Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies Arvind Narayanan, Joseph Bonneau, Edward Felten, Andrew Miller, Steven Goldfeder with a preface by Jeremy Clark Draft — Feb 9, 2016 https://d28rh4a8wq0iu5.cloudfront.net/bitcointech/readings/princeton_bitcoin_book.pdf?a=1 Feedback welcome! Email bitcoinbook@lists.cs.princeton.edu About the authors Arvind Narayanan(Ph.D. 2009) is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Princeton. Narayanan leads the Princeton Web Transparency and Accountability project that aims to uncover how companies are collecting and using our personal information. He also leads a research group studying the security, anonymity, and stability of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. His doctoral research showed that data anonymization is broken in fundamental ways, for which he jointly received the 2008 Privacy Enhancing Technologies Award. You can follow him on: https://twitter.com/random_walker Joseph Bonneauis a Technology Fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Postdoctoral Researcher at Stanford. In addition to researching Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies he has worked on passwords and web authentication, secure messaging tools, and HTTPS for secure web browsing. He received a PhD from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Ross Anderson and an MS from Stanford under the supervision of Dan Boneh. Earlier he was as a Postdoctoral Fellow at CITP, Princeton and he has previously worked at Google, Yahoo, and Cryptography Research Inc. Edward W. Feltenis a Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton, and the founding Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. In 2011‐12 he served as the first Chief Technologist at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. His research interests include computer security and privacy, and technology law and policy. He has published more than 100 papers in the research literature, and two books. His research on topics such as Internet security, privacy, copyright and copy protection, and electronic voting has been covered extensively in the popular press. Andrew Milleris a computer science PhD student at the University of Maryland, and previously received his M.S. degree from the University of Central Florida. He has studied cryptocurrencies since 2011, and has authored scholarly papers on a wide range of original research, including new proof‐of‐work puzzle constructions, programming languages for block chain data structures, and peer‐to‐peer network measurement and simulation techniques. He is an Associate Director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3) at Cornell and an advisor to the zcash project. Steven Goldfederis a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University, advised by Arvind Narayanan. He is a member of the Security & Privacy Research Group, a CITP Graduate Student Fellow, and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. His research interests include cryptography, security, and privacy, especially decentralized digital currencies. His current work involves increasing the security of Bitcoin wallets. Jeremy Clarkis an Assistant Professor at the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering in Montreal. He received his PhD from the University of Waterloo in 2011, where he applied cryptography to designing and deploying verifiable voting systems, including Scantegrity — the first use of an end‐to‐end verifiable system in a public sector election. He became interested in Bitcoin in 2010 and published one of the first academic papers in the area. Beyond research, he has worked with several municipalities on voting technology and testified to the Canadian Senate on Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto
Bitcoin's nightmare scenario has come to pass. Bitcoin's nightmare scenario has come to pass. The network's capacity to process transactions has maxed out. Over the last year and a half a number of prominent voices in the Bitcoin community have been warning that the system needed to make fundamental changes to its core software code to avoid being overwhelmed by the continued growth of Bitcoin transactions. There was strong disagreement within the community, however, about how to solve this problem, or if the problem would ever materialize. This week the dire predictions came to pass, as the network reached its capacity, causing transactions around the world to be massively delayed, and in some cases to fail completely. The average time to confirm a transaction has ballooned from 10 minutes to 43 minutes. http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/2/11146584/bitcoin-core-classic-debate-transaction-limit-crisis https://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/890069-bitcoins-nightmare-scenario-has-come-to-pass Satoshi Nakamoto
After all these years with Bitcoins, I still don't understand the logic behind their value. Why would wealth (money) be created by getting a computer to do complex calculations that are of no use to anybody? It seems to me, the only reason Bitcoins have value is because...they have value.
And the difference to for instance Euro is? 'Value' is created by supply and demand, it is a virtual value it has no fixed relation. This applies to any goods/currency/share...the value of one loaf of bread is 2.80€ as soon as one pays 2.80€ for it.
Lol, paying cash is also not traceable, except one records the event...the question is: Has a payment or transaction to be traceable at all? Once my money has been tax paid I can buy without others have to know what it is.
