The essential attributes of Bitcoin:Bitcoin is a database.

[RainbowKun]

As I wrote in the previous article, why is Bitcoin difficult to understand? Why can't most ordinary people understand Bitcoin? Because it is the quintessence of almost all human subjects and all knowledge combined together. It involves not only all aspects of natural science, but also all aspects of social science.The basic subject knowledge of Bitcoin is computer science, mathematics, cryptography, economics, politics, law, sociology, etc., and even philosophy, religion and philosophy. Knowledge that you can think of or unexpected will be involved, and it is a fusion of the top knowledge in various disciplines.

My previous knowledge was fragmented . I hope this time through my posting on bitcointalk, my fragmented information will be transformed into systematic knowledge and output to everyone. I also hope that in this process of writing and communication, my knowledge system will be further improved through collision with everyone's thinking. On the one hand, it can help you improve your knowledge, on the other hand, it can also force me to grow.Therefore, in the follow-up sharing, I will try my best to interpret my understanding of Bitcoin from the perspective of different disciplines. Only by thinking from different angles can we understand the different meanings of Bitcoin.In the end you understand why I would say that Bitcoin represents a new civilization. It represents the evolutionary direction of human advanced civilization.

Of course, this process is very painful and very difficult for me. This puts a very big request on my personal knowledge reserve. I myself must understand the logic of the knowledge itself before I can output them in the form of complete knowledge. Moreover, it is necessary to understand the connection between the knowledge of different disciplines and Bitcoin, and to summarize it. The difficulty involved is very high. This is a very big challenge for me. I hope I can persevere and not give up halfway.At the same time, I found that the reading rate of my posts in the past two days was a bit low, and the number of reples was not large. This may have something to do with the content I posted. The content I wrote is generally a deep thinking about Bitcoin, and the amount of text is very large, it will be more difficult to read. There is also the topic itself is not completely open, not anyone can diversify the discussion.

But it doesn't matter. I am writing here not to deliberately get more merits, but to share my in-depth thinking on Bitcoin step by step. I believe that this knowledge is helpful to everyone, and I firmly believe that Bitcoin has created a new civilization for mankind. Maybe you don’t feel obvious right now, but when I finish writing 50 or even 100 articles, I believe that more and more friends will appreciate what I mean.At the same time, I hope that my articles are of long-term value, not short-lived. I believe that in three, five or even ten years, there will still be readers who will read my articles. At that time these articles were still helpful to them and still valuable. Maybe in 10 years, some people will read all the articles I wrote in the past 10 years from start to the end.

Today is just the place where my Bitcoin career started. I will share my knowledge about Bitcoin a little bit. So, let me ask you one more question now, what exactly is Bitcoin? What are the essential attributes of Bitcoin?

When it comes to this issue, you might say that Bitcoin is a technology, Bitcoin is a currency, and Bitcoin is a digital asset. I would say that Bitcoin is a new human civilization. However, if all external factors are removed and we pursue the most basic and essential nature of Bitcoin, then what is Bitcoin?In my opinion, remove all external factors, external meanings, and restore the most essential attributes of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a database. This is also a point of view expressed from computer science, which is also the foundation of Bitcoin's existence. In computer language, Bitcoin is just a special database.

Bitcoin is a decentralized database, which is a series of data blocks associated with cryptographic methods. Each data block contains information about a Bitcoin network transaction, which is used to verify the validity of the information and generate the next block. When one database is linked, it becomes a data chain, which is the blockchain. The content of each data block in the blockchain is relatively fixed. Generally, it is a record of some data, including the hash of the previous block in the block header, the nonce of the block, the size and time of the block, and the basic transaction information, etc.Each data block is linked together in an interlocking relationship, forming a complete chain. Moreover, the information in the database is completely transparent and cannot be tampered . This is the most basic attribute of Bitcoin.

Looking at Bitcoin from the subject of computer science, Bitcoin is a database. This database is composed of decentralized software protocols and standard programming languages. People on the Yunxi Internet transfer value to scarce digital assets with low transaction costs. It also provides an immutable record of value transactions. This is our most basic understanding of Bitcoin.So, in the future, when we exchange bitcoin with friends, he asks us what bitcoin is? The first answer we gave him was that Bitcoin is a database that cannot be tampered with, and then other things. This is the knowledge of computer science contained in Bitcoin.

This is my opinion, what do you think?

