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My Linux Rig posted:But the network has warehouses full of ASICs doing trillions of hashes a second for a network that only accepts 3 to 7 new ones per second by design. Does that mean that old transactions have trillions of confirmations attached to them, and if not, then what's happening to the rest of the hashes? Are they just being thrown away? Basically it's not really a hash per transaction. It's repeating a problem over and over until something says "Ok, this is the one I want" and then it's one block, one confirmation. Then if this block ends up under another block however many sextillion useless actions later, then ta-daa, it's the second confirmation! And so on. There are only a few hundred thousand or so blocks in existence, so do the math. Then, since this is averaged out by design to one block every ten minutes, there's a definite cap on how much can be done even in an optimal situation.
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Mar 4, 2016 03:38
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Leperflesh posted:Bitcoins don't actually exist. Instead, the transaction ledger says " X address contains exactly 4.38743 bitcoins." Every time a transaction is made, 100% of those bitcoins must be transferred: but, you can split them, so you can send a portion to one address and the rest (your "change") to another. If you give the address containing your "payment" to the person you're paying, they now control that address, and thus, the value the ledger says it contains, in Bitcoins. quote:Nah, fraud and debasement are two different problems. The problem of debasement is twofold: on an individual transaction level, the money you're being paid has been backed with a commodity, but the amount of commodity in the coin itself is indeterminate. A country with rampant coinage debasement will experience severe inflation as confidence in the value of each unit of currency falls. (But it also implies that you have a commodity-backed currency, which is worse for important economic reasons than a fiat currency.) I agree, but in this case the fraud is enabled by and emergent from the design of the currency; if someone defrauds me by shorting me on a bitcoin payment they are using a property of bitcoin to scam me, which would make me less likely to want to accept transactions in bitcoins. While the crime is different, the result of the crime looks more like the result of currency debasement than of fraud.
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Mar 4, 2016 04:00
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I had to design a 5 9 availability solution for a customer. You know how much money that takes? I want more than that out of my currency system.
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Mar 4, 2016 04:03
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akulanization posted:I'm pretty sure that mining is transaction processing It is and it isn't. Transactions can only be included on the blockchain by mining, but the miners get to choose which transactions (if any) are included in any block that they discover. They can choose to not include any transactions, and that's fine. If you include a fee with your transaction, then that goes to the miner and they'll be more likely to include your transaction, but if they don't think that the fee is large enough or if they have some other reason to mine empty blocks then your transaction might just sit there in the mempool until it times out So while mining is the only way to include transactions on the blockchain, miners can still choose to not do any transaction processing at all
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Mar 4, 2016 04:39
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Also (from the green thread) there's either some fuckery going on with a 50% attack or BitBet is preparing to pull an exit scamInShaneee posted:this is beautiful:
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Mar 4, 2016 04:46
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QuarkJets posted:Also (from the green thread) there's either some fuckery going on with a 50% attack or BitBet is preparing to pull an exit scam They should pay in cash.
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Mar 4, 2016 04:55
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Dreddout posted:Nice Orion's Arms art. I found it funny. Those guys are cartoons.
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Mar 4, 2016 05:40
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I saw a Bitcoin ATM today and I laughed at it and took a picture.
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Mar 4, 2016 05:45
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Capntastic posted:I found it funny. Those guys are cartoons. TYVM for validating my existence. 
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Mar 4, 2016 06:40
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I think the biggest shortcoming of bitcoin is that all the altcoins that followed never really tried to improve on it's mistakes. They're all tweaks of some parameters - use this busywork function that GPUs are bad at, change the transaction rate or per-block payout. They're still fundamentally a flood-fill model to a write-once ledger, and that's the part that doesn't scale. There's better ways to do it, but nobody has even tried, it's all off-chain stuff designed to accumulate butts to be either stolen or embezzled. There's neat ideas I'd love to see people check them out - a tree-based ledger allowing proof of your balance to someone while neither of you share anything more than the common root. Something better than the flood-fill mess so that an attempt to spend would atomically succeed or fail due to double-spending. Actual interesting solutions to hard problems rather than yet another escrow scam.
