Of course it is normal. Maybe not typical or common, but certainly normal.

Hard to say. Less than 49³³ (6.0x10⁵⁵) because most of those would have an invalid checksum. More like 49²⁷ x (49/58)⁶, or 1.6x10⁴⁵ if you assume that the last 6 are the checksum.


In a random address, for each digit, the probability of being a letter is 49/58, so the probability of 33 of them being a letter is (49/58)³³, or about 1 out of 261. It is not that rare.


If you generate addresses at random, 1 out of 261 will have only letters.


No, because there is no way to generate only private keys of addresses with only letters.

Bitcoin's fixed supply does limit FRB compared to fiat because the risk of collapse is greater as the reserve ratio goes lower. With fiat, there is an unlimited supply of money available to prevent a collapse so the reserve ratio can be 0.

According to the lawsuit, this is the claim:

There are protocols for implementing tokens on Bitcoin, such as Counterparty and Omni. I think those have gone out of favor with the rise of Ethereum.

The mining code was removed from Bitcoin Core many years ago.

I don't think it is subjective. The value of the block reward determines the cost of a 51% attack, which is what provides the economic security against such an attack.


I guess some political goals might be aided by inflation or deflation, but in my view, inflation and deflation are the same but opposite -- inflation is negative deflation and deflation is negative inflation. Both are equally disruptive by reducing the efficiency of an economy.

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If the goal is really only to enrich holders, then the proposal would transform Bitcoin into an explicit pyramid scheme. Currently, Bitcoin is kind of a pyramid scheme because of the "store of value" narratives, but I hope that it will outlive those narratives and eventually become real money.

1. Is there any benefit to an explicitly deflationary currency beyond increasing the wealth of holders? In my view, as a unit of account its value would ideally remain constant. Deflation is no better than inflation.

2. Why is the burn rate variable? Is the intention to discourage a rise in the total hash rate?

3. How would the proposal effect the business of mining? A variable burn rate between 10% and 90% would make it very dificult to predict revenue.

4. The security of the network against 51% attack is determined by the value of the block reward. Burning a portion of the block reward would therefore lower the security. Is that acceptable?

Your wallet will say that you have 2 BTC, but you really have 1 + 1 = 2 BTC. The difference is completely handled by the wallet, and it only really matters when it comes to transaction fees.

Here is the situation that some people experience regarding transaction fees:

Let's say that you have 2 BTC, but instead of being paid in one or two transactions as in your example, you are paid in 200 transactions of 0.01 BTC each. The wallet says you have 2 BTC, but you really have 0.01 + 0.01 + ... + 0.01 = 2 BTC. When you try to send that 2 BTC or (any significant portion of it) the transaction fee will be very high.

The reason is that each of the 200 transactions is an "input" to your transaction, and the fee for your transaction is roughly proportional to the number of inputs. So, if the fee to send 0.01 BTC (using only one input) is X, then the fee to send 0.02 BTC (using 2 inputs) will be 2X and the fee to send 2BTC (using 200 inputs) will be 200X.

The solution to this problem is to consolidate inputs. That is done by sending all of your BTC to yourself when the fees are very low (1 sat/vbyte). That will consolidate all of the small inputs into one single large input, so that if must send when fees are high, you only use 1 input (rather than 200). However, the potential drawback to consolidating inputs is reduced privacy.

That's a pretty narrative, but I don't think any of it is correct.

My understanding is that an intentional low rate of inflation is like the tail on a kite. The shorter the tail, the more unstable the kite. But the longer the tail, the more it weighs the kite down.

Personally, I think inflation is more like opium. At low doses, it subdues a person, making them lethargic and unresponsive, but happy. At high doses, it kills the person. The real question is whether or not the opium actually helps.

Please explain how a lower complexity reduces the amount of energy used when miners are encouraged to increase energy usage in order to be one of the first N2 miners. Whether it takes 1000000 tries on average or 10¹⁸ tries on average, miners are going to use as much energy as they can in order to be first.

I don't think it is possible to have a single N2 list. Each miner that completes round 1 will have a list that may be different from every other miner's list. Furthermore, there is no way to agree on which miners were the first miners to complete round 1 because there is no way to resolve the differences in the lists.

How is #1 enforced? What prevents a miner from executing #2 if it finds its own $nonce1$ after it has already received $N_2$ $nonce1$? A violation of #1 cannot be detected.


Nothing in your miner instructions ensures that every miner has the same list of $N_2$ miners. Therefore, #5 will cause a split that cannot be resolved by the longest chain because a block by a miner not in another miner's list for that block is not considered valid by that miner.

Politicians are telling us that the current level of inflation is caused by "supply chain issues". That is a lie. They are lying in order to hide the fact that rising inflation is a direct result of their policies.

The truth is what was said by the famous and highly respected economist Milton Friedman said: "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." The problem is not the supply chain. The problem is that the huge influx of money into the economy from central banks and governments has fueled a tremendous surge in demand.

Companies can't find workers to fill the demand. Why not? Because the government paid everyone a bunch of money so they don't need to work. This is shown by the fact that the labor participation and unemployment rates are both low.

You would need a way to prevent the knowledge of the winner for 8 minutes so that nobody can start on the next block before the 10 minutes have past.

The first N2 solutions received by one miner could be different from the first N2 received by another. Do you have a way to achieve consensus on who is in the list? If there are different lists, then the network will split when miners don't agree on who is in the list.


If you don't accept a block by someone not in your list, then you can't follow the actual longest chain. If you allow a block from a miner not in your list then every miner can include themselves in their own list (as soon as they complete round 1), which you must accept in order to resolve a split.

So then, why would miners use less power?

You state "In the first round, we run a similar Bitcoin PoW..." If the first round is similar to Bitcoin PoW, then it has the same economic incentives, in which the cost of mining is limited only by the value of the block reward, regardless of the complexity. It seems to me (I may be wrong) that you may be succumbing to a fallacy similar to the belief that more efficient miners (in terms of J/hash) in the future will cause the overall power consumption of mining to fall.

Regardless of the complexity, if I use more power to increase my hash rate, then I will have a better chance of getting to the second round. Right? So, why wouldn't I use as much power as I can to get into the second round?

I think a solution would be to eliminate the PoW in the second round and simply make it a random selection (somehow). That would cut the expected block reward by a factor of N₂, which would cut the power usage in the first round by that same factor.

Which one?

You don't explain how your system reduces the energy consumption. Miners are going to expend as much energy as they can afford in order to be included in the second round. Right?



It may not be important, but how are the "fastest" miners chosen? In Bitcoin, the first block produced is not necessarily the one ultimately added to the chain. In your system, each miner can have a different set of first N₂ blocks. Also, just to complicate matters, as I stated before, there is no reason for a miner not to submit their block as one of the "first" N₂ blocks, even if they have already seen N₂ blocks.


BTW, the word is "nonce", and not "ounce".