Yes that's the one.

And thank you, wasn't aware of Rounder Casino. Looks very new. What software are they using?

I've been building a list of the busiest poker sites that are bitcoin-only (i.e. they only accept bitcoin as a deposit and withdrawal method and nothing else). The top two I've found so far are:

1. SwC Poker
2. Nitrogen Sports

Are there any others that are seriously worth playing at? I've written a bitcoin poker guide (https://www.thepokerbank.com/bitcoin/) and I'd like to list the busiest (and most reliable) rooms available. I thought the two above were particularly good, although the traffic at Nitrogen wasn't as high as I hoped. SwC was very playable though.

I've heard of Blockchain Poker, but their default option is Bitcoin Cash and that's not something I personally use. There's also Coin Poker, but it looks like they're using their own CHP token and I'm not sure about it.

Are there any others? I know there are more mainstream poker sites that use bitcoin in addition to other methods, but I'm wondering if there are any more bitcoin-only sites that I've missed.

Thanks in advance.

So I've been working on bitcoin projects for the last few years, but I recently got back in to online poker thanks to Covid-19. Good to see the game is still alive.

Anyway, I decided to play at poker sites that used bitcoin as a deposit and withdrawal option (naturally), and I thought I'd share my experiences in this thread in case anyone is looking for recommendations on where's currently best to play.

1. Dedicated bitcoin only poker sites.

1. SwC Poker - This is the original bitcoin poker room. Has the most players. Top recommendation.
2. NitrogenSports - Nice software, but even less players than SwC Poker. You can still get a game at any time of the day, but your choices are limited.

These poker sites use bitcoin only to get money in to and out of the room. They're relatively new and tend to have a smaller number of players compared to older poker rooms, but you have the benefit of being able to sign up and play anonymously.

I found a few other sites in addition to these, but these ones I liked the most.

2. Older poker sites that use bitcoin as a deposit option.

1. Ignition Poker (US Only) - Good player traffic. One of the best options.
2. Americas Cardroom (Worldwide) - Good player traffic also, but players are tougher (more "regs").

These are poker rooms/companies that existed before bitcoin. They've introduced bitcoin as an option in the cashier, but your funds will be converted to dollars when you deposit and converted back when you withdraw.

These are reputable sites, and they have more traffic than the bitcoin-only sites above. They may also ask for your ID before you start playing or before you cash out though.

Summary.

I prefer the flexibility of the bitcoin-only sites, but the more mainstream options are fine too. I think all of these companies are reliable, but as a general rule you're better off not keeping your entire balance at any one place -- just keep a "working" bankroll and deposit/withdraw as you need. Bitcoin makes getting money in and out of poker rooms easy, so take advantage of it.

That's about it really. For what it's worth here's a more detailed guide: https://www.thepokerbank.com/bitcoin/. If there's anything missing let me know.

Lastly, I haven't listed every bitcoin poker site in existence here, just the ones I like and would recommend. Are there any others worth checking out?

Thank you.

Thanks for the Wiki link, but I'm still unsure.

Everything inside serialized transaction data can be considered to be in little-endian, where the txids used are in the default byte order that comes out of the hash function. These are sometimes referred to being in little-endian too.

So why do we convert hashes to big-endian when searching for transactions and blocks, when internally everything else is in little-endian?

Why do we reverse the byte order hashes when searching for transactions and blocks from bitcoin-cli and blockchain explorers?

When you hash transaction data or a block header, you get a hash digest. This hash digest is used internally in bitcoin for referring to previous TXIDs in serialized transaction data, and for previous block hashes in block headers.

However, when we come to search for a specific transaction or block from the command line, the byte order is reversed. Why is this? Wouldn't it be much easier to use the same byte order as the one that comes out of the hash function and is used internally in bitcoin?

I've been looking at the equations from the bitcoin whitepaper. It gives the following probabilities of "catching up" from z blocks behind (with my 0.1 probability of mining a block) as follows:


However, if I want to replace the top block in the chain, catching up isn't going to be enough as I need to build a longer chain for other nodes to adopt.

