It's the same thing here... what is so hard to understand about what I said. Miners will collect the transactions into blocks and then when a miner solves their block they will release it to the network. Then the other nodes will add that block onto their mini-blockchain just like they would for a normal blockchain. In Bitcoin that would be the end of it, and you'd need the entire blockchain to calculate the balance of any address because the blockchain has no concept of address balances, it's a continual ledger which keeps track of where coins are sent to work out the balances. However in the mini-blockchain design the balances are saved into the account tree, and when a new block is accepted onto the mini-blockchain the nodes will use the transactions contained in that block to recalculate the balances of the addresses in the account tree. A transaction will contain a simple command like "send X number of coins from address A to address B". So the nodes will simply carry out those commands by altering the balances in their account tree, if an account doesn't exist then it is added to the tree, and then when the changes have been made they will recalculate the hashes in the account tree.

Sorry I misunderstood your earlier question. Yes I suppose you could call the account tree an address tree because it holds information about all the non-empty addresses. The account tree is simply a hash tree where the data blocks represents individual accounts. The reason we call them "accounts" is because they hold more than just the address, each data block will also hold the balance of that address and some other information about the address. Each account will hold information about a single address only. All nodes will have a copy of the account tree just like the blockchain. The mini-blockchain works just like a normal blockchain and it holds transactions just like a normal blockchain, the only difference is that it gets trimmed after a certain period of time. When a new block is generated and propagated to all the nodes in the network, those nodes will use the transactions in that block to update their copy of the account tree and then they will recalculate the master hash of the account tree and make sure it matches the master hash specified in the block header, if it doesn't match then the block is considered invalid. I suggest that you read the mini-blockchain wiki properly, it explains everything in detail.

EDIT: it's also important to keep in mind that the transactions wont use scripts:

The account tree is a totally new concept, there is nothing like it in the bitcoin design. The account tree is basically just a database of all the non-empty addresses. It's structured as a merkle tree so that the network can easily keep track of changes and maintain the integrity of the data held in the database.

Correct. Since it's structured as a merkle tree you only need to work on specific branches of the tree when something changes, but changing just one account will change the master hash.

If you look at a 7 day chart it actually looks like a completely natural market fluctuation.

The account tree holds all non-empty accounts that exist (that's why it's possible to have a mini-blockchain instead of a full blockchain).

I don't see why not.

The most important aspect to the story is how they managed to read his personal emails and how they can prove that the emails they have are legitimate. They could easily write up some bogus emails and claim that he sent them, they need to be able to prove the emails were written by him.

I'm not sure I understand your question. A new block will cause changes in multiple accounts in the account tree, so the master hash would be recalculated just like any other merkle hash tree where the base data blocks are changed. The same process would be used in bitcoin when miners add or change transactions in their block (the transactions are structured as a merkle tree and the root hash is the equivalent of the master hash).

http://bitfreak.info/mbc-wiki/index.php?title=Transaction_Signing

Satoshi only included support for a limited range of transaction types for security reasons but I'm sure he had many ideas about how the scripting system could be used to create a wide range of interesting scripts to serve different purposes. A full turing-complete scripting system seems like a pretty dangerous idea to me but the people working on Ethereum seem to be fairly bright fellows so I'll be interested to see how they tackle this problem. On a some what related note, my mini-blockchain system aims to achieve almost the opposite of what Ethereum is aiming for:

Interesting stuff. Based on what I've read so far it seems like all the private keys are stored on the "Hardware Security Module" but I don't understand how transactions can be processed if the HSM machine is supposed to be isolated from the internet. Wouldn't it be smarter to store the private keys on the "client card" and encrypt them with the PIN or something? Can you please explain how the transactions are processed or point me to an explanation on your website. Thanks.

Your guess was actually pretty close to the mark so your advice is helpful. I will keep your suggestions in mind moving forward. Thanks for taking to time to provide your assistance.

Like I said, I don't mind some competition. But you do have a valid point, and that's why I want to get into the game before anyone else. It will still take them a while to produce their own version of the product and that gives me enough time to establish my business and build up a nice customer base and get the word spread around. By the time my competitors get into the game I will have already secured a nice portion of the market.

Well every person I have discussed the idea with so far thinks it is a very good idea with a lot of potential. I really have no doubts about the potential of it, just like I had no doubts about the potential of bitcoin all those years ago.

At this point I'm getting most of the help I need via people who have contacted me so far. What I'm really lacking at this point is a person who is capable of designing a 3D model of the product in industrial type software in the formats which can be used by manufacturers to produce the product on their machines (it will mostly be a sheet metal type of product). Anyone who can help me in this area please send me a PM.

That is some what true, and I'm sure it will happen eventually if I end up manufacturing this product. But I don't mind a little bit of competition, that's the way business works. It all comes down to who has the most popular design (it's the type of thing where the appearance of the product will play a major role in its success). Plus the first company to do something often gains a loyal customer base and becomes the trusted and recommended manufacturer.

It cannot be patented, it's really just a variant of existing products, and none of the variants have patents or copyrights on them. It's a very general sort of product which many different companies make.

The reason I'm being secretive is because it wouldn't be very hard for existing companies who make similar products to create the type of variants I want to make. And if they get around to it first then it will really hurt my attempt.

Like I said, I'm quite certain it would be a very popular product because I wanted to buy something like it myself and I've seen many comments around the internet which indicate that many other people would like to have a similar product. And I am telling people what the product is, but only people I trust or people who contact me and want to be a part of the business in some way (I've already had one guy PM so far actually).

A bit more about the product: it will be moderately simple with few parts (no electronic parts required) and it could be made out of plastic or metal, so it wouldn't be exceptionally hard to get it manufactured.

So the other day I was looking around the internet for a certain type of product but there was really nothing to meet my requirements. It was clear however that a lot of people besides myself were looking for the same type of product based on the comments I was reading around the internet. I don't want to mention exactly what type of product I'm talking about in case someone decides to get in before me, but what I can say is that it's a very common type of product which most people use and it comes in many different variations (except the variation I was looking for). I know for a fact there would be a huge market for this product and that it would quickly become one of the most popular variants available. It would be the type of thing that if you put it on kickstarter you'd get an uncontrollable inflow of funding (not that I would really need to use kickstarter) and when the product became available it would quickly sell out (and I don't at all feel like I'm exaggerating how popular it would be).

However, it would require a professional 3D modeling artist to first design the product and then it would require a large manufacturing factory to mass produce the product. The problem is that I really don't have any type of experience with starting a large manufacturing business, I've only ever managed my own small business as a website programmer and I don't have any employees. So I really wouldn't know where to start or what would be the safest way of going about it. I guess what I'm saying is that I need some business partners with some good business experience and I need some 3D design artists to help produce the first line of products. The other problem is that I live in Australia, and even worse is that I live in a rather rural area of Australia where I'm cut off from a lot of large businesses and manufacturers. But I really feel like this is a good idea and that it can be extremely successful if it done right so I want to give it a shot in the true entrepreneurial spirit.

If you have any advice for me or feel like you could some how contribute to the business plan then post in this thread or send me a PM. Thanks.

I assume so they can create a blockchain.info wallet since he's targeting total newbs.

Ahh ok, that looks pretty good too but I would prefer a course dedicated to neural networks so I think I'll keep watching the lectures from the course I found and then maybe check out the machine learning course when I'm finished (is it also free?).

I assume you are talking about this class?

https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets

It actually seems to be exceptionally good based on what I've seen so far. And it's free! Thanks a lot for the link.

Please do, as I'm having trouble fully understanding the training process you intend to use.