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Bitcoin Core 26.0

github.com

31–40 of 55 posts

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#31
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to the, Blockstream hijacking of the GitHub repo? It was one of the oddest stories in Bitcoin history how a for profit company led by Greg Maxwell and Adam Back wrestled the keys away from the one legitimate contributor Gavin Andresen, then put every remaining coder on the payroll. As you say, Bitcoin Core is Not open source in the normal meaning.

I mean legal obfuscation, that’s why so many commits are made in an application of a little bit functions so that no one can figure it out how it works. I've worked with a lot major forks of Bitcoin Core since 2010, DASH, PIVX, Komodo, etc. All of them using obfuscation techniques. The same technology is used by many corporations for "open source" JS, for example. I was downvoted by BTC owner bots for my experience,…

What are you talking about? Can you link to a source file with such "obfuscation"?

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#32
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Therefore I would think it is only used by researchers and analysts? The idea is that every single user, even Grandma buying groceries, has a full copy of the Blockchain to buy her groceries. So no, it is supposed to be used by everyone. This is the reason why the block size is kept small. If it grows too big it is no longer decentralised.

How is the block size relevant for that? Grandma won't carry around half a terabyte of block chain, and it doesn't help that the blocks are tiny at all.

If the block size was made substantially bigger, you'd begin to need very expensive equipment to be able to verify transactions yourself. Grandma is probably able to trust her grandchildren's nodes, but with bigger blocks her grandchildren wouldn't be able to afford a node and would have to trust someone else (who is rich) and the definition of the network would become more and more centralised amongst the richest as the size of the block chain grew exponentially faster than the £/HW is reducing.

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#33

The Bitcoin Core GitHub repo was long ago hijacked by the for profit company, Blockstream. Every update made since their takeover has hurt the core principal of Bitcoin, which is to be peer to peer digital cash, a replacement for Visa-like daily payments.

bitcoin has no usecase as 'digital cash' anyway. plenty of other coins fill that role better for years now.

The main bitcoin network at least. Bitcoin can still be used as digital cash (and one that holds it's value better than any other), but transferred on a different network e.g. lightning

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#34
post #22
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's run by anyone who wants to support the consensus mechanism with more decentralization. I run it on my laptop.

I have read that before, that nodes are a force in keeping the Bitcoin ecosystem stick to the rules. But I never understood it. What does running a node on your laptop achieve? If two parties out there agree to call some roll of toilet paper a "Bitcoin", how will your laptop stop them from doing so? One of the two will hand the other one the roll, the other one will say "Thanks for the Bitcoin" and thats it, right? W…

It is only when receiving money you can affect the validity of that payment, you can refuse to send them the alpaca socks they "paid" for using invalid address outputs.

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#35
Anyone know what is (or isn’t) being done to secure Bitcoin against quantum attacks? Last I heard it was still “quantum isn’t a problem yet” but I have reasons to believe that even at that time the assertion was untrue.

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#36
post #13

I have read the whitepaper and followed discussions about the protocol for quite some time, but never looked into the actual software landscape. Bitcoin Core is a "Node", right? A software you run if you want to have the whole history of all Bitcoin transactions of your own hard drive? Therefore I would think it is only used by researchers and analysts?

isnt it necessary to run full node to mine bitcoin?

You want to be mining at the tip of the blockchain, otherwise you risk losing the block you're mining as others will not include its digest in their header (and not base the blockchain through your block. it'd be just a leaf in the chain). So you need at least to be aware of the latest blocks. I believe this is achievable with client only. You'd get the block reward, but not the fees.

If you want the fees, you need to be aware of potential transactions; and also verify that these are valid (at pain of seeing your block be seen as invalid). So you need to receive that information.

Also if you want to publish a block you found, you need to not only listen to information but also publish it to others as well. So yeah, you kind of need to run an up-to-date full node to get both reward and fee.