So would it by correct to say my probability of replacing the top block in the chain would be:


Because I need to build a chain one block longer than the number of blocks I need to catch up with. Is that correct?

Thanks.

That's a cool idea. I'd like to implement that actually, but the mempool can often exceed 10,000+ transactions at a time, which would be slow to draw on the screen (I want to try and keep the rain as fluid as possible).

As a compromise, you can see the mempool by clicking the screen. Transactions "enter" it and increase the count and size of it. When a block arrives, you can see the mempool decrease in size as the block passes across it.

Thanks for the idea though, it would be cool to find a way of visually representing each individual transaction as opposed to having them disappear in to the mempool.

Hey everyone,

I've made a website that visualises new transactions (and blocks) on the bitcoin network as they're received by a node:

http://bitcoinrain.io



I thought it would make for a cool visualisation. Other than that, it also keeps track of the current size of the memory pool and the last block received.

Anyway, thought I'd post here to get some criticism and any ideas for improvement. Hope you enjoy watching it.

Just added a new video about Script: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fa04MnURhw

Updated the original post.

I've been making some educational videos on how bitcoin works.

My aim is to explain how bitcoin works in a way that is easy to understand. So if you're looking for a guide to how bitcoin actually works under the hood (without getting lost along the way), these videos may help you to get going.

Here are the videos I've made so far:

1. Mining

This video covers what mining is, why it exists, and how it works. It's a good starting point for understanding why Bitcoin is an interesting technology. Includes a Mining Simulator, so you can see what an actual Miner is doing.

• 00:49 - What is Mining?
• 08:39 - Hash Function
• 13:55 - Mining Basics
•  ↳ 23:03 - Target
•  ↳ 28:08 - Mining Simulator
• 33:20 - Mining Technical
• 54:46 - Live Coding Example

2. Transactions

How transactions work, and how to construct your own transactions.

• 01:27 - Transaction Basics
•  ↳ 08:45 - Change
•  ↳ 12:49 - Graph
•  ↳ 15:10 - Coinbase Transaction
•  ↳ 17:24 - Fees
• 20:00 - Transaction Data
•  ↳ 35:22 - Signing
•  ↳ 48:20 - Summary
• 54:20 - Live Example
•  ↳ 1:02:45 - Code

3. Keys & Addresses

An explanation of Private Keys, Public Keys, and Addresses. Shows you where they come from, how they work, and how to generate your own.

• 00:18 - Outline
• 02:03 - Introduction (Catch-up)
• 07:10 - Where do keys come from?
• 08:28 - Basic Key Generation

• 10:42 - Private Key
• 15:37 - Public Key
•  ↳ 22:05 - Digital Signatures
•    ↳ 26:41 - Signing
•    ↳ 31:54 - Verifying
•    ↳ 36:30 - Summary
• 39:02 - Address
•  ↳ 39:37 - Extra Security (Hash160)
•  ↳ 43:20 - Locking Mechanism
•  ↳ 48:54 - Address

• 56:48 - Technical Walkthrough
•  ↳ 1:09:35 - Code
•  ↳ 1:11:03 - Example
•  ↳ 1:12:41 - Useful Links

4. Script

An explanation of how Script works, which is basically the mini-programming language used to create the locking mechanism for bitcoins.

• 00:38 - Introduction (Catch-up)
• 06:38 - Basics
•  ↳ 13:52 - Running
•    ↳ 18:02 - Pay To Pubkey (P2PK)
•    ↳ 19:41 - Pay To Pubkey Hash (P2PKH)
•    ↳ 26:45 - Pay To Multisig (P2MS)
•    ↳ 34:32 - Pay To Script Hash (P2SH)
•    ↳ 42:21 - Null Data
• 45:31 - Non-Standard Scripts
• 53:37 - Technical Details / Decoding Transaction Data
• 58:08 - Summary
• 1:01:33 - Code, Examples, References

I've got a few more videos planned, and I'll update this post when they're ready. Until then, I've also written a bunch of articles on my website that you may find useful: http://learnmeabitcoin.com

I'm curious about which popular bitcoin wallets sent/send the change of a transaction back to the original sending address.

