Laws of Bitcoin

[Darker45]

Good enough, although the title "Laws of Bitcoin" has a much heavier impact than its actual contents which are basically reminders to avoid getting scammed or phished, having your BTC sent to a wrong address, losing in an investment, and so on.

Perhaps there should also be like "Tenets of Bitcoin" which bears the basic principles of Bitcoin and what they mean.

[roadrunnerjaiv2025]

These are clearly just generic tips and reminders that can help you avoid getting scammed, but they are not set in stone. Eventually, as new technology that improves bitcoin security becomes available, some of these "rules" will change. The full adoption of bitcoin will also entail the creation of laws that will further protect bitcoin users, and that too will ease things up. For now, we have no choice but to be extra smart, vigilant, and cautious when handling our coins. The term "laws" is just used to make the content more catchy I suppose. 

[online73]

Hello to all. I think that at this stage these 8 laws are enough. I would only add that it is necessary to treat Bitcoin more carefully than just work - if you lose it, you lose not only money, but also the potential profit that it will give with the next pump. I think that everyone should have an indelible plaque on their desk with these laws.

[carlisle1]

Tend to Disagree on the First law mate because i think there is limitation or exemption regarding in WHo's were gonna talk about our Bitcoin.
Because i Often talk and discuss Bitcoin to those people i trusted and who trusted me as well to at least consider investing in Crypto market.
and doing this i need them to see my success in regards to what i did here and how much i make money since then.
Yeah i am not discussing about my Whole amount but at least i need to show them some of my holdings for them to believe what i am saying .

[famososMuertos]

In the semantics of the words are the power of action, which are rather premises, bitcoin norms, characteristics. But in the reality of the action the important thing is to know  and understand the number 4, that leads to having intrinsic (law) 2 and consequently by common sense (5) if it is an important quantity (1), that information only interests you and perhaps to his wife, but if he tells her, she might fall into 6,7,8.

So rule number one is option  4.

[davis196]

All agree with all the laws.Maybe we could add some new laws.I have 3 proposals.
1.Cloud mining is a scam.
2.Faucets are a waste of time.
3.Always use escrow!When trading BTC for goods and services,never send Bitcoins without an escrow.

It's a great list anyway.Every Bitcoin/crypto newbie should read this list and bookmark it,so he can remember every law in the list.
Those laws apply for all the altcons as well.Maybe we could some laws that are targeted towards some specific altcoins only.Something like "ICOs are scams" and "Don't trust tokens that are backed by other coins/assets".

[o_e_l_e_o]

One incorrect character in an address will lead to an incorrect checksum and therefore an invalid address which your wallet will not accept. There is only a 1 in 4,294,967,296 chance that one incorrect character can cause you to lose your bitcoin.

I don't think I will agree with you on this. First and foremost, how did you come about with this statistics '' There is only a 1 in 4,294,967,296 chance that one incorrect character can cause you to lose your bitcoin.''

I'm afraid there is nothing for you to agree about - what I have said is a statement of fact.

When you turn a public key in to an address, the first three steps are to SHA256 hash it, then to RIPEMD160 hash it, and then add the version byte at the start (0x00 in the case of legacy addresses). From this result, you then take the first four bytes of the SHA256 double hash and append them to the end as a checksum, before finally converting the whole thing from Base16 in to Base58.

The checksum, then, is four bytes long. With each byte being 8 bits, that means the checksum is 32 bits of data. 2^32 = 4,294,967,296. This means that if you make any changes to the address, including a single typo, then the chance of the checksum still being correct is 1 in 4,294,967,296.

You can test this yourself using a wallet such as Electrum. Try to import addresses to create a watch only wallet. Take any address you like, and change any single character you like. The wallet will recognize it as invalid and refuse to accept it.

Also, if you are writing down raw private key, 1 character mistake would make it hard to recover the key, cause it would require a custom brute force search.

I still don't understand why people are handwriting private keys. The entire point of seed phrases is to easily avoid issues like this.

[jekanmasin]

That was a great advice for those that like to join cryptos space. This should be make like a motto for any traders or investors out there so they can always remember to not making this easy mistake while putting their money at high risk getting scam scam scam.. Its was a basic advice but still a good one to always remember how easy we all can fall to such a scam tactic because our greed.

[Salamstar]

What "laws" do you agree or disagree with? What would you add to those written above?

Personally, I think these rules are more than enough to start exploring  both cryptocurrency space and bitcoin.
The only rule I would add is learn every single day, read books and serious articles about bitcoin because books teach us to think, avoid cryptocurrency media at all costs, because journalists distort facts.

What do you think?

Dealing with Bitcoin and encrypted assets really needs a lot of caution because your accounts and wallets are all protected with passwords, and if you lose these words, you lose your money forever, so I write them manually in a small paper notebook. This is because I am afraid of a computer or mobile breakdown, and I really took advantage of this when my computer was hacked and I recovered my wallets from manually recorded information on paper.

[leea-1334]

I know we all know these rules,,, but you know what? This is always good advice to remind each other of these principles. We should put #3 up to #2, and #8 up as first RULE of all. Because people should see this as a risk! We need to remind everyone every time. Put money you can afford to lose!

[witcher_sense]

~

Can you describe and explain the whole process of validation of bitcoin address? As I understood, addresses are checked automatically by wallet software and in case address is not valid (checksum is wrong), software will not process the transaction. What it means is that we have to trust software and rely on it, right? What if user wants to use web based wallet or an exchange, how can he be sure that web wallet or exchange is coded competently and validation mechanism is actually built-in? What will happen to a transaction, if it were sent to invalid address? Is it even possible to send coins to invalid address or it will be rejected by bitcoin network?



https://bitcoin.org/en/you-need-to-know

Why did they put "usually"? In which cases bitcoin network allows you to make typos and send transaction to an invalid address? Is there any specific script?