[Itty Bitty]

You wrote "It also provides an immutable record of value transactions"

But when Satoshi, and the first few people on the network sent bitcoins to each other in 2009/2010, they had no monetary value.

If you are going to be an educator of bitcoin and write many articles, please explain how bitcoin went from being valueless, to being worth something, so we can understand (but writing someone gave someone else 10,000 btc for 2 pizzas is not a complete enough answer).

[joniboini]

You need to differentiate between bitcoin and blockchain. What you mean by the database is the blockchain itself. It has been discussed many times though, so I suggest you research more about it. Saying that Bitcoin is a database is misleading imo.

[RainbowKun]

You need to differentiate between bitcoin and blockchain. What you mean by the database is the blockchain itself. It has been discussed many times though, so I suggest you research more about it. Saying that Bitcoin is a database is misleading imo.

Here, I will continue to explain my point of view. When Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, he did not propose a separate blockchain concept. The term blockchain does not appear in Bitcoin's white paper. What he described is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. So, in my opinion, Bitcoin is a system that consists of different parts of the entire Bitcoin network. They constitute Bitcoin as a whole, rather than considering Bitcoin as an independent currency. On the basis of this view, I regard Bitcoin as a kind of database. This is my most basic view of Bitcoin. Blockchain is just a technology extracted from the foundation of Bitcoin technology after the later generations studied the technical principles of Bitcoin.

You wrote "It also provides an immutable record of value transactions"

But when Satoshi, and the first few people on the network sent bitcoins to each other in 2009/2010, they had no monetary value.

If you are going to be an educator of bitcoin and write many articles, please explain how bitcoin went from being valueless, to being worth something, so we can understand (but writing someone gave someone else 10,000 btc for 2 pizzas is not a complete enough answer).

Thanks for your question. We may need a lot of words if we want to thoroughly explain this issue. Here, I try to explain my understanding as simply as possible. How did Bitcoin go from valueless to valuable. When Bitcoin was first born, few people knew Bitcoin, and even fewer people knew the technical principles of Bitcoin.
But when Bitcoin is getting more and more people's attention, its technical principles are constantly being studied. At the same time, the technical principles of Bitcoin have withstood various tests. No one can tamper with the data in the Bitcoin ledger, no one can steal the Bitcoin private key, etc. In this way, more and more people believe in Bitcoin. At this time Bitcoin begins to have value.

[franky1]

a database is a store of data
a ledger is a store of data in a 'carrying forward' method that shows changes from old to new

bitcoin is not just a store... its an accounting of the carrying forward. thus its a ledger not a database


databses replace old entries with new entries(old entries lost/forgotten/deleted)
ledgers create a new page/list/table/block of data to show the new changes and relationship to previous

[pooya87]

Saying "bitcoin is a database" is like saying "an airplane is a collection of seats with seat-belts".

I found that the reading rate of my posts in the past two days was a bit low, and the number of reples was not large.

That is because you are rambling. Nobody reads big walls of texts with inconsequential content most of which don't have anything to do with the title specially when that title itself doesn't make any sense.

[RainbowKun]

a database is a store of data
a ledger is a store of data in a 'carrying forward' method that shows changes from old to new

bitcoin is not just a store... its an accounting of the carrying forward. thus its a ledger not a database


databses replace old entries with new entries(old entries lost/forgotten/deleted)
ledgers create a new page/list/table/block of data to show the new changes and relationship to previous

What I want to express here is that Bitcoin is a collection of scientific knowledge. From a computer science point of view, the entire Bitcoin network functions as a database. It is used to store various data, which is the basic property of Bitcoin. However, from an economic point of view, the data stored in the Bitcoin system exists in the form of accounting books, so Bitcoin is also a ledger. These are not contradictory, but different perspectives of understanding Bitcoin from different knowledge.

Saying "bitcoin is a database" is like saying "an airplane is a collection of seats with seat-belts".

I found that the reading rate of my posts in the past two days was a bit low, and the number of reples was not large.

That is because you are rambling. Nobody reads big walls of texts with inconsequential content most of which don't have anything to do with the title specially when that title itself doesn't make any sense.

