The 10 principles in Bitcoin | Bitcointalksearch.org

hazek

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Quote from: Technomage on January 14, 2013, 12:23:42 PM

I had some issues with the list at first but the improved version seems really good. I will probably translate this to Finnish at some point and add to our site.

It could be a good idea to put something like this to Wikipedia as well. Not sure if it would stick but it doesn't hurt to try.

I'm building my own site, that's what this is all about. I wasn't confident in the initial list so I decided to field test it and clearly it was a good decision

Technomage

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Affordable Physical Bitcoins - Denarium.com

I had some issues with the list at first but the improved version seems really good. I will probably translate this to Finnish at some point and add to our site.

It could be a good idea to put something like this to Wikipedia as well. Not sure if it would stick but it doesn't hurt to try.

notme

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Quote from: Johnathan on January 14, 2013, 10:25:47 AM

Quote from: hazek on January 14, 2013, 10:08:08 AM

I'm actually starting to lean heavily towards finite. I don't know but both predictable and the current consistent is way too loose for just how fixed Bitcoin's supply is.. what about soundness as a principle, wouldn't that fit Bitcoin very nicely?

Quote

soundness

sound
2 [sound] adjective, sound·er, sound·est, adverb.
adjective
1. free from injury, damage, defect, disease, etc.; in good condition; healthy; robust: a sound heart; a sound mind.
2. financially strong, secure, or reliable: a sound business; sound investments.
3. competent, sensible, or valid: sound judgment.
4. having no defect as to truth, justice, wisdom, or reason: sound advice.
5. of substantial or enduring character: sound moral values.

My only concern with 'finite' is, that while true, it has a subtle connotation of 'fixed'. The supply of bitcoin in circulation is only fixed after a very long time from now (but until then its growth rate is predictable

)

Regarding 'sound', that's a conclusion based on a judgement call, not an objective fact about bitcoin (much as I agree with all the above.)

As a mathematician, finite has no such connotation in my mind.

hazek

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Quote from: jamesg on January 14, 2013, 10:15:49 AM

Quote from: hazek on January 14, 2013, 10:08:08 AM

I'm actually starting to lean heavily towards finite.

fiat == infinite expansion possibilities
bitcoin == the exact opposite of infinite == finite limit of 21m

Hm gooood point! You convinced me and I'm going to change it.

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

It's cool to see threads like this where folks try to wrap their minds around reified notions. Some find ontological debates tedious. With Bitcoin, I find it fascinating. Money is man's greatest god and here we are writing his ten commandments. Cheesy

I would like to see this broken down into sections. One describing the mechanical attributes, one describing the practical social attributes, and a third describing the potential disruptive attributes.

Johnathan

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Quote from: hazek on January 14, 2013, 10:08:08 AM

I'm actually starting to lean heavily towards finite. I don't know but both predictable and the current consistent is way too loose for just how fixed Bitcoin's supply is.. what about soundness as a principle, wouldn't that fit Bitcoin very nicely?

Quote

soundness

sound
2 [sound] adjective, sound·er, sound·est, adverb.
adjective
1. free from injury, damage, defect, disease, etc.; in good condition; healthy; robust: a sound heart; a sound mind.
2. financially strong, secure, or reliable: a sound business; sound investments.
3. competent, sensible, or valid: sound judgment.
4. having no defect as to truth, justice, wisdom, or reason: sound advice.
5. of substantial or enduring character: sound moral values.

My only concern with 'finite' is, that while true, it has a subtle connotation of 'fixed'. The supply of bitcoin in circulation is only fixed after a very long time from now (but until then its growth rate is predictable

)

Regarding 'sound', that's a conclusion based on a judgement call, not an objective fact about bitcoin (much as I agree with all the above.)

jamesg

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AKA: gigavps

Quote from: hazek on January 14, 2013, 10:08:08 AM

I'm actually starting to lean heavily towards finite.

fiat == infinite expansion possibilities
bitcoin == the exact opposite of infinite == finite limit of 21m

hazek

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Quote from: Johnathan on January 14, 2013, 09:55:06 AM

Quote from: thoughtfan on January 14, 2013, 03:10:43 AM

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 13, 2013, 11:39:35 PM

it is pretty good. i still think determinate works better than consistency. Grin

...and after all the back and forths on it I'm convinced by finite now

I don't see where anyone has mentioned it before, but I would rather see 'predictable' used here. We know very closely how many BTC will exist at a certain point in the future. When people make the decision to convert fiat to bitcoin, to buy or sell goods and services in bitcoin, or to convert bitcoin back to fiat, they can be assured that bitcoins won't magically disappear, or that new ones won't be created at a rate not known ahead of time.

