[bitconf] State of the Coin 2012

[jgarzik]

My conference talk "State of the Coin 2012", which covers bitcoin technical and non-technical changes over the past year, is posted at

     http://gtf.org/garzik/bitcoin/2012/state-of-the-coin-2012.pdf

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[nobbynobbynoob]

Thanks Jeff, it was a good little lecture.

[Transisto]

Thanks,

Good to see some actual content from the conference.

[sebicas]

Thanks Jeff!! Any change we see the actual recording of the talk?

[jgarzik]

Thanks Jeff!! Any change we see the actual recording of the talk?

The conference organizers recorded all the talks, and hopefully will have them up on youtube $Sometime.

[Gabi]

Native p2pool support? Awesome!

[wyager]

Pay-to-script-hash looks interesting.

Would someone care to explain exactly how that would work?

[kjj]

Pay-to-script-hash looks interesting.

Would someone care to explain exactly how that would work?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0016

Basically, the script is provided when the transaction is redeemed, rather than when it is created.  When the transaction is created, only the hash is provided so that they network can verify that the script provided at redemption is the right script.

[jgarzik]

Astute readers noted that the table of contents jumped from slide 10 to slide 12.

The PDF in the OP has been updated to include a "Reality Check" slide, which was authored and intended to be presented... but due to an errant mouse click ("hide slide") was never shown.

[jgarzik]

Just for reference, last year's talk (warning: outdated) is available at
     http://gtf.org/garzik/bitcoin/2011/state-of-the-coin-2011.pdf

[Come-from-Beyond]

From the paper:

"Users: Difficult to estimate, but probably over 500,000 at this point."

How was it possible to assess this? Number of IPs? Number of addresses? Number of transactions?

[jgarzik]

From the paper:

"Users: Difficult to estimate, but probably over 500,000 at this point."

How was it possible to assess this? Number of IPs? Number of addresses? Number of transactions?

Blatant guessing, based on:  number of claimed mtgox users, number of peer nodes on network, number of forum users, previous data posts around here, ...

Not a reliable number at all.  Just trying to find a number that we could say "probably over X"

[franky1]

From the paper:

"Users: Difficult to estimate, but probably over 500,000 at this point."

How was it possible to assess this? Number of IPs? Number of addresses? Number of transactions?

Blatant guessing, based on:  number of claimed mtgox users, number of peer nodes on network, number of forum users, previous data posts around here, ...

Not a reliable number at all.  Just trying to find a number that we could say "probably over X"

many graphs around.. but when it comes to regular users in the last year only about 20k of people online daily..


using such things as user numbers / of mtgox and bitcoinchat is not a good way to assess the population. Due to scammers making alias's, 'white knight' whistle blowers not wanting their original persona posting threads, many other reasons including forgetting passwords when using temporary emails to sign up.. the user account number compared to actual people would not be the same.

the chart above came from
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/
which has numerous charts to look at which should aid estimation of the population of the crypto community

it also shows the downward curve of user numbers in the last year. which might explain the slowing down of confirmation speeds, as their aint as many people to confirm.

guess bitcoinia and other items in the last year did scare people away

[zvs]

From the paper:

"Users: Difficult to estimate, but probably over 500,000 at this point."

How was it possible to assess this? Number of IPs? Number of addresses? Number of transactions?

Blatant guessing, based on:  number of claimed mtgox users, number of peer nodes on network, number of forum users, previous data posts around here, ...

Not a reliable number at all.  Just trying to find a number that we could say "probably over X"

many graphs around.. but when it comes to regular users in the last year only about 20k of people online daily..


using such things as user numbers / of mtgox and bitcoinchat is not a good way to assess the population. Due to scammers making alias's, 'white knight' whistle blowers not wanting their original persona posting threads, many other reasons including forgetting passwords when using temporary emails to sign up.. the user account number compared to actual people would not be the same.

the chart above came from
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/
which has numerous charts to look at which should aid estimation of the population of the crypto community

it also shows the downward curve of user numbers in the last year. which might explain the slowing down of confirmation speeds, as their aint as many people to confirm.

guess bitcoinia and other items in the last year did scare people away

well, first off, your chart shows a bottoming out in early july and growth since then.  the level it shows right now is equivalent to mid-may (*just from a fast lookover, based mostly on 'other' and 'united states' nodes)

second off, slowing down of confirmation speeds would be related to the # of transactions, # of people not including transaction fees, # of blocks being solved, # of transactions pools are including in blocks.  the # of connectable IP  addresses has a negligible effect.  the only time it may factor in is if you're on a terribly slow connection which may cause your transaction to propagate a second or two slower than it would have with 15000 nodes, and in those one or two seconds, a block was solved (which also would have happened to have included your transaction)

[zvs]

oh, and i think you'd find it far more likely that it's due to the blockchain being unwieldy for many ppl's machines (i think these days a lot of people dont even have desktops.  imagine that)

re: use wallet service.

[jgarzik]

Someone appears to have uploaded video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llKedWKdvU8

An unexciting recitation of slide material really ;p

[osmosis]

Trying to figure out how this number makes sense..

2012: 60,896 trillion BTC sent

60,000 trillion, with only 10 million btc in circulation, with 365 days in a year...each bitcoin is transfered over 16,000 times a day.  If it was 10 times a day I could see it, but every bitcoin moves 16,000 times per day .. that doesnt seem to make sense.

[jgarzik]

Trying to figure out how this number makes sense..

2012: 60,896 trillion BTC sent

60,000 trillion, with only 10 million btc in circulation, with 365 days in a year...each bitcoin is transfered over 16,000 times a day.  If it was 10 times a day I could see it, but every bitcoin moves 16,000 times per day .. that doesnt seem to make sense.

It is a simple total of each bitcoin transaction's output values, from Jan 1 2012 to Sept 10 2012.

[mrb]

Trying to figure out how this number makes sense..

2012: 60,896 trillion BTC sent

60,000 trillion, with only 10 million btc in circulation, with 365 days in a year...each bitcoin is transfered over 16,000 times a day.  If it was 10 times a day I could see it, but every bitcoin moves 16,000 times per day .. that doesnt seem to make sense.

It is a simple total of each bitcoin transaction's output values, from Jan 1 2012 to Sept 10 2012.

This still doesn't make sense. Or else it would mean the average output of a transaction is 12 billion BTC(!)
It sounds like your calculation is off by a factor of 100 million (you counted satoshis instead of coins).
IOW in 2012 the total tx output is only 608.96 million BTC, making the average output of a transaction 122 BTC.