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Mar 4, 2016 08:51
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revmoo, don't leave yet. Tell us more about how revolutionary Bitcoin is and how it's so innovative in comparison to currently existing technologies.
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Mar 4, 2016 08:55
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Xelkelvos posted:revmoo, don't leave yet. Tell us more about how revolutionary Bitcoin is and how it's so innovative in comparison to currently existing technologies. Have no fear, it won't be too long before another buttcoin true believer pops in, makes a few posts defending the butts, and then fucks off out of the thread shortly after. I think they take it in shifts, so that there's always someone available to put up the same tired old arguments in bitcoin's defense, no matter how many times they get effortlessly shot down.
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Mar 4, 2016 11:27
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revmoo posted:Assuming Bitcoin didn't exist, a white paper describing the technology would certainly be at the level of an Ivy League computer science thesis. I've only seen the 2nd white paper, but it was definitely some post-grad level thinking for bitcoiners 2nd Bitcoin white paper posted:Please consult your financial adviser before investing in ANY wild scheme such as this (hint: they will it went over a lot of peoples heads I guess
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Mar 4, 2016 14:15
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Syd Midnight posted:it went over a lot of peoples heads I guess I'M SORRY I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE THOUGHTS OF BEING AN INSTANT BILLIONAIRE IN SIX MONTHS TIME FOR HOLDING ONTO MY BUTTS NOW EXCUSE ME SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET AND I MUST GO.
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Mar 4, 2016 14:40
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There can only be X bitcoins and the worldwide economy is worth Y, so when everything is running on bitcoins they will each be worth Y/X. This is unassailable logic, and everyone should buy in while they can.
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Mar 4, 2016 14:53
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#cantstopthebot except on tuesdays at 10am ~timing is everything~
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Mar 4, 2016 14:54
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Syd Midnight posted:I've only seen the 2nd white paper, but it was definitely some post-grad level thinking for bitcoiners Everyone knows the first version of something is the best one, everything after that is just bloat. #actualthingsbitcoinershavesaid
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Mar 4, 2016 15:19
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Harik posted:I think the biggest shortcoming of bitcoin is that all the altcoins that followed never really tried to improve on it's mistakes. They're all tweaks of some parameters - use this busywork function that GPUs are bad at, change the transaction rate or per-block payout. Bitcoin XT was exactly this. Read the article in the OP.
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Mar 4, 2016 15:27
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Y'all overshot in tearing into Revmoo. Yes, he's wrong, but understandably so. Bitcoin IS an impressive piece of technology, there's no question. Satoshi built something impressive. He built it out of existing parts, but he put them together in a unique way, and did so cleverly. He foresaw a lot of the potential exploits, and came up with solutions internal to the protocol that deal with them. That being said, he missed a bunch of things, and he was an idiot when it comes to economics. Bitcoin was created to solve a problem that doesn't exist (government being able to have a monetary policy). He didn't think about GPUs, let alone ASICs, leading to special investment being needed to mine. He ignored the transactions per second problem for later. He missed that effectively 51% attacks could be performed with only 30% of mining power. He treated irreversibility as a feature, not a problem. Bitcoin is fundamentally flawed - but MOSTLY from a sociological point of view, not a technical one. To use an example I've used several times before, Bitcoin is as if I built a cannon that fired pigeons into my crotch at 100 mph, but somehow kept the pigeon completely safe from harm. It would be impressive that I even managed to build such an incredible device (how do the pigeons survive?), but it wouldn't change the fact that what the machine accomplished was a bad idea in the first place, and I'd have to be an idiot to turn it on. Secondly, it is completely understandable to misunderstand the impact "blockchain technology" is having on the financial industry, because to get why it isn't, you have to know that those pitching it are lying. Lying lying lying! They're using Merkle Trees to store information, which is a long standing concept in cryptography, and calling it "the blockchain". There is literally no part of Satoshi's innovations going into these solutions, but they're claiming them for marketing purposes. It isn't Revmoo's fault he doesn't know that, please don't be a dick.