This property of 'predictability' derives from the distributed consensus of recorded transactions (blockchain) and the periodic adjustment of mining difficulty, and stands in stark contrast to fiat money supply.

Even physical metal-based money only loosely approximates this.

I'm actually starting to lean heavily towards finite. I don't know but both predictable and the current consistent is way too loose for just how fixed Bitcoin's supply is.. what about soundness as a principle, wouldn't that fit Bitcoin very nicely?

Quote

soundness

sound
2 [sound] adjective, sound·er, sound·est, adverb.
adjective
1. free from injury, damage, defect, disease, etc.; in good condition; healthy; robust: a sound heart; a sound mind.
2. financially strong, secure, or reliable: a sound business; sound investments.
3. competent, sensible, or valid: sound judgment.
4. having no defect as to truth, justice, wisdom, or reason: sound advice.
5. of substantial or enduring character: sound moral values.

Johnathan

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Quote from: thoughtfan on January 14, 2013, 03:10:43 AM

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 13, 2013, 11:39:35 PM

it is pretty good. i still think determinate works better than consistency. Grin

...and after all the back and forths on it I'm convinced by finite now

I don't see where anyone has mentioned it before, but I would rather see 'predictable' used here. We know very closely how many BTC will exist at a certain point in the future. When people make the decision to convert fiat to bitcoin, to buy or sell goods and services in bitcoin, or to convert bitcoin back to fiat, they can be assured that bitcoins won't magically disappear, or that new ones won't be created at a rate not known ahead of time.

This property of 'predictability' derives from the distributed consensus of recorded transactions (blockchain) and the periodic adjustment of mining difficulty, and stands in stark contrast to fiat money supply.

Even physical metal-based money only loosely approximates this.

hazek

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Quote from: thoughtfan on January 14, 2013, 03:10:43 AM

Quote from: cypherdoc on January 13, 2013, 11:39:35 PM

it is pretty good. i still think determinate works better than consistency. Grin

...and after all the back and forths on it I'm convinced by finite now

Hm....

hazek

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Quote from: Luno on January 14, 2013, 04:01:54 AM

We have Genesis in book form on how Satoshi thought the coin into existence.

So we are working on the ten commandmends now?

Will he send his son one day to save world economics, as we were mislead and thrown from nerd Eden?

It's a description not a prescription, obviously.

Luno

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We have Genesis in book form on how Satoshi thought the coin into existence.

So we are working on the ten commandmends now?

Will he send his son one day to save world economics, as we were mislead and thrown from nerd Eden?

thoughtfan

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Quote from: cypherdoc on January 13, 2013, 11:39:35 PM

it is pretty good. i still think determinate works better than consistency. Grin

...and after all the back and forths on it I'm convinced by finite now

cypherdoc

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it is pretty good. i still think determinate works better than consistency. Grin

21after2

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Quote from: hazek on January 13, 2013, 07:41:17 PM

Quote from: hazek on January 12, 2013, 06:38:29 PM

What would you say to the following list and descriptions of the principles Bitcoin is built upon:

consistency - the total supply of bitcoins to ever exist is forever arbitrarily limited and fixed
tangibility - issuing new bitcoins requires labor in the form of finding a specific tangible number as a solution to a specific cryptographic math problem
transparency - all Bitcoin transactions are public and forever stored in the blockchain for anyone to see
anonymity - all Bitcoin transaction are only between cryptographical pseudonyms without the need to have their true identity revealed
security - all confirmed Bitcoin transactions are with mathematical certainty irreversible, all bitcoins are with mathematical certainty non-counterfeitable
decentralization - Bitcoin has no central authority and is voluntarily run by consenting autonomous peers in a peer to peer network
self-ownership - only the owner of a pseudonym gets the password to spend his bitcoins in effect making them his property unless he chooses otherwise
integrity - all bitcoins are counted equally(are fungible), virtually can’t be frozen or blocked from being spent
practicality - Bitcoin works anywhere, for anyone, non-stop, and the protocol allows for many practical layers on top, just like email, http..
rationalism - the Bitcoin software is written under the MIT open source license and is not a logically inconsistent intellectual property of anyone but merely organized information everyone can use as they wish

Did I miss/too loosely describe anything?

