Bitcoin: Clinical Death 2009.

[stdset]

I refer to short periods of time in 2009, when generation of new blocks was temporarily stopped.

Recently, I sometimes see people blame Satoshi for premining bitcoin (at least in Russian subforum). I myself more than sure, bitcoin was not premined. So I'd like to ask people, who witnessed early days of bitcoin, to repeat the story. I'm especially interested in years 2008 (before bitcoin was launched), 2009, maybe 2010. Hopefully we can make a holistic and interesting to read story, much more detailed, than what we can find in Wikipedia now.

If such story already exists, please provide a link. And anyway another narrative about the same events from your point of view would be interesting to read.

I will translate it and post on Russian subforum.

Edit: Title change: "Bitcoin: Clinical Death." --> "Bitcoin: Clinical Death 2009."

According to this chart:
two times 7 days average hit (or nearly hit) zero in 2009. It's just an interesting fact from bitcoin early days.

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[waxwing]

Bitcoin was not premined - this is known due to the newspaper headline in the genesis block. People really don't understand that?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Bitcoin was not premined - this is known due to the newspaper headline in the genesis block. People really don't understand that?

Unless the Genesis Block was the first of the pre-mined bitcoins. I'll echo your sentiment, but wanted to state that first sentence nonetheless, because I'm...

~TMIBTCITW

[MoonShadow]

Bitcoin was not premined.  There were just not many people involved in the early mining that first year, so Satoshi's computer mined many due to a low degree of competition.  It's also evident that the minimum difficulty level was a great deal higher than what his own machine could do, since it took a while for the block interval to stablize at anything near 10 minutes.  In the beginning, blocks were hours apart.  That might be what you are mistaking as periods of stopped mining.  There were no periods of halted mining that I know of, although there was a bug that permitted a DDOS attack against the network that had to be fixed around 2010, and that DDOS delayed some blocks.  More recently, there was a bug that could have forced a blockchain split; and there might have been a halt in mining over that, I'm not sure.

[JohnyBigs]

Bitcoin was not premined.  There were just not many people involved in the early mining that first year, so Satoshi's computer mined many due to a low degree of competition.  It's also evident that the minimum difficulty level was a great deal higher than what his own machine could do, since it took a while for the block interval to stablize at anything near 10 minutes.  In the beginning, blocks were hours apart.  That might be what you are mistaking as periods of stopped mining.  There were no periods of halted mining that I know of, although there was a bug that permitted a DDOS attack against the network that had to be fixed around 2010, and that DDOS delayed some blocks.  More recently, there was a bug that could have forced a blockchain split; and there might have been a halt in mining over that, I'm not sure.

So in other words basically a premine, just ohh sorray nobody was around to mine so I mined the most coins. Release an ALT coin mine it for a year, and then make it publicly know, ohhh so sorry guys you weren't around to mine cause you didn't know about it.

[MoonShadow]

Bitcoin was not premined.  There were just not many people involved in the early mining that first year, so Satoshi's computer mined many due to a low degree of competition.  It's also evident that the minimum difficulty level was a great deal higher than what his own machine could do, since it took a while for the block interval to stablize at anything near 10 minutes.  In the beginning, blocks were hours apart.  That might be what you are mistaking as periods of stopped mining.  There were no periods of halted mining that I know of, although there was a bug that permitted a DDOS attack against the network that had to be fixed around 2010, and that DDOS delayed some blocks.  More recently, there was a bug that could have forced a blockchain split; and there might have been a halt in mining over that, I'm not sure.

So in other words basically a premine, just ohh sorray nobody was around to mine so I mined the most coins. Release an ALT coin mine it for a year, and then make it publicly know, ohhh so sorry guys you weren't around to mine cause you didn't know about it.

No, there were other people around, just not many.  The genesis block was released the same day that bitcoin was offically announced on the cypherpunks list, IIRC.  There was no mining for any significant period of time before others from the cyperpunks forum downloaded and started the early client.  The evidence is in those first couple dozen block headers.  IIRC, it took about 3 days before someone other than Satoshi mined a block, but the decreasing interval between blocks makes it plain that others were already involved by that point.  There are timestamps in the headers, after all.

