Topic: Merit source application (French local board) (Read 1108 times)

I know posts in French aren't always easy to understand since most people here don't speak French (or like you, a few years a long time ago), but I don't often go to the English-speaking part of the forum, even if there's a lot more posts.

Well, my French is a little rusty (3 years of school, more than 20 years of forgetting), so it was really tough going over part of your post history.
Nevertheless, from your posts I conclude that you're probably "the right stuff".
Give it some time, though.

Also, here's some extra merit for you to rank up and also to have some smerit for distribution

Please take my comments as constructive criticism.

Following your logic, you don't know what you're talking about and your opinion is worthless.  

Thanks for your feedback! I understand your point of view. I know the Member rank is a little bit low for a Merit source application and I put a few words about it in the OP.
I hope I could rank up to Full Member pretty soon, even if it's still not ideal it would be better (again, earning 150 more Merits to become Sr Member with only one source for dozens of members seems quite difficult).

Your comment about two or three lines posts is very relevant. Even if I don't think the posts I selected are "re-iterating the same things" or "summarizing obvious things", I agree with the fact that I didn't choose enough short valuable posts.
So challenge accepted, I will try that (but I will also include 3 or 4 lines posts, that's still very short).
I just need to mention that, like in the OP, these posts will be in French too.

I see a lot of people quoting looong threads when they apply to be a merit source.

A post doesn't need to be long to be valuable, some posts are just long and re-iterating the same things posted on this forum for years or just summarizing obvious things.

I would challenge all merit applicants to find 5 posts that are 2 lines long and are merit worthy.

--------------------

Going back to your application, it's good that people want to step up and help make a local forum more active by distributing more merit, but I would still want to see a more established user being assigned as merit source.
You may think you already know a lot but the thing is you simply don't.

A more established user, in my opinion, would be at least Sr. Member.

You may think you already know a lot but the thing is you simply don't.

A more established user, in my opinion, would be at least Sr. Member.

~snip~

using Google Translator and meriting a few posts from another language when it was clear that they were HQ.

Except it's in french. So there's no interest to do this. Our moderator see them and the others merit source don't speak our language.

Giving some HQ posts a chance of getting merit? Sometimes the merit sources miss a good post, so putting a few of them in a single post makes their life easier while helping the good users getting a few merits.

Sorry but I don't get the point of doing that...

Here is my suggestion, collect the posts which you think deserve some merits and post them by including them in a thread on off-topic board and ask some merit sources to bookmark your thread and visit it every few days.

I guess so too. Even our Merit Source applicant from Philippines local board doesn't have any updates yet from Admins. Since Admins are too busy, they will still need to take a review at the applicant's post history and application thread if it will pass the requirements which is also a lot of work to do.

Anyhow, let's just leave the work in our Admins and be patient to keep updated for any updates. That's the best thing that applicant and supporters can do for now.

Well OP, also wishing you luck. You're the first Merit Source in French local board as well the first member ranked Merit Source if you get accepted.

is going to be more 3 to 4 month to what i have seen so far, in general we sure need more sources in the local sections.

I don't speak English, but +1 for F2b.

I don't speak English, but +1 for F2b.

Brace yourself in waiting for at least a month or two. It will take some time to get approved and I am surprised that a Member Rank is applying to become a Merit Source which is quite unusual. Also don't even try to merit someone's reply just because he/she supported your application, that will become another issue.

is going to be more 3 to 4 month to what i have seen so far, in general we sure need more sources in the local sections.

In any case good luck with your application, you may as well be the first Member that will become a source.  

Brace yourself in waiting for at least a month or two. It will take some time to get approved and I am surprised that a Member Rank is applying to become a Merit Source which is quite unusual. Also don't even try to merit someone's reply just because he/she supported your application, that will become another issue.

1. Be a somewhat established member.

2. Collect TEN posts written in the last couple of months by other people that have not received nearly enough merit for how good they are, and post quotes for them all in a new Meta thread. The point of this is to demonstrate your ability to give out merit usefully.