Cash is hard to track, here in the U.S. we can buy dairy queen ice cream cones and fast food with a debit card. I can recall back in the early 2000's when I first heard of bitcoins and they were selling for $1. I wish that I would have bought a thousand of them
Hey everyone! I just thought about reviving this thread, because I find cryptocurrencies fascinating, especially bitcoin (BTC). Many interesting things are happening at the moment (SegWit2x) and BTC is skyrocketing ... https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/ -> 4155 USD right now. http://miningbitcoin.blogspot.de/2017/08/bitcoin-4000-why-and-how-it-happened.html There is one really important rule to keep in mind when it comes to BTC or any other crypto currency: don't spend more than you can afford to lose. Bitcoin has been a roller coaster in past times. And of course: always educate yourself. Read, read, read... lots of sources, get different opinions and be sure to know not only about the "currency" part of crypto currency but also about crypto It's not like a bank you trust to store your money safely. You are almost solely responsible for your own (moneys) safety. There is a lot to discuss, about currencies in general, about markets... why things have a "value" at all, what could happen to bitcoin or all other crypto currencies (even this term is heavily discussed), how to keep things safe and secure etc. etc. Let's see, maybe we can move this thread to Serious Discussion one day. For now, just some links from my collection. Please be aware, I don't want to guide you in any direction or say one trading site or wallet is better than another. Educate yourself and find your way to do things. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/ /r/bitcoin FAQ: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6jlop4/rbitcoin_faq_newcomers_please_read/ https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/ /r/btc https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5wwznc/please_read_our_frequently_asked_questions_faq/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin_uncensored/ r/bitcoin_uncensored Bitcoin Calculator: https://www.coindesk.com/calculator/ Bitcoin Wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page Blogs and news sites: https://www.coindesk.com/ http://blog.genesis-mining.com/ https://99bitcoins.com/ Trading: https://www.kraken.com/ https://poloniex.com/ https://www.bitfinex.com/ Blockchain explorers: https://blockchair.com/ Bitcoin fork monitor: https://www.btcforkmonitor.info/ https://www.xbt.eu/ A very good wallet: Electrum: https://electrum.org/#home Always keep control of your private keys, personally I wouldn't leave them in an online wallet! Of course there is not only Electrum, but also a big variety of other wallets: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Ways_to_store_Bitcoins https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Securing_your_wallet https://www.coindesk.com/information/how-to-store-your-bitcoins/ https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Ways_to_store_Bitcoins Cheers, ancestor PS: I like their humor https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6tchop/everyone_please_be_careful/ (also an important message in the first post!) https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6tckn3/new_logo_proposal/
Hi ancestor(v) very interesting post I know realy what you tell because here in Brazil is where frauds occur frequently so I believe that is very important for all peoples know too then after I can see each website for catch more info and thanks for the heads up
Many US ISPs are blocking bitcoin ports. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3j5pdj/att_has_effectively_banned_bitcoin_nodes_by/ https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/isps-intentionally-blocking-bitcoin/ and https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/11/evil_isps_could_disrupt_bitcoins_blockchain/
No wonder... many cry for regulation: http://crypto-insider.com/bitcoin-needs-regulations-for-further-growth/ http://crypto-insider.com/digital-currencies-need-regulation/ Don't get me wrong, I'm not contra regulation per se, but what we definitely don't need is regulation (i.e. control) of any crypto currency as some big banks want to have it. Bitcoin has become so big, it would be delusional to believe it's some real people's money without any bank background or no control at all. Where there is a lot of money, the greed for more money will go. I am really fond of crypto currencies, but for me it's a dilemma, yet to be unsolvable, that there are some big (mining) companies that really get rich in the process. In the end, it's a small group of people having a lot of money, whilst the majority only has fractions of these sums. As always, money shifts to the "rich" side. Even Bitcoin won't change that. But still it's a good chance to somehow revolutionize the money system and not being dependet on big banks. If you discuss with people, you often hear the argument that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. But what really has value? http://crypto-insider.com/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-value/ https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-value-neither-does-a-dollar1-bill/ https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-value-but-neither-does-fiat-opinion One interesting question for the future: http://crypto-insider.com/all-21-million-bitcoins-will-be-mined-what-is-next/
I've got my first bitcoins in the year 2013. I paid around 65 bucks in average. The concept of crypto currency fascinated me. That time I've downloaded the entire blockchain to my PC. (original bitcoin client) I sold some and exchanged some..I also paid for a service where you could download mp3s for a good price (recently they got expensive there as well) I am interested in any tech details also. The latest fascinating event had been the so called hard fork. But I separated the altcoins from the bitcoins and exchanged them to bitcoins again. IMHO bitcoin cash has no future. The concept of crypto currency is a good one, though. ATM I use an Electrum wallet. It can be configured to use TOR or any other proxy. I'll keep the rest of my BTCs just for the sake of curiosity and to be 'a part' of it. I don't use them as an investment....
That same statement can be made about any currency, including precious metals. What value does the dollar have? The banks prop up the dollar and give it "perceived value".
That is absolutely true. I've replied here to a similar context. 'Value' is a virtual idea, or with other words. 'Things' don't have any value per se...or things have got the value I personally assign to them temporarily. In this regard one might consider how 'value' changes during time. For instance. You buy a new smartphone. At the moment when it comes to a deal you give x bucks away and you get a smartphone in return. At that moment (only) its virtual value is X bucks.... Then consider how your 'relation' to the phone and own idea changes during time......to determinate its 'real' value I would have to know when.....and how. Also a price label doesn't determine a value.
@Yen: As a virtual idea, value can be a great motivator of society. That 2.80 euro loaf of bread can motivate bakers to come up with more efficient processes for mass production, effectively driving the price down. And as more competitors emerge, the price of bread shrinks further. The result: The consumer benefits. Back to crypto coins. One problem is to get the people to trust it. The only reason why we trust the banks is because of something called the FDIC. (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) See here: https://www.fdic.gov/ The banks are backed by the US Government. for crypto coins to become mainstream in the USA, they will need to be insured by the government. Here's a scenario why that will probably not happen: You borrow money in the form of crypto coins from a non-US merchant. They offer a rate which is above the usury limit of the place in the US where you live. How does US law apply? And how would the lender enforce the loan agreement? It's a slippery slope: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/usury-laws.asp There are many scenarios regarding their day to day transactions with crypto coins that need to be thought out.