I understand what you want to express, and thank you for your reminder. You may feel that my article is meaningless, but I feel that my thinking is very valuable. When we recognize a new thing, we may think from different angles. One is from the superficial reason, some from the essential connotation, some from the functional point of view, some from the logical point of view, and so on. Because of our differences in knowledge, background, education, and experience, our understanding of different things must be different. I think about Bitcoin now, and I also learn from the perspective of different disciplines, because I think Bitcoin is a combination of multidisciplinary knowledge. From an accounting perspective, Bitcoin is a ledger. From an economic perspective, Bitcoin is a currency. So from the perspective of computer science, Bitcoin is a database. Few people can think deeply about Bitcoin from different disciplines, and more people just want to make money with Bitcoin. Maybe few people can patiently finish reading my text and think about it, but I believe they will still work for a small group of people, especially those who think deeply about Bitcoin.

[franky1]

from a "scientific knowledge" / "computer science". your chosen category. its about precise terminology.
which would be ledgers.
heck no one minds if you try to ELI-5(explain like im 5) it into simple words.
but try not to flip flop and call it something else in another topic. but using the same technical prospective

otherwise all your posts just get ignored because you are just changing your own narrative at a whim.

computer science:
a database is too simple of a word to express scientifically what occurs in bitcoin. especially when it does not encapsulate the actual facility and function of the data

for instance the UTXO set. is a database. but the blockchain is a ledger.
the storage and editing/appending methods are completely different to each other

you cant edit the blockchain. hense not a database.
the lock and append and relational flow to new block is the special element that makes it a ledger and not a database

..
its ok to have separate versions of ELI-5 ELI-15 ELI-CS(compscientist) ELI-E(economist)
but to have 2 versions of ELI-CS calling it 2 different things. is where you went wrong

[pooya87]

You may feel that my article is meaningless, but I feel that my thinking is very valuable.

I didn't think or say any of these, all I'm saying is that you could have expressed your thoughts in a much shorter way. All you have said in the past 4 to 6 topics you have created could have been compressed into a single paragraph or two instead.

[tranthidung]

The biggest attributed contribution of Bitcoin is Being a game-changer and changes the world.

Without Bitcoin appearance in 2009 and its contribution, we might not have the crypto market as big as nowadays (of course, it's still smaller than other markets) and the blockchain technology would have yet appeared or have yet achieved what it has now.

For technical aspects, I think we can skip them here. Simply said, Bitcoin changed the world, from individual to governmental, national aspects.

[RainbowKun]

from a "scientific knowledge" / "computer science". your chosen category. its about precise terminology.
which would be ledgers.
heck no one minds if you try to ELI-5(explain like im 5) it into simple words.
but try not to flip flop and call it something else in another topic. but using the same technical prospective

otherwise all your posts just get ignored because you are just changing your own narrative at a whim.

computer science:
a database is too simple of a word to express scientifically what occurs in bitcoin. especially when it does not encapsulate the actual facility and function of the data

for instance the UTXO set. is a database. but the blockchain is a ledger.
the storage and editing/appending methods are completely different to each other

you cant edit the blockchain. hense not a database.
the lock and append and relational flow to new block is the special element that makes it a ledger and not a database

..
its ok to have separate versions of ELI-5 ELI-15 ELI-CS(compscientist) ELI-E(economist)
but to have 2 versions of ELI-CS calling it 2 different things. is where you went wrong

Thank you for pointing out the problems in my article, and I am trying my best to understand the suggestions you gave me. I am also trying to adapt to the rules and culture of this forum. Bitcoin is an independent database that may not be able to reflect the essential attributes of Bitcoin, and Bitcoin as a distributed database may reflect the characteristics of Bitcoin. I am writing these articles to explain my understanding of Bitcoin from different disciplines and different angles. I list these views separately because each article has its own unique logic. All have different causal relationships, so that people with different cognitive foundations can absorb this knowledge from different angles. Of course, there may be only a few people who have read them all patiently.

You may feel that my article is meaningless, but I feel that my thinking is very valuable.

I didn't think or say any of these, all I'm saying is that you could have expressed your thoughts in a much shorter way. All you have said in the past 4 to 6 topics you have created could have been compressed into a single paragraph or two instead.

