If you could travel back in time, how would you change Bitcoin?

[tromp]

I'd employ a different proof-of-work that doesn't provide much benefit to GPUs/ASICs,
but rather depends on many gigabytes of memory (just for generating, not for verifying)

Well, that's what I'm trying to design right now:)

-John

Where could we read more about ur design?

I'll announce the design in this forum, hopefully within a week.

-John

[FalconFly]

if you could travel back to 2008, knowing what you know now, what fundamental changes (if any) would you make to the bitcoin system before it gets released to the wild?

- setup fully and only decentralized P2P

- use variable/growing Encryption over time (SHA256 was good for a start but won't last forever)

- fees not rewarded to those who solved a block (they already got their discovery reward), but rather to a random node confirming transactions (thus keeping users running the P2P relay software, helping max. decentralization while maximizing network performance)

- Multibit/Wallet application should have option of acting as relay node to strenghten the P2P network, reward is occasional transaction fee

- released a fully functional, single piece of Multiplatform software @ launch that allows to use all existing functions for max. Usability even for complete beginners

- NO ever-lasting track record of transactions (removed from blockchain after confirmation @ receive acknowledgement plus a safety decay period)

- TOR-like implementation of all traffic inherent in used Software/Wallet Apps to anonymize traffic to max. extend via P2P network

IMHO those details would have given BTC the strengh to withstand just about any attack, protected its users and ensured its long-term safety which today doesn't exist to the desired extend.

[jongameson]

i would bring an ASIC back in time with me, and instamine everything  

[Tomatocage]

Uhm bro, if I were capable of time travel, the LAST thing on my mind would be Bitcoin.

[Come-from-Beyond]

i would bring an ASIC back in time with me, and instamine everything  

Won't work due to diff adjustement.

[tromp]

i would bring an ASIC back in time with me, and instamine everything  

Won't work due to diff adjustement.

Would work fine if he just delays submitting solutions until after, say, 12 mins have passed.
That way he'll get a decent fraction of all blocks without bringing down the average time much...

[Come-from-Beyond]

Would work fine if he just delays submitting solutions until after, say, 12 mins have passed.
That way he'll get a decent fraction of all blocks without bringing down the average time much...

Well, then he should do it!

[BlueNote]

1. Some sort of rolling blockchain that snips off unneeded data from the oldest blocks as new ones are added, thus keeping the blockchain continually pruned and of manageable size.

2. Much higher coin supply. Let's face it, the 21 million was all about marketing the perceived scarcity. There really are no discrete "coins" here, just trade-able units with really no hard cap on them at all. This is software, and as long as another zero can be added to the right of the decimal then new trade-able units will always be available no matter what the starting amount of "coins" is said to be. There's a lot of semantics involved in promoting the scarcity angle.

3. Better distribution of coins. The goal should be to produce as wide and even a distribution over as long a time period as possible. Ideally, everyone connected to the network with their modest PCs would be contributing useful work and getting rewarded to some extent with new coins - even if it's only a dusting of mBTC now and then.

It's not easy to distribute crypto widely and evenly so that it rises in price much slower and more predictably than Bitcoin has, but I believe it would be an overall improvement if a better scheme were devised.

[skivrmt]

1. Some sort of rolling blockchain that snips off unneeded data from the oldest blocks as new ones are added, thus keeping the blockchain continually pruned and of manageable size.

2. Much higher coin supply. Let's face it, the 21 million was all about marketing the perceived scarcity. There really are no discrete "coins" here, just trade-able units with really no hard cap on them at all. This is software, and as long as another zero can be added to the right of the decimal then new trade-able units will always be available no matter what the starting amount of "coins" is said to be. There's a lot of semantics involved in promoting the scarcity angle.

3. Better distribution of coins. The goal should be to produce as wide and even a distribution over as long a time period as possible. Ideally, everyone connected to the network with their modest PCs would be contributing useful work and getting rewarded to some extent with new coins - even if it's only a dusting of mBTC now and then.

It's not easy to distribute crypto widely and evenly so that it rises in price much slower and more predictably than Bitcoin has, but I believe it would be an overall improvement if a better scheme were devised.

#1: Totally agree with.  This is one of the main factors that will hurt Bitcoin in the long run.  We need quicker response times

#2: Don't agree with.  Scarcity is good.  Even if you can break it down to 1s, I think the $21MM coins max module.