Now, this does not mean that your miners need to be full nodes. These only need the block to be mined (digest of previous block, header, transactions, your public address to giver the reward to) and then they can vary the nonce at the end to start mining. But this block information has to be up quite to date, otherwise you're mining aimlessly. I've read that while switching to a new block, miner setups send block data empty of transactions to be mined: so as not to waste the few tenths of seconds it takes to upload new block data to miners.

So you can run an operation with a single central full node that sends blocks to individual miner devices.

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#37

I see a lot of resentment here for this software. But it’s perfectly possible to make your own implementation of the bitcoin protocol. Like Luke, who made Knots. And other versions exist too. The real pain comes from the choices in the past to keep bitcoin inclusive. Smaller blocks mean the ability to download and verify on simple cheap hardware. Have a look at ETH, SOL or EOS. What kind of server park do you need to…

The only resentment I have with Bitcoin and any other crypto is that they try to be "decentralized", but the moment the developers of your main node/wallet app are under a payroll, funded by a business, crypto is no longer decentralized.

Bitcoin Core, long ago, was "purchased" by Blockstream and they started pushing their own agenda for the protocol, and Luke Jr is one of the devs on their payroll.

Yes, of course, you can create your own wallet or node but unless 51% of the network uses it, your protocol changes will never reach the whole network.

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#38

I see a lot of resentment here for this software. But it’s perfectly possible to make your own implementation of the bitcoin protocol. Like Luke, who made Knots. And other versions exist too. The real pain comes from the choices in the past to keep bitcoin inclusive. Smaller blocks mean the ability to download and verify on simple cheap hardware. Have a look at ETH, SOL or EOS. What kind of server park do you need to…

It’s actually pretty easy to run Ethereum nodes. Also, statelessness and verkle trees will enable Ethereum to be validated on cell phones eventually. That’s not going to happen with Bitcoin. Also, funny to see Bitcoiners talk about running censoring client implementations for Ordinals.

>That’s not going to happen with Bitcoin.

??? That has been possible for years: https://github.com/greenaddress/abcore

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#39
post #30
post #13

I have read the whitepaper and followed discussions about the protocol for quite some time, but never looked into the actual software landscape. Bitcoin Core is a "Node", right? A software you run if you want to have the whole history of all Bitcoin transactions of your own hard drive? Therefore I would think it is only used by researchers and analysts?

Your node (or the node you choose to connect to) defines what is bitcoin, according to you. Everyone gets a vote on what bitcoin is, but the definition of bitcoin that you vote for is that defined by the code running on the node you choose to connect to the network through. Running your own node let's you speak for yourself. If you connect to someone else's node you're effectively saying "I vote for whatever they're…

The way I understand it: If another person's node connects to your node, your node can stop relaying certain blocks to them. And if everybody stops relaying those blocks to them, then those blocks will not reach them. So in a way, your node can do something a bit similar to "voting" in this situation.

But does a node on a lonely notebook have any real world impact? Do actors who accept Bitcoin payments connect to random nodes?

If so, what prevents someone from running one million nodes on a single laptop and "encircle" such an actor? There is no proof of work involved in running a node, right? So what gives a node any meaning or voting rights?

Re: Bitcoin Core 26.0

#40
post #34
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read that before, that nodes are a force in keeping the Bitcoin ecosystem stick to the rules. But I never understood it. What does running a node on your laptop achieve? If two parties out there agree to call some roll of toilet paper a "Bitcoin", how will your laptop stop them from doing so? One of the two will hand the other one the roll, the other one will say "Thanks for the Bitcoin" and thats it, right? W…

It is only when receiving money you can affect the validity of that payment, you can refuse to send them the alpaca socks they "paid" for using invalid address outputs.

That makes sense. When you accept Bitcoin payments and run your own node, you vote for the rules that your own node enforces.

But to me it looks like people think just running a node is like voting for the rules on that node. Even if you do not do any business.

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