Thank you again for your suggestions, thank you very much,and I will further elaborate on my understanding. As you said, I can put the first four or five themes into one or two paragraphs, it will be very easy. So why do I use about 1,000 words or more in every article to explain my point of view? Writing so many words will consume a lot of time, energy, patience and perseverance. This is also a very big challenge for me. There are two main reasons for this. First, I think Bitcoin is a very great thing. It will represent a new civilization and it will transform all aspects of our human society. Most of the discussions on Bitcoin on the forum are currently limited to technical fields and currency applications. I rarely see deeper thinking and discussions. So I hope to explain my understanding of Bitcoin from different disciplines and fields. I hope to inspire more people through these articles of mine. The second point is that I need to record the process of my thinking and write down the logical relationships involved in each point of view. Just writing some conclusive text will be very simple. However, many people are not clear about the process of reaching this conclusion. How did you come to this conclusion? Why can you come to this conclusion? This is why I use a lot of words to describe the thinking process of each conclusion. I hope to inspire more people to think deeply with me. At the same time, I can also obtain more valuable information after your replies to further improve my knowledge system. Also, although I have used a lot of articles to illustrate my point of view. But if everyone reads each article carefully, you will find that the content of each article is different. Each piece of content has its own unique logical relationship and a corresponding reasoning relationship. These are more my philosophical reflections. There is still a certain difference between philosophical thinking and technical thinking. Technical thinking is more rational thinking, and every sentence must be very rigorous. Philosophical thinking is more open, and there is no standard answer.

The biggest attributed contribution of Bitcoin is Being a game-changer and changes the world.

Without Bitcoin appearance in 2009 and its contribution, we might not have the crypto market as big as nowadays (of course, it's still smaller than other markets) and the blockchain technology would have yet appeared or have yet achieved what it has now.

For technical aspects, I think we can skip them here. Simply said, Bitcoin changed the world, from individual to governmental, national aspects.

Yes, Bitcoin has greatly changed our world. The fate of many of us has changed because of Bitcoin. I am also expounding my understanding of Bitcoin in different ways. I hope that more people can understand the changes to us from a higher perspective, thank you Satoshi Nakamoto.

[Kiley33]

Although your text wall is very powerful, I don't agree with you. Bitcoin cannot be used as a database because the database stores data. When you need to retrieve data, you can retrieve data. The data can be taken out, and Bitcoin is hashed and encrypted. Can be queried, but data cannot be retrieved. So Bitcoin cannot be described by a database.

[valentine wheeler]

Digital currency is only a form of value information, which perfectly realizes the value transmission of the network.

The purpose of Bitcoin is to establish a decentralized electronic digital peer-to-peer (P2P) payment system to prevent the reuse of digital assets. Rather than a database, this has been explained in Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper. Bitcoin may, as you said,bitcoin use the collection and application of knowledge from multiple disciplines, but they are all for one purpose.

I don’t deny that as a decentralized data storage module, it is the underlying technology of blockchain , I don’t agree with this. Blockchain is not equal to Bitcoin.


Bitcoin realizes value transmission without relying on trusted intermediaries.


It can be analyzed from the following aspects

• The Bitcoin network maintains a single source of truth and a set of shared rules (consensus agreement) between legally independent entities. No one can tamper with, even for 51% attacks, because the cost of doing evil is very high.
  
• The Bitcoin network can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Its borderless nature is not restricted by capital controls. As a distributed network, it is not maintained by a central government. It can make transactions more convenient and anonymous.
  
• Bitcoin can resist censorship. The network has strong anti-attack capability. Moreover, the network is reliable.
  

The above content seems to have nothing to do with the database, I think the angle of the problem may not overlap with you, it is two parallel lines. But in turn, let's consider what is a database?

https://www.oracle.com/database/what-is-database/


My final point is that if Bitcoin is a database, it is somewhat far-fetched, I still respect Satoshi Nakamoto's explanation.

[CoolerSid]

I manage to convey the meaning of cryptocurrencies for the older generation only by comparing them with securities on the New York Stock Exchange

[BlackHatCoiner]

Your post is 936 words long. Nine hundred and thirty six. Do you believe that this encourages us to read it?

This is my opinion, what do you think?

I'm not agreeing with your opinion. If someone ever asked me what's Bitcoin, I'd surely not respond with “It's a database". Rather I'd go with “It's an currency that operates only in the internet”. Then, I'd start being more detailed about it; I'd use common phrases like “no central point of failure”, “borderless”, “limited to 21 million”, “responsibility of money” etc.

Why did you choose that title?

[BrewMaster]

I manage to convey the meaning of cryptocurrencies for the older generation only by comparing them with securities on the New York Stock Exchange

i doubt anyone, specially the older generation, understand what "securities on the New York Stock Exchange" is. and in comparison they will surely have a much harder time understanding bitcoin that way instead of simply saying it is "digital money".
maybe you understood the meaning of crypto-currency wrong yourself.

