I love bitcoin but there are some concerns (zero difficulty in the early days)

[turvarya]

Why would it even be a problem, if the genesis block was created earlier?

Zero difficulty days: Most likely, it was due to a bug, he had to fix before mining again. Also no problem there. There was nobody on the network at that time, who would care and it doesn't have any effect on the network today.

Your "coins hidden in a sidechain"-theory also seems like you just don't understand how bitcoin work.

I know pretty much about how bitcoin works but this might be something I don't understand enough to make the decision, that's why I made a topic.
I don't think it is a real problem either, but that's only based on a feeling.
I would like to see some math or other theory why this is not a problem to be totally convinced (just like I'm totally convinced about bitcoin for all other aspects).

I think a pretty simple way to look at it, is that the blockchain is just data.
So, your concern is, that a timestamp is not right(genesis block), and that there is some old data you don't like(zero difficulty days).
Working with databases for some years, I can tell you, that I see worse things all the time, when it comes to old data. I see data, that shouldn't be there, data that is by definition wrong, if people would have taken the time to implement that definitions, it wouldn't be there. So, I have to clean up that mess, often by guessing, what the right data might be or putting in random data, hoping that it wouldn't be a problem, since nobody most likely ever look at that old data.
The things you are talking about, are not per definition wrong.
Also data doesn't change the way, how new data comes into the blockchain. Especially with the system, that is in place in a blockchain.
So, nothing to worry about here.

[findftp]

Why would it even be a problem, if the genesis block was created earlier?

Zero difficulty days: Most likely, it was due to a bug, he had to fix before mining again. Also no problem there. There was nobody on the network at that time, who would care and it doesn't have any effect on the network today.

Your "coins hidden in a sidechain"-theory also seems like you just don't understand how bitcoin work.

I know pretty much about how bitcoin works but this might be something I don't understand enough to make the decision, that's why I made a topic.
I don't think it is a real problem either, but that's only based on a feeling.
I would like to see some math or other theory why this is not a problem to be totally convinced (just like I'm totally convinced about bitcoin for all other aspects).

I think a pretty simple way to look at it, is that the blockchain is just data.

Yes, but very special kind of data. There is value involved!

So, your concern is, that a timestamp is not right(genesis block), and that there is some old data you don't like(zero difficulty days).
Working with databases for some years, I can tell you, that I see worse things all the time, when it comes to old data. I see data, that shouldn't be there, data that is by definition wrong, if people would have taken the time to implement that definitions, it wouldn't be there. So, I have to clean up that mess, often by guessing, what the right data might be or putting in random data, hoping that it wouldn't be a problem, since nobody most likely ever look at that old data.
The things you are talking about, are not per definition wrong.

Create the genesis block,
Mine one million trillion bitcoins and transfer them to some address.
Few days later present you genesis block to the world again and pretend there are only 50 coins created.
Everybody joins the club and forget about the broken chain.
200 years later, when the creators of bitcoin bought all the gold of the world they say tada: here you have another million trillion coins. /s

A broken chain doesn't feel right to me.
I just cannot figure what the maximum negative implications it could have.

Of course the chain is data. But your database problems are not involving value, it's only numbers.
What if giant banks have a problem in their database?
They cannot just fuck around in their database (I know they do) and pretend everything is ok.

The whole point of bitcoin is that the blockchain should be ledger which you can trust.

[Lauda]

Please stop trying to find problems where there are none.

Create the genesis block,
Mine one million trillion bitcoins and transfer them to some address.
Few days later present you genesis block to the world again and pretend there are only 50 coins created.
Everybody joins the club and forget about the broken chain.
200 years later, when the creators of bitcoin bought all the gold of the world they say tada: here you have another million trillion coins. /s

A broken chain doesn't feel right to me.
I just cannot figure what the maximum negative implications it could have.

Of course the chain is data. But your database problems are not involving value, it's only numbers.
What if giant banks have a problem in their database?
They cannot just fuck around in their database (I know they do) and pretend everything is ok.

The whole point of bitcoin is that the blockchain should be ledger which you can trust.

If you really believe that a single man is able to fool all those people working on the code.. sure.
You can trust the blockchain.

Also don't make any theories, they are useless and a waste of time because there is no evidence to back up any. Since nobody from us was around that time mining or talking to Satoshi, we can't really know.
Thus there can't be any evidence to support any theory.

[findftp]

If you really believe that a single man is able to fool all those people working on the code.. sure.

