Question on the bitcoin(d) client : confirmation of transactions

[asterix]

Hi,

hey I'm the proud owner of probably one of the last milli-BTC distributed by the Bitcoin Faucet.

I noticed however that the number of confirmations just keeps increasing (currently more than 600) which, if I understood correctly from explanations elsewhere, is way over the top to make sure that these are really my 0.001 BTC : I think I read a number like 10 or so would do ample.

My question is will this go on for ever (as in this generates a background network traffic linked to each bitcoin (or fraction there-of) ever traded) or will it stop after some time ...

(and this was post number 5 !!)

F.

[nico_w]

Your transactions will be confirmed over and over again by the miners, there is no end (except when we're all dead in 2012 LOL)

[Gabi]

Of course it will keep increasing forever, it's just the number of the block created after that transaction happened  

[asterix]

But so in the end network traffic will increase with the fractions of BTC exchanged ... is that not going to slowdown clients/networks ?

Which makes me wonder : do fractions of bitcoins ever get together again after they were split in a transaction ?

[luxgladius]

But so in the end network traffic will increase with the fractions of BTC exchanged ... is that not going to slowdown clients/networks ?

Which makes me wonder : do fractions of bitcoins ever get together again after they were split in a transaction ?

Bitcoins don't really have an identity like that. There's just inputs to transactions and outputs of transactions. Every output can be used as a future input.

Alice receives 2 generation transactions worth 100 BTC. She makes a transaction that uses both of them as inputs and sends 100 BTC to Bob. Now Bob has an output transaction of 100 BTC that he can use as the input to another transaction.

Hope that helps.

[asterix]

@luxgladius : Hmmm .... still a bit vague : I definitely need to put in a bit more work with my brains (unfortunately as scarce resource as well : no need for increasing the difficulty to limit the output !)

@ Gabi : yes, I can see now that the number of confirmations goes in pace with the blocknumbers.