How many people exist today that fully understand the Bitcoin protocol?

[amaclin]

are they to be considered retards?

yes. most of them are stupid

[chrisvl]

im one of 250,what is bitcoind ?? joke :p

[shield132]

Vero good and interesting poll but vote is higher despite the fact that list of answers are nearly of right choise to my mind. I vote for people between 1001-5000 because also there are some people, there are many local exchangers which aren't known in this forum, plus mining farms, both famouse companies and simply small farm miners. Also don't forget online and offline wallet developers. To my mind those people needs knowledge of bitcoin nodes and their list maybe will be higher than 1000.

[Wind_FURY]

So you guys really think from hundreds of millions potential programmers, coders or maybe hackers only a few could fathom the genius of bitcoin?
There are thousands of computer science and basic coding language MIT graduated with PhD, and even more people with even greater knowledge but without any academical degree, are they to be considered retards?

Yes. Look at what those "smart" people who are supposed to be good coders are coming up with in terms of something relating to blockchains and Bitcoin. They are mostly stupid ideas that do not solve real world problems. They keep creating useless platforms without any real use cases.

Do you also want to read something funny? Read Don Tapscott's book. That is real comedy gold. I advice you to cover your nose while you read it. He likes to fart.

[Rahar02]

Sometimes when I read comments from various industry "experts" it makes me wonder how many people in the world truly understand the bitcoin protocol on an intimate level.

I mean fully know it inside and out. What do you think?

My thought is within 1001-5000 maybe. They are who in devs team, exchanges, miners and pro users that have been spent a lot of time to learning about bitcoin from the white paper to all of the programs and nodes. If your standard was "fully understand inside and outside", I'm not. Maybe I do understand about 50-60% of bitcoin protocol.

[Okurkabinladin]

This is a tiny sample, but the under 250's edged it out on Twitter!



https://twitter.com/realmicroguy/status/822286827881164801

Sometimes when I read comments from various industry "experts" it makes me wonder how many people in the world truly understand the bitcoin protocol on an intimate level.

I mean fully know it inside and out. What do you think?

I think you should increase your questionnaire intervals a little more. I think it's between 7000 and 8000. Even the people working in IT sector do not know exactly. There are those who do not even hear the name bitcoin from those who have professional software development. A high level of technical knowledge is required to understand the protocol in real terms.

Thank you for your suggestion. I can't edit this poll now but will keep your feedback in mind.

I am actually quite shocked, that it could be as low as two hundred people. Especially considering that bitcoin always had better than average share of informative technology savvy participants. Many of its users are working in technology sector as programmers.

Could it be likely? Did Satoshi really build that insanely complex and incomprehensible network, that even majority of other people from the field couldnt grasp it?

[manselr]

So you guys really think from hundreds of millions potential programmers, coders or maybe hackers only a few could fathom the genius of bitcoin?
There are thousands of computer science and basic coding language MIT graduated with PhD, and even more people with even greater knowledge but without any academical degree, are they to be considered retards?

It's a super really small niche the coders that are qualified for proper bitcoin development. You can count them with both hands probably. Sure Bitcoin Core got tons of contributors but there are clearly like 10 coders that are the ones that do most of the stuff, and very few come up with really ground breaking stuff like segwit, mimblewimble, confidential transactions... actual game changing BIPs. Its great to have people finding out bugs and fixing them but the actual innovators are even a more reduced number.

[speaktome]

So you guys really think from hundreds of millions potential programmers, coders or maybe hackers only a few could fathom the genius of bitcoin?
There are thousands of computer science and basic coding language MIT graduated with PhD, and even more people with even greater knowledge but without any academical degree, are they to be considered retards?

It's a super really small niche the coders that are qualified for proper bitcoin development. You can count them with both hands probably. Sure Bitcoin Core got tons of contributors but there are clearly like 10 coders that are the ones that do most of the stuff, and very few come up with really ground breaking stuff like segwit, mimblewimble, confidential transactions... actual game changing BIPs. Its great to have people finding out bugs and fixing them but the actual innovators are even a more reduced number.

I really do not think they are so few, and I do not think it's because more people do not understand it, rather they are not in contact with this type of software development and they are occupied in anothers areas, and consequently if someone paid them to do it the number would multiply considerably.

[achow101]

I really do not think they are so few, and I do not think it's because more people do not understand it, rather they are not in contact with this type of software development and they are occupied in anothers areas, and consequently if someone paid them to do it the number would multiply considerably.

The question is not who is capable of understanding how everything works but rather who currently understands. Bitcoin, like hundreds of other niche fields, has a large number of people who are capable of understanding how everything works given enough time to study it. But most of those people, like with those other fields, do not take the time to learn everything about it. Regardless, saying that people are capable of understanding how it works is pointless. They are capable, but currently do not, and what is being asked right now is who currently understands everything.