For example, if you hover over the address for the change, you can see it's the same as the address of the output being spent: http://learnmeabitcoin.com/browser/transaction/b63cbb2b089846b022a85c1d9a26789bdc3ecd2df840d273e4071cda12581946

It's uncommon these days as wallets send your change to a new address for you. I'm just wondering which well-known wallets were notorious for creating change for you this way?

Quick Update:

Just a couple of changes that might be helpful:

Blockchain

Blocks in the blockchain show how "full" they are. So for example, if you're browsing through the blockchain you can easily spot the empty blocks:



Transactions

The inputs and outputs of a transaction are sized based on their value. This makes it easier to follow the path of large amounts of bitcoins:


Merry Christmas.

Greg.

Learn Me a Bitcoin: Update:

Been working on improving the blockchain explorer over the last few months.

Goal

My aim is to create a fast, lightweight, and easy-to-use blockchain explorer.

Here are some new features:

Node:

This page has stayed about the same. However, it now displays the time since the last block was mined:



Blockchain:

• Visual display of time between blocks that have been mined, along with tooltip to show the time.
• Miner is shown next to each block, along with a tooltip of the full coinbase scriptSig.

Block:

• Clicking on the Version field takes you to a page that shows you the bits being used for signalling.
• Clicking on the Bits field takes you to a page that shows you how the target has been represented in the compact nBits format.

Transaction:

• Now shows output values by default. Should have done this a long time ago, but hey ho, it's there now.

Segwit:

Added a bunch of icons to Segwit transactions so that you can spot them when you are browsing through the memory pool or through blocks.

Download:

You can now download entire raw blocks or transactions:



(scroll to bottom)

General:

• The site is generally much faster.
• The latest transactions are tracked much more quickly. So if you make a transaction, you should be able to find it in this blockchain explorer about 1 second after it has been relayed to my node.

As always, I'm open to ideas for improvements  

I can try!

I'm not sure what I need to do to categorize the website though. Do you know how I would go about doing this?

Thanks.

Can you explain more about what you mean by "hashrate of the chain"? I have a page that shows you the difficulty: http://learnmeabitcoin.com/browser/node/difficulty/ - are you looking for something different?

By "depend by country", do you mean something like showing the time based on a country's timezone (and not just GMT)?

New Tool: Find connections between addresses.

• Address Path

This tool will show you if there is a connection between two addresses.

It's very basic at the moment, but I think it could be very useful, so thought I would share it while I work on it.

Example:

Here's a post on Reddit about tracking the movement of Mt Gox stolen coins. I haven't fully read the analysis, but you can use the tool to see that there is a connection between the two addresses mentioned at the top of the post:

1AYtnRppWM7tWQaVLpm7TvcHKrjKxgCRvX and 1KLahQtqDNAXvrjNyfvgSBtAhwco5ZxLp4

Thank you.

Yes, that is correct, the first blocks did not collect any fees.

This is because fees are used as an incentive for miners to include transactions in to a block. For example, if a miner can only fit 1000 transactions in to a block, and there are 2000 transactions in the memory pool, the miner will select the top 1000 transactions with the highest fees. So if you want to ensure that your transaction gets mined quickly, you should add a juicy fee to it.

However, at the start of bitcoin there were not a lot of transactions, which meant that you didn't have to compete with other transactions for space in a block. Therefore, you could send a transaction with 0 fees, and a miner would probably include it in a block anyway.

Fees started being collected from blocks when there was more competition to get in to a block, and people started adding fees to their transactions.

Yes, it uses getblocktemplate to select the transactions.