An interesting fact from the posting history of satoshi

[Pmalek]

Here is an interesting fact from the past. While I was checking satoshi’s posts, I came across an interesting thread. In this thread, satoshi talks about the size of the blockchain and the time which is needed to download and verify it.

He mentioned SPV clients and how they would be used in the future. He then went on to talk about something very interesting. He talked about online wallets and web-based wallets and how easy they were to use, compared with learning to work with a brand-new bitcoin software.

In the meantime, sites like vekja.net and www.mybitcoin.com have been experimenting with account-based sites.  You create an account on a website and hold your bitcoins on account there and transfer in and out.  Creating an account on a website is a lot easier than installing and learning to use software, and a more familiar way of doing it for most people.  The only disadvantage is that you have to trust the site, but that's fine for pocket change amounts for micropayments and misc expenses.  It's an easy way to get started and if you get larger amounts then you can upgrade to the actual bitcoin software.

Was the creator of bitcoin suggesting that online custodial wallets were a good alternative, especially for smaller amounts?

I tried to find some more info about the sites he mentioned and their services. The first site was vekja.net. It no longer exists, but there are old archives of it. They were selling Bitcoin accounts, web and email hosting for 25 bitcoins/week back in 2010.



The 2nd site he suggested was www.mybitcoin.com. It hasn’t been updated for a long time but contains a lot of info about exchanges, wallets, and guides. No more wallet services though.

I found this trip down memory lane very interesting. Can you imagine how far bitcoin has come? Just 10 years ago you needed to pay 25 bitcoins per week for email hosting. And look at it now…

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[btcsmlcmnr]

Unbelievable that the old website still be here. The information on email hosting fee (25 bitcoin every week) is another story after the 2 bought pizza with 10,000 bitcoin. 10 Years After Laszlo Hanyecz Bought Pizza With 10K Bitcoin, He Has No Regrets.

It is a very big regret if look back but in life, I think what was done, let it be and go forward. I am not the person who bought 2 pizza with 10000 bitcoin or paid a email hosting service with 25 bitcoin each week but I made some mistakes and stupid decisions. I tried to not feel regret about it, accept it and keep going.

Those other stories are donators and VIP members of the forum. They donated 10 or 50 bitcoin to support the forum and get a title Donator or VIP and badges. How do they feel about their past decisions today?

https://bitcointalk.org/donate.html

[BlackHatCoiner]

Well, he knew that not all people would be comfortable with the software. For small amounts, web wallets are good alternative. As for bitcoin back on 2010, they had no idea what was going to happen...

I still don't understand something, thought. It was never easy to mine a block. At least, not that worthy to reward you with only 50 bitcoins which were valuated around 5-10 dollars at that time. Since mining blocks was hard, the only easy way to earn bitcoins was by buying them. I don't want to look a smarty-pants, but understanding something that significant, would not make me spend them on a web hosting...

I remember reading a post from 2011 saying that we have to buy as many as possible. And at the time, one bitcoin was 50 dollars. He never logged back in. He must be a millionaire right now.

[BitcoinFX]

Here is an interesting fact from the past. While I was checking satoshi’s posts, I came across an interesting thread. In this thread, satoshi talks about the size of the blockchain and the time which is needed to download and verify it.

He mentioned SPV clients and how they would be used in the future. He then went on to talk about something very interesting. He talked about online wallets and web-based wallets and how easy they were to use, compared with learning to work with a brand-new bitcoin software.

In the meantime, sites like vekja.net and www.mybitcoin.com have been experimenting with account-based sites.  You create an account on a website and hold your bitcoins on account there and transfer in and out.  Creating an account on a website is a lot easier than installing and learning to use software, and a more familiar way of doing it for most people.  The only disadvantage is that you have to trust the site, but that's fine for pocket change amounts for micropayments and misc expenses.  It's an easy way to get started and if you get larger amounts then you can upgrade to the actual bitcoin software.

Was the creator of bitcoin suggesting that online custodial wallets were a good alternative, especially for smaller amounts?

...snip...

At that time, account-based sites were somewhat of a novelty and most certainly other such third party websites have cost numerous Bitcoin users to miss out on the large percentage fiat gains over the years, in terms of today's bitcoin prices.

Whilst these type of services can provide a useful introduction to Bitcoin, satoshi is also quite clearly advocating running a full node and holding coins in wallets with private keys known only to the owner.

Not your keys; not your coins! etc.,

...

Smaller amounts of Bitcoin's are always relative ... you only need to look at the earliest Bitcoin exchanges to realize the opportunity cost paid by the earliest adopters.

- http://newlibertystandard.wikifoundry.com/
- http://newlibertystandard.wikifoundry.com/page/2009+Exchange+Rate

Verifying my (old) zero balance wallet address for blockchain research etc.,
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4630066.0

65 mined blocks x 50 coins = 3250 BTC x $22,750 = $73,937,500

Fig. 1

Pffft ...