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Mar 4, 2016 15:40
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my friend make much coins farming and selling litecoins in his shed real quik it was a fun summer project
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Mar 4, 2016 15:43
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Germstore posted:There can only be X bitcoins and the worldwide economy is worth Y, so when everything is running on bitcoins they will each be worth Y/X. This is unassailable logic, and everyone should buy in while they can. Yes. And there is no way on earth, no way that if Butts became the standard on Earth, no way at all that a government will just take them from me. They will definitely sit back and let me become richer than sectors of the economy, and will just kneel down and do whatever my fedora stained hands command them to.
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Mar 4, 2016 15:59
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The "there are only X number of Bitcoins ever but that doesn't matter because it's infinitely divisible" argument doesn't make sense to me. It would (theoretically) have value relative to goods and services, so unless those goods and services go down in price then it doesn't help?
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Mar 4, 2016 16:15
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WhyteRyce posted:The "there are only X number of Bitcoins ever but that doesn't matter because it's infinitely divisible" argument doesn't make sense to me. It would (theoretically) have value relative to goods and services, so unless those goods and services go down in price then it doesn't help? This is basically dreaming about how it will become the dominant global currency, therefore it will still function when 1 bitcoin is worth 10 million dollars.
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Mar 4, 2016 16:17
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WhyteRyce posted:The "there are only X number of Bitcoins ever but that doesn't matter because it's infinitely divisible" argument doesn't make sense to me. It would (theoretically) have value relative to goods and services, so unless those goods and services go down in price then it doesn't help? In the future, yoctobuts computer bux will be your families fortune.
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Mar 4, 2016 16:26
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WhyteRyce posted:The "there are only X number of Bitcoins ever but that doesn't matter because it's infinitely divisible" argument doesn't make sense to me. It would (theoretically) have value relative to goods and services, so unless those goods and services go down in price then it doesn't help? Here son, goto the store and get a loaf of bread, a stick of butter, and a jug of milk. Here's 0.000000000001 Ron Paul Funbuxs, get yourself some sweets with the change.
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Mar 4, 2016 16:29
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Syd Midnight posted:Please consult your financial adviser before investing in ANY wild scheme such as this (hint: they will Only the true messiah denies his divinity!!
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Mar 4, 2016 16:59
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Isn't it even worse than that, though, because of the rounding system or something? I thought it wasn't realistically divisible past a certain point?
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Mar 4, 2016 17:00
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Scientastic posted:Isn't it even worse than that, though, because of the rounding system or something? I thought it wasn't realistically divisible past a certain point? eh, they can always just use int64 or int128 or whatever. There's not really much of a limit on that Of course, that would require getting all miners to switch over to a new update, which traditionally has been a HUGE DEAL that almost destroyed the ecosystem every time.
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Mar 4, 2016 17:03
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I don't know what's better about this, the fact that nobody's doing anything on this or the emulator's sound glitching out every minute or so (probably because the computer is eating up all its cycles mining butts)
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Mar 4, 2016 19:41
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No one's sent anything for like 16 hours? I wish this was even a fraction as popular as twitch plays pokemon so it would DDOS bitcoin.
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Mar 4, 2016 19:47
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Germstore posted:No one's sent anything for like 16 hours? I wish this was even a fraction as popular as twitch plays pokemon so it would DDOS bitcoin. I remember when Twitch Plays Pokemon was going strong, and everyone was commenting that it would be so much better if you had to pay for every button press.
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Mar 4, 2016 19:54
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quote:Bitcoin IS an impressive piece of technology, there's no question. theflyingorc posted:He ignored the transactions per second problem for later.