You must read what I wrote.
I do not believe it is/was a single man.

Thus there can't be any evidence to support any theory.

So we end up having a broken chain which everybody is fine with

[deepceleron]

I shouldn't respond to a troll OP, in fact I've managed to avoid responding to anyone for a while.

There are no concerns.

OP is a fucking idiot if he thinks that Satoshi Nakamoto somehow had advance knowledge or could have planted the exact headline in the London Times. It is about a newsworthy event that didn't happen before that date. Bitcoin really doesn't need a timestamping event in the genesis block to work, but if you read the whitepaper the blockchain is referred to as a timestamping mechanism, so this crypto metaphor is likely why we even have the effort made.

The genesis block is special and must be created ahead of time, and incorporated into the code. The six days between the known headline date and the release of Bitcoin onto the Metzdown mailing list was certainly to run some testing chains that were then discarded. There is screenshot evidence of unpublished testing chains made before release that were on bitcoin.org.

The chain was not premined. We can see Hal Finney's release day correspondence and even debug.log posts from Jan 10 where the chain was on the same blocks we still have now.

The lowest difficulty is not 0, but 1. This minimum difficulty level is set so that it takes about 4 billion double-SHA256 hashes of the block on average to find a solution. This is not a low difficulty, in fact it took over nine months before it increased even with many different miners running.

What we have in Bitcoin is better than the coin release schedule of every get rich scamcoin since then. At least a good portion were released to interested and contributing cryptographers rather than big money that could already harness mining farms. There is no pump-and-dump publicity effort by Satoshi, just academic discussion about the software. There appears to be a distinct number of coins mined by a differently-coded "bare minimum" heartbeat miner run by Satoshi during early days that have never been spend and I feel never will be spent as he only seems to have spent coins made by the normal Bitcoin client.

[hhanh00]

Create the genesis block,
Mine one million trillion bitcoins and transfer them to some address.
Few days later present you genesis block to the world again and pretend there are only 50 coins created.
Everybody joins the club and forget about the broken chain.
200 years later, when the creators of bitcoin bought all the gold of the world they say tada: here you have another million trillion coins. /s

A broken chain doesn't feel right to me.
I just cannot figure what the maximum negative implications it could have.

Of course the chain is data. But your database problems are not involving value, it's only numbers.
What if giant banks have a problem in their database?
They cannot just fuck around in their database (I know they do) and pretend everything is ok.

The whole point of bitcoin is that the blockchain should be ledger which you can trust.

How do you expect the other blockchain to merge with the current one?

[findftp]

I shouldn't respond to a troll OP, in fact I've managed to avoid responding to anyone for a while.

Thank you for calling me an idiot and troll. Love you too.
I come here to learn and ask. Excuse me for not knowing it all beforehand.

There are no concerns.

OP is a fucking idiot if he thinks that Satoshi Nakamoto somehow had advance knowledge or could have planted the exact headline in the London Times.
 It is about a newsworthy event that didn't happen before that date.

What if Satoshi (the group) are the owners of the Times? Then he (they) at least had this information a few hours/days earlier than the rest of us. Again, I don't know what the implications could be, but it is a possibility which could be true.

Bitcoin really doesn't need a timestamping event in the genesis block to work, but if you read the whitepaper the blockchain is referred to as a timestamping mechanism, so this crypto metaphor is likely why we even have the effort made.

This already sounds a lot better than a one liner "there are no concerns".
Thank you.

The genesis block is special and must be created ahead of time, and incorporated into the code. The six days between the known headline date and the release of Bitcoin onto the Metzdown mailing list was certainly to run some testing chains that were then discarded. There is screenshot evidence of unpublished testing chains made before release that were on bitcoin.org.
The chain was not premined. We can see Hal Finney's release day correspondence and even debug.log posts from Jan 10 where the chain was on the same blocks we still have now.

This sounds like the stuff I'm looking for!
So basically you say there were already other chains made but abandoned.
Well, I don't really feel like an idiot when I came up with the same idea without knowing it beforehand
I will research the stuff you just said.

The lowest difficulty is not 0, but 1.

Not according to my source

What we have in Bitcoin is better than the coin release schedule of every get rich scamcoin since then.

You don't have to convince me about that. I'm already convinced about all other aspects.
The only concern that kept singing though my head was the zero difficulty because I did not understand it's possible implications.
It is an important thing for me to be sure of before I convert my remaining fiat into bitcoin.

