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Topic: Bitcoin: The dream of Cypherpunks, libertarians and crypto-anarchists - page 3. (Read 3366 times)

legendary
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Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
After keeping the topic for 2 months in the Begginers&Help board, I'm moving it again to Bitcoin Discussion board, for more visibility.
legendary
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Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
Steven Levy, the author of the above mentioned Wired article, called them with a term impossible to translate in a foreign language: "techie-cum-civil libertarians".

Does anyone know how to say this expression with other words, thus it can be understood better by non-English speakers?
legendary
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Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
I just noticed that I received 1 merit from a very old forum member - Paperweight. While I'm glad that happened -- that such an old forum member found this writing of mine and considered it being qualitative, I am also happy to see that such an old forum member is still active. People like him are rare, very rare, as most of the old forum members (2009 - 2011 era) are not using the forum (or their old accounts?) anymore.
legendary
Activity: 3836
Merit: 4969
Doomed to see the future and unable to prevent it
The dream of Cypherpunks, libertarians and crypto-anarchists includes fungibility.

This below-linked podcast that came out today reminded me of this thread, in terms of talking about bitcoin precursors and the problems that were attempting to be solved in the lead up to bitcoin.

Unchained: Why Bitcoin Now: The History of Digital Currency - Ep.185

@17:00

https://overcast.fm/+LNqca2EDU/17:00
legendary
Activity: 3892
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Self-Custody is a right. Say no to"Non-custodial"
The dream of Cypherpunks, libertarians and crypto-anarchists includes fungibility.

This below-linked podcast that came out today reminded me of this thread, in terms of talking about bitcoin precursors and the problems that were attempting to be solved in the lead up to bitcoin.

Unchained: Why Bitcoin Now: The History of Digital Currency - Ep.185
legendary
Activity: 3836
Merit: 4969
Doomed to see the future and unable to prevent it
The dream of Cypherpunks, libertarians and crypto-anarchists includes fungibility.
hero member
Activity: 2268
Merit: 588
You own the pen
I think that changing the system is possible, if people wouldn't let the greed to rule them. To be more precise, instead of constantly exchanging BTC for fiat, use just BTC. If everybody would use only BTC, the govern would permanently be defeated and crypto-anarchy would flourish. But keeping the greed to a zero level is very, very hard.

Those guys have already planned everything from the start of every new revolution they always have some counter plan. they just have some hard time countering BTC no matter how they put negative news about it, there are some people who always trust bitcoin and the price is still remaining on top. I think this is the reason why they adopt it now instead of boycotting it in the mainstream. Since they cannot stop the popularity and the demand. Not all the time things are going according to plan there is always be a time like this where they're plan has failed to erase BTC from the people's mind.
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 6524
Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
I decided to move the topic for a while in the Beginners & Help section, as some of the users of this board may not visit also Bitcoin Discussion board. I think I'll move the topic from time to time between the two boards, in order for the thread to have the chance to be read by as many members as possible.
legendary
Activity: 3892
Merit: 11105
Self-Custody is a right. Say no to"Non-custodial"
There are NOT too many people who would recommend putting 100% in bitcoin or any other possible investment, and I tend to recommend people who have at least a 4-year investment timeline (preferably longer) to put 1% to 10% of their quasi-liquid investable assets into bitcoin...

Of course, each person has to tailor their investment, strategy and planning, whether we are talking about bitcoin or any other investment to their various personal circumstances that could also affect how they invest including whether they employ lump sum investment, dollar cost averaging, buying on dips or variations of such strategies to accumulate, maintain, liquidate.. depending on where they are at, in terms of their own specific circumstances including risk tolerance, cashflow, other investments, etc.

It's crazy just how many people actually think you have to diversify by buying MORE altcoins. Somewhere along the way, people lost their heads and forgot that putting Bitcoin as PART of your investment portfolio is your way of diversification, NOT putting it all in Bitcoin and then spreading it among altcoins.

I think the lack of financial education is what's the real problem here.

Sure, we probably do not learn those kinds of financial matters in school because of systematic desires for consumer and debt culture, even though some kinds of financial strategy matters can be learned too, including if adults were to learn to live within their means and to incorporate some kind of savings/investment practices.

