Talk:Bitcoin protocol

Bitcoin vs bitcoin

There's a larger discussion at Talk:Bitcoin#Capitalized or not?. The takeaway is to use capital Bitcoin when referring to the system, the software, and the network it runs on, and lowercase bitcoin for the currency itself. I'll make a pass through to standardize this in the article but please try to adhere to it moving forward. Chris Arnesen 14:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

$2499 USD each?

quote "The newest addition, ASICs, are built into devices that are specialized for Bitcoin mining and that sell for $2499 USD each." umm, dafuq? maybe that specic ASIC-thingy costs $2499 USD, but if you look at Butterfly Labs's ASIC's, prices range from 274$ for 5GH/s to 22484$ for a 500GH/s

.. until someone complains, ill remove that statement.. Divinity76 (talk) 20:03, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

What's 'block' what's 'blockchain'?

Can someone explain? This's a badly written article. It's hard to understand; it expects readers to know things which have no reference, like 'block', 'blockchain'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.214.173.74 (talk) 06:15, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, the article is incomprehensible, as most of the explanations start from the middle, often describing the solution to some problem that has not been mentioned. Example: "For the Bitcoin timestamp network, a valid "proof-of-work" is found by incrementing a nonce until a value is found that gives the block's hash ..." What block? No block has been mentioned. And how do the sections "Timestamps" and "Bitcoin mining" relate to each other? They both use the term "timestamp server" but otherwise seem unrelated.

It would nice if someone who knows the protocol could explain it for an audience that does not. It doesn't have to be in full detail; it just needs to be complete at whatever level of detail it chooses.

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 22:10, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

?

i do cryptography for classified systems - and yet I am clueless as to any value herein this article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.24.61.1 (talk) 19:49, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The majority of this article is copied word-for-word from Satoshi's original Bitcoin paper.

Is this allowed? It's not obvious to the reader that this article really is just a lazy copy + paste job from Satoshi's paper. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.200.189.221 (talk) 16:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I noticed that too. The article offends me more for its incomprehensibility than for its plagiarism. The Wiki at en.bitcoin.it does a better job of introducing the newbie to the technical details. That page is licensed as "do whatever you want with this text" so feel free to copy text from there to here to improve this article. Chris Arnesen 14:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Came here to point this out too. Large portions of this article are composed of full sentences or paragraphs copied directly from the Satoshi paper, with no indication to the reader that this is the case. The original paper is at https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf 173.79.229.22 (talk) 08:13, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

"Bitcoin protocol" vs "Bitcoin network"

An article named "Bitcoin protocol" should be about the Cryptographic protocol. The article Bitcoin protocol should be named "Bitcoin network" since it focuses on the function and interactions of Bitcoin clients and Bitcoin mining software. Do you agree? I'd like to make the change, and create a stub article "Bitcoin protocol" whose contents would eventually be something more like [1] (which, ironically, they've named "Network".)Chris Arnesen 02:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Paper wallet vendors

Article says, "Various vendors offer banknotes, coins and cards denominated in bitcoins. Bitcoin balance is bound to the private key printed on the banknote or embedded within the coin. Some of these instruments employ a tamper-evident seal that hides the private key. It is generally an insecure "cold storage" because one can't be sure that the producer of a banknote or a coin had destroyed the private key after the end of a printing process and doesn't preserve it. Tamper-evident seal in this case doesn't provide the needed level of security because the private key could be copied before the sealing was applied on a coin."

This is not a notable thing to mention. The reference for the paragraph is a single vendor's website. Please find a better reference or I'm going to remove it.Chris Arnesen 06:59, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Bitcoin wallet vs full client

Hi,

It would be nice if this article would more clearly distinguish the different types of bitcoin software. Specifically, after I read this article I am left wondering: Are there apps that mine bitcoins but that are not wallets? Are there apps which maintain a wallet but do not mine bitcoins?

Thanks 140.180.189.47 (talk) 16:44, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

File sharing

Why is this article "part of a series on file sharing"? It should be put under a more general category, like peer to peer networks. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:21, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I've wondered that myself. I'm guessing it's because the block chain is distributed by a technology similar to BitTorrent. The link is peripheral though and I'd support re-caterorizing it. Chris Arnesen 15:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Filling the wallet

The article seems very obscure on this point - like real money, I guess initially (ignoring speculative operations with borrowed money) one can only obtain bitcoins in exchange for legal tender or in exchange for work, and in reality 'mining' is no different from sub-contracting some service and issuing an invoice without the bother of paying taxes, thus avoiding the payment of one's debt to society and the maintenance of civilisation? Timpo (talk) 15:05, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Block erupter

can this bit of technology please be worked into the article? its not explained on Wikipedia. 107.0.208.243 (talk) 15:06, 23 June 2014 (UTC)--Wuerzele (talk) 03:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

How to get the public key from the private key?