No comment.

*Gulp*



- https://ibb.co/bdCzdg7

Early exchange service ...
- https://web.archive.org/web/20100429153403/http://www.bitcoinfx.cz.cc/

...snip...

...

Unbelievable that the old website still be here. The information on email hosting fee (25 bitcoin every week) is another story after the 2 bought pizza with 10,000 bitcoin. 10 Years After Laszlo Hanyecz Bought Pizza With 10K Bitcoin, He Has No Regrets.

It is a very big regret if look back but in life, I think what was done, let it be and go forward. I am not the person who bought 2 pizza with 10000 bitcoin or paid a email hosting service with 25 bitcoin each week but I made some mistakes and stupid decisions. I tried to not feel regret about it, accept it and keep going.

Those other stories are donators and VIP members of the forum. They donated 10 or 50 bitcoin to support the forum and get a title Donator or VIP and badges. How do they feel about their past decisions today?

https://bitcointalk.org/donate.html

Pizzas, don't talk to me about Pizzas ...

Thanks for the trade BitcoinFX!

Your welcome laszlo ! ( delayed response - lol ) I hope you enjoyed your Pizza

Thanks also to everyone else who has used my BitcoinFX Exchange.

...snip...

A slice of real Bitcoin history ...

Bitcoin - The First Exchanges ...
- https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1222242972827377665.html

...

I doubt that satoshi ever used a web wallet.

Many others who did arguably increased the value of coins of those who did not !

Something, something lost down the side of the proverbial digital sofa ...

[acquafredda]

If we are where we are today it is thanks to those like you guys who contributed basically since day one. All of us who mined, exchanged, used, sold and re-bought bitcoin helped it to get to these levels. I will always be thankful to satoshi and everyone else who contributed back then.
It is truly great to get to see these things after 10 years.

[hatshepsut93]

Was the creator of bitcoin suggesting that online custodial wallets were a good alternative, especially for smaller amounts?

This was in the days when light wallets were non-existent or in very early stages, so user experience was far from great. Even things like seed phrases didn't exist back then, so you had to back up your wallet file, and if you happened to receive coins, you had to backup again, if a wallet wasn't deterministic. So, at that time, using custodial wallet greatly simplified user experience. These days, it's not the case, except maybe for Lightning, where custodial wallets are again a bit simpler to use, and it's not such big of a risk if you deal with pocket money.

[BitcoinFX]

...snip...

 and it's not such big of a risk if you deal with pocket money.

See Fig .1 [citation's needed]

...

Indeed. If you don't have a wallet.dat and/or your own private keys to backup securely, your probably not doing it right.

[Lucius]

Creating an account on a website is a lot easier than installing and learning to use software, and a more familiar way of doing it for most people.  The only disadvantage is that you have to trust the site, but that's fine for pocket change amounts for micropayments and misc expenses.  It's an easy way to get started and if you get larger amounts then you can upgrade to the actual bitcoin software.

Was the creator of bitcoin suggesting that online custodial wallets were a good alternative, especially for smaller amounts?

From what is stated in the post the answer to your question is definitely yes. However, it should be taken into account that at that time the choice of non-custodial wallets was very narrow (was there anything other than Bitcoin Core?), so it should come as no surprise that Satoshi had just such an opinion.

Today we have a large selection of desktop, mobile and hardware wallets, but for a beginner who wants to invest a few tens of dollars in crypto, an online wallet with a good reputation can be quite a good start. I would still stick to that “Not your keys, not your coins” rule, but I guess it’s all in the risk assessment and the amount involved when it comes to secure storage.

[Pmalek]

Those other stories are donators and VIP members of the forum. They donated 10 or 50 bitcoin to support the forum and get a title Donator or VIP and badges. How do they feel about their past decisions today?

I think they feel better than the members considering getting decorated with the Donator tag today only to realize that the fee is still 10 for a Donator tag and 50 for a VIP tag. The prices haven't changed since the old days.

Even things like seed phrases didn't exist back then, so you had to back up your wallet file, and if you happened to receive coins, you had to backup again, if a wallet wasn't deterministic.

This was indeed a real hassle. I can't even imagine how many users most have lost coins for not having the most recent version of their wallet.dat files when they faced hardware failures. 
Or like the guy who threw away his old hard drive that kept the only copy of his private keys that could access 7.500 bitcoins.

However, it should be taken into account that at that time the choice of non-custodial wallets was very narrow (was there anything other than Bitcoin Core?), so it should come as no surprise that Satoshi had just such an opinion.

I know that Multibit gave users full control of their keys, but I don't think it was available in 2010. It probably came out the year after. The choices were indeed slim back then. 

