh address it as manageable. It makes no difference. Bitcoins at an address are not automatically mixed together. As aantonopoulis says, you can just ignore the attackers output. Some wallets include the feature "coin control" which makes this much easier to do. |
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There is a curious fact about the "bits" field:
In the first private release of Bitcoin, the "bits" field actually counted the number of zero bits the hash would need to have as prefix, and that's why it got named "bits".
Cool! Where might I might find this code? |
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The only thing I claim is safe is: 1) its done offline, 2) its done randomly, and 3) no one can know the method of creation. I will stick by that maxim. < this is the essence of the thread
I don't see the need for (3). Indeed, if (3) is at all useful to your security then I'd claim that you're not introducing enough entropy at step (2) and are being forced to rely on the extra entropy of your method being one among many plausible alternatives. Certainly, 256 coin flips provides sufficient entropy. I believe 128 coin-flips is enough for critical cold storage even with the method known but I'm not a cryptographer. |
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The general public is too imbecilic to be trusted to do each and every job the government takes care of for us.
democracy (noun) - from the Greek "demokratia" meaning "rule by the imbeciles". |
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Foreword: I'm not truly sure how difficulty works in BTC at network level. This stems mainly from my work at stratum level so I'm not sure it's supposed to be there but this is perhaps the only section in the forum where I have a chance at getting some real solid information.
It is my understanding difficulty is "the number of bits in the resulting hash". This is a very nice and fairly defined number in my opinion.
For some reason I never fully understood however it is often expressed in float, with the ability of represent really big numbers. I think this was due to the better ability of give an idea of how many tests to perform on average to find a solution while the bit count thing would be non linear in nature. It's not like I consider <big number> particularly expressive either.
I assume I miss something with the truediffone constant and the various multiplications leading to the target bits.
Why was the floating number representation preferred?
Further elaborations on the subject are welcome.
It seems you are assuming that "difficulty" is primative and that things like "target" are calculated from it. In fact, target is primative and it is the compact form of target, called the "bits" field which is changed by the protocol every 2 weeks and is stored in the header of every block. As gmaxwell said, "difficult" is just for the humans. You might compare it with the "bitcoin" base unit which is also an arbitrary scale added to make things user friendly (at the protocol level, amounts are stored in satoshi). https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty explains all this well. You might also find some related calculations I did a few months ago illuminating. I explain why an apparently approximate 4-fold difficulty increase was in fact precisely a 4-fold increase. |
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So here's the fundamental dilemma of statesmanship:
- in order to protect the freedoms of the citizens, a violence monopolist who is stronger than any contender (in a certain territory) needs to exist (the State),
- but any one having the authority to handle the State's violence will always end up using the State's means for his own purpose and not for the general good (in as much as that can even be defined).
So a (violent) state is a necessity, and an unavoidable evil. It is even an unavoidable thing, even if it weren't a necessity: *somebody* will end up being the strongest, and hence the de facto violence monopolist. So a state is not only an evil necessity, it is an unavoidable evil.
Bad logic: - Either X is true or Y is true.
- X and Y would both be bad, and for the same reason.
- Therefore we must accept X as a necessary evil.
Furthermore, the real world serves as a counter-example to your claim. We do not live within a single state. There are in fact hundreds of different countries in the world. On the other hand (as username quoted Kant), in order to have freedom, one needs to be free of the arbitrary violence of others, and one needs one's fundamental freedoms to be protected (by force - there's no other way: nothing that is not force, can impose something to something that uses force).
So in particular, there is nothing to protect people from the state. You discard absence of a state without a second thought but, by this logic, I can discard the state with equal ease. |
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It s not that simple : How can you know if cex.io, zeushash or btc-e ... Are ponzi schemes or not ?
You don't. All you can see is that some groups have better reputations than others. A service which have been standing for many decades and has a transparent profitable means of using that reputation is far less likely to be a Ponzi than a two-month-old service which has attracted huge amounts of money on the promise of high interest payments. For example, I'd suggest that: bitkonan.com is more likely to be running a Bitcoin Ponzi than coinmate.io coinmate.io is more likely to be running a Bitcoin Ponzi than bitstamp.net bitstamp.net is more likely to be running a Bitcoin Ponzi than goldmoney.com I might limit myself to 200 mills (200 millibitcoins = 0.2 BTC) on bitkonan at any one time to try out their site but I could comfortably put 40 BTC in the hands of goldmoney.com. There are many other factors which can help a person decide the likelihood of losing money through fraud at an exchange: - Transparency;
- Clear, potentially profitable long-term strategy;
- Contact information for the owners;
- Insurance (where the insurance company is likely independent of the exchange and itself has a far better reputation);
- Endorsements by highly respected members of the community;
- Approval of specialised reputable services which attempt to evaluate the trustworthiness of exchanges.
In this context: regulation is roughly just approval by the government, an admittedly large and long-standing entity but still capable of error or foul play. It does not make it certain that the regulated exchange is not a Ponzi, just far less likely. There is no magic pill; there's risk in everything. Indeed, there are many here that would argue that various governments are themselves running Ponzis. I don't support it but I certainly admit that government regulation can do a lot to boost the reputation of a small Bitcoin exchange in the eyes of many. What I don't see is why those that want government regulated exchanges also want ALL exchanges to be forced to comply with government regulations. Why can't the regulations be optional? Why can't the government maintain a list of the exchanges it regulates and approves for those that value government regulation to reference? Why should I be denied the freedom to risk my money with an unregulated exchange when I can only hurt myself? I guess this falls in with the "gambling should be illegal" idea but I can't be sure. Finally, be wary that government regulation is often advertised as keeping the exchanges in order and protecting the investors but often it comes bundled with a whole load of anti-money laundering and know-your-customer regulations which certainly work against the interests of the customer. |
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The process of bitcoin mining involves having a machine to do virtual work.
