The best and the worst | Bitcointalksearch.org

Bit_Happy

legendary

Activity: 2114

Merit: 1040

A Great Time to Start Something!

Quote from: jonald_fyookball on May 04, 2014, 02:23:31 PM

Quote from: Massimo80 on May 03, 2014, 02:21:23 PM

Quote from: telepatheic on May 03, 2014, 02:15:43 PM

The main thing is a lack of standardisation, the protocol uses a mixture of big endian, little endian, fixed length integers and variable integers. Signatures are encoded using DER, public keys are not. Compressed and uncompressed keys can both be used so every Bitcoin address has a twin depending on which encoding is chosen. Bitcoin addresses support error detection but not error correction and pubKeyHashes are 160 bits in length where everything else is 256 bits in length. The transaction scripting and signing methods means transactions are malleable. OP_CHECKMULTISIG requires an extra null public key to work properly. Transaction sequence numbers don't work.

There are more problems than this but those are the main ones I can think off the top of my head. Also almost all altcoins (except maybe NXT) carry over these annoying inconsistencies instead of fixing them!

Couldn't have said it any better. Working with the raw protocol is a royal pain. And it's not going to be fixed anytime soon, since any change needs to keep compatibility.

I just heard that Matt Whitlock was/is working on building an alternative-but-compatible Bitcoin core.

an alternative-but-compatible Bitcoin core
Something free of the "Bitcoin Foundation" would be a huge step forward.

jonald_fyookball

legendary

Activity: 1302

Merit: 1008

Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political

Quote from: Massimo80 on May 03, 2014, 02:21:23 PM

Quote from: telepatheic on May 03, 2014, 02:15:43 PM

The main thing is a lack of standardisation, the protocol uses a mixture of big endian, little endian, fixed length integers and variable integers. Signatures are encoded using DER, public keys are not. Compressed and uncompressed keys can both be used so every Bitcoin address has a twin depending on which encoding is chosen. Bitcoin addresses support error detection but not error correction and pubKeyHashes are 160 bits in length where everything else is 256 bits in length. The transaction scripting and signing methods means transactions are malleable. OP_CHECKMULTISIG requires an extra null public key to work properly. Transaction sequence numbers don't work.

There are more problems than this but those are the main ones I can think off the top of my head. Also almost all altcoins (except maybe NXT) carry over these annoying inconsistencies instead of fixing them!

Couldn't have said it any better. Working with the raw protocol is a royal pain. And it's not going to be fixed anytime soon, since any change needs to keep compatibility.

I just heard that Matt Whitlock was/is working on building an alternative-but-compatible Bitcoin core.

elavenil

full member

Activity: 182

Merit: 100

MTGOX is the worst thing happen to bitcoin.

Cryptogirl82

full member

Activity: 140

Merit: 100

rot in hell mark karpeles.

AngelSky

hero member

Activity: 1008

Merit: 537

Quote from: franky1 on May 02, 2014, 05:46:37 PM

best
bitcoin core developers
blockchain.info developers
legit bitcoin businesses

worst
altcoin script kiddies just making pump and dump coins purely to sell their useless alt, for useful bitcoin (selling ice to Eskimo's)
greedy mining pool owners ignoring transactions purely to grab fee subsidies
anonymous 3rd party bitcoin services (they end up scamming people)

agree

SherdonIke

newbie

Activity: 66

Merit: 0

Quote from: DannyHamilton on May 03, 2014, 09:46:34 AM

Quote from: jonald_fyookball on May 02, 2014, 05:35:34 PM

Who do you think are the top 3 or 4 most valuable people to the bitcoin community and who do you think are ones that are the most destructive?

Most valuable?

Me, of course. What would you all do without me? Grin

Most destructive?

Satoshi Nakamoto. He should have taken more time to fix the various issues in his program before he released it. It would have resulted in a more robust and less annoying protocol. Instead he rushed it out the door and we all have to live with the consequences. Undecided

never thought about Satoshi like the person who is most destructive for bitcoin. interesting and unusual opinion!

Bit_Happy

legendary

Activity: 2114

Merit: 1040

A Great Time to Start Something!

Quote from: Massimo80 on May 02, 2014, 05:50:07 PM

I think most people will agree that Mark Karpeles is the rightful winner of the coveted "most damage caused to Bitcoin as a whole by a single person" award.

Gox has been a horrendous problem for over 3 years.
Certainly Mark did some good, but there would have been a different, eventually much better exchange without Gox.
Mark Karpeles and his MtBox have done the most damage.

Massimo80

full member

Activity: 168

Merit: 100

Quote from: telepatheic on May 03, 2014, 02:46:05 PM

Quote from: Massimo80 on May 03, 2014, 02:21:23 PM

Working with the raw protocol is a royal pain.