This statement is the root of your confusion.
Bitcoin does not have an account model -- like a bank -- but a UTXO model (like cash)
Think of every bitcoin payment (output) a wallet  receives as a distinct cash bill.
So a wallet is a collection of "bills" (i.e output), so there's no way that Alice and Bob can share a wallet securely, but assuming for the sake of discussion that they have the same wallet.dat file or mnemonic seed phrase corresponding to the ownership of certain UTXOs worth 500 BTC
Whatever happens depends on if the 500 BTC is in 1 UTXO or split in many UTXOs , and the amount being spent.
(continuing the analogy, it depends if the 500 BTC is in one 500 currency note or split in many eg $50 bills.)

Since Alice spends ALL the UTXOs, Bob CANNOT spend the same UTXOs again, as other nodes in the network will reject it as they already have a conflicting transaction in their mempool.
Note that there  is no global pool, but each node has its own mempool, so it's  possible that both conflicting transactions spending  the same UTXO get  propagated.Only ONE of them CAN be added to a block.
Even though Alice's transaction went to miner A and he added it to his candidate block and is trying to find the target, while Bob's transaction went to miner B who also adds it to his candidate block, eventually one of them will find a valid block and whichever transaction is included in the block is the valid one, and the other transaction is rendered invalid and CANNOT be added to the blockchain again.
So if it was Alice's transaction that was mined, Bob's transaction is no longer valid and can't be mined; if it was Bob's transaction that was mined, Alice's transaction is invalid and can no longer be mined.
The blockchain is the arbiter and its decision is final.
Block explorers get their information from full nodes.
If , for example, Blockchain.info's node(s) first saw Alice's transaction when she broadcast it, it will display the transaction as unconfirmed, and it WILL NOT accept Bob's transaction since Alice's transaction spends the same UTXO, and so it will only show Alice's.
If Blockchair saw Bob's transaction first, it will not accept Alice's transaction, and will show Bob's transaction as unconfirmed.
When one transaction is finally included in a block, whichever node contained the invalid transaction will discard it in favour of the mined one.

Imagine a rare case where miner A above mined Alice's transaction, while miner B simultaneously mined Bob's transaction.
Both blocks are valid, and there are 2 competing blocks..whichever block is mined on becomes the Prefered block because it has the most proof of work.
If the block containing Bob's transaction is mined on by other miners then the block containing Alice's transaction will eventually be orphaned by other nodes and Bob's transaction is the valid one.
You answered your question yourself.
For merchants selling expensive goods, they have to wait for a certain number of blocks to be sure that the transaction that pays them won't be overwritten by a longer block with more proof for work.
6 confirmations is commonly but more expensive items can call for more confirmations eg 144 blocks (1 day)

The other one is dropped.

Hi together,

I'm an IT-student and writing a thesis about atomic swaps on BTC and BTC-like blockchains. For the thesis I decided to use BTC, LTC, BCH and DCR. These chains have a somehow similar codebase and the same scripting language (I'm not a professional, so there might be differences, but they are not that serious). And they all have a high enough marketcap to be relevant for atomic swaps.
So the goal of the thesis is to find hashed timelock contracts (HTLCs) and connect matching HTLCs from different chains to get the atomic swap. Therefore I first searched the web for anything on atomic swaps [1] and analyzed the input script of this transaction [2] to get a basic understanding how atomic swaps work and what they look like.
Then I wrote a go program to search for any script longer than simple P2PKH scripts. This gave me a list of many different scripts which I analyzed by hand to only take the HTLC ones. (Besides many multisig scripts, there is not much to find on BTC^^)
At this point I found multiple different types of HTLCs as listed below. Afterwards I crawled* BTC again saving all transactions with HTLC scripts, storing the interesting data like tx-id, input value, pubKeyHashes, the secrets and their hashes. I found about one hundret HTLCs on BTC so far.
I did the same for LTC and found about 400 HTLCs.
As far as I understood, the secrets of HTLCs have to be the same on both chains. So I wrote another go program to match the found HTLCs from BTC and LTC and got around 30 matches. The next steps would then be to crawl BCH and DCR and also match the HTLCs found there.

* Crawling in this case means that I start to search the blockchain backwards (to get the newest first, the beginning years are not that interesting in this case^^) until the beginning of 2017. So about 18 months. As stated in [1] the first known atomic swap between BTC and LTC was made on 19th April 2017 (or April 19th 2017 or 19.4.2017 or whatever you like). So there is not much sense in crawling any further.

My questions now are the following:

• Why are there so many different types? Is it compatibility with other chains? Or what?
• What are the differences between these types (besides length and hashing algorithm)?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of these types?
• Why are there so many HTLCs on LTC and so few on BTC?
• Do you know other such HTLC scripts?
• Can you provide interesting resources on this topic?