So, if young adults begin to attempt to save 10% of their income, then after a while the 10% begins to add up, and they might thereafter begin to learn how to invest, too.... and then realize that diversification of investments should be across different kinds of asset classes, and that is one of the problems with attempting to diversify within crypto when almost every single non-bitcoin crypto seems to be largely dependent upon the performance of bitcoin - so does not seem to be adding much value to actually include some other crypto - except maybe for gambling purposes... or maybe having some inside information that could cause pumpening (which also could end up blowing up too, if not getting in and out at the right time).
legendary
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There are NOT too many people who would recommend putting 100% in bitcoin or any other possible investment, and I tend to recommend people who have at least a 4-year investment timeline (preferably longer) to put 1% to 10% of their quasi-liquid investable assets into bitcoin...

Of course, each person has to tailor their investment, strategy and planning, whether we are talking about bitcoin or any other investment to their various personal circumstances that could also affect how they invest including whether they employ lump sum investment, dollar cost averaging, buying on dips or variations of such strategies to accumulate, maintain, liquidate.. depending on where they are at, in terms of their own specific circumstances including risk tolerance, cashflow, other investments, etc.

It's crazy just how many people actually think you have to diversify by buying MORE altcoins. Somewhere along the way, people lost their heads and forgot that putting Bitcoin as PART of your investment portfolio is your way of diversification, NOT putting it all in Bitcoin and then spreading it among altcoins.

I think the lack of financial education is what's the real problem here.
legendary
Activity: 3892
Merit: 11105
Self-Custody is a right. Say no to"Non-custodial"
Seriously, if I can keep all my money in Bitcoin I would have done that by now, just that I am having problem with the volatility of Bitcoin. I prefer all these new age digital banking than the banks that we used to use before. But it’s not possible for me to keep my money in Bitcoin, the price can go down at any time, I just invest and save little bucks in it that wouldn’t get me worried if they should drop.

Banks are really doing things that are frustrating people these days, and I am starting to not like them. Although I’m also worried that Bitcoin is not 100% anonymous and won’t give us complete privacy, and I don’t like Monero.

There are NOT too many people who would recommend putting 100% in bitcoin or any other possible investment, and I tend to recommend people who have at least a 4-year investment timeline (preferably longer) to put 1% to 10% of their quasi-liquid investable assets into bitcoin...

Of course, each person has to tailor their investment, strategy and planning, whether we are talking about bitcoin or any other investment to their various personal circumstances that could also affect how they invest including whether they employ lump sum investment, dollar cost averaging, buying on dips or variations of such strategies to accumulate, maintain, liquidate.. depending on where they are at, in terms of their own specific circumstances including risk tolerance, cashflow, other investments, etc.
full member
Activity: 1162
Merit: 168
Seriously, if I can keep all my money in Bitcoin I would have done that by now, just that I am having problem with the volatility of Bitcoin. I prefer all these new age digital banking than the banks that we used to use before. But it’s not possible for me to keep my money in Bitcoin, the price can go down at any time, I just invest and save little bucks in it that wouldn’t get me worried if they should drop.

Banks are really doing things that are frustrating people these days, and I am starting to not like them. Although I’m also worried that Bitcoin is not 100% anonymous and won’t give us complete privacy, and I don’t like Monero.
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 6524
Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
I am not unsatisfied with your various answers and explanations, but I had been hoping for a kind of short explanation that presents the matter in a kind of layman way.. It could be that I am kind of looking for a chart to show features of various previous systems to show which features each of them have and to see that bitcoin has many of the same features, but maybe even more.

With apologies for the late reply, I present you a sort of a chart, hoping this is what you asked Smiley I had to spend a lot of time to imagine to to place all this information in a proper manner and the below picture is the best my (limited) imagination could come up with. If there is anyone which has a better idea, I can offer the information from the picture in an editable form. In order to create this chart I used Excel and then I saved the selection as a picture, but I still have the Excel file if anyone needs it.

Please let me know if this form is what you needed.

legendary
Activity: 3892
Merit: 11105
Self-Custody is a right. Say no to"Non-custodial"
I understand what you are asking, but I don't know about the existence of such chart... I also don't know anything about the existence of such comparison. I'll try to make a comparison, although it will not be easy Smiley But it will be a text-based one, as I'm not too good with charts Smiley They require imagination and mine is pretty limited lol. But after I'll make the comparison, maybe you or someone else could try also to create a chart.

It will take a while though, as I have to find the proper words for explaining everything. As far as I know this is an uncharted territory, as this thing was never made before Therefore I will try to be very cautious, in order to describe the differences between Bitcoin and its ancestors in a vivid manner.