[Lucius]

I know that Multibit gave users full control of their keys, but I don't think it was available in 2010. It probably came out the year after. The choices were indeed slim back then. 

That's right, MultiBit Classic first became available in September 2011, and Electrum also dates from that year. However, if we take into account that such solutions were quite new at the time, it is logical that the first users mostly used the easier option (online wallets), even a few years after such non-custodial wallets existed.

This is also confirmed by the total amount of BTC hacked from Mt. Gox in 2014 (850 000), which means that the trust in such services was very high - but it is unbelievable that this is the case even today - millions of BTC are in custodial crypto wallets.

[Ucy]

I believe the "small amount" is relative. What is consider small to you may be consider large amounts to certain people. A farmer who considers $300 as large amount should be able to easily run full nodes and properly secure the amount rather than doing that with online custodial wallet. It's a big risk to such farmer considering the amount involve.
The online custodial wallet should be for what Bitcoin users consider small and can afford to risk.
Nothing stops Network members from making it possible for all/most users to easily run full node and secure their very valuable assets.
 
By the way, I believe Bitcoin should be Multi-chains like this:
✔ Interesting way to get millions of people run full nodes: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5224657.msg53809244#msg53809244

Satoshi spoke about the idea of Sidechain (probably the first to mention the word), but wasn't detailed.

.
 
By the way, I believe Bitcoin should be Multi-chains like this:
✔ Interesting way to get millions of people run full nodes: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5224657.msg53809244#msg53809244

Satoshi spoke about the idea of Sidechain (probably the first to mention the word), but wasn't detailed.

His mention of the word Sidechains (and interestingly, Masterchain)

He is probably not the first to mention the word for crypto project

The incentive is to get the rewards from the extra side chainsalso for the same work.

While you are generating bitcoins, why not also get free domain names for the same work?

If you currently generate 50 BTC per week, now you could get 50 BTC and some domain names too.

You have one piece of work.  If you solve it, it will solve a block from both Bitcoin and BitDNS.  In concept, they're tied together by a Merkle Tree.  To hand it in to Bitcoin, you break off the BitDNS branch, and to hand it in to BitDNS, you break off the Bitcoin branch.

In practice, to retrofit it for Bitcoin, the BitDNS side would have to have maybe ~200 extra bytes, but that's not a big deal.  You've been talking about 50 domains per block, which would dwarf that little 200 bytes per block for backward compatibility.  We could potentially schedule a far in future block when Bitcoin would upgrade to a modernised arrangement with the Merkle Tree on top, if we care enough about saving a few bytes.

Note that the chains are below this new Merkle Tree.  That is, each of Bitcoin and BitDNS have their own chain links inside their blocks.  This is inverted from the common timestamp server arrangement, where the chain is on top and then the Merkle Tree, because that creates one common master chain.  This is two timestamp servers not sharing a chain.

.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[kryptqnick]

Thanks op for bringing it to light. I think Satoshi wanted to boost adoption this way, and it was probably a good call.

I doubt that satoshi ever used a web wallet.

Many others who did arguably increased the value of coins of those who did not !

Something, something lost down the side of the proverbial digital sofa ...

Probably not, but since Bitcoin was still very new, Satoshi probably wanted to find a way of making Bitcoin more accessible, so that people who are not techy could start using them. And I suppose the amount to store there should depend on its purchasing power and on how much (as Ucy pointed out) some money is worth to a particular person relative to this person's capital. Pocket money in BTC in 2020 and in 2010 are to very different things.

[FireBallex]

This is the part that got me the most 'destory the bankers ability to control our destiny with their printing press, God damn, if you still don't understand why Satoshi Nakamoto vanished into thin air you will forever remain dumb, 🤣🤣🤣🤣, this smart man knew that it's a war on banks and the government for crying out loud, if Nakamoto was visible and well known it would have end up pretty bad, what a smart human being👍👍👍

[cr1776]

This is the part that got me the most 'destory the bankers ability to control our destiny with their printing press, God damn, if you still don't understand why Satoshi Nakamoto vanished into thin air you will forever remain dumb, 🤣🤣🤣🤣, this smart man knew that it's a war on banks and the government for crying out loud, if Nakamoto was visible and well known it would have end up pretty bad, what a smart human being👍👍👍

It is more precisely a war on bankers and their ability to print fiat, inflating the value of money away, not necessarily banks. Banks in and of themselves are not a bad thing if they are fully reserved and not enabled by the governments to print money at whim.  It is a war in dishonest governments, dishonest bankers, dishonest politicians, and dishonest money.  It is a war on authoritarians and collectivists who use the power to print money to obtain power.  See Venezuela, Cyprus, Cuba, North Korea, Argentina and many, many others who are attempting to buy people by promising "free" stuff using the hours and minutes of your lives to get the money to do so. 

