Bitcoins - digital currency
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency. Peer-to-peer (P2P) means that there is no central authority to issue new money or keep track of transactions. Instead, these tasks are managed collectively by the nodes of the network. Advantages:
- Bitcoins can be sent easily through the Internet, without having to trust middlemen.
- Transactions are designed to be computationally prohibitive to reverse.
- Be safe from instability caused by fractional reserve banking and central banks. The limited inflation of the Bitcoin system’s money supply is distributed evenly (by CPU power) throughout the network, not monopolized by banks.
Total size 5,811,700 BTC
or 4,585,431 USD
or 3,545,137 EUR
or 133,094,323 RUB
or 3,849 ounces of gold
Any value to this idea or will it never work?
And now it's "on sale" again... Special discount.
Classic 'Wyckoff pattern' and resulting short/long Leverage Flush out...
5 minute... oh noes!
1 week... oh yes!
Binance has been dumping BTC...
Bitcoin down huge lately. Whats going on? Does that $1.2B North Korean heist have anything to do with it? Are people afraid that their crypto isnt safe anymore? Or is now a good time to buy the dip?
Global unrest at the US flipping on its head geopolitically
I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but this is one of the most manipulated markets in a while. I think selling Trump's win was correct. But I think buying this crash is just as correct.
Trump and Musk taking out the CFPB is so textbook. Right before X money arrives? X money that will surely be big for crypto. And in taking out CFPB, Musk got all the data on his competitors.
Seems like such a great setup to spook weak hands into selling their BTC and ALTs, scooping them, and then release a new era of unchecked crypto growth in the USA.
Full disclaimer, I don't understand Quantum computing, nor do I understand exactly how bitcoins code protects against advances in computational power. However if it's definitely something to monitor in a few years then its way more of a legitimate worry than I thought.
Full disclaimer, I don't understand Quantum computing, nor do I understand exactly how bitcoins code protects against advances in computational power. However if it's definitely something to monitor in a few years then its way more of a legitimate worry than I thought.
Computer architecture... it is either on or off, it's either a 1 or 0.
Quantum computing... it is BOTH a 1 and a 0 at the same time.
Bitcoins protection against increased compute capabilities?... Shaw 256 and the implementation or the 'Difficulty Algorithm'. As computers solve the blocks quicker than 10 minutes, the Difficulty Algorithm self adjusts accordingly making it harder to solve the equation.
It's a regulation mechanism.
Bitcoins protection against increased compute capabilities?... Shaw 256 and the implementation or the 'Difficulty Algorithm'. As computers solve the blocks quicker than 10 minutes, the Difficulty Algorithm self adjusts accordingly making it harder to solve the equation.
It's a regulation mechanism.
Appreciate the response -
That is/was my current understanding, the part I am missing is why its potentially something to monitor in a few years (this regulation mechanism potentially not being enough). If it really is a threat than I'd like to know more. I don't really consider anything else to be a threat to btc.
Update, I did some reading and it sounds extremely difficult but all those advances required seem like they will eventually happen. A long way away though. It's not just unforked bitcoin that would fall either of course.
The threat of quantum computing isn't about them mining blocks faster, but for private keys to be breached through brute force.
The quantum algorithm is "Shor's Algorithm" and has existed for about 30 years, so this is actually old news. The problem is that the hardware of modern quantum computers are too noisy to be able to execute the algorithm (qubits don't stay "0 and 1" for very long, quantum gates have high error rates, etc.). So if you want to keep up, you'd want to pay attention to quantum hardware improvements. There is so much corporate BS hype that it can be hard to know what is real and what is marketing. Scott Aaronson (an academic who is not trying to sell you anything) has a blog that is a pretty good read whenever some big headlines break. Some of them are legit advances and some are pure bullshit.
Shor's Algorithm is often thought of as a "factoring" algorithm, but it is actually more general than that and can be used to efficiently compute a solution to the Discrete Logarithm Problem. As I understand, the discrete logarithm's solution can be used to break Bitcoin's Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, but SHA-256 is expected to be safe against Shor's Algorithm.
People will need to move coins to quantum proof addresses. No good solution exists right now.
Ideally there is a decent amount of time to do it before quantum can start compromising those coins.
With only ~7 transactions per second on Bitcoin blockchain it will take a long time for all addresses to securely move.
TX fees will probably skyrocket.
Will Satoshi's 1M coins move?
If not, will they be 'secured' by a good actor or a bad actor.
Interesting things to think about.
Still lots of development in the quantum field, but smart humans are moving fast. Initially thought we were decade+ out, but could be within a few years. Sub 10 for sure.
scariest thing i read about quantum computing is that whomever figures it out first will not be letting the world know via a press conference but rather by the wake of their destruction as various keys to the modern world are presented to them and only them
even if it's a "good actor" they will certainly be doing things they believe to be good with the power rather than being like "we just unlocked unknown power, isn't that neat, now let's put it away and work on the next project"
atomic bombs had absolutely no need to be detonated on japan
the firebombing campaign we had absolutely destroyed their economy and our blockade meant they couldn't feed themselves let alone fuel up the remaining machines of war they had cached away
even if the shock and awe were required, we could have blasted off offshore or chosen a low population density target close enough to the decision makers to sway their opinion
we instead chose the two largest cities that were still intact because they had no material contribution to the war effort and thus were never seriously damaged by firebombings - in essence virgin targets because we just spent all this time making the nukes, we were certainly going to use them and on targets where it'd be very simple to see the result
