For comparison, the number of atoms in the universe is somewhere on the order of 2^80 (10^80 or 2^265). linkWhile both are huge, the difference is not trivial. (FYI, the number of atoms in the Earth are about 10^50 or 2^166 which is close to the size of the RIPEMD-160 public key hash space) Whoops, thanks! |
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I had some quick video editing done by some guy in #bitcoin-otc for a half a bitcoin (back wheb they were worth twelve bucks or so)
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2. Nothing prevents it but the address space is 2^160. The odds of creating an address which already exists is so improbable to be considered 0%. For comparison, the number of atoms in the universe is somewhere on the order of 2^80. link |
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You can go to the bank or your credit card and borrow dollars, buy bitcoins with them, and then sell the bitcoins back for dollars when the value of the dollar drops (meaning, the value of bitcoin rises relative to the dollar). That is functionally the same as shorting dollars with Bitcoin.
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Your understanding is close.
If I had 51%, I could mine a chain of blocks in which I transfer all my coins to my personal wallet. I'd mine this chain about 10 long, but not tell the rest of the network. At the same time, I convert all my coins to dollars on the exchange and withdraw them. This happens on the normal blockchain.
After my withdrawal has gone through. the normal blockchain is about 9 long, while my blockchain is 10 long. I announce all my blocks to the network, and lo and behold, the network confirms I am right.
But dollars can't be reverted! So the exchange takes a loss.
Instead of the exchange, I could do this with buying anything for bitcoins. If this happens a few times, it will probably kill bitcoin, or at least hurt the trust in the system severely.
Ahh, I see. So 51% is the magic number because that's the point at which a person can make alternative blocks faster than the rest of the network combined, and then spring the alternative, longer blockchain on everybody all at once, later on, where it replaces the blocks everyone thought were already finalized and settled. Thank you! |
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Let's say a person drops a few million bucks and now has 51% of the network hashing power, and he wants to run the 51% attack we hear so much about. What does he do?
My understanding is that he makes a payment to a person for goods, receive the goods, and then quickly make a second payment to an address he owns. If he happens to mine the next block (which he will with 51% probability), he includes the payment to his own address in the block but not the payment to the person who he received goods from. Then what? Will all further blocks reflect that the first transaction to the defrauded person never happened and the second transaction did happen?
The problem I have with my understanding of this is that there is only marginal benefit to having 51% of the network - having 51% of the network only allows you to double spend 51% of the time. But if you had 40% of the network, you would be able to double spend 40% of the time, which is still a pretty serious problem. There's nothing really special about getting 51%, right?
Is my understanding of this wrong? Thanks.
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Why are you talking like its over? Same thing happened at 6, 5, 4, now 3, next 2, then 1.
The same logic which had people buying at $30, because $100 was next. We can all conclude from this that previous performance does not indicate future performance. |
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open - close
24hrs
Mtgox never closes, right? So the volume represents the previous 24 hours from whenever you read the figure? |
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I wish mtgox would tell you how long a time period their "Volume" number represents. Does anyone know how long it is?
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The Wikimedia Foundation, as a donor-driven organization, has a fiduciary duty to be responsible and prudent with its money. This has been interpreted to mean that we do not accept "artificial" currencies - that is, those not backed by the full faith and credit of an issuing government.
The person writing this is a little mixed up. The US government does not back US dollars with its full faith and credit - it backs Treasury debt with its full faith and credit. |
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IMHO all bids and asks reported by mtgox should be completely disregarded or at least taken with an enormous rock of salt. Bids and asks can be automatically listed and removed in an instant by a computer program for any or no reason, and so I will not be using them to make financial decisions.
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Online Bitcoin poker would be hugely killer if someone set it up right. Hundreds of thousands of people stopped playing online poker when the US government passed the Safe Ports and Harbors act that outlawed credit card payments for online poker.
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The client currently reports how many blocks I have downloaded, but it would be useful for the client to also report the total number of blocks there are. That way I wouldn't have to check a website to see if my client has all the blocks.
Also it would let me know about how long I have to wait before I have downloaded all the blocks.
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Today I handed a Casascius physical bitcoin (1 BTC denomination) to presidential candidate (and former governor of New Mexico) Gary Johnson and described in brief how a decentralized digital currency works.
What was his reaction? I guess he smiled and looked very interested while thinking 'OMG as soon as I'm in office I need to make that shit illegal and send this guy here to Guantanamo'. He wants to become a president. Obviously he will oppose anything that threatens to minimize government power which is what Bitcoin has the potential to do. Or do you guys think you can find _any_ president who would embrace something like Bitcoin? Joe Ron Paul has sponsored legislation to explicitly legalize competing currencies such as gold and silver, and remove the tax disincentives to their use. Such a law would apply to Bitcoin just as silver/gold. http://www.ronpaul.com/congress/legislation/111th-congress-200910/legalize-competing-currencies/edit: Fixed quotation problem. The above unquoted text is mine, not joecooin's |
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What do they have? USD. What do they need? Sleeping bags, blankets, gloves, food, etc. How much of this can they purchase with Bitcoin (aside from services that sell gift cards for Bitcoin and immediately sell the Bitcoin for USD) ? Not a whole lot.
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I appreciate the sentiment, but Bitcoiners are such a tiny minority that this can't possibly accomplish anything.
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Yes, I know everyone should back up your wallet.dat before encrypting. But still, it's a good idea (all upside and no downside) to require the password to be typed twice to avoid typos in the password.
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In my opinion the greatest use of Bitcoin is neither making money mining nor making money trading. It is the facilitation of e-commerce.
The only real price point where Bitcoin is dead is when one bitcoin drops below $.01
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I think it's funny how this document mentions "the Agency" which is probably a reference to the CIA, which is not part of the Department of Homeland Security.
the only "agency" under the DHS is FEMA, which is not normally in the line of work that you'd think handles the destruction of alternative currencies.
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