Anyone seen anything about how the testnet is going?9
good question...nothing significant in the news recently I could see after the little initial problem they had when it first launched it (which was quickly addressed). idk...No news is good news?  |
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Could be interesting to see what happens 5, 10 years from now. I definitely see a future where blockchain technology is adopted, but decentralization is unable to make it big. We've already seen countries like Venezuela, China, and other ones start to adopt new currencies and even start making their own.
I envision a world where each big country (China, USA, etc) have their own centralized currency, and BTC is a popular secondary currency that some people prefer, but I wouldn't think it'll be popular then the centralised currencies.
Agree and it looks like China is going to be first by a long shot...USA not even close since we are distracted with a few other things  https://cointelegraph.com/news/chinas-national-blockchain-network-launches-international-websiteChina’s blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), the country’s nationwide blockchain project, has just launched an official international website.
Google and AWS are among major BSN partners According to the website, the BSN project is planning to launch the so-called “Interchain Communication Hub” via IRITA interchain service hub and decentralized network Chainlink in October 2020. From a bitcoin prospective I think these nationalized digital currencies will only help bitcoin by giving it visibility, but not really direct competition since it is a COMPLETELY different animal (centralized stable coin vs decentralized store of value) https://cointelegraph.com/news/expert-chinas-digital-yuan-will-target-the-dollar-not-bitcoin“There is a leapfrog opportunity” here, he said. “DCEP’s not about Bitcoin. It's about potentially internationalizing renminbi, at least to some extent.” China is a in a more unique position to get its digital yuan accepted too. While times have changed since 13th century China's still have a strong ability to 'influence' its population https://fortune.com/2020/08/10/china-digital-currency-electronic-yuan-bitcoin-cryptocurrency/ (paywall on full article unfortunately, but interesting read) In the 13th century, Kublai Khan, the Mongolian emperor who founded China’s Yuan Dynasty, upended monetary convention with a magisterial edict: Accept my money, or die. |
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I read that epic post of his and it didn't really answer anything about his actual development/collaboration role prior to first release to explain why he was the first developer added: When Satoshi announced Bitcoin on the cryptography mailing list, he got a skeptical reception at best. ...I was more positive. I had long been interested in cryptographic payment schemes. .... So I found Bitcoin facinating.When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them. It *sounds* from the Hal's own post that he loved the bitcoin concept, but he didn't really collaborate with Satoshi until AFTER he downloaded the first release of the software where he started to provided Satoshi feedback via email. BTW The publicly available email exchange makes for excellent reading for bitcoin history buffs: https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/finneynakamotoemails.pdfUnfortunately, we can't ask either Hal or Satoshi about their collaboration prior to the initial release, but these historical records sure seem to suggest it was more significant than either Satoshi or Hal ever indicated. Seems like something worth mentioning in the Hal own ' bitcoin and me (Hal Finney)' thread that (technically) he was the FIRST official bitcoin developer after Satoshi.   As of Jan 5th, 2009 'Hal Finney' listed to as bicoin sourceforge developer along with Satoshi:https://web.archive.org/web/20090105145118/http://sourceforge.net/project/memberlist.php?group_id=244765 and was added '4 weeks' prior to Jan 06 2009...i.e. End of November or early December 2008https://web.archive.org/web/20090106201347/http:/sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/#item3rd-6 |
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this sounds very wrong to me: The bug is simple. Bitcoin blocks are the containers within which transactions are stored. Each Bitcoin block has a number tracking how many blocks come before it. But because of a limitation revolving around how block height numbers are stored, Bitcoin will run out of block numbers after block number 5101541.
for starters bitcoin blocks do NOT store their height anywhere except a push of an integer to the stack inside their signature script (after activation of BIP-34) which can be as big as up to 4 bytes and can be as big as 2,147,483,647. additionally Wuillies tweet doesn't even mention block height. it is talking about block timestamps that will overflow and although i am not sure about the details of that but i can tell it has nothing to do with height. Yes, I was thinking the very same thing as pooya87...'height' or block number didn't exist until an non-critical field was added via BIP-34 starting at Block number 227,835 (timestamp 2013-03-24 15:49:13 GMT) which was last version 1 block. Until that point the block height was simply derived by counting up from zero for the genesis block via the blockchain: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0034Specification
Treat transactions with a version greater than 1 as non-standard (official Satoshi client will not mine or relay them).