At least a good portion were released to interested and contributing cryptographers rather than big money that could already harness mining farms. There appears to be a distinct number of coins mined by a differently-coded "bare minimum" heartbeat miner run by Satoshi during early days that have never been spend and I feel never will be spent as he only seems to have spent coins made by the normal Bitcoin client.

I know that story as well, found it fascinating but does not concern me.

[deepceleron]

My apologies for naming trolls, but you seem so convinced of conspiracy that you are willing to make allegations without understanding. Dozens if not hundreds of coders have made contributions to Bitcoin and understand how it works, nothing that you postulate here could have gone unnoticed.

The link https://blockchain.info/nl/charts/difficulty?showDataPoints=false&timespan=all&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1&scale=0&format=csv&address=  - it shows wrong information. It fails to calcuate the "average daily difficulty" on days when there are no blocks mined. A correct answer would be "not applicable".

The difficulty is set at 1 in the genesis block, and is recalculated every 2016 blocks to maintain an average block finding rate of 2016 blocks in two weeks (six per hour). Difficulty 1 is the minimum allowed in code. A block hash must start with 0x00000000h or smaller at difficulty 1.

Here you can see the difficulty setting at every re-evaluation block:
http://blockexplorer.com/q/nethash/2016

Block 32256 is the first where the difficulty increased, to 1.18 - it is the first evaluation period where 2016 blocks took less than two weeks.


Here's one of the screenshots from early bitcoin that Satoshi used in documentation. It has addresses and transactions that are not seen in the release blockchain, but notably the dates are the same as the genesis block. The blockchain height is 213 blocks at that time though, so this may even be a chain using a genesis block before the Times headline. It is certainly expected that Bitcoin was tested privately in many iterations before it was released, with much discarded private mining.


Don't put more money into any investment than you can lose. Bitcoin will keep working, but there's no guarantees of what others will pay you for one.

[freebit13]

I don't think it would be possible to store coins "off-chain" and then add them in later. Each new block contains the hash of the previous block so all coins can be traced back to their generation.

Those "off-chain" coins would not appear anywhere on the current blockchain so any transactions referencing them would not be accepted by the network.

[mayax]

these things are the only concerns for me to not put the remaining of my life savings into bitcoin.

Only these things?! Please do not put your remaining life savings into bitcoin... Please.

Lol, a newbie giving advice Good one.

are you an expert or what? have you discovered the internet in 2009 and you are a "legendary hero"? lol

Expert in misleading the people that the Bitcoin shit is a very good investment ?

Do not keep your money in BTC.

Play how much you can afford to lose. BTC world is "owned" by a gang , called "exchangers" (look o their shareholders and you will see that all of them are connected).

They need new fools to put money in their shit. These exchangers have connections in media (paying many so called reporters) and they are making a buzz about how great is Bitcoin.

BTC = up to 200K active users and around of 700K overall. It's NOTHING compared with any other e-currency which btw, didn't have a such media.

Yes, take advantage of it(if you can), speculate it and nothing more. Keep you money in other investments, don't be a child to believe all you read. There are many fanatics, BTC evangelists who will even say BTC is my God just because they earn few pennies.

 People not rooted in reality (aka shills) seem to never want to argue the true points of bitcoin and its pitfalls, while only acknowledging and hyping it's positives, completely dismissing any sound feedback (and ironically, labeling any voices of reason as 'trolls' or 'bears.') 

[neurotypical]

It's not a problem.

Thank you for your deatailed answer, now I'm ready to put my life savings into bitcoin.

We may never know what happened nor why... I assume the first was as bitcoin was aimed at being a financial instrument away from centralization and that was something at the time involving centralized financial institutions?

Yes, I agree, but the date is not so unique because the newspaper item could have been planned days/weeks/months in front.

You see there were 5 days where Satoshi turned off his mining machine.
What could have been the reason for that?

Nobody knows (except of himself)
May be there was a bug in early code.
After fixing it Satoshi was forced to restart mining from some checkpoint in past.

Yes, it could have been a bug. I did not think about that before.
But what could be the problem with the zero difiiculty days? I mean, the chain is still broken. There must be some concern.

But it's not really a problem. The only problem is not being aware of Bitcoin back then to mine shit loads effortlessly. It's physically painful.

[KankaTwenty]

Do not keep your money in BTC.

Play how much you can afford to lose.

