If it really becomes an issue (which I really doubt), the client can be updated to support more precision. Everyone would need to update, but it should be possible to switch to the new system smoothly and gradually.

It's a whole attempt.

You're trying to solve:
SHA256(SHA256(d'))==256-bit number

This still has 256 bits of security, and you have to do two hashes per attempt to brute-force it.

Yes.

You can run it with the "-server" switch to have it run the RPC server.

The 1.21 BC was in a single "chunk". When you sent 0.01, you made a transaction with one "in" (the "chunk") and two "outs": one sent 0.01 to whoever you sent that to, and the other one sent 1.20 back to you as "change". This second "out" was sent to a brand new address that you just generated. Since your old wallet.dat doesn't have the keys to this new address, you don't see it.

I'll do it for 1% of the BitCoins to be transferred.

In case there's a dispute I can't solve, I'll favor whichever party can provide me with the most detailed personal information that I can verify is actually correct (a certificate signed by a trusted CA would be ideal). Then I'll give that info to the "losing" party so that they can attempt to find the other person and use the legal system.

I have a PGP public key you can use when contacting me:
Key-ID: 0x71CBB402
Fingerprint: C86E532351E341E3D0E7C49726E7944A71CBB402

In addition the the random nonce, each block also contains a BitCoin address (newly-generated, used only for this purpose) that the 50 BC reward is credited to if you solve a block. Even if two nodes choose the same random nonce to start at (which is unlikely), they're pretty much guaranteed to have different BitCoin addresses.

Transaction fees will replace generating as the incentive.

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43.0

I've checked a few past SVN revisions, and that section was not changed. I think you're misreading it.

Yes, it would.

The goal is to minimize inflation, not keep it going forever. BitCoin generation at this point is just an incentive for people to create blocks. Clearly it's working if hundreds of computers are being added to the network. It doesn't matter if new users can't get free coins -- BitCoin is not meant to be a "virtual printing press". In 4-8 years, no average user is going to be generating coins; this is expected and intentional.

 
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "BitCoin" /LOW /MIN "C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\bitcoin.exe"

The probability of winning per hash went from 9.90701E-12 to 5.12995E-12. So about double the difficulty.

I have created a page that always shows the current block count:
http://theymos.ath.cx:64150/q/getblockcount

Transaction fees are already changed in certain circumstances. This will be the incentive once generating coins isn't profitable.

Maybe this post will help you understand what a block contains.


Each hash you create doesn't depend on any of the other hashes that you've created, so it doesn't slow you down to modify the block. You don't have to "start over". This is what you do:
- Hash the block, check if it's a winner, increment the nonce if it's not, and repeat. Each one of these hashes is not stored and not important if it isn't a winner.
- When you see a transaction, add it and then keep hashing.
- Once you win, stop adding transactions and publish the block. If you added a new transaction at this point, your result would be invalidated, but this is not what happens.
- Prepare a new block and start hashing again.
Each published block is a "snapshot" of the current transactions.


The number of blocks is not finite. Blocks will be created roughly every 10 minutes, forever. At some point publishing a block will generate less than 1 coin, but blocks will still be created. The "21 million" number is either not really a hard limit, or it's a mathematical limit resulting from halving the number of coins per block every four years. (I don't know which.)


It's a history of transactions. A generation, being the first transaction in a transaction history, creates a coin. The paper says: "We define an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures."

You could pay the network (whoever solves your block) a fee to make ratings. That should limit abuse, though I don't know if anyone would actually pay the fee.

Since it's happening so frequently (you shouldn't get more than two generations per day normally with the current difficulty), you probably haven't downloaded the entire block chain. There are 66145 blocks as I write this; how many do you have (lower right in BitCoin's UI)?

If you're running Microsoft Security Essentials, you need to add BitCoin as an exception for blocks to be downloaded at a reasonable speed.

You need to store the wallet in memory to access it. If the computer you're using is compromised, then there's nothing that BitCoin can do to make you secure.