You might be able to do something instant-like like this:
Come up with a random Secret, hash it, and publish Hash(Secret).
People submit transactions to you. You only validate a winner after a few confirmations (so it's not quite "instant")
If Hash(Secret+TransactionHash) starts with the Magic Numbers (00 or whatever), then the transaction wins.
You can then publish the Secret, so people can verify that the winning transaction in fact qualifies, and that no prior transaction qualified.
You'd need to handle if more than one winning transaction was found in the same block, perhaps by splitting the pot among them.
How would people know that I didn't just change the Secret if someone won so that the person wouldn't win? |
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^ Ah, I see your point. The address is stored so there are no redundant bits, or else the block chain would take up too much space. Looks like he uses a variable called uint160, which is a base_uint class with the size of 160 bits. So it should work just like a 160 bit unsigned integer variable. Vanity addresses can make the "take first x chars"-approach match more addresses than what would be calculated if we assumed all random address generation. Ie., using the first 32 bits of an address as the ID doesn't give us a 1/2^32 chance of that matching two addresses (or whatever probability random address generation would lead to, I'm not that good a probability math  ), because of vanity addresses. But this may not be relevant since, as casascius already said, we would just be searching through maybe two or three times as many blocks, but that would still be way way less than searching through all blocks. Interesting, thanks for the info! |
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It may reduce the profitability of BEING A SHAREHOLDER but the company could expand and generate revenue just the same.
Companies borrow money when it is cheaper than the cost of issuing new shares.
For example if issuing new shares will dillute profits (per share) by 5% but borrowing only reduces profits (per share) by 1% then it is better to borrow.
Now this is somewhat simplistic because there are other considerations (like insolvency, changing interest rates, accelerated repayment, etc) but generally speaking companies would be fine without the ability to borrow.
This. Borrowing money is often the more economically sound option. In some countries it's not even expected that shares will pay high dividends. People buy them hoping that the value of the company will increase and the value of their shares along with it. If you don't have to pay high yields to attract investors but can focus on increasing the value of the company itself rather than its annual profits, different financial strategies make sense. So the question is, if borrowing money is the more economically sound option, would that render a large corporation who refused or couldn't borrow money noncompetitive with those who did? |
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^ It's base58 so about 5.85 bits per char. We should also consider vanity addresses though. Not all addresses are "random". Some are selected based on aesthetics. If we have to search through the whole block chain in order to know the balance of a single address, how can the Bitcoin network verify or discard transactions as fast as it can? If it has to search through the whole block chain when a transaction comes in, to see if the sending address has at least the amount it wishes to send, how can the network ever handle multiple transactions per second? Well, technically, yes, 5.85 bits. I was talking more about how those chars are stored though, since that's what is relevant when casascius says "the first 32 bits". Are they actually stored in some 6-bit formation, or are they stored in 8-bit ASCII chars, or 16-bit Unicode, or something else? Also, how do vanity addresses change anything? |
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Transaction hashes could be used if you have some secret data that you combine with the hash. Then the lottery manager can manipulate things, though.
Block hashes can be used for randomness pretty safely after you hash them again to remove the leading zeroes. If you have a lottery that pays out much more than the block reward you might want to combine the hashes of several consecutive blocks (and maybe also their Merkle roots), since miners could try "re-rolling" a few times.
Makes sense. A winning ticket could be the combination of characters from the current and next block hash, plus characters from the transaction hash itself. One other question then... The block hashes and transaction hashes are both hexidecimal. Are there any characters that would be more likely to appear at the beginning or the end, just based on the algorithms used? I know that certain letters/numbers at the beginning of bitcoin addresses can be harder to find, because they show up less often as results in the algorithm used to create a public bitcoin address, so I am wondering if there is any similar quirks to the hashing of blocks or transactions...? |
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It's a great idea, 2min blocks = 10min to get 5 confirmations. Result: 10 minute wait is so much better than 1 hour!! But I have a better idea, 1min blocks = 5 min to get 5 confirmations. 5min is BETTER than 10min!! I'm sure someone can top my idea shortly.  Read the thread. |
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I'll take you up on this offer. Why not? EDIT: Nevermind, I only have 0.50 SLL. Not worth bothering about. |
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Cool, thanks for the info. |
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Just curious... are transaction hashes predictable at all?
