Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python

karpathy.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 293 posts

Re: A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python

#191

Post by ric2b »

iamastrangeloop wrote: post #113
noxer wrote: post #61

"...Bitcoin is a living, breathing, developing code base that is moving forward with new features to continue to scale..." There is exactly zero progress to make it scale in the last 10+ years.

There has been great progress in scaling the original protocol through the Bitcoin SV implementation: - Transaction fees are ~$0.0001 - The network has shown capacity for 50k tps - On March 14, 2021, the network processed a world record 638 MB block - As of June 4, 2021 the chain size exceeded that of the BTC implementation and is currently 418.17 GB - New business based on micropayments have emerged like twetch, str…

> - The network has shown capacity for 50k tps

No, that was a lab demo of a single beefy system being directly fed with test data and being measured on how long it takes to process it.

Re: A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python

#192

Post by modeless »

runbathtime wrote: post #144
modeless wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't own the number that is your private key, just as you don't own the number that is your bank account PIN or balance. What you own is space on the blockchain. And just as you don't need to tour the mint to have confidence in the dollar, or implement Diffie-Hellman to have confidence in your TLS connection to Amazon, you don't need to understand elliptic curve cryptography to have faith in Bitcoin.

A bank account balance is representative value of dollars that bank owes you. If someone tries to steal it by pretending to be you even if they just steal your PIN, they are committing fraud. If someone steals a private key by committing another crime like stealing a laptop, that is a crime because you own the laptop. If they learn of your private key without committing a crime, that is not theft. You don't own 'spac…

The bank PIN is just a number. Your bank account balance is just a number in a database. Your private key is just a number. Your bitcoin balance is just a number in a database (a blockchain is a kind of database). There is no distinction that makes stealing dollars using a bank PIN fraud but stealing bitcoin using a private key not fraud somehow.

Re: A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python

#193

Post by ric2b »

iamastrangeloop wrote: post #132
noxer wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its centralized and run by the people around this fraud. It doesn't matter if the tech is good since no one will use it for anything beside speculation or abuse it as storage which just wont be sustainable in the long run with no limits in place.

The protocol remains the original and it scales significantly. I'd focus on protocol not people. If people changed the protocol then it's no longer bitcoin. Twetch.app has more than 50k users. It's also a genuine use case. So is etched.page or the other above-mentioned services. How can you abuse storage if there is a 0.5 satoshis/byte fee to write data on chain currently? Miners are for-profit entities and will alwa…

> I'd focus on protocol not people.

The protocol encompasses the nodes on the network. If the network is highly centralized the protocol is unsafe.

Re: A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python

#195

Post by plebianRube »

tsimionescu wrote: post #110
plebianRube wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check yourself.All progress was 'wasteful' with resources at one time. And yes, bitcoin is progress.

All progress was 'wasteful' at some point, but all 'progress' is wasteful. And yes, bitcoin is 'progress'. I suppose Bitcoin is better than gold. Unfortunately, for BTC, we already have much more advanced financial technology.

Permissioned legacy technology is not advanced. The stronger, harder money wins. Good luck with your guess.

Re: A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python

#196

Post by plebianRube »

erostrate wrote: post #86
plebianRube wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, with major caveats - knowing the public key and having 100s of messages signed by corresponding private key. Nowadays people only expose their public key one time per transaction, and never reuse their address. So to steal coins, not only do you have only ~10 mins between blocks to find the private key, currently Shor's algorithm is unfeasible with only 1 signed message.

Sorry if that's a naive question but why do you need several signed messages? If you have a quantum computer and a quantum period finding function don't you get immediately the discrete log? Assuming you have one public key (not hashed) doesn't that give you the private key immediately?

Broadly speaking, more signed messages can get you more points on the curve you're trying to guess.

https://www.cs.umd.edu/~amchilds/teaching/w08/l03.pdf

May help if you're actually interested.

Edit: More signed transactions help with the classical and not the quantum part of schor.

Edit2: Schor has not yet even been able to factor the integer 35 with current quantum hardware, too much interference.

Re: A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python

#197

Post by sombremesa »

halotrope wrote: post #159

Implementing things from scratch is probably the ultimate test of thorough understanding. Chapeau! On another note I am amused that Mr. Karphathys name describes exactly what he is doing in his day job.

Sometimes implementing things from scratch is the ultimate proof of thorough misunderstanding.

Re: A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python

#198

Post by woah »

boringg wrote: post #91
kozak wrote: post #24

I'm amazed that he has time for this kind of hobby work.

Probably helps his boss is the "tecnoking" and cfo is the "master of coin". Agreed though - impressive he has that kind of sidebar time or is so capable he doesn't need that much time to figure it out.

This stuff isn't that hard to figure out, given the number of specifications and tutorials already out there. What's impressive is the fact that he thought of a reasonably sized task, and (presumably) executed it efficiently and completely without getting stuck or distracted.

Re: A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python

#199

Post by delaaxe »

andai wrote: post #72
kozak wrote: post #24

I'm amazed that he has time for this kind of hobby work.

"If you want something done quickly, give it to the busiest person."

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

― Bill Gates

Post reply on HN