A Bitcoin miner does real work. Real resources are consumed in the process. |
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In my opinion, Bitcoin is the ultimate fiat currency, since it has no inherent value (you can can't use it for anything other than paying someone else bitcoin). It is a currency issued by "decree" through a protocol enforcing a consensus of users and miners.
The term "fiat" in this context describes the root of the value of a currency, not its issuance. |
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The problem is that most people are not willing to voluntarily pay for things that is necessary to protect them. They however tend to expect for such services to be provided
Is this really a problem? - Is it a problem if a person expects to get food from a shop but is not willing to pay for it?
- Is it a problem if a person expects me to be friendly to him but is not willing to be friendly in return?
I'd say not only is this not a problem, but that even considering this a problem is itself a problem. As an evil capitalist I believe that: - the shopkeeper should not feel pressure to give their food away for free because the food is expected.
- I should not feel pressure to continue a friendship with someone that treats me like dirt just because this person expects friendship.
And further, a person should not feel the need to pay taxes just because the net beneficiaries of taxation expect it. My point is that people do not want to pay for things like national security, food safety, roads, and consumer protection services, ect. voluntarily. Collecting taxes is the only way to pay for these things. In your example, the shopkeeper should give a portion of his earnings to the government in return for protection from robberies (via the police force and the threat of jail via the legal system), and for the roads that his customers use in order to travel to his shop. People don't want to pay for frequent skywriting competitions, weekly chess classes, or door-to-door ass-wiping services either. Here too, taxes are the only way to pay for these things. Why should people be forced to buy that which they do not value? Why do you believe that government should act directly against the wishes of the people? |
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The problem is that most people are not willing to voluntarily pay for things that is necessary to protect them. They however tend to expect for such services to be provided
Is this really a problem? - Is it a problem if a person expects to get food from a shop but is not willing to pay for it?
- Is it a problem if a person expects me to be friendly to him but is not willing to be friendly in return?
I'd say not only is this not a problem, but that even considering this a problem is itself a problem. As an evil capitalist I believe that: - the shopkeeper should not feel pressure to give their food away for free because the food is expected.
- I should not feel pressure to continue a friendship with someone that treats me like dirt just because this person expects friendship.
And further, a person should not feel the need to pay taxes just because the net beneficiaries of taxation expect it. |
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IMO the problem with people complaining about paying taxes is that taxes pay for vital services that government provides. Yes I think taxes are too high, and yes I think that government spends money on a lot that they should not spend it on however without everyone paying taxes I would overall be less safe and overall be worse off
For me, the sad thing is in how common this point of view is. Many people assume that these vital services can only be adequately supplied by the government. Few people ever try to justify this assumption and, in my experience, none have truly succeeded. Indeed, I believe that without taxes we would be overall more safe and better off. Arguing that those complaining about taxation are unaware of its function is akin to accusing the Bitcoin developers and early adopters of being unaware that banks and the government need control over our money to help fight crime and manage the economy. There are plenty of people here that not only understand this but are poised ready to tear such a comment apart. Granted, there exist plenty of taxation's critics that don't know what they're talking about and could even be won over by your trite observation but it's beyond insulting to assume that all critics have spent fewer than 60 seconds considering their position. |
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From the article: The message is that rising inequality is dangerous. It’s bad for growth and it’s bad for governance. We see a concentration of wealth capturing power and leaving ordinary people voiceless and their interests uncared for.
It takes two to tango. If merely having wealth is a concern vis-à-vis corruption then surely simply having power is equally problematic. When you say that the poor are voiceless aren't you really just admitting that a person's vote is practically worthless and that worldwide "power inequality" is already far more extreme than wealth inequality? It sounds as if you're suggesting that political systems worldwide are already so heavily broken that we must rely on corruption to afford some level of fairness and therefore need to aim for a more even distribution of wealth so as to emulate democracy with money in place of votes. Do we really want to live in a world where the 1% own more than the rest of us combined? The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast.
You're just appealing to the reader's envy. Your behaviour is appauling and you ought to be ashamed. This is not to say that there are no political or economic problems in the world today, far from it. I simply claim that increasing wealth inequality is a symptom, not a problem in itself, and that we could do with more noble attempts to help others (such as the Bitcoin experiment, part of an ambitious attempt to diffuse central bank power) and fewer people trying to "raise awareness" by baffling people with emotionally charged bullshit. If a result of your conduct leads to an increase in political power anywhere to force a different wealth distribution then you'll have done the equivalent of painting a rash with skin-coloured paint. |
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With the startling buying pressure following the FinCEN guidance I allowed myself to buy some at about 92 USD/BTC on the way up to the April 2013 peak.
You are my hero. Lol. I'm wondering what your lowest was. Your highest is lower than my lowest ($96/btc). 96 USD/BTC is pretty good though. The price hasn't been that low for over a year. What's the highest rate at which you've sold BTC? I'm no hero though. I've made some horrible trades including selling most of my bitcoins at about 8 USD/BTC just before the June 2011 bubble  . |
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I'm pretty sure it was 0.012 USD/BTC at bitcoinmarket.com on July 12th, 2010. The lowest trades on that exchange were for 0.003 USD/BTC (April-May, 2010) so you may need an extra poll option to cover everything.
Lmao wow. It won't let me edit the poll options now, but at least I started it at 1 cent. Lol, yeah. If I'd have bought one day earlier the price would have been 0.0086 USD/BTC. You just managed to catch me.  |
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