#3: Semi agree.  Problem with this is that then we need to have $356 Billion coins in circulation like Mooncoins.   Which are useless btw.

[jongameson]

i'd call it lovecoin   

[bg002h]

I guess the current limit is 7/sec. Is there any way to optimise this to 500/sec.

Is litecoin any better for this?

http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability

Just so no one posts it with an impolite message attached!

[bg002h]

1. Some sort of rolling blockchain that snips off unneeded data from the oldest blocks as new ones are added, thus keeping the blockchain continually pruned and of manageable size.

2. Much higher coin supply. Let's face it, the 21 million was all about marketing the perceived scarcity. There really are no discrete "coins" here, just trade-able units with really no hard cap on them at all. This is software, and as long as another zero can be added to the right of the decimal then new trade-able units will always be available no matter what the starting amount of "coins" is said to be. There's a lot of semantics involved in promoting the scarcity angle.

3. Better distribution of coins. The goal should be to produce as wide and even a distribution over as long a time period as possible. Ideally, everyone connected to the network with their modest PCs would be contributing useful work and getting rewarded to some extent with new coins - even if it's only a dusting of mBTC now and then.

It's not easy to distribute crypto widely and evenly so that it rises in price much slower and more predictably than Bitcoin has, but I believe it would be an overall improvement if a better scheme were devised.

Satoshi, I suspect, would agree with #3. He advocated a gentlemans agreement to keep GPU's out of it as long as possible...

[BlueNote]

#2: Don't agree with.  Scarcity is good.  Even if you can break it down to 1s, I think the $21MM coins max module.

#3: Semi agree.  Problem with this is that then we need to have $356 Billion coins in circulation like Mooncoins.   Which are useless btw.

Regarding coin supply, consider that Satoshi could have launched Bitcoin with a grand total of 2.1 BTC as the maximum number of base units rather than 21 million BTC. The way this would work is that instead of mining 50 coins per block you would mine .00000500 per block. Likewise, he could have launched it with 21 quadrillion base units (Satoshis). You see how these are just numbers? There is no difference between the large and small numbers here as long as the ratio is the same. If the ratio of mine-able units to the total base units (or whole units, or whatever you want to call each "coin") is the same, then these wildly different looking releases are actually the same. The only difference is the perception.

So we see that the number of base units issued is quite arbitrary and meaningless in itself. What matters is the public perception of scarcity and how that affects adoption/speculation, and also the ratio of mine-able units to base units. Keep in mind that in any case of a crypto release like Bitcoin, there is no question of ever having a hard limit on trade-able units since all it takes to inflate the supply of trade-able units is to add another decimal place in the software when needed! This need would only arise after the value had risen considerably and the smaller divisions would be too valuable to be of use for the smallest purchases.

So what does the coin supply actually mean then? I think by this analysis it means that we are simply looking for the proper way to stimulate buying and saving/hoarding over time while also trying to have the greatest adoption rate and the most even distribution possible without sacrificing one of these factors for another. And of course, the ratio of mine-able units to base units must be great enough to ensure profitable mining for as long as possible too - and hopefully, again, a very wide base of mining.

You laugh at Mooncoin, but what's the real difference? Issuing 356 billion might have been better for Bitcoin. The number itself is only relevant to perception and how that affects our behavior, but the effect might have been a much larger base of users and a slower rate of price increase over time. By going with 21 million, Satoshi ensured a rapid rise in price if it caught on due to the heightened perception of scarcity, but did he sacrifice a very wide base of users and a more modest stable price graph? What if Bitcoin was able to hold a $1-2 price up until now? How would that affect adoption? Would Grandma and little Billy and cousin Jep all be jumping into Bitcoin now instead of the relatively few number of enthusiasts and speculators? What kills is that we don't know the answer to this question. It's really tough to say, but it seems like there's good reason to believe it would have been better to cool this thing down and spread it deep and wide so that it would be more accessible to the average person over a longer period of time.

[Kenshin]

Faster transaction times, surely?

I total agree with you there. The transaction time is too slow. You can't exactly go to the till and buy something, and wait around 30 minutes staring at the sales person.

[Gatekeeper]

I would make it so we were currently averaging a block every 2 mins for 5btc reward instead of the 10 min/25 btc average. Can certainly be painful for people waiting when there's no block for 45mins+, doesn't seem very mainstream friendly if people wait around for 1 confirmation.

