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Proof of Existence: Storing Hashed Files in the Bitcoin Block Chain

proofofexistence.com

11–20 of 44 posts

Re: Proof of Existence: Storing Hashed Files in the Bitcoin Block Chain

#11
I'm not exactly a big Bitcoin booster, but I love the way techniques and structures developed for it are being adapted to uses like this.

Given that this seems very similar to el33th4xor's Virtual Notary, how would one distinguish between the strengths or use cases of the two?

http://hackingdistributed.com/2013/06/20/virtual-notary-intr...

Re: Proof of Existence: Storing Hashed Files in the Bitcoin Block Chain

#12
post #5

"This is why the bitcoins sent in this special transaction are unspendable, as the addresses are being generated from the document's hash fragments instead of from a private ECDSA key." I hadn't realised before that this means that you can provably "destroy" bitcoins. That is, you can "prove" that a certain bitcoin amount will never be spent again by anyone including yourself...

Could you please elaborate on this? I understand neither your comment, nor the part that you quoted from the site.

Re: Proof of Existence: Storing Hashed Files in the Bitcoin Block Chain

#14
post #9
post #5

"This is why the bitcoins sent in this special transaction are unspendable, as the addresses are being generated from the document's hash fragments instead of from a private ECDSA key." I hadn't realised before that this means that you can provably "destroy" bitcoins. That is, you can "prove" that a certain bitcoin amount will never be spent again by anyone including yourself...

Yeah, the fact that bitcoins can be permanently destroyed is a little bit worrying, one of BTC's benefits is it's cap. What's the economical consequences of these coins being destroyed?

Increased value for the existing coins I would assume. There are plenty of cases of people "losing" or effectively destroying large amounts of bitcoins. BTC is designed to support smaller and smaller portions of a coin to handle the scarcity iirc.

Re: Proof of Existence: Storing Hashed Files in the Bitcoin Block Chain

#15
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transaction prioritization[1] and transaction fees already rate limit stuff like that, and patches to the clients used by major mining pools may be able to fix it permanently. 1. priority = sum(input_value_in_base_units * input_age)/size_in_bytes

What determines the size_in_bytes value? In general, let's say a govt agency get assigned an $18.5m budget to break the Bitcoin currency as much possible, what could their plan of attack be, i.e. spend that money in the most efficient way possible? Create a large ring of wallets and send tiny payment around the ring? Create less wallets but send large payments between them?

Tiny payments. A transaction of 5000 bitcoins and a transaction of 0.0001 bitcoins are the same size. The size is based on the number of transaction inputs, and the number of transaction outputs.

Re: Proof of Existence: Storing Hashed Files in the Bitcoin Block Chain

#16
post #9
post #5

"This is why the bitcoins sent in this special transaction are unspendable, as the addresses are being generated from the document's hash fragments instead of from a private ECDSA key." I hadn't realised before that this means that you can provably "destroy" bitcoins. That is, you can "prove" that a certain bitcoin amount will never be spent again by anyone including yourself...

Yeah, the fact that bitcoins can be permanently destroyed is a little bit worrying, one of BTC's benefits is it's cap. What's the economical consequences of these coins being destroyed?

It's not hard to create a new coin as well. For example Litecoins are divisible a hundred more times than Bitcoins with a cap four times larger. If we need more, make more.

Re: Proof of Existence: Storing Hashed Files in the Bitcoin Block Chain

#17
post #9
post #5

"This is why the bitcoins sent in this special transaction are unspendable, as the addresses are being generated from the document's hash fragments instead of from a private ECDSA key." I hadn't realised before that this means that you can provably "destroy" bitcoins. That is, you can "prove" that a certain bitcoin amount will never be spent again by anyone including yourself...

Yeah, the fact that bitcoins can be permanently destroyed is a little bit worrying, one of BTC's benefits is it's cap. What's the economical consequences of these coins being destroyed?

Deflation. The value of the rest of the existing stock of BitCoins goes up slightly, assuming no net change in the demand for them.

Re: Proof of Existence: Storing Hashed Files in the Bitcoin Block Chain

#18
post #5

"This is why the bitcoins sent in this special transaction are unspendable, as the addresses are being generated from the document's hash fragments instead of from a private ECDSA key." I hadn't realised before that this means that you can provably "destroy" bitcoins. That is, you can "prove" that a certain bitcoin amount will never be spent again by anyone including yourself...

Could you please elaborate on this? I understand neither your comment, nor the part that you quoted from the site.

The transaction in question sends some fraction of BTC to an address which is not the hash of an extant BTC wallet.

Thus no one can ever spend those BTC ever again, they exist in BTC limbo, attached to a notional wallet that (probably) exists but can never be found.

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