[franky1]

So in other words basically a premine, just ohh sorray nobody was around to mine so I mined the most coins. Release an ALT coin mine it for a year, and then make it publicly know, ohhh so sorry guys you weren't around to mine cause you didn't know about it.

gold was pre mined.. im sorry for the thousands of years everyone today was not alive for... lets now avoid gold because its been premined...

dollars been premined, im sorry teenagers that for decades everyone has been increasing the amount of dollars in circulation causing value to drop so that your left with that minimum wage job at a 7-11.. lets avoid the dollar

just because something existed before you personally got involved, doesnt make it a pre-mine, your just not the first in line to get rich, never mind, theres still decades/centuries to go to get in and make a nice living for yourself

[gusti]

Bitcoin was not premined.  There were just not many people involved in the early mining that first year, so Satoshi's computer mined many due to a low degree of competition.  It's also evident that the minimum difficulty level was a great deal higher than what his own machine could do, since it took a while for the block interval to stablize at anything near 10 minutes.  In the beginning, blocks were hours apart.  That might be what you are mistaking as periods of stopped mining.  There were no periods of halted mining that I know of, although there was a bug that permitted a DDOS attack against the network that had to be fixed around 2010, and that DDOS delayed some blocks.  More recently, there was a bug that could have forced a blockchain split; and there might have been a halt in mining over that, I'm not sure.

So in other words basically a premine, just ohh sorray nobody was around to mine so I mined the most coins. Release an ALT coin mine it for a year, and then make it publicly know, ohhh so sorry guys you weren't around to mine cause you didn't know about it.

Not good to be so jealous, the pioneer miners who risked their money when btc value was zero, far deserve all that advantages. As for Satoshi himself ... well, he's Satoshi.

[Shawshank]

Bitcoin was not premined. Hal Finney mined block 70-something, that is, the same day the Bitcoin software was released.

You can read it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0

Quoting Hal Finney:
"When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them."

[stdset]

Bitcoin was not premined. Hal Finney mined block 70-something, that is, the same day the Bitcoin software was released.

You can read it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0

Quoting Hal Finney:
"When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them."

Good to know. Thank you.
Nonetheless, my intention is not only to find proofes, that bitcoin was not premined, but also to make a story about bitcoin invention, early development, etc... Hopefully it's not too late to do that.

[niothor]

If you're sorry for the title , why not change it to something more related to what this thread is about

[Rampion]

Bitcoin was not premined. Hal Finney mined block 70-something, that is, the same day the Bitcoin software was released.

You can read it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0

Quoting Hal Finney:
"When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them."

Good to know. Thank you.
Nonetheless, my intention is not only to find proofes, that bitcoin was not premined, but also to make a story about bitcoin invention, early development, etc... Hopefully it's not too late to do that.

It's all on the internet - specifically on these forums. Do you want us to hold your hand? Just use the search function, dig through the early threads, read Satoshi's posts and the discussion in which he was involved... Its not so difficult.

[hilariousandco]

Bitcoin was not premined.  There were just not many people involved in the early mining that first year, so Satoshi's computer mined many due to a low degree of competition.  It's also evident that the minimum difficulty level was a great deal higher than what his own machine could do, since it took a while for the block interval to stablize at anything near 10 minutes.  In the beginning, blocks were hours apart.  That might be what you are mistaking as periods of stopped mining.  There were no periods of halted mining that I know of, although there was a bug that permitted a DDOS attack against the network that had to be fixed around 2010, and that DDOS delayed some blocks.  More recently, there was a bug that could have forced a blockchain split; and there might have been a halt in mining over that, I'm not sure.

So in other words basically a premine, just ohh sorray nobody was around to mine so I mined the most coins. Release an ALT coin mine it for a year, and then make it publicly know, ohhh so sorry guys you weren't around to mine cause you didn't know about it.

Somebodies gotta start mining. It's only fair game that the early adopters then reap the rewards. They're pioneers.

[MoonShadow]

Bitcoin was not premined. Hal Finney mined block 70-something, that is, the same day the Bitcoin software was released.

You can read it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0

Quoting Hal Finney:
"When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them."

Good to know. Thank you.
Nonetheless, my intention is not only to find proofes, that bitcoin was not premined, but also to make a story about bitcoin invention, early development, etc... Hopefully it's not too late to do that.

It's all on the internet - specifically on these forums. Do you want us to hold your hand? Just use the search function, dig through the early threads, read Satoshi's posts and the discussion in which he was involved... Its not so difficult.