This is really a sub-question of a much broader question, which is, could the transaction hash be used to determine the winner of a lottery? In other words, if I said, the first person to send 1 BTC to this address, and gets a transaction hash beginning with 3f, is there any way a person could abuse it to where they only actually complete the transaction if the hash begins with that 3f?
The way you worded it is unclear. Who is abusing what? Why would someone only want the transaction if it begins with 3f? If you are saying you are making a lottery and the winner is someone who sends 1 BTC and the hash begins with 3f then yes that is very exploitable. You can't predict a hash but you can randomly attempt hashes from a pool of private keys until you find one which begins with 3f and then submit that one. Sorry, I really did a terrible job with wording that. But, you got it right with your guess. So, if I understand you correctly, the transaction hash is created when the transaction is created, not when the transaction is included in a block? Therefore, whoever is creating the transaction can just try different combinations until the hash matches what they want? |
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Just curious... are transaction hashes predictable at all?
This is really a sub-question of a much broader question, which is, could the transaction hash be used to determine the winner of a lottery? In other words, if I said, the first person to send 1 BTC to this address, and gets a transaction hash beginning with 3f, is there any way a person could abuse it to where they only actually complete the transaction if the hash begins with that 3f?
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Just to make sure I understand, the index would be to look up a bitcoin address and get all the blocks that that address has transactions in, so only those blocks would need to be scanned for transactions to add to your wallet, correct?
Exactly. It would be fine if this index were built on the beginning of the address (e.g. the first 32 bits) rather than the entire thing, in order to save on space, at the minor expense that a few blocks might occasionally be consulted that don't actually contain transactions for the bitcoin address being searched. My estimate of 20% of the block chain was very liberal in the side of "biggest impact" - practically, I think it would be far less. The index would point to all blocks that contained any kind of reference to the address, whether input, output, or whatever, possibly even in orphan blocks. You're probably safe pulling it just based on the first 7 chars of any address. There are very few addresses that share the same first 7 chars. 8 would be virtually none. I don't know how many bits there are per char in the address though... Is it just the same 8 bits per char as ASCII? |
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Yes, but it is very hard - some corporations even like keeping debt on the books.
It's pretty much impossible for many financial institutions and investments firms to exist without heavy leverage though. (no, I'm not talking about fiat money)
Makes sense regarding financial institutions - they wouldn't have much to lend out without borrowing heavily themselves. |
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That table should be updated with how many days it takes before a transaction can be considered "100% safe". Anyone want to tackle it? |
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Just curious what everyone's thoughts on this are...
Is it possible for large corporations to exist loan-free, and still be competitive in the marketplace today?
My immediate inclinations say yes, provided the necessary capital for operations is given through stocks/shareholders. But, would the company remain competitive? Or would the lack of ability to borrow money hinder the company's ability to expand in the same way that competitors would be able to? Would it prevent the company from continuing operations in hard times whilist other companies could continue operating at a loss, or would the company have enough liquid assets to push past the hard times?
Discuss.
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Jeremy DOES have a lot of friends on this forum, because he always at least TRIES to do what is best for the customers he serves. Maybe he did screw up - in my opinion he did not. Regardless, he did what he thought was the best course of action based on the circumstances at the time. I probably would have done the same thing he did.
The rules did not clarify that it wasn't an eBay-style auction, but no one else bid like it was an eBay-like auction. In fact, I can't think of another time on this forum (or any forum that I frequent that allows auction threads) when the seller allowed an eBay-like bid. That's why I'm so flabbergasted that Inaba is making such a big deal out of this. It was assumed that it wouldn't be eBay-style bidding, because no one ever bids that way on a forum.
