A (more generalized) definition of Bitcoin

[seekererebus]

It has occurred to me that when people are talking about Bitcoin, they are often talking about the current technical implementation. I don't think this is the right way to define it, as it stops being a protocol and starts being 'bitcoind' almost by accident. It also in many ways hinders Bitcoin from evolving should that be necessary. I'm going to propose a complete definition of Bitcoin here that does not rely on any technical implementation specs, but which is both currently accurate to the existing protocol, and flexible enough to allow for significant changes over time. Would love feedback.

Bitcoin is:

• A proof of work blockchain
• with a hard-capped supply limit of 21 million units (further subdivision is allowed but the decimal place must remain fixed)
• the ledger of which includes in the record the 2009 genesis block
• the verification nodes of which have a performance cost low enough that the hardware requirements can be met by anyone with a desire to run one
• is decentralized enough that node operators, not miners, software developers, governments etc., are the final arbiters of valid blocks
• and finally has the widest consensus level

An important caveat here is that a blockchain that fully complies with the first 5 rules is a contender for being Bitcoin, but the final rule of majority consensus is what determines the title winner.

The blockchain that everyone has thus far called Bitcoin fits this definition perfectly and is the only chain to do so. Prior hard-forks were, at least temporarily, bitcoin contenders, but as they never achieved majority consensus and thus were never Bitcoin. A future hard-fork may well gain such majority consensus: that would make the hard-fork Bitcoin, and the original protocol the failed fork. It should be rather easy to determine in a hard-fork event which protocol is Bitcoin: the failed fork will be rapidly abandoned and/or sold off. The primary 5 rules also allow node operators to determine whether a proposed change to the protocol can even qualify as Bitcoin, and dismiss without further consideration any proposal that doesn't qualify as a contender.

The primary 5 rules here strike me as essential components of Bitcoin as a viable monetary technology. There are perhaps elements that are similarly essential that I am not considering, though I am deliberately keeping the essential list to what are critical essentials. Many, many potential contenders could exist within this paradigm, but without consensus they are just failed forks; as such there is no need to cover multiple edge cases as the free market will deal with them.

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[gmaxwell]

I don't think you can credibly call something Bitcoin which doesn't incorporate the ownership of coins resulting from the history of transactions which people ubiquitously considered to be Bitcoin transactions in the past.  Just the genesis block isn't enough.  So, "it has to logically continue the ownership structure that people previously considered bitcoin." -- so that would have at one time opened the door for varrious spinoff coins to take the mantle but after enough time that door closes, and it would exclude e.g. a fork from block 100k created today from ever being bitcoin, or a fork from block 1 (IIRC some of these have existed).

I think you're also missing some critical philosophical criteria.  Someone could make a backdoored hardfork where anyone with a key whos address begins with "12STD5BhabrNpx56pWu" can spend any coin they want ... but pretty much no one would adopt that because it would introduce trusted parties, the avoidance of which was the stated purpose of Bitcoin from day one.  Yet this rule wouldn't make anyone a "final arbiter", so it meets the letter of your criteria.  You might want to mine Satoshi's announcements for more criteria.

Of course, a system failing either of these criteria would also not achieve the widest consensus.  But along that line of thinking you could just drop the other criteria since something failing them is unlikely to be widely accepted as Bitcoin.  Ultimately the "social consensus" will be what it will be, ... but it'll arise out of people individually applying their own criteria which might look a lot like yours but also might be different.

[seekererebus]

So good additions are:

• It has to logically continue the ownership structure that people previously considered bitcoin
• Protocol must be open source

Seems good.

[UchihaSarada]

with a hard-capped supply limit of 21 million units (further subdivision is allowed but the decimal place must remain fixed)[/li][/list]

Want to discover more about this, welcome.
How is the 21 million Bitcoin cap defined and enforced?

the ledger of which includes in the record the 2009 genesis block

It is censored to only a genesis block and can mislead newbies. Bitcoin blockchain is a public ledger which records all confirmed transactions and 2009 genesis block is only one of transactions.

