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Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

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Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#52
post #9

Around when this was published I looked into the feasibility of pencil-and-paper wallets. What would it take to generate a key-pair using just pencil and paper? There are tricks like big tables of precomputed multiples of the generator that make it easier, but you still need to do hundreds of 77 digit modular multiplications. And you want to be absolutely sure you made no mistake.

may as well create and sign the transaction on paper also.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#54
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet he made a half hour show with episodes such as "how to bounce a ball", "how to dig a hole, "how to open a door", "how to take a nap", etc.

Sounds like he must be a good talker to say the least. Charismatic or at the minimum entertaining.

It's mostly satire, but of the best variety. He spoke at my university a few years ago, he definitely knows how to entertain a crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KabOfnbS4TQ

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#55
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, what is getting me is that his book on sharpening pencils is actually 224 pages long. That seems awful long on such a simple subject!

And yet he made a half hour show with episodes such as "how to bounce a ball", "how to dig a hole, "how to open a door", "how to take a nap", etc.

Cortázar wrote some stories like "how to climb stairs."

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact alone that writing and editing ICO whitepapers (plural) is something an individual can do as a job makes me trust ICOs significantly less.

Lawyers charge exorbitant amounts for writing contracts. Selling papers is not a new invention.

A whitepaper is not a contract. It's a description of "what does this do and why should you care", i.e. literally the thing you're buying into in an ICO.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#57

I've found it works best with artisanal sharpened pencils http://www.artisanalpencilsharpening.com

Well, the Paypal button actually works! I wonder if someone ever placed an order though...

You can get the book for much less on amazon[1] though for a reasonable price (including a look inside). There is even a direct link to Amazon on his website.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/How-Sharpen-Pencils-Theoretical-Contr...

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh God. Given the quality of this gig description, at least we know that whitepapers written by that person will be immediately recognizable as scams.

And yet, people will still invest in it. The "Useless Ethereum Token" [1] subtitles itself as so: You're going to give some random person on the internet money, and they're going to take it and go buy stuff with it. Probably electronics, to be honest. Maybe even a big-screen television. Seriously, don't buy these tokens. And people still invested more than $40.000 in it [2]. [1] https://uetoken.com/ [2] https://qz.co…

Bad example. That's one ICO I would actually buy into myself if I discovered it in time. I'm a believer in timely executed jokes, much like many other people on the Internet.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#59
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monkeys with typewriters are currently busy banging out whitepapers for ICOs.

A friend of mine writes and edits ICO whitepapers. He's very skilled and gets paid pretty well for those skills.

Sure it takes skill to be a scam artist, but that doesn't mean such behavior should be tolerated.

Re: Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day (2014)

#60
post #25
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a lot of billions of hashes per bitcoin - I think your hand mined one would work out a bit too expensive for anyone to buy.

Not to mention that Bitcoins are indistinguishable from themselves. So that'd be a very niche idea.

That's not entirely true - individual addresses and/or transactions can be seen as "tainted", and those coins can be tracked through the Blockchain.

I've been a Bitcoin proponent for a long time, but this lack of basic fungibility is one of its major downsides in my opinion.

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