Wording of Nasdaq article about mining bitcoins

Uberse

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Why do you care about this?

Because the phrase specialized math problems is not transparent. It sounds like something W.C. Fields might say with his pirate's smile. A lot of people reading it may wonder who or what centralized entity is devising the specialized problems for the miners to solve -- and even think that each new block requires new specialized -- customized -- problems. My point is not to single out the author, but to observe that the phrase might be an indicator that the Bitcoin system is a long way from popular understanding -- and popular use. But that's OK -- institutions and businesses may lead the way this time. Bitcoin use could trickle down, not up. I suspect that will be the case.

Kemarit

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Quote from: Velkro on January 24, 2017, 01:28:25 AM

Quote from: unamis76 on January 23, 2017, 01:42:13 PM

He might understand. Most likely he doesn't, but he might... He's just posting to an audience that most likely doesn't understand anything about it, thus using words that are more simple to understand.

Agree, while using those words, he still very accurate'ly described how mining works. Im impressed. Press have problems with describing tech things, this time they not failed but succeed.
Good article.

Perhaps he's using this words to somewhat jabbing the audience curiosity about bitcoin. Grin

. Nevertheless, its still considered as publicity either its good or bad for bitcoin.

Gleb Gamow

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Quote from: Uberse on January 23, 2017, 01:12:52 PM

The article in question is at http://www.nasdaq.com/article/what-is-bitcoin-mining-cm736542. I've added the italics to the relevant section, below:

Quote

The process of validating transactions and committing them to the blockchain involves solving a series of specialized math problems . . . Each Bitcoin miner is competing with all the other miners on the network to be the first one to correctly assemble the outstanding transactions into a block by solving those specialized math problems.

One gets the feeling that the author doesn't understand the nature of those "specialized math problems." Until authors like this do understand the hashing process, I think we can conclude that bitcoin is a long way from mass acceptance.

I'll agree with your sentiment including the use of hash function (in lieu of) you've later offered up given that this wasn't published in the likes of Reader's Digest. This was on NASDAQ's official site where assumedly their reader base has a higher amount of education under their belts unless, that is, they're catering to uneducated Investards, then I stand corrected.

Velkro

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Quote from: unamis76 on January 23, 2017, 01:42:13 PM

He might understand. Most likely he doesn't, but he might... He's just posting to an audience that most likely doesn't understand anything about it, thus using words that are more simple to understand.

Agree, while using those words, he still very accurate'ly described how mining works. Im impressed. Press have problems with describing tech things, this time they not failed but succeed.
Good article.

davis196

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Quote from: Uberse on January 23, 2017, 02:21:40 PM

You make a legitimate point, but I would say that complicated math problems is fundamentally inaccurate and thus unhelpful. I would have just written hash function and left it to readers to either Google the phrase or accept it at face value. Thus,

"The process of validating transactions and committing them to the blockchain involves repeatedly running a hash function . . . Each Bitcoin miner is competing with all the other miners on the network to be the first one to hash the outstanding transactions into a format acceptable to the bitcoin network."

95% of the people won`t understand the meaning of both "specialized math problems" and "hash function".
I`m not very good at mathematics and programming and i still don`t understand,but i use bitcoin.

Why do you care about this?

Uberse

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You make a legitimate point, but I would say that complicated math problems is fundamentally inaccurate and thus unhelpful. I would have just written hash function and left it to readers to either Google the phrase or accept it at face value. Thus,

"The process of validating transactions and committing them to the blockchain involves repeatedly running a hash function . . . Each Bitcoin miner is competing with all the other miners on the network to be the first one to hash the outstanding transactions into a format acceptable to the bitcoin network."

unamis76

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He might understand. Most likely he doesn't, but he might... He's just posting to an audience that most likely doesn't understand anything about it, thus using words that are more simple to understand.

For Bitcoin to have mass acceptance, people don't really need to grasp all the concepts. They just need to have basic understanding about transacting, Bitcoin apps, addresses and security. That's where the focus on making Bitcoin simple and more ready to the masses has been and that's where it should be from now on

Uberse

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Activity: 132

Merit: 12

The article in question is at http://www.nasdaq.com/article/what-is-bitcoin-mining-cm736542. I've added the italics to the relevant section, below:

Quote

The process of validating transactions and committing them to the blockchain involves solving a series of specialized math problems . . . Each Bitcoin miner is competing with all the other miners on the network to be the first one to correctly assemble the outstanding transactions into a block by solving those specialized math problems.

One gets the feeling that the author doesn't understand the nature of those "specialized math problems." Until authors like this do understand the hashing process, I think we can conclude that bitcoin is a long way from mass acceptance.

Topic: Wording of Nasdaq article about mining bitcoins (Read 364 times)