My hero 

[runpaint]

Expert in misleading the people that the Bitcoin shit is a very good investment ?

Do not keep your money in BTC.

Play how much you can afford to lose. BTC world is "owned" by a gang , called "exchangers" (look o their shareholders and you will see that all of them are connected).

They need new fools to put money in their shit. These exchangers have connections in media (paying many so called reporters) and they are making a buzz about how great is Bitcoin.

BTC = up to 200K active users and around of 700K overall. It's NOTHING compared with any other e-currency which btw, didn't have a such media.

Yes, take advantage of it(if you can), speculate it and nothing more. Keep you money in other investments, don't be a child to believe all you read. There are many fanatics, BTC evangelists who will even say BTC is my God just because they earn few pennies.

 People not rooted in reality (aka shills) seem to never want to argue the true points of bitcoin and its pitfalls, while only acknowledging and hyping it's positives, completely dismissing any sound feedback (and ironically, labeling any voices of reason as 'trolls' or 'bears.') 

You're one of those guys who makes huge 100% profits by taking money from these fools!  They think Bitcoin is a great investment, so they bought your bitcoins for 2 cents when you only paid 1 cent!  Haha, you're laughing all the way to the bank with your $200.00 profit, while these idiots hold the Bitcoin shit and sell it for millions. 

They don't know about the "gang" of 100,000 exchangers who are just cheating them.  When this gang of exchangers grows to 100 million people, each with .1 bitcoin, imagine how worthless the bitcoin shit will be then!  Ha ha, they will wish they had sold it for 2 cents like you did!  Unfortunately, most people are not as smart as you.

[amaclin]

...When this gang of exchangers grows to 100 million people...

What? The number of bitcoiners is much smaller and decreasing.
There will be no 100 million. There will be no even one million. Bitcoin era will finish in few months.
Unfortunately, people will move to another financial pyramid.

[BitCoinNutJob]

I've been reading about bitcoin on a daily basis for the last two years and these things are the only concerns for me to not put the remaining of my life savings into bitcoin.

just buy a little bit and diversify the rest... dont worry about the concerns they've been thought of before by thousands of very intelligent people, its no problem.

[amaclin]

just buy a little bit and diversify the rest... dont worry about the concerns they've been thought of before by thousands of very intelligent people, its no problem.

The question is: how to distinguish intelligent people from all others?
The answer: intelligent people have a paid advertisment in their signatures on forum

[Mr. Burns]

No I did not see fluctuations in my wallet.
I still got the same amount of bitcoins stored there. Well, not exactly true, I bought some additional so it's slightly more.
Try to stop comparing everything to the dollar. It's bitcoin which is stable and the dollar which is unstable.

"It's bitcoin which is stable and the dollar which is unstable."

Which has a direct impact on the VALUE of a coin, in any currency..

It doesn't matter how unstable it is, all other currency are affected by one another, decreasing the value of a coin, for now.

Sure maybe in 6 months you will be laughing at me when it's back up to $900, but when it's not? And its $20?

The only time I convert between FIAT and bitcoin is when I want additional bitcoin.
I don't sell them bitcoins back for fiat.
I only spend bitcoin for goods and services.

And of course, there are times you can better hold or buy additional than to spend them.
Bitcoin supply is pretty stable because human interaction is minimized.
FIAT supply is horrible because you're dependent on (evil) people who control the supply.
Gold is better than fiat but you can't spend that shit through a wire.

Think as you wish, I would still not put LIFE SAVINGS into btc.

What would u rather line your house with shiny gold objects, or the future of money.  Think.

[runpaint]

just buy a little bit and diversify the rest... dont worry about the concerns they've been thought of before by thousands of very intelligent people, its no problem.

The question is: how to distinguish intelligent people from all others?
The answer: intelligent people have a paid advertisment in their signatures on forum

My signature space is worth more to me than what they're paying.  I decline that money so that I can buy credibility in this community, because people will know that I'm not just selling something.  But they can also send me a little btc to my address, if they want.  And if I share something or teach something that helps another member here earn a lot of money, he might show his thanks with a lot more money than those advertisements are paying.

[amaclin]

runpaint, my words were written not for you
(I agree with everything in your message. I just do not use <sarcasm> tag writting my opinion)

[runpaint]

runpaint, my words were written not for you
(I agree with everything in your message. I just do not use <sarcasm> tag writting my opinion)

Oh shit did I just go asperger?  I'm spending too much time on this message board, I might turn into a programmer