A simple bitcoin Q/A. Learn new and interesting stuff about bitcoin.

[Coffee_Lover]

Hi pugman and bill gator! Thanks for this thread. I hope I can read every answer and quote here so I can also learn. While reading this thread, I thought that there are lots (as in lots and lots) of things i don't really know about bitcoin. At first, I only thought of how to acquire activities so I can rank higher ('cause higher ranks mean higher stakes and token for bounties), join as many bounties as possible to have stakes and tokens so I could sell them and have money.

But since the merit system was implemented, I learn to control myself in posting (though it's not shitposting for me) and read articles in google to provide quality posts. I also learned to read threads that are very informative and look into other threads that are interesting. However, obtaining merits became hard for me. I hope I can research and answer well to be worthy of those sMerits of yours! Good luck to me!

[pugman]

Question: What does double spend mean?

Welcome Joel_Jantsen. Sure,you can ask questions,so long it helps in increasing user's existing knowledge. Feel free to ask some more. To everyone who has answered in this thread: I haven't updated the answers for a couple of questions,moderation of unwanted messages is still left but give me a couple of days(probably) to sort things out. You shall receive your merit if you answer correctly according to the question and you also follow the rules. Failure to do so,would result you not to receive any merits.

[BTCforJoe]

Question #9:
A bitcoin transaction with 6 confirmations is usually considered to be secure. Why is it so?

Answer

With one confirmation you are vulnerable to the 51% attack. There could also be a miner with a lot of hashing power who could get a couple blocks in a row, so three confirmations removes most of them.

With six confirmations it is essentially mathematically impossible for an attacker with less than 51% of all mining capacity to get six blocks in a row. and still surpass the longest block chain. With 51% or a lot more than 51% the attacker can get six confirmations by creating a parallel blockchain in which only transactions approved by the attacker get included in blocks.

Therefore 6 confirmations are needed to prevent the attack from attacker.

Although this question could have been answered better, this the best that has been posted thus far. Enjoy the merit.

With that said, I think the question is a bit dated now. Not many exchanges require 6 confirmations these days, and theoretically, it’s almost impossible with the amount of hashing power spread across miners for the possibility of a 51% attack to be conducted successfully. One hasn’t happened yet, and it’s theoretically improbable. But that doesn’t mean that you should ever, I repeat ever, treat an unconfirmed transaction the way you would one with a couple confirmations.

[nakamura12]

Question: We ya'll have been on this forum for quite some time all thanks to Satoshi or whatever his real name is. Most of us even earn on this forum, some people even abuse it but we never thank anybody for it. If Satoshi ever returns to this forum or rather reveals himself IRL, what will you do to make the world a better place? How will you thank him? People say bitcoin is shit and is useless but it did reach 20,000$ and a lot of people became millionaires and billionaires because of it and yet there's no token of appreciation. So elaborate on how you're going to thank Satoshi. Even theymos has played a big part, so he deserves a hell a lot of appreciation. Bring it in. This is not a question where you are going to learn about bitcoin, but I felt bad on people being such assholes and cunts. Learn to thank people for what they are and how they are trying to make this world a better place to live in every single day.

If ever satoshi reveals himself and thank satoshi that i became millionaire or more for example. I would travel and meet satoshi personally just to greet and thank satoshi for what he's done to those who became millionaires around the world. To make the world a better place i would start a campaign about cryptocurrency that will promote bitcoin and share it to those who don't know about cryptocurrencies but of course i won't teach directly on what to do to earn from bitcoin. I would start a program first that will help those who doesn't know what is cryptocurrency?, what are the cryptocurrencies? and so on.

Correct me if i'm wrong. Compliments are accepted, opinions, advice and others you want to share to me.

[Oulay]

Question: What does double spend mean?

I'm so sleepy right now to make sure my answer is accurate but here I go:
Double spend is to spend the same coins in 2 different transactions. It's mostly attempted when the 1st transaction doesn't have any confirmations yet, because it becomes much harder to successfully do a double spend after each confirmation.
Double spend is usually attempted when someone makes a transaction by mistake, when a transaction gets stuck because of a low fee, or of course for fraud.
There are several ways to attempt a double spend, what I know of them:
Including a higher fee in the 2nd transaction (the one you want to get it confirmed faster), asking a miner to include your transaction in the next block, these two methods work for unconfirmed transactions.
Double spend can also happen in 51% attacks or similar attacks where the attacker has high hash power. In this case the 1st transaction could have a couple of confirmations and still get reversed. Though this kind of double spend is not worth it unless the amount of transaction is so high.

