In case you aren't familiar with 'the Chinese', here's a picture of one balancing on some spears... 

You might also be interested in learning a bit about quantum physics.

(you may find 'objective reality' to be slightly more fickle than you assume)

Simple really, isn't it?

Need more patience.

I seem to remember reading that you can actually create a valid address which, based on the maths, has no corresponding private key. So not even 'highly unlikely' that a private key exists, but provably impossible.

I'm currently in my third year of a Chemistry-Physics degree, so I'm actually quite familiar with units. Don't worry, you're not fucked in the head, your reasoning is just slightly off.

Let me give you an example of a time when we made a change to our definition of a very common unit:

The metre, a well know unit of measurement, was once defined by a standard platinum bar. The bar was created to act as the universally agreed upon definition of 1 metre, and was therefore by definition exactly one metre long. This was consistent to within a certain degree, but of course changes in e.g. temperature/pressure could in fact cause the length to vary slightly. Parameters were introduced to improve the consistency (specific temperature and pressure at which the length of the bar would considered to be exactly one metre) but unfortunately, using a physical object to act as a benchmark can never be as accurate as the scientific community would like.

It was therefore decided that we should redefine the metre, without using a physical object. Einstein had shown, in his theory of relativity, that the speed of light is in fact a universal constant when measured within the same medium. It therefore made sense to redefine the metre in terms of this unchanging physical constant. Our definition of the metre is now 'The length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second'

Your idea that units must be 'equal to something that is 'objectively real', while it may seem somewhat intuitive, is actually a slight misunderstanding. The fact that it is so difficult to find consistency in objective reality is what makes the task of measuring things so tricky.

Back to Bitcoin:

Bitcoin is actually a great starting point if we want to define a system of measurement for value. What we are effectively doing is defining a standard unit of value, i.e. 1 bitcoin, which can act as a universal constant similar to the speed of light in the example above. Now we have our benchmark (which doesn't fluctuate due to changes in temperature/pressure etc.), and we can start to decide how to value everything else in comparison to it. (notice that making measurements always boils down to making comparisons between things)

Of course, being so new, and being introduced to a society who are so used to valuing things in a different way (namely whichever fiat currency they grew up with), make things more complicated (as well as a million other things, economics can't really be compared with science due to the numerous factors to consider, but we're talking about units here). We are still in price discovery phase with people having to shift their perspectives and adjust. It is yet to be seen whether or not the population as a whole will accept this new measurement system.

The problem of making measurements and defining units is and always had been at the heart of the scientific discipline. Its an interesting subject, and there's a great deal of understanding to be gained by studying it in a bit more depth.

Thanks! (eats cookie, nom nom nom...)

I think the best responses in this thread were:


and:

I think its possible to create a bitcoin address with no valid private key? (and provable that no private key exists.)

Hello!

I think you might find it interesting to look into the history of measurements. We have had all kinds of units over the millennia, and our system of units is constantly evolving. Even the SI units which are now used as the common standard in scientific measurements are subject to change.

So you may find that some of the things we currently rely on as 'units' don't actually fit your definition of 'unit'.

Value is probably one of the more complicated things to assign a fixed unit to, because it is so subjective. But I think you're wrong about Bitcoin not being a unit. We have a fixed supply of 21 million Bitcoins. 1 Bitcoin remains constant (i.e. 1 BTC will always = 1 BTC) - its up to us to decide how much we value it.

The whole system relies on public key cryptography. If someone discovers a clever way to calculate private keys from public keys, the whole protocol is useless. That said, I think ECDSA has probably been looked at by all of the brightest minds in cryptography and deemed to be pretty secure, and if it were to be broken I don't see why we couldn't upgrade? (Assuming we'd found a better alternative by this stage)

Also SHA - From what we understand about hash algorithms, its easy to calculate the hash of a given message, but infeasable to create a message with a given hash. Again, if someone were to discover a way to do this, then the system would be broken, as people could simply create valid blocks at will.

I have no understanding of the underlying maths, so I couldn't comment on the likelyhood of either of these things being cracked.

lol WTF? 'Price is down due to SR seizure' - No, price is down 10% because it recently doubled over the course of a few weeks and its correcting slightly over the weekend. You're new to all this Michael, aren't you?


EDIT: Maybe I jumped on that too quickly -having read the article properly instead of just skimming it, you make some good points. My apologies. I still stand by the fact that we're just seeing a natural correction after such sudden growth though.

Make sure they're safe. Keep them offline.

200k BTC = 40 Million USD at current price.

I like it. Can we make it official?

You can't get dollars out of Mt Gox. Hence the spread.

Does anyone know about tax issues with regards to spending coins? I mean, if we get to the point where cashing out is unnecessary, and you can simply spend your coins on whatever you want, how would this be treated?

So... The FBI is now one of the largest holders of BTC. DPR's trial is likely to last several years, and the seized BTC can't be sold until the trial is over? In the meantime, if BTC were to be outlawed, those BTC would likely crash in value before they get a chance to sell. Or if BTC continues to grow, that 25 million dollars could potentially look more like 250 million, or maybe even 2.5 billion?

Yes, this has definitely become much more interesting...

Okay, what you're saying makes sense. From the perspective of someone who sees Bitcoin as a way to extract dollars from users, this would be the sentiment you'd expect. However, the thing about Bitcoin is that it actually functions as a currency in and of itself.

In my opinion, the best thing about the Silk Road (putting aside your political/moral views on their business) was that it demonstrated just how well Bitcoin functions as a means of exchange - 1.2 Billion dollars worth of sales over the course of two years!

So, when you stop seeing the system as some sort of pyramid scheme designed to part users with their money (and admittedly, at first glance it may well resemble one), and start to see its potential as a replacement for that money, you realise that your perspective shifts. Will Bitcoin make it all the way? Well, the current price is a reflection of overall sentiment as to the probability of that happening.


EDIT: Not 1.2 Billion dollars worth of sales, dammit I've been brainwashed by lazy news reporting. The real volume of sales would be much lower, adjusted for the varying exchange rate for BTC/USD. But still, the figure would have been in the tens or hundreds of millions, so the point remains.

Gotta hand it to walsoraj though, f*cking brilliant. I laughed my ass off first time I saw his profile. (I wanna know if its the same guy, or a truly awesome troll)

Best option IMO. Litecoin is strong, and despite what a lot of BTC enthusiast seem to think, it does bring a certain amount of benefit to the crypto-scene without much drawback. See this reddit post for a good summary:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1bxrrw/playing_devils_advocate_why_bitcoin_will_crash_to/c9bhvme

Yes there are too many alts now, but I don't see why there isn't room for two coins, or maybe even three or four. (Primecoin is interesting too.)