Interview with Satoshi.

[kiba]

Why do you use subversion and sourceforge.net instead of the new and hip git and github.com?

How old are you anyway?

[ribuck]

...you can't increase the quantity of some commodity, just by increasing the precision of the tool you use to measure it

No of course the quantity doesn't change, but the utility of a commodity might change according to how divisible it is. Personally I don't think it's an issue for bitcoins.

[lfm]

i'm sorry, i wasn't very clear.  As the number of bitcoins approaches 21 million, I would like to know why Satoshi chose to call for an end to generation of bitcoins rather than continue generating a smaller and smaller amount.  I would think that we should asymptotically approach 21 million rather than just stop at 20,986,000 or whatever that number is.  Seems like 500 years from now there still should be generation of bitcoins, no matter how small the generations appear to us today.

Satoshi doesn't "call for an end" whatsoever.  21 millions IS an asymptotic limit.

As I understood, since the number of bitcoins created for each new block will decrease geometrically (50, then 25, then 12.5, etc.), then the total number of bitcoins will be the limit of a geometric serie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_series).  I guess 21 millions is the result of Satoshi's calculation.

Can anyone confirm ?

You're both right in a way. The number of mined coins is divided in half about every four years (210000 blocks). this means the current 50.00000000 BTC will actually hit zero in about 150 years. Note it gets pretty small, less than 0.01 BTC in only 50 years or so. It actually hits zero instead of just getting continually smaller because it is fixed integer computer arithmetic and not mathematically theoretical numbers which could get infinitely small.

[Anonymous]

I sent satoshi a pm about this thread. I dont know how regularly he checks his messages.


Maybe another good question could be "What is your preferred method of contact ?" 

[joe]

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

...

 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested [a] from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

 3 And on the 8th day Satoshi decreed that there shall be 21 million coins of bit, and it was so.

I was surprised I never noticed this paragraph until I re-read the passage recently.

[grondilu]

3 And on the 8th day Satoshi decreed that there shall be 21 million coins of bit, and it was so.

I was surprised I never noticed this paragraph until I re-read the passage recently.

More seriously, should we say again that the actual amount of bitcoins doesn't matter, as long as it is both constant and divisable enough ?

It's really just a unit of measure.  In a ton of sand, there are 1000 of kilograms, one billion grams, and still, it's all the same amount of sand.

[nelisky]

3 And on the 8th day Satoshi decreed that there shall be 21 million coins of bit, and it was so.

I was surprised I never noticed this paragraph until I re-read the passage recently.

More seriously, should we say again that the actual amount of bitcoins doesn't matter, as long as it is both constant and divisable enough ?

It's really just a unit of measure.  In a ton of sand, there are 1000 of kilograms, one billion grams, and still, it's all the same amount of sand.

I don't think I fancy the comparison used. Bitcoins and sand, sounds like negative connotation... Let me try and fix that:

It's really just a unit of measure.  In a ton of cash, there are 1000 kilograms of hard currency, a shitload of dough, and still, it's all the same amount of cash.

[grondilu]

I don't think I fancy the comparison used. Bitcoins and sand, sounds like negative connotation...

Well, I had already done the comparaison with gold earlier in this thread, so I wanted to change.

But I should have sticked with gold.  That's what bitcoin is :  electronic gold.  And it's actually even better, since gold is not very easy to handle in very small quantities.

Anyway, here is the comparaison with gold.

In the whole world, there are about 150,000 tons of gold.  That's 150 billions of kilograms, and about 5 billions of onces.  All those numbers represents the same quantity.