[DarkDays]

Saying "bitcoin is a database" is like saying "an airplane is a collection of seats with seat-belts".

I found that the reading rate of my posts in the past two days was a bit low, and the number of reples was not large.

That is because you are rambling. Nobody reads big walls of texts with inconsequential content most of which don't have anything to do with the title specially when that title itself doesn't make any sense.

Honestly, I get the constructive criticism around the subject. And, yes, I agree, OP could have been more clear in his writing but as an attempt itself to spread the knowledge of BTC (though I understand that on here might not be the right audience for his tone of writing) I think is something to credit him for.

At least, OP is sharing his knowledge in a way he can, and spreading awareness is something we should all get better at.

[RainbowKun]

Saying "bitcoin is a database" is like saying "an airplane is a collection of seats with seat-belts".

I found that the reading rate of my posts in the past two days was a bit low, and the number of reples was not large.

That is because you are rambling. Nobody reads big walls of texts with inconsequential content most of which don't have anything to do with the title specially when that title itself doesn't make any sense.

Honestly, I get the constructive criticism around the subject. And, yes, I agree, OP could have been more clear in his writing but as an attempt itself to spread the knowledge of BTC (though I understand that on here might not be the right audience for his tone of writing) I think is something to credit him for.

At least, OP is sharing his knowledge in a way he can, and spreading awareness is something we should all get better at.

Your post is 936 words long. Nine hundred and thirty six. Do you believe that this encourages us to read it?

This is my opinion, what do you think?

I'm not agreeing with your opinion. If someone ever asked me what's Bitcoin, I'd surely not respond with “It's a database". Rather I'd go with “It's an currency that operates only in the internet”. Then, I'd start being more detailed about it; I'd use common phrases like “no central point of failure”, “borderless”, “limited to 21 million”, “responsibility of money” etc.

Why did you choose that title?

Although your text wall is very powerful, I don't agree with you. Bitcoin cannot be used as a database because the database stores data. When you need to retrieve data, you can retrieve data. The data can be taken out, and Bitcoin is hashed and encrypted. Can be queried, but data cannot be retrieved. So Bitcoin cannot be described by a database.

Here, let me answer these questions. Perhaps my topic can be expressed more clearly: the essential attributes of the Bitcoin network, it is a distributed database. When I refer to Bitcoin, I am more often referring to the Bitcoin network itself, not just a single Bitcoin in our wallet. Because in my opinion, Bitcoin is a system, and this system consists of multiple parts. Together they form the Bitcoin network. And this network is composed of a distributed database constructed by multiple nodes. Every node has all the data in the Bitcoin ledger, and every node is equal. As stated in Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper, Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Ultimately it is a system. So, I mean, from a computer science point of view, this system belongs to a distributed database. Some people may say that this database is a function of the blockchain. However, in the Bitcoin network and Bitcoin's white paper, there has never been a concept of blockchain. The concept of blockchain technology was extracted from the Bitcoin system by later generations. Bitcoin itself is an electronic cash system, which is composed of distributed databases. This is my basic view on this.

[jinneas]

A database is a data structure used to store information. Blockchain is actually a kind of database because it is a digital ledger and stores information on the data structure of the block.
Bitcoin is the first system based on the blockchain. In the Bitcoin system, the blockchain is an unchangeable digital ledger, and it is also a growing encrypted distributed database. It will store information in blocks of the same size. Each block will contain the hash information of the previous block, thereby providing encryption security.

[Aliceooo78]

Your post is 936 words long. Nine hundred and thirty six. Do you believe that this encourages us to read it?

This is my opinion, what do you think?

I'm not agreeing with your opinion. If someone ever asked me what's Bitcoin, I'd surely not respond with “It's a database". Rather I'd go with “It's an currency that operates only in the internet”. Then, I'd start being more detailed about it; I'd use common phrases like “no central point of failure”, “borderless”, “limited to 21 million”, “responsibility of money” etc.

Why did you choose that title?

I don't quite understand why some people give Bitcoin too much responsibility. Bitcoin has only 12 years of development, so why give it too much responsibility? Wikipedia is a database, all-inclusive. Bitcoin is Bitcoin. If you let me introduce it in one sentence, Bitcoin is a currency without borders, which is convenient and fast, and transfers quickly. As for the others, it is our desire to make it better. Or I am too realistic to see the future development space of Bitcoin.