Genesis Block has its Coinbase message

Code:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

Details of a Bitcoin Genesis block on blockchain.com explorer: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/blocks/btc/0

[franky1]

• with a hard-capped supply limit of 21 million units (further subdivision is allowed but the decimal place must remain fixed)

your (clause) is incorrect

check the actual block data
the smallest unit is in sats. thats HARD data. the hard rule is based at the sat unit level of hard data and math.. not the screen display btc level

if you "change the btc subdivisions" you break the hard data.

for instance the block reward of 2009 is not "50btc"
its actually
in binary: 100101010000001011111001000000000
in hex: 12A05F200
in numeric: 5000000000

to "change the btc subdivisions" lets say to 5 extra decimals
means that the 2009 block reward becomes not 50btc but 0.0005btc

yep hard data of smallest units of actual data get divided by 100,000

meaning instead of 2,099,999,997,690,000 actual unit end result of the hard rule..
..it would become: 209,999,999,999,996,000,000 upto units depending on deployment of how they count old/new data
and cause old amounts to lose value by being declared as 100,000 less value.

it also messes with how many reward halvings would occur(upto 49 instead 33) and many other effects

so please learn that breaking the hard rule of how many units are offered per block reward (at base level) is the real hard rule and should not be changed

[BVeyron]

It has occurred to me that when people are talking about Bitcoin, they are often talking about the current technical implementation. I don't think this is the right way to define it, as it stops being a protocol and starts being 'bitcoind' almost by accident. It also in many ways hinders Bitcoin from evolving should that be necessary. I'm going to propose a complete definition of Bitcoin here that does not rely on any technical implementation specs, but which is both currently accurate to the existing protocol, and flexible enough to allow for significant changes over time. Would love feedback.

Bitcoin is:

• A proof of work blockchain
• with a hard-capped supply limit of 21 million units (further subdivision is allowed but the decimal place must remain fixed)
• the ledger of which includes in the record the 2009 genesis block
• the verification nodes of which have a performance cost low enough that the hardware requirements can be met by anyone with a desire to run one
• is decentralized enough that node operators, not miners, software developers, governments etc., are the final arbiters of valid blocks
• and finally has the widest consensus level

An important caveat here is that a blockchain that fully complies with the first 5 rules is a contender for being Bitcoin, but the final rule of majority consensus is what determines the title winner.

The blockchain that everyone has thus far called Bitcoin fits this definition perfectly and is the only chain to do so. Prior hard-forks were, at least temporarily, bitcoin contenders, but as they never achieved majority consensus and thus were never Bitcoin. A future hard-fork may well gain such majority consensus: that would make the hard-fork Bitcoin, and the original protocol the failed fork. It should be rather easy to determine in a hard-fork event which protocol is Bitcoin: the failed fork will be rapidly abandoned and/or sold off. The primary 5 rules also allow node operators to determine whether a proposed change to the protocol can even qualify as Bitcoin, and dismiss without further consideration any proposal that doesn't qualify as a contender.

The primary 5 rules here strike me as essential components of Bitcoin as a viable monetary technology. There are perhaps elements that are similarly essential that I am not considering, though I am deliberately keeping the essential list to what are critical essentials. Many, many potential contenders could exist within this paradigm, but without consensus they are just failed forks; as such there is no need to cover multiple edge cases as the free market will deal with them.

All the blockchain projects can be described as the network of mining facilities which is also the main registry generator. So the main thing about cryptocurrency is, in my opinion, the features of decentralised mining process. There are also some specific treats of every cryptocurrency, like PoW/PoS, mining limit etc

[ChiBitCTy]

This is well written, as are your other posts, which tends to be extremely rare for a newbie account with a few posts having just signed up this year. Makes me wonder what brought you here just now, as you’re clearly versed in cryptography (at least to some extent) and bitcoin, .Just interesting, and refreshing.

When explaining btc (best that I can anyhow) I tend to forget some of these points you laid out. Cheers.