[skivrmt]

#2: Don't agree with.  Scarcity is good.  Even if you can break it down to 1s, I think the $21MM coins max module.

#3: Semi agree.  Problem with this is that then we need to have $356 Billion coins in circulation like Mooncoins.   Which are useless btw.

Regarding coin supply, consider that Satoshi could have launched Bitcoin with a grand total of 2.1 BTC as the maximum number of base units rather than 21 million BTC. The way this would work is that instead of mining 50 coins per block you would mine .00000500 per block. Likewise, he could have launched it with 21 quadrillion base units (Satoshis). You see how these are just numbers? There is no difference between the large and small numbers here as long as the ratio is the same. If the ratio of mine-able units to the total base units (or whole units, or whatever you want to call each "coin") is the same, then these wildly different looking releases are actually the same. The only difference is the perception.

So we see that the number of base units issued is quite arbitrary and meaningless in itself. What matters is the public perception of scarcity and how that affects adoption/speculation, and also the ratio of mine-able units to base units. Keep in mind that in any case of a crypto release like Bitcoin, there is no question of ever having a hard limit on trade-able units since all it takes to inflate the supply of trade-able units is to add another decimal place in the software when needed! This need would only arise after the value had risen considerably and the smaller divisions would be too valuable to be of use for the smallest purchases.

So what does the coin supply actually mean then? I think by this analysis it means that we are simply looking for the proper way to stimulate buying and saving/hoarding over time while also trying to have the greatest adoption rate and the most even distribution possible without sacrificing one of these factors for another. And of course, the ratio of mine-able units to base units must be great enough to ensure profitable mining for as long as possible too - and hopefully, again, a very wide base of mining.

You laugh at Mooncoin, but what's the real difference? Issuing 356 billion might have been better for Bitcoin. The number itself is only relevant to perception and how that affects our behavior, but the effect might have been a much larger base of users and a slower rate of price increase over time. By going with 21 million, Satoshi ensured a rapid rise in price if it caught on due to the heightened perception of scarcity, but did he sacrifice a very wide base of users and a more modest stable price graph? What if Bitcoin was able to hold a $1-2 price up until now? How would that affect adoption? Would Grandma and little Billy and cousin Jep all be jumping into Bitcoin now instead of the relatively few number of enthusiasts and speculators? What kills is that we don't know the answer to this question. It's really tough to say, but it seems like there's good reason to believe it would have been better to cool this thing down and spread it deep and wide so that it would be more accessible to the average person over a longer period of time.

Who says cousin Jep and Grandma aren't in Bitcoin right now?   But seriously, I totally understand you're point.  But I don't think it matters.  Look through the actual trades of most bitcoin trades, they aren't 5 coins, 2 coins.  They are very small fractions, .002, .04, etc.  Small investors mainly, and maybe.

Looks at the stock market also.  If a penny stock has 1 Billion shares outstanding, it almost no chance of becoming anything significant.  On the other hand, look at something like Telsa or Netflix.  Both relatively small float, so when positive news comes the stock shoots up significantly.  Same thing happened to Bitcoin.  And bitcoin will never "split".  Berkshire will never.  Google said they won't either.  I think that's a good thing.  Will we ever catch up to BRK?!  Probably not anytime soon, but you never know!

[Piper67]

Would've made the difficulty adjustment and the reward change more dynamic, rather than every so many blocks. Aside from that... not much really.

[b!z]

1. Buy more Bitcoins

[luqash3]

In my opinion bitcoins are the perfect ones which don’t require any change by going in past. However if I could have gone in past then would have simply exchanged my entire wealth for bitcoins and today I could have been a rich person. I think even today it is the opportunity to buy and wait until it starts a new rally upwards

[Notanon]

1. Design it with a proportionate transaction fee of around 0.1% or something similar instead of the fixed rates. It would make using mBTC transactions more possible down the track if the price of BTC were to skyrocket.

2. Ability to autoprune blockchain transactions for wallets beyond 6 months or a year, to keep disk drive space limitations to a minimum, except for those running a dedicated node.

3. As compensation for running a dedicated node and requiring larger storage space compared to a wallet with autopruning enabled, the first 120 nodes to confirm the transactions receive an even split of the transaction fees for the block confirmed.

4. Make it more difficult to clone.

5. A different algorithm that isn't used by a security agency, preferably built up from scratch for Bitcoin itself.

Points 1 to 3 are kind of linked, particularly regarding nodes.