Hash/sec Throttling for Democracy

[knightmb]

You are right about the nonce and the hashing, but..

Everybody is working on a different block.

To pay the block creator 50BTC you need to know the Bitcoin Address it needs to go to.
For the block creator to be able to spend the 50BTC they create, they need to have the private key associated with the bitcoin address the 50 was paid to.

Since everybody has a different private key (randomly generated), everyone has a different  Bitcoin Address (associated public key (hashed))

Part of what makes up the block is the hash of the transaction that pays the 50BTC to the block creators Bitcoin Address.

This means that everybody has a different block.
 
Whoever solves their block first 'wins' and that block is acclaimed by all as the 'next' block.

Oh, so it's both the luck of the draw and a sequential order? Meaning, my computer is trying to solve it's block. It might do it in 1 hour or 100 hours. Once it does, it moves on to another random block?

So an old PC joins the Bit Coin network, works on a block for 4 days and solves it, then it broadcast that out to the network where it's verified before being added to the chain? Does that mean during that 4 days, there is no way someone else is going to solve the same block elsewhere and claim ownership of it?

[1714137151]

1714137151

[1714137151]

1714137151

[1714137151]

1714137151

[1714137151]

1714137151

[laszlo]

The data that is being hashed is based on the previous block.  For a node to accept a new block into its chain it must 'connect' to the top block otherwise it just ignores it.  This means the problem is changing each time a new block is created because you must now connect to that one instead of the one you were previously using.  This is why if you have a flaky connection or excessively high latency, you end up wasting computing time working on hashing a block that would never be accepted by the other nodes.

[Insti]

Oh, so it's both the luck of the draw and a sequential order? Meaning, my computer is trying to solve it's block. It might do it in 1 hour or 100 hours. Once it does, it moves on to another random block?

So an old PC joins the Bit Coin network, works on a block for 4 days and solves it, then it broadcast that out to the network where it's verified before being added to the chain? Does that mean during that 4 days, there is no way someone else is going to solve the same block elsewhere and claim ownership of it?

Your cube solving analogy was accurate.

Once someone solves 'their' block, and broadcasts it to the network, it becomes the 'next' block at the tail of the chain.
At this point everyone else gives up on the block they were working on and starts working on a new block based on the new tail.

It doesn't matter which block 'wins' as it will contain the hash of the previous tail block, which is the important bit.

Since the network as a whole tries to generate a new block every 10 minutes, 10 minutes is about how long any PC will work on any one block.

[knightmb]

Since the network as a whole tries to generate a new block every 10 minutes, 10 minutes is about how long any PC will work on any one block.

Ah yes, that is the key, thanks for saying that because I suspected that but wasn't sure if that's how I should think about it. So in the Rubix cube example, some people might get a cube that only takes a few turns to solve and others that may take thousands of turns to solve. But someone is going to get done first to claim to be the winner and then "new Rubix cubes" for all and everyone starts new again building off of the last winner.

The key is, everyone is creating their own puzzle to solve, it's not like there is a central server handing out puzzles. I think that helps with the confidence of people that it is not just a server in the sky giving out equations to solve (where one could argue it could be tampered with), but the client itself creates the puzzle. So being untruthful to yourself (hacking the client for example to report fake blocks solved) means nothing because you won't be able to prove it to others and the others won't acknowledge you, so you don't get credit. Very ingenious. 

[Insti]

Since the network as a whole tries to generate a new block every 10 minutes, 10 minutes is about how long any PC will work on any one block.

Ah yes, that is the key, thanks for saying that because I suspected that but wasn't sure if that's how I should think about it. So in the Rubix cube example, some people might get a cube that only takes a few turns to solve and others that may take thousands of turns to solve. But someone is going to get done first to claim to be the winner and then "new Rubix cubes" for all and everyone starts new again building off of the last winner.

The key is, everyone is creating their own puzzle to solve, it's not like there is a central server handing out puzzles. I think that helps with the confidence of people that it is not just a server in the sky giving out equations to solve (where one could argue it could be tampered with), but the client itself creates the puzzle. So being untruthful to yourself (hacking the client for example to report fake blocks solved) means nothing because you won't be able to prove it to others and the others won't acknowledge you, so you don't get credit. Very ingenious. 

Correct