Well, about that.  I strongly suspect that many of Satoshi's posts have been scrubbed from the archives. 

[deepceleron]

Well, about that.  I strongly suspect that many of Satoshi's posts have been scrubbed from the archives. 

I strongly suspect you are wrong. Satoshi was not an over-sharer that would need to have something removed.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56272.msg669898#msg669898

I can press delete on a post, which I've done, especially when I made the mistake of posting in a noob thread that gets spammed forever. This is a recent addition to the forum though.

[Melbustus]

Bitcoin was not premined. Hal Finney mined block 70-something, that is, the same day the Bitcoin software was released.

You can read it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0

Quoting Hal Finney:
"When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them."

Good to know. Thank you.
Nonetheless, my intention is not only to find proofes, that bitcoin was not premined, but also to make a story about bitcoin invention, early development, etc... Hopefully it's not too late to do that.

It's all on the internet - specifically on these forums. Do you want us to hold your hand? Just use the search function, dig through the early threads, read Satoshi's posts and the discussion in which he was involved... Its not so difficult.

Well, about that.  I strongly suspect that many of Satoshi's posts have been scrubbed from the archives. 

You were here when he was still posting. Are there specific incidents to which you're referring?

[MoonShadow]

Bitcoin was not premined. Hal Finney mined block 70-something, that is, the same day the Bitcoin software was released.

You can read it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0

Quoting Hal Finney:
"When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them."

Good to know. Thank you.
Nonetheless, my intention is not only to find proofes, that bitcoin was not premined, but also to make a story about bitcoin invention, early development, etc... Hopefully it's not too late to do that.

It's all on the internet - specifically on these forums. Do you want us to hold your hand? Just use the search function, dig through the early threads, read Satoshi's posts and the discussion in which he was involved... Its not so difficult.

Well, about that.  I strongly suspect that many of Satoshi's posts have been scrubbed from the archives. 

You were here when he was still posting. Are there specific incidents to which you're referring?

None that I can prove.

[stdset]

It's all on the internet - specifically on these forums. Do you want us to hold your hand? Just use the search function, dig through the early threads, read Satoshi's posts and the discussion in which he was involved... Its not so difficult.

Yes, in some sense. IMO, a story from somebody who wittnessed the beginning would be much more interesting to read than a compilation of posts. Writing such a story is a considerable work. But why not. Such experience is worth to tell other people about, and that would be interesting for me to read, and, I'm sure, for many others. It would also help to mitigate grievance of some people, who beleive they found out about bitcoin too late. Reading such story would help people to understand, that benefits which Satoshi and other early adopters enjoy are well deserved.

[NewLiberty]

Bitcoin was not premined. Hal Finney mined block 70-something, that is, the same day the Bitcoin software was released.

You can read it here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0

Quoting Hal Finney:
"When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away. I think I was the first person besides Satoshi to run bitcoin. I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them."

Good to know. Thank you.
Nonetheless, my intention is not only to find proofes, that bitcoin was not premined, but also to make a story about bitcoin invention, early development, etc... Hopefully it's not too late to do that.

What is the audience /  use / purpose of this story you will make?  Is it just about the pre-mining yes or no, or are you is that just a part of what you are doing?  For what its worth, the people that found out "too late" probably haven't been born yet.

[alyssa85]

So in other words basically a premine, just ohh sorray nobody was around to mine so I mined the most coins. Release an ALT coin mine it for a year, and then make it publicly know, ohhh so sorry guys you weren't around to mine cause you didn't know about it.

People who issue alts in 2013 have five years of bitcoin experience to go on - they know that miners will jump on it, to try to get in early and make some money.

Back in 2009, nobody knew. Nobody even knew if the cryptography was sound and it would really eliminate double spending, let alone that it would take off the way it did and be actually worth something. The early guys were not really miners, they were cryptography geeks and mathematicians bent on solving the digital problem of how to move money online securely, and on testing it and building the infrastructure (eg I understand Hal Finney did quite a lot of work on coding the wallet).

They were scientists and pioneers. It really wasn't about pre-mining and making a killing - that's the mindset of the non-scientists who came afterwards and piggy backed on the original idea (even issuing alts because Satoshi kindly make his code open source so they could copy it!).