Topic: Bitcoin explained a little better (Hopefully) (Read 1240 times)
even Karl Denninger missed the point about the quite possible (fee!!) non-public = anon transactions
an important point, that should immediatley be stressed
I am really tired of reading the same poorly researched explanations about how Bitcoin works so I decided to make an attempt of explaining it in a detailed yet understandable way. I did this because I've often felt that the weusecoins video is a bit simplistic in its explanation. Additionally, I've always cringed when I read that bitcoin miners are solving some complex mathematical problem through the block generation process when its simply a brute force effort to find a hash value. As a result, I wanted to provide people with a real desire to understand Bitcoin another option. If some of you have a chance, I would appreciate it if you would provide me with some feedback. Hopefully this will help some get a better understanding of how Bitcoin works and will continue to be a work in progress with additional info to follow. Thanks.
http://monedial.com/index.php/en/2012-12-21-20-51-25/general-information-sites-about-bitcoin/how-are-bitcoins-created-what-is-bitcoin-mining
I created a somewhat more terse description at http://dataplumber.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-bitcoin-works-technical-discussion.htmlhttp://monedial.com/index.php/en/2012-12-21-20-51-25/general-information-sites-about-bitcoin/how-are-bitcoins-created-what-is-bitcoin-mining
I'll create an "Other Resources" section and link you
Mashrinx,
The audience that I am aiming for is that somewhere in between crowd that you referred to. The vast majority of information about Bitcoin available is crap. On one hand you have the ponzi scheme crowd and on the other, you have the "Bitcoin is backed by math/electricity" crowd. The detailed information that I hope to provide is for someone who wants some serious answers about how the Bitcoin network works before obtaining $10 to $20 thousand USD worth of bitcoin or more. Before people are willing to put serious money into Bitcoin or develop the infrastructure that Bitcoin needs and take it to the next level, a serious technical explanation is needed. "Dude, bitcoin is like digital gold" or a reference to the original white paper just isn't going to cut it.
The audience that I am aiming for is that somewhere in between crowd that you referred to. The vast majority of information about Bitcoin available is crap. On one hand you have the ponzi scheme crowd and on the other, you have the "Bitcoin is backed by math/electricity" crowd. The detailed information that I hope to provide is for someone who wants some serious answers about how the Bitcoin network works before obtaining $10 to $20 thousand USD worth of bitcoin or more. Before people are willing to put serious money into Bitcoin or develop the infrastructure that Bitcoin needs and take it to the next level, a serious technical explanation is needed. "Dude, bitcoin is like digital gold" or a reference to the original white paper just isn't going to cut it.
Bitcoin in short:
Energy IN
Anonymous transactions OUT
Energy IN
Anonymous transactions OUT
It is good but maybe you should stress it that you don't keep the bitcoins as digital documents or anything of that sort.
What you keep is the private key of a bitcoin address - that is like a password that will allow you to send bitcoins that your balance has.
What we usually call coins, at the protocol level, are simply the outputs of previous transactions that are unspent.
But it is much simpler to explain to say that bitcoins only exist as balances associated with a bitcoin adddress and that what you actually keep in your wallet are the private keys of the bitcoin addresses you own, and related data.
A bitcoin address is actually just a compressed and reduced form of the public key in such a pair, after cryptographic math to transform it into an alphanumeric string of only a few 33 or 34 alphanumeric characters, instead of a very long string of 520 bits. So in a way, you can think of a bitcoin address as the public key in such a cryptographic pair.
One way or another you should make it clear that it is the network that manages the bitcoins in existence and that basically you only keep private keys in your wallets that gives you ownership and access to them.
What you keep is the private key of a bitcoin address - that is like a password that will allow you to send bitcoins that your balance has.
What we usually call coins, at the protocol level, are simply the outputs of previous transactions that are unspent.
But it is much simpler to explain to say that bitcoins only exist as balances associated with a bitcoin adddress and that what you actually keep in your wallet are the private keys of the bitcoin addresses you own, and related data.
A bitcoin address is actually just a compressed and reduced form of the public key in such a pair, after cryptographic math to transform it into an alphanumeric string of only a few 33 or 34 alphanumeric characters, instead of a very long string of 520 bits. So in a way, you can think of a bitcoin address as the public key in such a cryptographic pair.
One way or another you should make it clear that it is the network that manages the bitcoins in existence and that basically you only keep private keys in your wallets that gives you ownership and access to them.
I started to read the article and part of the way through, found one typo as I did:
Typo: 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence: "respond" should be "respend"
and before I got too much further in, then the question occurred to me: Who is the intended audience?
Are you targeting this to prospective miners and people who would be more interested in the technical intricacies of Bitcoin, or people who may have never heard of Bitcoin before and are looking to get educated, or somewhere in-between?
I think the answer to this question will further guide the type of feedback you may receive. There is a lot of technical information here and as someone who has been mining (unfortunately only) since Jan 2012, I am looking forward to reading this fully when I am less tired and have a better attention span. That being said, if your audience is for anyone non-technical or interested, I fear you may lose them too early.
A boss that I worked with for many years helped me become much more terse and focused in my written communication. She would often say things like: "This is a good start. Remove the last 2 sentences of the first paragraph, delete the last two paragraphs and send it." When reviewing what she stated, I would re-read the sections she suggested removing and they were almost always either too technical for the audience or, more often, just unnecessary or overly verbose.
I hope this doesn't come across too critical. That is not my intention. Based upon the 'audience' question above, I'll be happy to provide additional feedback if you would like, and lastly, I appreciate the time and effort that it took to put this together. Thanks for your efforts.
Typo: 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence: "respond" should be "respend"
and before I got too much further in, then the question occurred to me: Who is the intended audience?
Are you targeting this to prospective miners and people who would be more interested in the technical intricacies of Bitcoin, or people who may have never heard of Bitcoin before and are looking to get educated, or somewhere in-between?
I think the answer to this question will further guide the type of feedback you may receive. There is a lot of technical information here and as someone who has been mining (unfortunately only) since Jan 2012, I am looking forward to reading this fully when I am less tired and have a better attention span. That being said, if your audience is for anyone non-technical or interested, I fear you may lose them too early.
A boss that I worked with for many years helped me become much more terse and focused in my written communication. She would often say things like: "This is a good start. Remove the last 2 sentences of the first paragraph, delete the last two paragraphs and send it." When reviewing what she stated, I would re-read the sections she suggested removing and they were almost always either too technical for the audience or, more often, just unnecessary or overly verbose.
I hope this doesn't come across too critical. That is not my intention. Based upon the 'audience' question above, I'll be happy to provide additional feedback if you would like, and lastly, I appreciate the time and effort that it took to put this together. Thanks for your efforts.
I am really tired of reading the same poorly researched explanations about how Bitcoin works so I decided to make an attempt of explaining it in a detailed yet understandable way. I did this because I've often felt that the weusecoins video is a bit simplistic in its explanation. Additionally, I've always cringed when I read that bitcoin miners are solving some complex mathematical problem through the block generation process when its simply a brute force effort to find a hash value. As a result, I wanted to provide people with a real desire to understand Bitcoin another option. If some of you have a chance, I would appreciate it if you would provide me with some feedback. Hopefully this will help some get a better understanding of how Bitcoin works and will continue to be a work in progress with additional info to follow. Thanks.
http://monedial.com/index.php/en/2012-12-21-20-51-25/general-information-sites-about-bitcoin/how-are-bitcoins-created-what-is-bitcoin-mining
http://monedial.com/index.php/en/2012-12-21-20-51-25/general-information-sites-about-bitcoin/how-are-bitcoins-created-what-is-bitcoin-mining
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