I'm open to any constructive input and hope you have a few answers for me. Thank you in advance.

Type 1: sha256 secret, length=97byte

Type 2a: sha256 secret, length=94byte

Type 2b: sha256 secret, length=93byte

Type 3: ripemd160 secret, length=81byte

Type 4a: hash160 secret, length=86byte

Type 4b: hash160 secret, length=82byte

Type 5a: hash160 secret, length=81byte

Type 5b: hash160 secret, length=78byte

Type 6: hash160 secret, length=79byte

Type 7: multiple ripemd160 secrets, length=80 + n*23byte

Type 8: multiple ripemd160 secrets, length=81 + n*23byte

[1] http://www.cryptovibes.com/crypto-news/charlie-lees-atomic-swap-between-litecoin-and-bitcoin-was-a-success/
[2] https://insight.bitpay.com/tx/0bb5a53a9c7e84e2c45d6a46a7b72afc2feffb8826b9aeb3848699c6fd856480

My start with crypto/btc was that I invested a bit end of November last year. I had a few friends that told me about their small successes and how easy it was to just 'start'. It was indeed quite easy. I started to read and research into btc and every other relevant coin. Whitepapers, teams and such. Then I started to shift focus to the block chain, starting to get a grasp on what could be the future possibilities. I started to get real exited and invested some of my savings in a few projects with (to me) real potential. None of those projects appeared to be alive because of speculation only, mainly because they have a vision and actual plans.

So then I noticed that there are quite a few documentaries. I started to watch them all. A few from 2015, 2016 and 2017. I was disappointed to say the least. Everything was about bitcoin and the value/worth of bitcoin. It was about highs and lows, crashes and deceit. Only a few times the actual potential of the block chain was mentioned. Mostly it was about money.

Right now I am starting to feel like this is just a way to make money. Nothing more nothing less. You buy into btc or other coins and in no way are you really supporting the project, besides maybe adding to the order books at the exchanges with some minor effect until whales decided to take over. I sometimes have some sort of dishonest feeling, like the money I make through buying (and seldom) selling is somehow dirty as it comes from people that simply do less research, bail out or simply already had their take.

I started with high feelings of morality, being part of some new future where block chain would be the next internet. Right now it feels like a rat race where you have to grab as much money as possible before others take it before you or from you.

Not that I am ungrateful. I like many projects because of the team behind it that actually want to change the world. But if I look around me, it is mostly those that are in it to make money, a lot of money....and this money has to come from somewhere right (those that lose money)...

What is your take on this? Is this all a phase, part of how this game works?

    You know what op, my advice to you is to not think too much about things you know that you have never or can never ever really control like this one. Not that I am saying it is impossible for things to change around here in the crypto world, I am just saying that even if it is possible, it is on a point where it stands next to the line dividing impossible and possible. Now don't get me wrong, I completely agree with your point. In fact, I have been through the same conflict within my mind and still think that the way things work around here in the crypto world really sucks. But the thing is, I know that there is just nothing that I know of that I can do to make things better than what it already is today. Which is why I decided to adapt and take advantage of the opportunities while enjoying the innovation that cryptos bring to this modern world. Because let's face it, the world is too greedy to be good with things like this; if we do not adapt, we will get left behind. So, knowing ourselves, we can stay at ease because we know that we are not only in the game just because we want the money but the technology itself and the innovation it brings to our clearly outdated monetary system. Not to mention that there are thousands if not millions that are only in for the quick buck. So trust me man, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Just because you are earning(small or big) due to your hard work in studying how things work around here at the expense of others, doesn't mean that you are a bad person forgetting his morals. Because whether you like it or not, just like others you to have basic wants and needs that you need to satisfy or have.

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     But hey, for what it's worth, it already is a very big thing that you only choose to support projects that you think are really making a difference and are really honest with their goals in solving problems that are currently existing to help better the real world together with the other things in the virtual world. Hope this really does make you feel better and stop being too hard on yourself for the wrong reasons. Good luck with your crypto life man and good day.

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     Oh, and by the way, this message is not only intended for op himself but also for everyone who really does feel the same also. Thanks for reading and if you think it really helped you in any way, please do feel free to merit. It will be very much appreciated. (wink*)