The private key is a 256 bit random number AFAIK, right? How to create the public key from it? --RokerHRO (talk) 21:50, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes the private key is effectively a random number. Don't quote me on this, but I believe that with Elliptic_Curve_DSA, there's no way to derive the public key from the private key; they have to be generated at the same time. Chris Arnesen 00:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so the Documentation I found on https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_Bitcoin_addresses there is no explanation, how to create the public key from a given private key. :-( --RokerHRO (talk) 11:50, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't tell you how to do it simply because you can't do it, any more than you can create the private key if you know only the public key. They are created together. If either is lost, the other is then useless (well, in systems such as RSA you could recreate the pair if you knew the input numbers, but these are not generally stored for exactly that reason). See RSA algorithm for a good treatment of this, and Public-key cryptography for a more general treatment that may not be as easy to follow. Andrewa (talk) 07:58, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Recent edit replacing a youtube video from external sources

Hi all, recently I removed a youtube video from the external sources replacing it by a more reputable Khan Academy source. The reason is that Youtube videos generally are not reliable sources of information, while the Khan Academy's sources are much more reputable. I also checked a part of the video and found out it contained serious inaccuracies. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 17:06, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Serious inaccuracies? I’m very much interested in what inaccuracies you have found. Claims like this have to be substantiated with evidence. SyaWgnignahCehT (talk) 18:07, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I watched only the start, but once the speaker mentions that bitocoin is a "fiat" currency and knowing that for a currency to be fiat, it has to be declared as a legal tender, which bitcoin is not, etc. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 19:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

This is a direct quote from the video: “The numbers [i.e. bitcoins] only have value because we believe they have value just like any other fiat currency.” This was indeed a poor choice of words, because it implies that bitcoin is a fiat currency, which is not. To remove ambiguity is should have said “…just like with fiat currencies.” However, it is still a perfectly good video to explain how Bitcoin network works. If anyone wants to check it out and possibly reintroduce this link into the article, here it is: How Bitcoin Works I’m not going to push this anymore. SyaWgnignahCehT (talk) 20:28, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

To remove ambiguity is should have said “…just like with fiat currencies.” - funnily enough, bitcoin is not "just like fiat currencies". If it was, we would not discuss this. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 00:52, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I did not say that bitcoin is "just like fiat currencies". I merely stated that bitcoins only have value because we believe they have value, just like with fiat currencies. (As opposed to commodity money). I don’t really care if you see the difference, but I will not put up with you misquoting me. If you are so precise with words when criticizing a video, then the same standard should apply to you also. SyaWgnignahCehT (talk) 11:53, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

It looks that my previous text was not understandable, so here is a different explanation: the problem with stating that bitcoins only have value because people believe they have value just like with fiat currencies is that it is highly inaccurate. In the (already refuted) objective theory of value it can be easily seen that the sentence is false. In the generally accepted subjective theory of value it is not accurate either, since in it everything has value only because people believe it has value, so the sentence is misleading in the sense that it is trying to suggest that there is some special (actually nonexistent) similarity between bitcoin and fiat money. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 12:37, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

So, basically you are saying:

1. Everything has only a subjective value (e.g. I might want or need a product or service at a certain time and place, but maybe not at another time or place; other people might have different wants and needs).

2. Laws of supply and demand then determine how much I value (i.e. am willing to pay for) a certain product or service at a specific time and specific place.

3. Since value is subjective and always changing, things don’t have any inherent value.

4. Because there is no inherent value in things, everything has value only because people believe it has value.

I guess you could make a philosophical argument like this, but this is as insightful as saying that people are collections of different atoms. It has zero practical use in everyday life. For all practical purposes, commodity money, such as gold or silver, has some inherent value in the context of our civilization, because these metals also have industrial uses.

Bitcoin does not have any other use besides being a currency. Neither does fiat money. (Obviously there is some material substance to it – yes, you could start a fire with a banknote, or heat your home with a bitcoin mining rig – but this is trivial). SyaWgnignahCehT (talk) 16:39, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

This is an interesting discussion, and I do agree with your points #1 to #4. That said, I disagree with your formulation: "Bitcoin does not have any other use besides being a currency." That, in von Mises's terminology can be formulated as: "Bitcoin does not have any direct utility." If you are interested, we can discuss the issue privately (let me know at User_talk:Ladislav_Mecir, if you are interested), but the discussion got too far from discussing the contents of the Bitcoin network article, so I do not want to pollute this page. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 17:02, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Incorrect grammar in Payment Verification section

The first paragraph of the Payment Verification section reads:

"Upon receiving a new transaction a node must validate it: in particular, check if all transaction's inputs have not been spent yet. To carry out that check the node needs to access the blockchain. Any user, who don't want to trust his network neighbors, should keep a full local copy of the blockchain, because he can't know in advance, which inputs ought to be verified."