Agreed and the documentation is also relatively poor. To work out some protocol rules, you literally have to read through several files of bitcoind.

We are just starting a project called ConceptCoin which aims to make many improvements on bitcoin as a proof of concept.

Bitcoin will probably become the new TCP/IP... a system which works but could have been designed much better, has some serious limits, but over time has become the de facto standard for networking, and now no one can replace it with something better because everyone is stuck using it Roll Eyes

telepatheic

jr. member

Activity: 56

Merit: 1

Quote from: Massimo80 on May 03, 2014, 02:21:23 PM

Working with the raw protocol is a royal pain.

Agreed and the documentation is also relatively poor. To work out some protocol rules, you literally have to read through several files of bitcoind.

We are just starting a project called ConceptCoin which aims to make many improvements on bitcoin as a proof of concept.

Massimo80

full member

Activity: 168

Merit: 100

Quote from: telepatheic on May 03, 2014, 02:15:43 PM

The main thing is a lack of standardisation, the protocol uses a mixture of big endian, little endian, fixed length integers and variable integers. Signatures are encoded using DER, public keys are not. Compressed and uncompressed keys can both be used so every Bitcoin address has a twin depending on which encoding is chosen. Bitcoin addresses support error detection but not error correction and pubKeyHashes are 160 bits in length where everything else is 256 bits in length. The transaction scripting and signing methods means transactions are malleable. OP_CHECKMULTISIG requires an extra null public key to work properly. Transaction sequence numbers don't work.

There are more problems than this but those are the main ones I can think off the top of my head. Also almost all altcoins (except maybe NXT) carry over these annoying inconsistencies instead of fixing them!

Couldn't have said it any better. Working with the raw protocol is a royal pain. And it's not going to be fixed anytime soon, since any change needs to keep compatibility.

telepatheic

jr. member

Activity: 56

Merit: 1

Quote from: Pony789 on May 03, 2014, 01:03:53 PM

Would you mind explaining that part, and what kinds of issues are in your mind? Block time? Block size? PoS over PoW?

The main thing is a lack of standardisation, the protocol uses a mixture of big endian, little endian, fixed length integers and variable integers. Signatures are encoded using DER, public keys are not. Compressed and uncompressed keys can both be used so every Bitcoin address has a twin depending on which encoding is chosen. Bitcoin addresses support error detection but not error correction and pubKeyHashes are 160 bits in length where everything else is 256 bits in length. The transaction scripting and signing methods means transactions are malleable. OP_CHECKMULTISIG requires an extra null public key to work properly. Transaction sequence numbers don't work.

There are more problems than this but those are the main ones I can think off the top of my head. Also almost all altcoins (except maybe NXT) carry over these annoying inconsistencies instead of fixing them!

Pony789

hero member

Activity: 882

Merit: 1000

Quote from: DannyHamilton on May 03, 2014, 09:46:34 AM

Quote from: jonald_fyookball on May 02, 2014, 05:35:34 PM

Who do you think are the top 3 or 4 most valuable people to the bitcoin community and who do you think are ones that are the most destructive?

Most valuable?

Me, of course. What would you all do without me? Grin

Most destructive?

Satoshi Nakamoto. He should have taken more time to fix the various issues in his program before he released it. It would have resulted in a more robust and less annoying protocol. Instead he rushed it out the door and we all have to live with the consequences. Undecided

Would you mind explaining that part, and what kinds of issues are in your mind? Block time? Block size? PoS over PoW?

DannyHamilton

legendary

Activity: 3472

Merit: 4801

Quote from: jonald_fyookball on May 02, 2014, 05:35:34 PM

Who do you think are the top 3 or 4 most valuable people to the bitcoin community and who do you think are ones that are the most destructive?

Most valuable?

Me, of course. What would you all do without me? Grin

Most destructive?

Satoshi Nakamoto. He should have taken more time to fix the various issues in his program before he released it. It would have resulted in a more robust and less annoying protocol. Instead he rushed it out the door and we all have to live with the consequences. Undecided

RockHound

full member

Activity: 224

Merit: 100

Well said Frank, I too do not condone illegal activities facilitated by Silk Road. However, I did list as a good agent because it effectively promotes SHA-256 technology and media/public awareness, as you mentioned.

@ vpitcher07 When I mention Silk Road, I mean other such sites as well eg Pandora, Sheep, etc.

Ebay too have made trading of particular items "contraband" during it's evolution. Back in the day you could used to buy items such as: Swords, Ivory, Tobacco, Fake/Stolen goods, Lock-picking devices Undecided

Now I know the Silk Road is somewhat more hardcore and specializes in illegal goods. Maybe Ebay is not a suitable comparison, but Silk Road 2.0 did remove certain items which I am thankful for.