Add height as the first item in the coinbase transaction's scriptSig, and increase block version to 2. The format of the height is "serialized CScript" -- first byte is number of bytes in the number (will be 0x03 on main net for the next 150 or so years with 223-1 blocks), following bytes are little-endian representation of the number (including a sign bit). Height is the height of the mined block in the block chain, where the genesis block is height zero (0). I can't find any historical discussion this topic. Can someone actually point out where this hard limit on the max block number is and why it would take a hard fork to actually fix it? |
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The following is a great thread for bitcoin history buffs like myself. However, I am a bit confused about Hal Finney's role with early bitcoin development. Hal Finney was added as a developer by Satoshi himself to the original bitcoin sourceforge project in early December 2008 suggesting an early collaboration beyond what I have read in the public domain email exchanges unless I missed something. Anyone else have more insight into why Satoshi added him first and so early? Here is the summary of Hal's involvement mentioned in the earlier thread: I think it is reported somewhere that Nick Szabo also communicated with Satoshi. Hal Finney was also the recipient of the first
Bitcoin transaction, so he had to have contact with Satoshi in some way, other than the Crypto forum they talked on. .. Hal Finney discovered the Bitcoin project via a cryptography mailing list, then later he interacted with Satoshi via emails
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Oh, that's definitely true and has been for some time now. I know some people who never carry cash on them and use debit cards and/or smartphones to pay for everything. Right now I'm just waiting for the US government to stop minting pennies and nickels, which would be a smart thing for them to do.
oh I so agree with that! we actually lose money printing pennies! Even dollars aren't cost effective which is why they tried dollar coins but no one bought it (no pun intended). China is moving to a national digital currency which would eliminate a lot of the costs involved with the physical currency...maybe someday USA will follow suit. |
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No
I appreciate achow101 simplicity and agree.. Let bitcoin cash go down this 'tax' route and see how it works out. BTC is doing fine as is |
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I am long on BTC and ETH personally, but I am curious if anyone has a reaction to this news article today: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockstreams-adam-back-slams-ethereum-as-a-ponzi-schemeBlockstream’s Adam Back Slams Ethereum as a Ponzi Scheme Crypto tribalism shifts up a gear, with Bitcoin pioneer Adam Back lashing out at Ethereum. “Bitconnect, Charles Ponzi, Ethereum, Onecoin, Cardano, Ripple, Bernie Madoff, Stellar, Dan Larmer. All looking very similar grade to me.” Back’s swipe came in a dialogue with TV journalist Layah Heilpern, who asked whether he thought Ethereum was a scam or if it added value to the ecosystem in terms of DApps. Back responded simply: “Well 70% pre-mined says it all. Which would you say is a bigger scam, Ripple or Ethereum.” Thoughts? Is he right or wrong and why? |
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This is a graph of bnExtraNonce not block.nNonce. It gets incremented when blocks are found and when transactions arrive (which also causes common slope) but it is not reset when blocks are found. At difficulty 1 those shared causes of incrementing should be the primary driver of extranonce incrementing.
thanks gmaxwell for clarifying. I will do some more research this weekend. No more known early blocks I guess. |
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The first 5 years of ethereum can be attributed by succesful launch and continuous development and hopefully after the implementation Ethereum 2.0 the next 5 years will be attributed for the mass adoption brought to us by the use and implementation of eth network and its smart contracts alongwith tokenization platforms so we can easily expect big things coming up for ethereum and with supportive community i am sure ethereum will reach its goal.