Thanks for considering my questions, GazetaBitcoin.

I surely do not want to cause you to engage in any additional work that you are reluctant to do unless you are interested in such possible way of looking at the matter (in a kind of heuristic, pun intended... Anticipating: I know the spelling is different  Roll Eyes Roll Eyes), and I was just mentioning how I had thought about the matter in my head.

A chart might not end up being very complicated, but could cause the matter to be more easily seen, and I am not the greatest at making charts, either... but such a hypothetical chart might merely contain the various predecessor currencies including bitcoin on the top horizontal header line, and then a list of various features across the left side, and then check marks (or other kinds of marks) regarding if such features had existed in predecessors and if they exist in bitcoin (or used to exist in bitcoin or came into existence later in bitcoin).

I was thinking about something like the chart that is contained in the password manager comparison page linked below, even though I have seen some comparison charts that would go into more detail, maybe even about software, even though I don't have any examples of such charts in front of me at the moment.

https://www.password-pros.com/visitsite?gclid=Cj0KCQjwo6D4BRDgARIsAA6uN1_aWevEojPURfz8XXgy7Hs7vGFm6_2Oua8ufTqXg0Ne29eTk64sCg4aAoHYEALw_wcB


It will take a while though, as I have to find the proper words for explaining everything.

JJG can certainly help you there! Wink

I usually prefer to create 27 words where 18 words would have done just fine, so that tends to be my inclination.   Wink   hahahahaha

i think you left a zero (maybe two) out

270 when 18 will do seems more accurate

Well...........


after a bit of deliberation.....



I am going to plea the 5th....



Under-the-breath Disclaimer (statement against interest):  This subject matter does not seem to be going in the direction that I had previously hoped.  Cry
legendary
Activity: 3892
Merit: 11105
Self-Custody is a right. Say no to"Non-custodial"
It will take a while though, as I have to find the proper words for explaining everything.

JJG can certainly help you there! Wink

I usually prefer to create 27 words where 18 words would have done just fine, so that tends to be my inclination.   Wink   hahahahaha
legendary
Activity: 3836
Merit: 4969
Doomed to see the future and unable to prevent it
It will take a while though, as I have to find the proper words for explaining everything.

JJG can certainly help you there! Wink
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 6524
Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
I understand what you are asking, but I don't know about the existence of such chart... I also don't know anything about the existence of such comparison. I'll try to make a comparison, although it will not be easy Smiley But it will be a text-based one, as I'm not too good with charts Smiley They require imagination and mine is pretty limited lol. But after I'll make the comparison, maybe you or someone else could try also to create a chart.

It will take a while though, as I have to find the proper words for explaining everything. As far as I know this is an uncharted territory, as this thing was never made before Therefore I will try to be very cautious, in order to describe the differences between Bitcoin and its ancestors in a vivid manner.
legendary
Activity: 3892
Merit: 11105
Self-Custody is a right. Say no to"Non-custodial"
There could be a better thread for my question, yet I would like to raise a question that came into my head while I was reading OP, which I understood attempted to suggest both an ideological underpinning to bitcoin that was achieved through technological progressions and/or improvements to what ended up being bitcoin.

So, when you described b-money in OP, you suggested that it seemed to have a lot of bitcoin's attributes but it was both subject to sybil attacks, but also suffered from the problem of NOT being coded or implemented.  Bit Gold was also subject to sybil attacks, and I am suspecting that the network of proof of work was not decentralized enough in bitgold so it ended up having potential  hashpower manipulation vulnerabilities?

A question came in my thinking regarding what aspects of bitcoin exactly helped bitcoin to overcome the deficiencies of b money and Bit Gold? [...]

I am coming back on this question, and this time I'm going to explain it also using Satoshi's own words, as maybe my own explanation was not clear enough.
...........

Please let me know if my previous explanation plus these quotes explained properly the question.

I am not unsatisfied with your various answers and explanations, but I had been hoping for a kind of short explanation that presents the matter in a kind of layman way.. It could be that I am kind of looking for a chart to show features of various previous systems to show which features each of them have and to see that bitcoin has many of the same features, but maybe even more.  I wonder if such a chart might already exist?