In short, it is a war for every person's freedom to protect themselves and the creations of their lives from people who believe they have the right to dispose of your life to satisfy their whims.  Their need justifies the seizure of your means.

[Silberman]

In the meantime, sites like vekja.net and www.mybitcoin.com have been experimenting with account-based sites.  You create an account on a website and hold your bitcoins on account there and transfer in and out.  Creating an account on a website is a lot easier than installing and learning to use software, and a more familiar way of doing it for most people.  The only disadvantage is that you have to trust the site, but that's fine for pocket change amounts for micropayments and misc expenses.  It's an easy way to get started and if you get larger amounts then you can upgrade to the actual bitcoin software.

Was the creator of bitcoin suggesting that online custodial wallets were a good alternative, especially for smaller amounts?

To me it is not that surprising, while satoshi is without a doubt a legendary figure at the same time he understood very well what bitcoin users may like, so if for example you have a certain amount of bitcoin in a cold wallet that only you control and then you decide to deposit 1% or even 0.1% of those funds in an online wallet to have easy access to them, even if you lose that amount to hackers or to the website itself you are not going to get extremely mad about it since you know most of your funds are secure, so in that case it makes sense to use online wallets as you are managing your risk properly.

[Pmalek]

This is also confirmed by the total amount of BTC hacked from Mt. Gox in 2014 (850 000), which means that the trust in such services was very high - but it is unbelievable that this is the case even today - millions of BTC are in custodial crypto wallets.

One good thing that came out from this series of hacking incidents is that users slowly understood that trusting others to keep your coins safe can lead to horrendous losses. One step at a time. People still need time. We are, after all, a population taught to trust third parties (banks) with our money. Our parents did it, and so did their parents. That shift to becoming independent will take decades.

Thanks op for bringing it to light. I think Satoshi wanted to boost adoption this way, and it was probably a good call.

It was a good call, I totally agree. Satoshi knew the complexity of the software and technology he developed, and he knew that many people would rather not play around and experiment with things they don't understand. He offered them an easy solution and if they got hooked to it, they would ask for the proper tools themselves.

I wish you understand it. There are many things only few of you understand.

Do tell please. Don't be shy. Educate your herd of sheep.

[Moheeet]

I'm happy bitcoin getting higher

[Lucius]

One good thing that came out from this series of hacking incidents is that users slowly understood that trusting others to keep your coins safe can lead to horrendous losses. One step at a time. People still need time. We are, after all, a population taught to trust third parties (banks) with our money. Our parents did it, and so did their parents. That shift to becoming independent will take decades.

Yet if we consider that about 1 million BTC are owned by Coinbase, then I could not conclude that people have learned anything in the past 7 years since the Mt.Gox incident. Although they claim that 98% of user coins are in cold wallets, so it is safe from hacking - no one thinks that Coinbase is a US company, and who says that one morning we will not wake up and US authorities will freeze all funds in Coinbase accounts? It is very easy in the country which has the attitude "we can do whatever we want - wherever we want", all under the pretext of fighting terrorism, money laundering or national security.

The difference between fiat and BTC is huge, someone steals money from your bank account, the bank will compensate if it is proven that the client is not guilty - someone steals crypto from the exchange, after 7 years clients are still waiting...

[Kakmakr]

It is a pity that sites like that are just left to die..... take Freebitco.in as an example.... it was one of the early faucets and it had to adapt when Ad companies stopped paying for faucet traffic. (turning it self into a more gambling orientated site to survive)

It is absolutely crazy that you had to pay a fee for a wallet service back then... (if I understood it correctly, you pay for the web hosting and the wallet account...right?)

What happened to Gavin's faucet? (Is there any archived info about that)

[Pmalek]

It is absolutely crazy that you had to pay a fee for a wallet service back then... (if I understood it correctly, you pay for the web hosting and the wallet account...right?)

I think it was all part of the hosting package. You bought hosting, received an email address, and a bitcoin web wallet. All that cost 25 bitcoin per week. That's how I interpreted the offer.

What happened to Gavin's faucet? (Is there any archived info about that)

Gavin was giving away 5 bitcoins at the beginning. The earliest achieves date back to July 2010 when that offer was still available.
http://web.archive.org/web/20100703032414/https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/

As the value of Bitcoin increased, Gavin naturally lowered to faucet amounts. In August of the same year it was down to 0.05 bitcoins. 
http://web.archive.org/web/20100805002250/https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/

This was later lowered to 0.005 bitcoin and I think the last faucet drops were 0.001 bitcoin. Somewhere towards the end of 2012 the faucet no longer gave out any more bitcoins. I think I read somewhere that Gavin gave away over 20.000 bitcoins through his faucet in the early days. He was instrumental in fueling the early adoption.