I have to agree with that. Because the Eth developers are not stopping their job but always looking to improve their network. That is why we will be witnessing the eth 2.0 very soon. I hope it will bring more benefits among crypto users. yes, looks like testnet is humming along: Final test before Ethereum 2.0 mainnet release is now live The Eth2 Medalla testnet went live today, marking the final stage of testing before the mainnet release of Eth2 is released into the wild. https://decrypt.co/37591/final-test-before-ethereum-2-mainnet-release-now-live |
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I really enjoyed Taras' 2014 thread Chain Archaeology - Answers from the early blockchainunfortunately most of the links don't show up so I had to manually view them to get full effect.  Kind of entertaining watching how Taras' mind was working/evolving over the thread, but I did reproduce some of Taras' work for fun and generated a final chart mapping the early miners' Extra Nonce values for their coinbase transactions from this message: list of spent blocks we've linked so far (see link for list)  If I understand correctly some of the miners in brackets were just names assigned by Taras to unknown miners that I think were identified purely because of the pattern?, but others like Hal Finney were obtained using a screen shot of his earliest transactions so they are 100% confident at least. Questions: 1) At this time frame using the early non customized bitcoin.exe is it expected to see the miner's coinbase block increment like Hal's until they restart their instance? It is so odd they all have approximately the same angle over time...is that a reflection of the hash rate for a typical PC in 2009 or something else? 2) Does anyone know of miners of blocks less than 1000 that aren't included in Taras' list? Screen shots of early transactions like Hal's would be ideal  I have screen shot of theymos early transactions he posted, but they are much later than 1000. Thanks! |
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You are right. Covid-19 really opens the door of digital world and more so on digital currencies. But I believe that cryptocurrencies won't replace our traditional ways of financial management or the fiat itself. Aside from this high technology-driven world now, there's still a lot of places around the globe that is so uncivilized and have no signal, internet connection nor smart gadgets and they have no knowledge about this IT thing here. So, for me, digital currencies is for the cities only, and it can't be used by everyone, even during this pandemic.
What I find interesting is how hard cash (paper bills/coins) has greatly diminished in use at least in the USA. 'Contactless' transactions is the preference now so it should benefit crypto currencies in the end. For routine purchases I still favor the credit card for the mile$, but if I was a cash or debit card user, bitcoin on a digital wallet might have a value proposition if adopted/supported by vendors. Hopefully sooner than later. |
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....
But this got me wondering if there's anything you miss in current block explorers? Anything you would like to see answered by using a decent explorer but just can't seem to do with any at the moment? Or anything in particular a specific explorer do has to offer while others don't?
Looking forward to your replies/ideas.
I echo the others comments like a graphical explorer would be cool to see done properly. I would also like a full detail option that includes the full raw block and all the fields such as extraNonce,, nonce etc. Hex and json formats also be handy like some have already. How come you asking? Building a new one? |
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I never believed Eth will come this far in such a short while , i was surprised to see ETH at 360$ and still going upward. I sold my holdings at 280$ and i was very excited ,little dd i know the pump just started. i am now beginning to feel that it might get back to ATH before the end of the year .
ATH is quite high so that would be hard to believe that soon. Healthier to just see volitility but upwarded climb. It is impressive that after ETH rejected 400 it is climbing back up to maybe retest soon. BTC retreated from 12000 much more severely, but I hope it will overcome that resistance level soon. Time will tell.. |
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That's true, but I want to add that cryptocurrency is easy in use for educated ones. I think mass adoption is impossible when most people have no idea about Bitcoin and how it works.