Frequently i hear that with bitcoin, satoshi did not really invent anything new, but instead satoshi was able to combine a lot of different prior inventions and technologies in such a way that no one else had done previously.. so maybe there were not too many new things within bitcoin, but just the implementation and combination of what had largely already existed in one form or another, but there also is a bit of genius in terms of applying those technologies together.. and especially, for example, I had heard of the two week difficulty adjustment as being one of those very powerful mechanisms that might not really had existed in prior systems, so maybe difficulty adjustment every two weeks is not any kind of powerful invention, but it really makes bitcoin powerful in terms of how the difficulty adjustment is applied (and creates incentives).. within the context of other bitcoin features.  

So, maybe there is no real short explanation to what I had been attempting to ask that makes sense when delving into some of the technicalities for what bitcoin fixed at the time of bitcoin's launch and how it was fixed and whether we even knew that certain bitcoin technical features were a fix at the time of launch versus finding out later after bitcoin went live for a while, and then ONLY realize that the bitcoin plane had to be fixed further while it was flying because there were problems with the original set up that needed to be fixed....

If we are mostly trying to figure out what was put into place upon bitcoin's launch rather than how it might have changed after launch, maybe even a synopsis regarding both the deficiencies of certain earlier proposed money systems that bitcoin fixed.  Although, I don't believe that a chart would limit bitcoin development towards only at launch, because some features would have been added to bitcoin at a later date.. or maybe even removed from bitcoin at a later date.. but still could be shown in a chart.

Something like the below, but maybe not everything would need to be in the chart because once the features are shown, then the question of bitcoin fixing it may or may not need to be added to the chart because there are likely variations to the features too, both at the time of bitcoin's launch and down the road:

b-money -  had this, this and this feature and defects, and bitcoin fixed this this and this through these mechanisms

bitgold had this this and this feature and defects, and bitcoin fixed this, this and this through these mechanisms

hashcash had this, this and this feature and defects, and bitcoin fixed this this and this through these mechanisms

Bitcoin had this this and this feature, and maybe a chart would show if the features overlap and whether bitcoin has all of the features of the previous projects and even show if bitcoin chose not to implement some features that might have been present in some of the earlier projects.

Maybe my thinking is too narrow or I am merely a bad student, but summaries of features was kind of how I was thinking about the question when I originally asked it, so even though I got some further history and context for bitcoin's various features, and even though you did describe several of the changes/improvements, GazetaBitcoin, I am still not quite sure if I understand the answers to my question in a way that I could outline the answers in a summary form (to show that I actually learned the answers to my questions) about which projects bitcoin had built upon and fixed and how bitcoin fixed those earlier projects.
hero member
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I never thought that the creation of Bitcoin is a story as complex as any convincing spy story during the Cold war era. In my opinion, governments will continue to impose some semblance of control over its citizens and that this control will be used depending on the goals of those in power. There is a difference in making law abiding citizens and making those who wants to oppose the government because of their perceived oppression. Sometimes, in certain parts of the world, the ones who wants to fight for freedom are the ones supporting the government and in some areas, the big businesses are also the ones supporting the angry opponents of government. Very complex world we are living in.
legendary
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Fully-fledged Merit Cycler|Spambuster'23|Pie Baker
There could be a better thread for my question, yet I would like to raise a question that came into my head while I was reading OP, which I understood attempted to suggest both an ideological underpinning to bitcoin that was achieved through technological progressions and/or improvements to what ended up being bitcoin.

So, when you described b-money in OP, you suggested that it seemed to have a lot of bitcoin's attributes but it was both subject to sybil attacks, but also suffered from the problem of NOT being coded or implemented.  Bit Gold was also subject to sybil attacks, and I am suspecting that the network of proof of work was not decentralized enough in bitgold so it ended up having potential  hashpower manipulation vulnerabilities?

A question came in my thinking regarding what aspects of bitcoin exactly helped bitcoin to overcome the deficiencies of b money and Bit Gold? [...]

I am coming back on this question, and this time I'm going to explain it also using Satoshi's own words, as maybe my own explanation was not clear enough.

In an email from November 3rd, 2008, he explains the flaws of HashCash:

Quote
As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network, they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers.

But they don't.  Bad guys routinely control zombie farms of 100,000 machines or more.  People I know who run a blacklist of spam sending zombies tell me they often see a million new zombies a day.

This is the same reason that hashcash can't work on today's Internet -- the good guys have vastly less computational firepower than the bad guys.

The following is a list of his statements for solving the double spending problem.

For example, in a post on P2P Foundation website, he wrote the following:

Quote
Any owner could try to re-spend an already spent coin by signing it again to another owner. The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.