[serjent05]

I would add to this:
9. Just Hodl It - You didn't lose anything until you sell.

Nor you gain anything unless you sell.

One incorrect character can cause you to lose your Bitcoin.

I appreciate the sentiment behind it, but it is factually incorrect. One incorrect character in an address will lead to an incorrect checksum and therefore an invalid address which your wallet will not accept. There is only a 1 in 4,294,967,296 chance that one incorrect character can cause you to lose your bitcoin.

That's not to say you shouldn't double/triple/quadruple check every address - you absolutely should - but any incorrect or fake address will almost certainly differ by more than one character.

You can lose money if you make a single character mistake with decimals when you are selecting the fee or the amount. Especially risky when editing raw transactions, like that famous case when someone paid 50 BTC miners fee.

Also, if you are writing down raw private key, 1 character mistake would make it hard to recover the key, cause it would require a custom brute force search.

True that, the statement is just to remind us to be very careful when dealing with Bitcoin ( addresses, private key, seeds, amounts etc.) We must be  precise on everything when tackling things about Bitcoin.  there must be no room for mistake else we can lose our BTC.

[AniviaBtc]

1. Never Discuss Your Bitcoin - Don’t ever disclose the amount of Bitcoin you
have with anyone. Ever.

Privacy and being humble is important as a bitcoin user.

You should not let other people know your situation and state in bitcoin, you should not boast about it. You can teach them and influence them so that they also know how bitcoin can affect someone positively. Also, being private with your asset can help you prevent being scammed and hacked. Bitcoin is not easy to earn, it is not instant, so as much as possible, do your best to hold it properly.

This is what I'm concern about that's why i replied in this part.

I'm glad that this is number 1 on the list.

[Xembin]

Everybody has an optinion: your optinion is highly welcome in bitcoin,never you disclose your private key so that you would not be scam,all link should be check .
Never you use the same password with others in bitcoin.

[Slow death]

when I looked at this title I thought they were talking about that some law firm would be talking to governments to propose laws on bitcoin, but when I read the thread I realized that they are talking about guidelines for people, exchanges are anonymous and in wallets you don’t do KYC.

how can anyone claim inheritance from their relative who had bitcoin? if that person doesn't have a private key or passwords? this is a very difficult problem to get around

[20kevin20]

Can you describe and explain the whole process of validation of bitcoin address? As I understood, addresses are checked automatically by wallet software and in case address is not valid (checksum is wrong), software will not process the transaction. What it means is that we have to trust software and rely on it, right? What if user wants to use web based wallet or an exchange, how can he be sure that web wallet or exchange is coded competently and validation mechanism is actually built-in? What will happen to a transaction, if it were sent to invalid address? Is it even possible to send coins to invalid address or it will be rejected by bitcoin network?

A while ago, I have tried opening up Electrum and importing a private key completely invented by me, letter by letter. It resulted in an error, and no matter how many times I tried to change it, it wouldn't work. Here's something I found, related to your question:

Generally speaking, it is not possible to send Bitcoin to a mistyped address. The hash value and checksum data in a Bitcoin address are converted into an alpha-numeric representation using a custom scheme, called the Base58Check encoding scheme. 

The checksum is stored directly in the address and if any of the address were to be mistyped, the built-in checksum would not match the checksum of the mistyped address. If this happens, your wallet should, in theory, not allow you to send a transaction.

(Source: https://news.coinsquare.com/learn-coinsquare/checksum-addresses-how-blockchains-add-security/)

Therefore, my best guess is that you could invent a wallet that doesn't have a checksum for addresses, but don't the miners also validate them? Because if they do, then it's a dead end for the person trying to send any BTC to an invalid address as it'd get immediately rejected upon broadcasting. And even if it's somehow possible to also have a miner that skips address validation, 1 confirmation doesn't automatically mean it gets confirmed.

[Nhor1011]

 Laws, Guidelines , Reminders ,whatever is it, i agree with this and that is enough to follow by all Bitcoiner's for the safety of our funds. I think much better if we have a printed copy of this and put in the area that we always read this so that it will remind us always.

[Upgate]

I do think, we should try at least to tell our loved one's about our seed phrase. It will do us enough good in case something bad happens.
It better for them to access it than our bitcoin disappearing totally without the reach of anybody.
The unexpected can happen anytime without notice

[ghost424]

The impact of knowing these laws can greatly affect the way on how the community will now approach their ways on how to spend and earn their Bitcoins along with other Cryptocurrencies. Knowledge regarding these different kinds of laws is already an important investment and must never forget some of the rules stated. Following certain rules or knowing some rules can never damage our personalities since some rules are placed to keep people away from danger.

[o_e_l_e_o]

A while ago, I have tried opening up Electrum and importing a private key completely invented by me, letter by letter. It resulted in an error, and no matter how many times I tried to change it, it wouldn't work.

So private keys come in various formats. In their "base" format, they are simply a 64 character long hexadecimal number. Almost any 64 character hexadecimal number is a valid private key - only the very highest numbers in that range are not valid private keys because of the order of the secp256k1 curve, but I digress. My point is that if you were to type out 64 random hexadecimal characters, you would almost certainly create a valid private key.

However, Electrum only accepts private keys in Wallet Import Format (WIF). To turn a private key from the 64 character string as described above in to a WIF, you have to do a number of things. First, you add a 0x80 byte at the start. Then, much like with an address, you take the first four bytes of SHA256 double hash and append it as the checksum, before converting in to Base58. As such WIF keys have the exact same characteristics as an address, in that changing a random character will only have a 1 in 4,294,967,296 chance of producing a valid key.