Correct or wrong answer I'd be happy to receive feedback 

[Daboy_Lyle]

Question #9:
A bitcoin transaction with 6 confirmations is usually considered to be secure. Why is it so?

Answer

With one confirmation you are vulnerable to the 51% attack. There could also be a miner with a lot of hashing power who could get a couple blocks in a row, so three confirmations removes most of them.

With six confirmations it is essentially mathematically impossible for an attacker with less than 51% of all mining capacity to get six blocks in a row. and still surpass the longest block chain. With 51% or a lot more than 51% the attacker can get six confirmations by creating a parallel blockchain in which only transactions approved by the attacker get included in blocks.

Therefore 6 confirmations are needed to prevent the attack from attacker.

Although this question could have been answered better, this the best that has been posted thus far. Enjoy the merit.

With that said, I think the question is a bit dated now. Not many exchanges require 6 confirmations these days, and theoretically, it’s almost impossible with the amount of hashing power spread across miners for the possibility of a 51% attack to be conducted successfully. One hasn’t happened yet, and it’s theoretically improbable. But that doesn’t mean that you should ever, I repeat ever, treat an unconfirmed transaction the way you would one with a couple confirmations.

Each block is stacked on top of the previous one. Adding another block to the top makes all lower blocks more difficult to remove: there is more "weight" above each block. A transaction in a block 6 blocks deep (6 confirmations) will be very difficult to remove.After a transaction is broadcast to the Bitcoin network, it may be included in a block that is published to the network. When that happens it is said that the transaction has been mined at a depth of 1 block. With each subsequent block that is found, the number of blocks deep is increased by one. To be secure against double spending, a transaction should not be considered as confirmed until it is a certain number of blocks deep.Note that unconfirmed transactions do not expire. Just wait until the transaction be confirmed. For my experience 10 minutes is enough for the transaction to be confirmed.

[pugman]

Phew! Finally evaluated the answers and gave merits to a few deserving posts.
Joel,did you find the answer you were looking for? So that you could merit any one who deserves it. Question: Give a short summary on bitcoind.
A tiny bump.

[r1s2g3]

Question: Give a short summary on bitcoind.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoind
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Core

bitcoind is a program that implements the Bitcoin protocol for remote procedure call (RPC) use. It is also the second Bitcoin client in the network's history. It is available under the MIT license in 32-bit and 64-bit versions for Windows, GNU/Linux-based OSes, and Mac OS X.

As part of Bitcoin Core, bitcoind has been bundled with the original client from version 0.2.6 to 0.4.9, and with Bitcoin-Qt since 0.5.0.

Bitcoind is a headless daemon, and also bundles a testing tool for the same daemon. It provides a JSON-RPC interface, allowing it to be controlled locally or remotely which makes it useful for integration with other software or in larger payment systems.

bitcoind is a multithreaded C++ program. It is designed to be portable across Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. The multithreaded aspect leads to some complexity and the use of certain code patterns to deal with concurrency that may be unfamiliar to many programmers. Also, the code is aggressive in the use of C++ constructs, so it will help to be fluent with map, multimap, set, string, vector, iostream, and templates. As is typical of a C++ program, a lot of code tends to end up in the header files so be sure to search both the .cpp and .h files when looking for a function

The client is capable several major operations
Initialization and Startup,Node Discovery,Node Connectivity,Sockets and Messages,Block Exchange,Transaction Exchange,Wallet Services,RPC Interface,User Interface


Sorry, Till above I just copied the wiki, I do not want to rephrase and paraphase because the above information is very cleary written and very understandable.

My understading and confusion: Bitcoind is one of the 2 variation  original bitcoin program available and a 'headless' version.  I assume it is written by Satoshi as he used to be cheif developer 0.3.19 but what used to be first client and what shortcomings/enhancement is in bitcoind from the first client.

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

[shezu007]

I appreciated this type of work here. That is the best way through which all users will get actual and important information about bitcoin.
We need to launch such activities more and more and i am sure that will give better result to the forum. As people will get accurate knowledge and will be able to make constructive and more informative posts. Salute to this activity.

[bill gator]

Phew! Finally evaluated the answers and gave merits to a few deserving posts.

I know the feeling, we've got a couple of threads that require a lot of attention and time. Then you add regular everyday life into the equation and you end up feeling like there's not enough hours in the day to just do the simple things. I feel bad that I have been mostly missing from this thread and it has been awhile since I've popped my head in, but it seemed like you and a couple other users have found somewhat of a rhythm so I didn't want to mess that up. I'm researching questions and always learning more, so whenever that rhythm seems to stutter I will have questions at the ready without a problem.