So, the fact that Inaba had a cheap bid (and everyone in that thread felt that way), the fact that the rules didn't state whether eBay-style bidding was allowed or not, the fact that eBay-style bidding was mixed with regular-style bidding (shouldn't everyone's bids be eBay style if anyone's bids are eBay style?), and the fact that posts were edited and original bid amounts could not be verified, all give good reason to have an extension of the auction via private message. That way, the winner and amount is very clear and cannot be edited or ambiguous in any way.
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Where can we view the current number of registered accounts?
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I apologize then. It was Antares that started the 100 BTC BS. It was hard to suss out of the nested quotes and it looked like you posted it, not Antares.
As far as the debunking goes, you haven't shown me anywhere in the rules that prohibits a bid that is the "natural" style of bidding online (ala eBay, the defacto auction site on the Internet). On top of that, even if we are to disallow +1 to MAX style of bidding, my MAX bid would still stand. You've not provided any rules, reasons or really much of anything as to why my max bid would not stand in place of +1 to MAX. In fact, no one has.
Because both of the potentially winning bids had been edited, with no way of proving the original bids. Yet, somehow, both of the "winning bids" agreed on what happened in at least enough detail to determine the actual winner. Therefore no conflict existed. In fact, the details of the winning bid aren't even in question as far as I can tell, nor have they been. I don't see any agreement on who should be the winner in the preceding posts. |
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^^ More good thoughts from MoonShadow. |
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I apologize then. It was Antares that started the 100 BTC BS. It was hard to suss out of the nested quotes and it looked like you posted it, not Antares.
As far as the debunking goes, you haven't shown me anywhere in the rules that prohibits a bid that is the "natural" style of bidding online (ala eBay, the defacto auction site on the Internet). On top of that, even if we are to disallow +1 to MAX style of bidding, my MAX bid would still stand. You've not provided any rules, reasons or really much of anything as to why my max bid would not stand in place of +1 to MAX. In fact, no one has.
Because both of the potentially winning bids had been edited, with no way of proving the original bids. |
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have you ever been to an auction house? when you put up your bid its how much you willing to pay. not the next highest bid + 1. Okay he should of stated that in the rules but he isnt a scammer stop complaining and stop being sour. you didnt lose anything except time. Yes, and at an auction house, I can make as many bids as I want in the time alotted. The bids do not close at X time. The bids keep going until there are no more bidders bidding. This auction ended at X time, therefore it's nothing like an auction house auction. It's like an eBay auction. Have you ever been to eBay? You bid your max bid and the top bid is X amount higher than the previous bid, not your max bid. This auction, online, is far more like eBay than like an auction house. Depends on the type of bidding. There are plenty of write-in auctions that end at a specified time. Jeremy never stated that this was like an eBay auction, nor did anyone but YOU bid like it WAS an eBay auction. So what makes you think that eBay bidding rules apply? Read the whole thread, and agree that your bid off whatever + 1 isn't the same as an actual bid amount. Also the editing of bid posts should at any time in an auction thread like this should completely invalidate the bid. It certainly doesn't reflect at all well toward your scammer claim. I would agree with you if it was and open ended bid. It wasn't. It was set to a maximum of 66 BTC. So its' not whatever + 1. It's whatever + 1 so long as whatever is less than 66 BTC. If someone wanted to outbid me, bid 66 BTC. The whole reason Jeremy extended the auction was because of the editing of bids, nothing more. With the bids being edited, he had no way of verifying the story on either side, so he had to extend it and make it a PM auction to be fair. What is your suggestion? That he allow you to keep your edited-in bid of 36? Or that antanes (or whatever his name was) would win at 40BTC? Or that you should win at 66 BTC? What if antanes edited his post again to say 67 BTC? Where would it end? How could either of you prove your bids? |
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