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How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

michaelnielsen.org

21–30 of 58 posts

Re: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

#21
post #18

> Early in the section I mentioned that there is a natural way of reducing the variance in time required to validate a block of transactions. If that variance is reduced too much, then it creates an interesting attack possibility... You've described a 51% attack. The security model of bitcoin assumes these are economically infeasible to mount. > Suppose Bitcoin mining software always explored nonces starting with x =…

> You've described a 51% attack.

No, this isn't related to 51% attacks.

Your other point I agree with; this is also discussed in the post comments.

Re: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

#23
post #18

> Early in the section I mentioned that there is a natural way of reducing the variance in time required to validate a block of transactions. If that variance is reduced too much, then it creates an interesting attack possibility... You've described a 51% attack. The security model of bitcoin assumes these are economically infeasible to mount. > Suppose Bitcoin mining software always explored nonces starting with x =…

> You've described a 51% attack. No, this isn't related to 51% attacks. Your other point I agree with; this is also discussed in the post comments.

If Alice is able to maintain a fork at equal length to the main chain, that's a 51% attack.

Re: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

#24
post #11
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be better to just be explicit. Money can be an incredibly useful thing to have, but getting happiness is a lot more complicated than just getting a lot of money.

A platitude is only interesting if the language used to convey it has some poetry to it. Otherwise it's just a platitude.

It's still just a platitude. Poetry is just a pointless distraction.

You can put lipstick on a pig...

Re: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

#25
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A platitude is only interesting if the language used to convey it has some poetry to it. Otherwise it's just a platitude.

It's still just a platitude. Poetry is just a pointless distraction. You can put lipstick on a pig...

Quintessential HN.

Re: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

#26
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A platitude is only interesting if the language used to convey it has some poetry to it. Otherwise it's just a platitude.

It's still just a platitude. Poetry is just a pointless distraction. You can put lipstick on a pig...

>It's still just a platitude. Poetry is just a pointless distraction.

and a painting is just some oil with some impurities on a cotton backing.

The fact that words sometimes convey practical meaning does not preclude them from also being art.

Re: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

#27
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A platitude is only interesting if the language used to convey it has some poetry to it. Otherwise it's just a platitude.

It's still just a platitude. Poetry is just a pointless distraction. You can put lipstick on a pig...

So what's life like without the ability to acknowledge art?

Re: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

#28

> Of course, any still-pending transactions in A will still be pending in the queues of the miners working on fork B, and so all transactions will eventually be validated. I don't understand this. So you have fork A and fork B, and once fork B wins, what happens to the transactions being done on fork A? Discarded? Do transactions sometimes not ever get verified? From what I've quoted, I'm guessing no, transactions in…

I'm pretty sure that for normal operation, a transaction gets broadcast to the network, and all miners see it and try to include it in their blocks. Each miner has a queue of unverified transactions to include in the blocks it's trying to build. When the miner gets a valid block from another miner, then it removes all of the transactions in that block from it's queue.

In a legit fork with no attempt at malicious action, there's no reason for the transactions in the forks to be any different, since all of the miners are seeing the same transactions broadcast to the network and have essentially the same transaction queue.

For an attempted double-spend attack, miners already check that there isn't a double-spend in the nodes in their block, so they would drop the second transaction they got trying to spend the same coins.

Since a double-spend can't happen in a single block, the double-spend attack relies on 2 miners working on different blocks, where the attacker-controlled miner is semi-isolated from the network and does not include the original spend transaction, but instead the attacker's second spend transaction. If the attack miner solves the block before any other miner on the network and broadcasts it, then the rest of the miners will accept it and reject the original spend transaction as a double-spend, leaving whoever was going to receive it with no coins.

Re: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

#29
post #11
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be better to just be explicit. Money can be an incredibly useful thing to have, but getting happiness is a lot more complicated than just getting a lot of money.

A platitude is only interesting if the language used to convey it has some poetry to it. Otherwise it's just a platitude.

What I said isn't a platitude. It is straight to the point.

Re: How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

#30
post #29
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A platitude is only interesting if the language used to convey it has some poetry to it. Otherwise it's just a platitude.

What I said isn't a platitude. It is straight to the point.

"a remark or statement, esp. one with a moral content, that has been used too often to be interesting or thoughtful."

Your statement /was/ to the point. that doesn't make it not a platitude.

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