Bitcoin's solution is to use a peer-to-peer network to check for double-spending. In a nutshell, the network works like a distributed timestamp server, stamping the first transaction to spend a coin. It takes advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle. For details on how it works, see the design paper at http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

The result is a distributed system with no single point of failure. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of the P2P network to check for double-spending.

More details about the solution for the double spending can be found in the white paper and in the emails he sent on the cryptography mailing list. As an issue of note, it is very interesting that he referred to the author (himself) using the term "we", which suggest either that he used the royal plural or that he referred to a team working on Bitcoin. I didn't notice that before. I knew that it is debated if Satoshi was a person or a group of people, but seeing how he used the term "we" in the white paper suggests there was more than one person.

White paper quote:
Quote
We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network.  The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work.  The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU proof-of-worker.  As long as a majority of CPU proof-of-worker is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. [...]


In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions. The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU proof-of-worker than any cooperating group of attacker nodes. [...]

The problem of course is the payee can't verify that one of the owners did not double-spend the coin.  A common solution is to introduce a trusted central authority, or mint, that checks every transaction for double spending. After each transaction, the coin must be returned to the mint to issue a new coin, and only coins issued directly from the mint are trusted not to be double-spent.  The problem with this solution is that the fate of the entire money system depends on the company running the mint, with every transaction having to go through them, just like a bank. [...]

We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust.  We started with the usual framework of coins made from digital signatures, which provides strong control of ownership, but is incomplete without a way to prevent double-spending.  To solve this, we proposed a peer-to-peer network using proof-of-work to record a public history of transactions that quickly becomes computationally impractical for an attacker to change if honest nodes control a majority of CPU power.  The network is robust in its unstructured simplicity.  Nodes work all at once with little coordination.  They do not need to be identified, since messages are not routed to any particular place and only need to be delivered on a best effort basis.  Nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.  They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them.  Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism.

Email from November 2nd, 2008:

Quote
Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section 8 ) to check for double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or about 12KB per day.

Email from November 8th, 2008:

Quote
The attacker isn't adding blocks to the end.  He has to go back and redo the block his transaction is in and all the blocks after it, as well as any new blocks the network keeps adding to the end while he's doing that.  He's rewriting history.  Once his branch is longer, it becomes the new valid one.

Email from November 10th, 2008:

Quote
When there are multiple double-spent versions of the same transaction, one and only one will become valid.

Email from November 10th, 2008:

Quote
The guy who received the double-spend that became invalid never thought he had it in the first place. His software would have shown the transaction go from "unconfirmed" to "invalid". If necessary, the UI can be made to hide transactions until they're sufficiently deep in the block chain.

Email from November 11th, 2008:

Quote
The receiver of a payment must wait an hour or so before believing that it's valid. The network will resolve any possible double-spend races by then.

Email from November 14th, 2008:

Quote
There's no need for reporting of "proof of double spending" like that.  If the same chain contains both spends, then the block is invalid and rejected.  Same if a block didn't have enough proof-of-work.  That block is invalid and rejected. There's no need to circulate a report about it. Every node could see that and reject it before relaying it.

Email from November 14th, 2008:

Quote
We're not "on the lookout" for double spends to sound the alarm and catch the cheater.  We merely adjudicate which one of the spends is valid.  Receivers of transactions must wait a few blocks to make sure that resolution has had time to complete.  Would be cheaters can try and simultaneously double-spend all they want, and all they accomplish is that within a few blocks, one of the spends becomes valid and the others become invalid.  Any later double-spends are immediately rejected once there's already a spend in the main chain.

Email from November 15th, 2008:

Quote
The race is to spread your transaction on the network first.  Think 6 degrees of freedom -- it spreads exponentially. It would only take something like 2 minutes for a transaction to spread widely enough that a competitor starting late would have little chance of grabbing very many nodes before the first one is overtaking the whole network.  During those 2 minutes, the merchant's nodes can be watching for a double-spent transaction.  The double-spender would not be able to blast his alternate transaction out to the world without the merchant getting it, so he has to wait before starting.  If the real transaction reaches 90% and the double-spent tx reaches 10%, the double-spender only gets a 10% chance of not paying, and 90% chance his money gets spent.  For almost any type of goods, that's not going to be worth it for the scammer.



Please let me know if my previous explanation plus these quotes explained properly the question.
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