So I've amended the list and made a few other improvements. I threw out scarcity and replaced it with consistency. I was debating between consistency and predictability and in the end decided that predictable doesn't quite capture the certainty of the fixed supply, soundness is also an option that I'm still considering. I changed the description of tangibility. I followed the advice given and replaced virtually with mathematically. Decentralization I felt needed a bit clearer description so I changed it. I replaced capitalism with a lot more politically neutral and philosophically clearer self-ownership.

I also found the 10th principle to round up the number of principles:

Looks pretty damn good. It could maybe be cleaned up a little bit, but the basic principles are good to go.

siesatsu

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+1

hazek

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Quote from: hazek on January 12, 2013, 06:38:29 PM

What would you say to the following list and descriptions of the principles Bitcoin is built upon:

consistency - the total supply of bitcoins to ever exist is forever arbitrarily limited and fixed
tangibility - issuing new bitcoins requires labor in the form of finding a specific tangible number as a solution to a specific cryptographic math problem
transparency - all Bitcoin transactions are public and forever stored in the blockchain for anyone to see
anonymity - all Bitcoin transaction are only between cryptographical pseudonyms without the need to have their true identity revealed
security - all confirmed Bitcoin transactions are with mathematical certainty irreversible, all bitcoins are with mathematical certainty non-counterfeitable
decentralization - Bitcoin has no central authority and is voluntarily run by consenting autonomous peers in a peer to peer network
self-ownership - only the owner of a pseudonym gets the password to spend his bitcoins in effect making them his property unless he chooses otherwise
integrity - all bitcoins are counted equally(are fungible), virtually can’t be frozen or blocked from being spent
practicality - Bitcoin works anywhere, for anyone, non-stop, and the protocol allows for many practical layers on top, just like email, http..
rationalism - the Bitcoin software is written under the MIT open source license and is not a logically inconsistent intellectual property of anyone but merely organized information everyone can use as they wish

Did I miss/too loosely describe anything?

So I've amended the list and made a few other improvements. I threw out scarcity and replaced it with consistency. I was debating between consistency and predictability and in the end decided that predictable doesn't quite capture the certainty of the fixed supply, soundness is also an option that I'm still considering. I changed the description of tangibility. I followed the advice given and replaced virtually with mathematically. Decentralization I felt needed a bit clearer description so I changed it. I replaced capitalism with a lot more politically neutral and philosophically clearer self-ownership.

I also found the 10th principle to round up the number of principles:

cypherdoc

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Quote from: jim618 on January 13, 2013, 06:46:59 AM

Good list of key Bitcoin properties.

If you don't like 'scarcity' (which is technically true but gives the impression you'll never actually see a bitcoin) how about fixed supply. For simplicity you can skip that it it the total amount over time that is fixed.

It is both an economics term but also is meaningful to the lay person.

Funny you should say that. Thats exactly what i was going to recommend since that is how i describe it to ppl: fixed supply.

But it didn't sound impressive enough so i recommended 'determinate'.

xxjs

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Quote from: Elwar on January 13, 2013, 05:24:21 AM

[...]
I do not see Bitcoin as an ecnomic system. Bitcoin is more accurately, capital itself.
[...]

I prefer the capital to be reserved to capital goods, goods that needs more work, natural resources and other capital to be finished to consumer goods. This is different from money, which is not useful for anything except exchange.

So bitcoins are just money, not capital.

n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU

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Quote from: hazek on January 13, 2013, 09:23:51 AM

Quote from: jamesg on January 13, 2013, 07:58:26 AM

Quote from: hazek on January 12, 2013, 06:42:46 PM

Quote from: 21after2 on January 12, 2013, 06:41:21 PM

I wouldn't necessarily call the first principle scarcity since they aren't exactly rare. I would find another term to describe the set amount.

Got a better word to describe the same principle?

Finite

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite

I was thinking predictability as a principle for Bitcoins fixed supply. I somewhat agree that scarcity may be a poor choice of words since Bitcoins aren't really scarce per see, especially not right now.

Combine both terms:

Fixed supply with predictable disbursement

Topic: The 10 principles in Bitcoin (Read 5062 times)