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Mar 4, 2016 20:00
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jre posted:The question is what do you find impressive about it? It doesn't solve any practical or even theoretical problem. Its an interesting toy to play with but it doesn't actually do anything useful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVdqwD_bcPs&t=66s Pretending that Satoshi isn't a bright designer who had some neat programmatic solutions is silly. It doesn't mean that Bitcoin is good, but it IS a pretty impressive design. quote:No, he didn't ignore it, it's unsolvable without centralisation which defeats the whole point of bitcoin. If you increase the block size the network bandwidth requirements become impossible for anyone without a huge pipe in a dc. If you decrease the block generation time you will get repeated hard forks.
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Mar 4, 2016 20:32
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Germstore posted:No one's sent anything for like 16 hours? I wish this was even a fraction as popular as twitch plays pokemon so it would DDOS bitcoin. This is like a science experiment to show how BItcoin works in reality. Like remember the nerdgasm bitcoiners had when you could bit-tip each other for comment posts and such? "Oh my good man, have a 0.0000000000001 for that cracking retort on why Sonic is superior!" "Thank you sir, have a fedorashi back, 0.000000000001". Then they realized that they are just losing money and one day that will be worth $100000000000000000.
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Mar 4, 2016 21:08
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theflyingorc posted:The same reason I find watching this video entertaining. I think maybe you guys are just arguing semantics now. I'm not impressed by software that has the equivalent processing power of a GameBoy but evolves into a state where it takes the total electricity output of Ireland to operate. It might be more accurate to call it "interesting". It's interesting that someone took a Merkle Tree and then jammed in proof of work as a means of arriving at consensus, but arguing that it's "genius" or "impressive" or even "innovative" I think is a mistake. But it's really just semantics at this point and I think that we're all actually on the same page: bitcoin is not really that useful to the vast majority of people but it is a novel thing where some people have found specific use-cases for it The Peewee Herman breakfast machine is an apt comparison, as I'd describe it as interesting but not really "impressive". And while you and I agree that it's a novel machine that is really just fun to watch operate (like any Rube Goldberg device), bitcoiners would argue that it revolutionizes breakfast-making and that any day now every household in the world will have one of them. QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Mar 4, 2016 |
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Mar 4, 2016 21:10
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Dr Cheeto posted:Bitcoin XT was exactly this. Read the article in the OP. Bitcoin XT was none of this, with an added dash of "You don't need the block chain, just trust unverifiable information you request from hostile peer2peer nodes". List of dumb poo poo: * blockchain, but bigger. Hello 1tb just to participate. * Request a "ledger" from P2P that but have way of determining if it's complete or even accurate. * double-spend broadcasts which will inevitably completely flood the network with notifications and be filtered out everywhere, making them useless. * "thin blocks" is what block transfers should have been in the first place - just the TXN ids in order so if your peer already has them they can just flesh it out themselves. * No plans to fix the requirement that we burn 4000 tons of coal each day in busywork. Like, I fully support XT, because the sheer amount of stupid decisions they've made that enable ever-more hilarious hijinks to occur means the value of comedy can only go up Up UP. They're doubling-down on the mistakes made and trying to apply bandaids to fix them. There are people out there who've come up with ideas to actually solve some of the problem bitcoin has. Thing is, they don't typically work in bitcoin because it's stupid. Modern distributed filesystems work with syncronizing b-trees over many machines. The guys behind freenet came up with a system where emergent network behavior determines where the authoritative location of data is, decided by the people who connect to you - meaning no matter how many machines you control if your algorithm comes up with a different answer than the rest of the network, it will look there instead. As far as the energy cost - that's due to the winner-take-all approach and big payout for finding a "block". If bitcoin has demonstrated one thing, it's that exponentially scaling arms races of busywork are a bad plan. Push forward research on distributed consensus - that's an insanely useful topic, and cryptocurrency is a notoriously hostile playground - perfect to prove your algorithm works. theflyingorc posted:They're using Merkle Trees to store information, which is a long standing concept in cryptography, and calling it "the blockchain". Jesus christ, thank you. I know the concept, I've even used it, but I could not loving remember the name of it. The blockchain is like an inbred merkle tree - it works the same way, but only has one branch. Harik fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Mar 5, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 08:34
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Is there a master list of bitcoin problems / misconceptions / woos that exists somewhere? I'd really like to get very good at dissing bitcoin- i know some people who are ape over it and i don't understand what they think it does they just say these weird phrases that don't seem to reflect the technology at all and think it's inherently some sort of revolutionary thing but i don't see how it could even have any use in the best case scenario
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Mar 5, 2016 08:57
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Bitcoiners only have two things to say about bitcoin. When the value goes up they talk about how smart they are and when the value goes down they talk about how dumb everyone else is.