I am optimistic, Bitcoin's good will outweigh the bad.

franky1

legendary

Activity: 4424

Merit: 4794

Quote from: Massimo80 on May 02, 2014, 06:57:37 PM

Quote from: RockHound on May 02, 2014, 06:19:33 PM

Might get slated for this, but I don't think Mark Karpeles is that bad of a person

For the records, neither do I. But an epic fail can easily do as much damage as an epic act of villainy.

Anyway, the absolute worst for Bitcoin are speculators trying to use it as a tool to make (even) more money. Greedy people with lots of money can do serious damage to any business, but Bitcoin, being a new and revolutionary form of money, is especially prone to financial attacks, either by people trying to kill it or by people trying to profit from it.

speculators dont exactly destroy bitcoin. if they speculate and cause a price rise, that equals profits for the community. if they speculate the price down, that causes a nice buy-in oppertunity for new community members.

bitcoin protocol has decades to centuries of life ahead, the price variance does not impact this. even if the price suddenly dropped to a penny, you are sure as hell find a million people trying to buy as much bitcoin as they can, bringing the price right back up.

i would however say FUD spreaders, that are purely trying to sway people away from purchasing at any price are more damaging then speculators who just play the prices for profit.

and as for silkroad. although i do not condone their illegal activities. it has actually provided world wide press news and advertising to get people to ask the question "what is bitcoin", to which after they research bitcoin, they find out bitcoin is great for legit investments and value transfer and silk road is just hyped propaganda. thus they learn to separate the two whilst getting into bitcoin

vpitcher07

sr. member

Activity: 342

Merit: 250

Quote from: RockHound on May 02, 2014, 06:19:33 PM

Quote from: Massimo80 on May 02, 2014, 05:50:07 PM

I think most people will agree that Mark Karpeles is the rightful winner of the coveted "most damage caused to Bitcoin as a whole by a single person" award.

Might get slated for this, but I don't think Mark Karpeles is that bad of a person, though very quickly out of his depth true. He in fact did much good for the bitcoin community in 2010+. So here's my list;

The good:

i) Bitcoin Core development team (Stability)
ii) Silk road 1.0 & 2.0 Dredd Pirate Roberts (Establishment, sustainability)
iii) Megan Lords and Davi Barker (Bitcoin not Bombs, promotion of audited BTC charities)

The bad:

i) Thieves/Hackers (People/groups who steal BTC)
ii) Influential legislators, protection of fiat currency
iii) Speculation greed (51% hashing manipulation, trust me they are a lot of people who could afford to do this, if motivated)

The silk road as good? Huh

? No, anyone who knows nothing about bitcoin knows about the silkroad and how it accepted bitcoin. It's bad PR.

Massimo80

full member

Activity: 168

Merit: 100

Quote from: RockHound on May 02, 2014, 06:19:33 PM

Might get slated for this, but I don't think Mark Karpeles is that bad of a person

For the records, neither do I. But an epic fail can easily do as much damage as an epic act of villainy.

Anyway, the absolute worst for Bitcoin are speculators trying to use it as a tool to make (even) more money. Greedy people with lots of money can do serious damage to any business, but Bitcoin, being a new and revolutionary form of money, is especially prone to financial attacks, either by people trying to kill it or by people trying to profit from it.

RockHound

full member

Activity: 224

Merit: 100

Quote from: Massimo80 on May 02, 2014, 05:50:07 PM

I think most people will agree that Mark Karpeles is the rightful winner of the coveted "most damage caused to Bitcoin as a whole by a single person" award.

Might get slated for this, but I don't think Mark Karpeles is that bad of a person, though very quickly out of his depth true. He in fact did much good for the bitcoin community in 2010+. So here's my list;

The good:

i) Bitcoin Core development team (Stability)
ii) Silk road 1.0 & 2.0 Dredd Pirate Roberts (Establishment, sustainability)
iii) Megan Lords and Davi Barker (Bitcoin not Bombs, promotion of audited BTC charities)

The bad:

i) Thieves/Hackers (People/groups who steal BTC)
ii) Influential legislators, protection of fiat currency
iii) Speculation greed (51% hashing manipulation, trust me there are a lot of people who could afford to do this, if motivated)

Massimo80

full member

Activity: 168

Merit: 100

I think most people will agree that Mark Karpeles is the rightful winner of the coveted "most damage caused to Bitcoin as a whole by a single person" award.

franky1

legendary

Activity: 4424

Merit: 4794

best
bitcoin core developers
blockchain.info developers
legit bitcoin businesses

worst
altcoin script kiddies just making pump and dump coins purely to sell their useless alt, for useful bitcoin (selling ice to Eskimo's)
greedy mining pool owners ignoring transactions purely to grab fee subsidies
anonymous 3rd party bitcoin services (they end up scamming people)

Topic: The best and the worst (Read 1307 times)