[target]

This is a tiny sample, but the under 250's edged it out on Twitter!



https://twitter.com/realmicroguy/status/822286827881164801

Sometimes when I read comments from various industry "experts" it makes me wonder how many people in the world truly understand the bitcoin protocol on an intimate level.

I mean fully know it inside and out. What do you think?

I think you should increase your questionnaire intervals a little more. I think it's between 7000 and 8000. Even the people working in IT sector do not know exactly. There are those who do not even hear the name bitcoin from those who have professional software development. A high level of technical knowledge is required to understand the protocol in real terms.

Thank you for your suggestion. I can't edit this poll now but will keep your feedback in mind.

I am actually quite shocked, that it could be as low as two hundred people. Especially considering that bitcoin always had better than average share of informative technology savvy participants. Many of its users are working in technology sector as programmers.

Could it be likely? Did Satoshi really build that insanely complex and incomprehensible network, that even majority of other people from the field couldnt grasp it?

Maybe. Bitcoin technology won't matter anymore for someone who just want to earn through trading. People as a matter of fact still supports a coin that violates the immutability of its blockchain. I don't fully understood the rest of those terms being used here I admit that but I'm really trying to get into its details that I wanted to mine coins myself.

[Testing Crypto]

I really do not think they are so few, and I do not think it's because more people do not understand it, rather they are not in contact with this type of software development and they are occupied in anothers areas, and consequently if someone paid them to do it the number would multiply considerably.

The question is not who is capable of understanding how everything works but rather who currently understands. Bitcoin, like hundreds of other niche fields, has a large number of people who are capable of understanding how everything works given enough time to study it. But most of those people, like with those other fields, do not take the time to learn everything about it. Regardless, saying that people are capable of understanding how it works is pointless. They are capable, but currently do not, and what is being asked right now is who currently understands everything.

   I would think IT would be zero, the very first software maybe 1 & in a world with 1's or 0's. The development of building the original concept could be that of one or few, with each new addition to the entire software protocol & like many things in the developing world are not able to be built by one or even few now a days? It would take a lifetime or ten to blueprint the future of our worlds technology from nothing to full understanding, but possible only with the original prototypes (prehistoric lets say) & unlikely that one person or few could create something with so many points of knowledge. So having full understanding of how things work in the world are less & less over the c entries of the world, building a log cabin could be done & building lets say protocols of todays skyscrapers could not be possible by one or few. Same theory with a wagon, but not possible with say a telsa car or space shuttle & just my idea of the possible # of people in the universe that could have full understanding of the bITcoin protocol.

[st0nefish]

So you guys really think from hundreds of millions potential programmers, coders or maybe hackers only a few could fathom the genius of bitcoin?
There are thousands of computer science and basic coding language MIT graduated with PhD, and even more people with even greater knowledge but without any academical degree, are they to be considered retards?

I agree with you. There are many graduates of computer science. At the same time, there are many academicians working in the field of computer science. For this reason, I think that the number of people who understand the Bitcoin protocol should be much higher.

But the bitcoin system requires expertise in different areas. Only the software knowledge is not enough to understand the Bitcoin system. The Bitcoin system is a subject for people with different specializations to work together.

[jujugoboom]

True, it is very few, there are less than 100 bitcoin contributors and most of them are bitcoin experts, also some CEO, CTO in bitcoin, blackchain companies can be experts too.

[Kprawn]

I think you have to rephrase your question and rather say, "How many people needs to understand the Bitcoin protocol" ....Most people

do not even know how the banking sector works, and how Fiat money is generated and manipulated. So why should we expect

anything more from people associated with Bitcoin? I think there should be just enough people to make sure that dodgy code is not

added, when new submissions are made. { In the same way, where people picked up that Bitcoin XT had some "dodgy" code }   

[fasdorcas]

there are so much members in the forum and they know very much about the bitcoin including me but i think there is a very small amount of people all arround the world who know fully about it...... iam just a student and iam in the process of learning.... all tought iam using it from almost 1.5 year but iam still in the process of learning.....

[novemberwoah]

there are so much members in the forum and they know very much about the bitcoin including me but i think there is a very small amount of people all arround the world who know fully about it...... iam just a student and iam in the process of learning.... all tought iam using it from almost 1.5 year but iam still in the process of learning.....

Yeah right bitcoin users automatically know about bitcoin, because they use bitcoin so that they would near and find out. But only a few people know the full bitcoin protocol. I also do not know the bitcoin protocol in full because I still learn it, there is a lot of knowledge that I should learn about bitcoin. I feel when there is knowledge that I have gained there is always new knowledge that coming and that makes it more interesting for me.