Personally I am less concerned about scaling (you can use off chain for micro purchases), ease of use (it could easily be as easy as using Apple/Google Pay via your phone if their was market demand), or comprehension (I don't really understand how Google Pay works, but I use it anyway...maybe not a fair analogy since Paypal, google pay, and apply pay aren't as much of a leap than a bitcoin wallet use). I think the biggest barrier to mass adoption in USA is that the IRS considers bitcoins as assets, rather than currency. Therefore US taxpayers must report ALL bitcoin transactions for tax purposes which would be beyond annoying for micro (or even larger) purchases so I don't bother using it.   https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/040515/are-there-taxes-bitcoins.aspPlus I like my credit card miles so really I suspect the primary target audience would be debit card/cash users right? |
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$376
ETH Dominance 12+%
ETH big pump, almost $ 400 The level of ETH dominance is peaking this week so it will have a positive effect on other altcoins Im seeins when the tesnet will be fully launched and reversal trend will be happening. The testnet has brought ethereum to the moon and we will see that whether ethereum can still defent the hype or not. It's just the matter of time until the correction will happen. 399 and change right now... So close to big 400 |
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... the bug is converting the P2PK pubkeyscript to a P2PKH address. when you have 12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX then the corresponding script is OP_DUP OPHASH160 <119B098E2E980A229E139A9ED01A469E518E6F26> OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG and NOT this: <0496B538E853519C726A2C91E61EC11600AE1390813A627C66FB8BE7947BE63C52DA7589379515D4E0A604F8141781E62294721166BF621E73A82CBF2342C858EE> OP_CHECKSIG take this simple example, we have a concept of a number that we can represent in different encodings. with hexadecimal characters (0xff), with numbers/digits (255), with words (two hundred and fifty five), in binary (11111111),... no matter which one you choose, they all represent the same exact thing. but if you decide to convert 0xff to 12345 that would be wrong, if some application did that it would be its bug. it is the same with scripts. we have defined a different "encoding" for certain scripts that i mentioned in my first comment. you can convert those script to these encodings and get the result called "address" and you can convert that address back to those scripts. doing anything other than this is a mistake. pooya87, thank you for indulging me. I think I am finally catching on, but there is a subtly that I might be still missing maybe? Let me try to recap and explain my objective to ensure I am not "doing anything other than this is a mistake". I am simply an amateur/hobbyist researcher data scientist type presently focused on studying the early bitcoin blockchain because I am fascinated by it. For the first couple of years with bitcoin's blockchain the output pkscript encodes the public keys in the two different flavors that you highlighted above. To normalize the output 'address' and to be able to take advantage of block explorers' APIs I am encoding both flavors to their base 58 version like so: OP_DUP OPHASH160 <119B098E2E980A229E139A9ED01A469E518E6F26> OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG becomes --> 12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJX <0496B538E853519C726A2C91E61EC11600AE1390813A627C66FB8BE7947BE63C52DA7589379515D4E0A604F8141781E62294721166BF621E73A82CBF2342C858EE> OP_CHECKSIG becomes --> 12c6DSiU4Rq3P4ZxziKxzrL5LmMBrzjrJXI then use one of the many APIs to look up, say, the current balance of that 'address' or maybe its tx history depending on what I am researching. I am not trying to do anything other than that. |
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Just in case anyone else is interested in the python code the mirrors the above logic that seems to work well for the outputs scripts found in the EARLY blockchain file. It takes 160-bit RIPEMD-160 hash as an input adds the network bytes prefix for mainnet ('00') and outputs the base 58 rendition:
this is essentially the same bug that those block explorers have. may i ask what exactly are you trying to do by reproducing this mistake? Why I am seeking to extract it is because I do make use of the various block explorers APIs and that is how I can look up information unfortunately.  ah, I thought the 'mistake' was perpetuating referring it as a 'bitcoin address' instead of a base 58 encoding of a hash of the sender/recipient's public key (AKA PP2PKH right?). I am sorry I am being so dense, but I am still missing what you are calling a bug then since the base 58 rendering it produces is accurate for the early days of the blockchain. Since I was following this page for my implementation, what would you edit from this page to correct the bug? https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_version_1_Bitcoin_addresses |
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