Phew indeed pugman, but good job not letting this thread get away from you and staying on top of it.

[shahzadafzal]

Question: Give a short summary on bitcoind.

Answer:
One liner could be bitcoind is a source code of bitcoin.
Short summary, it is a non-gui software originally written by Satoshi Nakamoto (now maintained by Bitcoin community). It can handle all the functionalities of bitcoin like transaction verification, sending and receiving of bitcoins and running as full node by downloading the full blockchian of bitcoin.

[Ginzink]

Question: Give a short summary on bitcoin.

Money Anonymity
That's my summary for bitcoin,

The question was about Bitcoind not bitcoin
And bitcoin is more decentralized than anonymous 

Really awesome thread, first post with all thoose good answers really did teach me something so thank you
Already good answers on it so wont try, but interesteing that something i had not heard of was first launched in 2009 and latest update is just 1 month old!
It looks like a complicated daemon to run.

Could i suggest the next question? "How does a bitcoin wallet work and what is the daemon role?" -Or something in that area

[evilsign]

 Question: Give a short summary on bitcoind.

Answer : bitcoind stands for "Bitcoin Daemon" where a daemon is any computer process which runs in the background ("service" in Windows terminology). Short conclusion right? 

[BTCforJoe]

Question: Give a short summary on bitcoind.

Answer : bitcoind stands for "Bitcoin Daemon" where a daemon is any computer process which runs in the background ("service" in Windows terminology). Short conclusion right?  

You’ve stated what bitcoind means, but not what it is or its function. Embellish a tad bit more on your answer (very simple, yet conclusive) and you’ll get a merit from me!

[apur688]

Question: Give a short summary on bitcoind.

Bitcoin is a boss and bitcoind is an employee of bitcoin.
 anything about bitcoind is connected with bitcoin. But reading from Bitcoin Wiki, "As part of Bitcoin Core, bitcoind has been bundled with the original client...". Although it is bound by bitcoin, bitcoind works by itself in managing its systems and networks. So bitcoind is an independent network.

[pugman]

Phew! Finally evaluated the answers and gave merits to a few deserving posts.

I know the feeling, we've got a couple of threads that require a lot of attention and time. Then you add regular everyday life into the equation and you end up feeling like there's not enough hours in the day to just do the simple things. I feel bad that I have been mostly missing from this thread and it has been awhile since I've popped my head in, but it seemed like you and a couple other users have found somewhat of a rhythm so I didn't want to mess that up. I'm researching questions and always learning more, so whenever that rhythm seems to stutter I will have questions at the ready without a problem.

Phew indeed pugman, but good job not letting this thread get away from you and staying on top of it.

I know right. Bill,don't worry. Feel free to hop in any time and ask the questions,I am sure you'll get a lot of answers. I just realized I haven't been online for 4-5 days.. Crap. Need to get my shit together. Will evaluate the answers soon and will have another question for y'all.

[qweqwe2121]

Question: Give a short summary on bitcoind.
A tiny bump.

Bitcoind is a multithreaded C++ program. The multithreaded aspect leads to some complexity and the use of certain code , so it will help to be fluent with map, multimap, set, string, vector, iostream, and templates.

[pugman]

Question: What is a distributed ledger?
The merits for the previous question will be awarded within a couple of hours. Sorry for the delay. And don't plagiarize. Learn something new. Understand. Don't do this just for the sake of merit. Do it because you love bitcoin and you want to learn new stuff about. That's what is the main purpose of this thread.

[bitmover]

Question: What is a distributed ledger?

A distributed ledger is a database in which the data is shared to all participants in the network. All those participants record, share an synchronize the whole data. There is no need for a central authority in a distributed ledger.  I read reports of early distributed ledgers in 80s and 90s, very interesting.

I think the most famous distributed ledger now is R3 Corda, and some banks are testing it for financial services. R3 Corda is based on blockchain. But it's designed for financial services. One interesting difference is that not all participants (nodes) have all data in R3 Corda.

Blockchain is somehow a distributed ledger. But the process of organizing the database throught blocks, and linking these blocks using hashes, the method of consensus based on Proof of Work, is totally different from a common distributed ledger.

[Kim Ji Won]

Distributed ledgers is a type of database where you can share access of the data to all parties included in the network and each one can have a shared control over the maintenance of the set of shared facts. Decentralization of databases gives you the authority to these databases enabling you to make changes to data it holds but with the consensus of all parties involved. Therefore creating a valid data and making a trusted information.