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Mar 5, 2016 09:06
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COOLGUY TRUE posted:Is there a master list of bitcoin problems / misconceptions / woos that exists somewhere? I'd really like to get very good at dissing bitcoin- i know some people who are ape over it and i don't understand what they think it does they just say these weird phrases that don't seem to reflect the technology at all and think it's inherently some sort of revolutionary thing but i don't see how it could even have any use in the best case scenario http://brokenlibrarian.org/bitcoin/ is always a good start.
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Mar 5, 2016 09:46
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revmoo posted:Some of the new stuff that's being explored, like using a blockchain system to store contracts for example, is incredibly compelling from a CS viewpoint. Why would I prefer to not store my contract in a filing cabinet and instead store it in a system where someone with power over that system can mess around with it? Leperflesh posted:The fundamental problem with Bitcoins - more fundamental than the flaws in its technology or implementation - is that it presumes that Fixed, I think? My Linux Rig posted:But the network has warehouses full of ASICs doing trillions of hashes a second for a network that only accepts 3 to 7 new ones per second by design. Does that mean that old transactions have trillions of confirmations attached to them, and if not, then what's happening to the rest of the hashes? Are they just being thrown away? That's the Proof Of Work bit - wasting energy. Think about it like this: right now, you can post on these forums as much as you want and it doesn't cost you anything per post. The thing that stops everyone spamming the forums and making them useless is that we have moderators. But bitcoin is trustless - they wouldn't want to appoint moderators who could decide what was right and what was wrong (ignore the fact that they essentially have developers and forum/reddit admins who are in those positions). They'd want forums that didn't need any human intervention, so they'd need to come up with a way that a computer could verify that you weren't spamming. One option would be to charge you per post. But what to charge? If you charge too little, then rich people can still spam. If you charge too much, then you destroy the bitcoin dream of "microtransactions" where you're only moving tiny amounts of currency. So charging isn't the solution. Just to throw an idea out there, how about every time you post, you need to include a certificate saying you just donated a pint of blood? You can only donate so much blood in so much time so that would certainly limit your posting rate. However, if you're rich you could just get some slaves and make them donate their blood, and now you can spam the network. Bitcoin is similarly flawed. Satoshi (pbuh) decided that to add a block to the chain, you need to prove that your computer did some work which would take any computer a bit of time to do, so your computer couldn't just spew out blocks constantly (or at least not ones that the rest of the network would accept). That work was some hashing - guessing inputs to a hash function such that the output contains a certain length of bits set to zero. There are two problems here: you get a bunch of bitcoins as a reward for adding a block to the chain - supposedly because you're supporting the network - so people have the incentive to mine just to get those coins even if they don't give a poo poo about the network, and also that work you have to do can be sped up by throwing lots of equipment and electricity at it, so once again if you're richer than all the other people trying to add blocks to the chain, you'll get to do it more of the time. I guess if there wasn't a reward for adding a block to the chain, you'd still have some people with an incentive to engage in an arms race - people who want their transactions to go through faster or want to mess with other people's transactions or something. If you took the reward away now it would anger all the miners and they'd shut down their warehouses and we'd have the "frisbee on the roof" scenario where it takes a very long time for the mining difficulty to adjust back to the point where it once again takes an average of around 10 minutes to guess the inputs to the hash function. I don't know what the solution is. Maybe there's no solution and bitcoin is hosed? Whatever happens I'm sure there will be lols.
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