This doesn't seem to be written by someone fluent in English, and it has a lot of superfluous commas.

Cryptocurrency task force Invite

-- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 10:18, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Butterfly Labs

I just removed a photo of a machine from this company. They were shut down by FTC for scamming their customers. User analysis. Pashley (talk) 15:42, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Stiglitz' forecasts

The article currently contains Joseph Stiglitz' forecast that "If you open up a hole like bitcoin, then all the nefarious activity will go through that hole..." There are serious research articles containing data how much nefarious activity goes through bitcoin, and the research disproves this forecast. Namely,

• It has been confirmed by serious research that the ratio of nefarious activity is going down in time.
• It has been confirmed by serious sources that bitcoin is not best suited for nefarious activity due to its pseudonymous nature and the fact that all transactions are recorded in the blockchain.

Since the Stiglitz' claim is a forecast and since it is known to not describe an event that is almost sure to happen, it does not belong to the Wikipedia per WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:14, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

The article currently contains Joseph Stiglitz' forecast that "My feeling is when you regulate it so you couldn't engage in money laundering and all these other [crimes], there will be no demand for bitcoin". This is another forecast. It is again forecasting an event that is not almost sure to happen, since it has been confirmed by the sources cited in the same section that administration officials who testified at US Senate hearings stressed that bitcoin has legitimate uses and argued that no new regulations were needed to police illicit uses of the network. So, this Stiglitz' forecast again does not forecast an event that is almost sure to happen. For this reason, and per WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL, it does not belong to the Wikipedia. In general, the whole article cited to present Stiglitz' opinion is a forecast, and a particularly bad one, out of Stiglitz' expertise, since Stiglitz is not a criminalist expert. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:14, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Too many quotes, generally these should be summarized. Nothing especially notable that another member of the financial establishment doesn't like bitcoin, thus why the quote? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:49, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Data Structure

I believe there should be a picture for the bitcoin transaction/address graph. I have been using this figure in our research works, can we insert this to the article?

A transaction-address graph representation of the Bitcoin network. Addresses and transactions are shown with circles and rectangles, respectively. An edge indicates a transfer of coins. Blocks (not shown here) order transactions in time. The coins at address a6 are unspent

— Preceding unsigned comment added by CuneytAkcora (talk • contribs) 17:14, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi, and thank you for your suggestion. There already is a picture of the bitcoin transaction graph in the article. However, the picture present in the article does not mention bitcoin addresses. The picture present in the article also oversimplifies the structure of the transaction graph, depicting it as linear. On the other hand, the picture present in the article mentions the signatures and private keys, which are missing in your new picture. Do you think you could modify your picture to incorporate also the signatures and private keys? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 03:43, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

How do the nodes find each other?

This article tells a lot of the Bitcoin system, but not how the network itself works, e.g. how a just started node would find other Bitcoin nodes. --RokerHRO (talk) 20:41, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Iceland renewable energy production

Regarding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_network#Energy_sources_&_consumption

I noticed this sub-section incorrectly states that Iceland produces it's renewable energy (electricity) from geothermal when we actually produce the majority of our electricity from hydropower. Geothermal water boreholes are mostly used for supplying heating water to homes.

==Wiki Education assignment: Project Team Management== This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 2 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rosemary Simoes, Tmcoelho, Wikiwootiwoo, NG518 (article contribs).

Process sub-section

The subsection Bitcoin_network#Process cites no sources and seems to violate WP:NOTHOWTO. Any objection to simply removing it? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:18, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree, and I've removed it. —Alalch E. 23:15, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Point of this article?

I don't understand what this article is for. It looks like an ugly outdated (and a bit more technical) version of Bitcoin. I would be in favor of deleting it and redirecting to Bitcoin. We could maybe create Bitcoin mining and keep some content there as the section is well-developed section and the topic is notable (large media and press coverage, especially around environmental concerns and centralization issues). What do you think? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 14:47, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

The split was done in May 2013, per WP:TOOLONG. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 15:05, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I too have never understood the purpose of the Bitcoin Network article, thus I dont edit it much. Mining is subject of widespread press and coverage, the network is not. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 01:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

The split was initially done to Protocol of Bitcoin which might be a better name to describe in depth the technical details of Bitcoin. I'll first clean this article and see whether we can do something with it... a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:04, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I renamed it. @3df I think if you want to improve the design you could start here and add content about Sybil, malleability, reorganizations, merkle trees, etc. Then, we could summarize it in the main Bitcoin article. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:25, 25 November 2023 (UTC)