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Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

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Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#41

Post by xiphias2 »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #21
lawn wrote: post #13

As for why the Bitcoin Core developers were so quick to do this, the whitepaper has been a thorn in their side for years as it runs counter to the argument of Bitcoin being "digital gold" and should just be a settlement layer. So they saw this as an excuse to remove it.

The whitepaper is why I view bitcoin’s value proposition as a gold-like store of value. Can you say more about why you think the whitepaper discourages that view?

Satoshi couldn't have thought of a solution of the scaling issues, just like Mark Zuckerberg didn't design Facebook for billions of people originally. From the paper it's clear that he would have liked if all people could have access to P2P layer, but it's just technically impossible.

Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#42

Post by tylersmith »

Scoundreller wrote: post #24
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whitepaper is why I view bitcoin’s value proposition as a gold-like store of value. Can you say more about why you think the whitepaper discourages that view?

The whitepaper didn’t expect/predict most hashing power being controlled by very few actors. Edit: I’d say the whitepaper did expect this and basically said it could be a problem: From the abstract: > As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attacker.

That's a fundamental security assumption made by Nakamoto consensus. It's like assuming the discrete log problem is hard. If/when the assumption doesn't hold the security is gone.

Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#43

Post by buzzert »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #14

This is so bizarre. For those that aren't aware, Craig Steven Wright has publicly claimed to be Satoshi but failed to provide cryptographic proof as such, and uses his supposed identity as Satoshi to justify having a bunch of sketchily-acquired Bitcoin (I forget the full details here, it's been years). Even someone without much prior knowledge should be able to trivially deduce that this guy is a fraud: - The real Sa…

> The real Satoshi (assuming they're one individual as CSW is essentially implying) took care to maintain their anonymity, and is almost certainly aware that they would be the target of intelligence agencies around the world, in addition to your more run-of-the-mill "let's kidnap this guy and force him to transfer his enormous wealth to us" criminals. So releasing his identity publicly would be just painting a massive target on his back.

This would be the Hollywood interpretation of his motivation to remain anonymous. Personally, I think it’s because he really wanted the work to speak for itself, and not have the entire project tied to one particular individual with thousands of newspapers trying to figure out what motivated him.

Remember The Social Network movie? When they tried to make it look like Facebook was created just so Zuckerberg could get back at his ex-girlfriend? It’s stuff like that he was trying to avoid.

Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#44

Post by sktrdie »

lawn wrote: post #37
sktrdie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A while ago he (this Craig Wright fraud) actually sat with one of the first people behind bitcoin development Gavin Andresen. Gavin was the main developer in the beginning chatting with satoshi in the forum. There was a video of Gavin saying that Craig proved to him that he was satoshi. But later seemed to have been part of some kind of social engineering - wasn't totally clear how he proved he could sign the keys. R…

Craig produced a proof on a computer he himself provided. Wouldn't have been hard to alter it to say whatever he wanted to.

Indeed. I think Craig is a fraud. I'm just dumbfounded why Gavin --a person I admire from intial days and who is probably person n.2 after satoshi in terms of bitcoin actual initial lines of code written -- was so easily fooled.

Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#45

Post by hanniabu »

lawn wrote: post #13

As for why the Bitcoin Core developers were so quick to do this, the whitepaper has been a thorn in their side for years as it runs counter to the argument of Bitcoin being "digital gold" and should just be a settlement layer. So they saw this as an excuse to remove it.

I don't think the 2 are mutually exclusive.

Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#46

Post by toolz »

mdoms wrote: post #29
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whitepaper is why I view bitcoin’s value proposition as a gold-like store of value. Can you say more about why you think the whitepaper discourages that view?

You only need to read the first couple of sentences of the whitepaper to understand that it was primarily designed as a digital currency with a focus on spending/transacting.

Are those two concepts mutually exclusive? A liquid currency that holds value in unstable economies would seem to serve both the purpose of being spendable as well as a stable investment like gold. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what it means to be "gold like" though.

Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#47

Post by hanniabu »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #36
lawn wrote: post #13

As for why the Bitcoin Core developers were so quick to do this, the whitepaper has been a thorn in their side for years as it runs counter to the argument of Bitcoin being "digital gold" and should just be a settlement layer. So they saw this as an excuse to remove it.

I feel that /r/btc lunacy has made it's way to HN

No, that sub is completely delusional

Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#48

Post by paulgb »

arcticbull wrote: post #34
benlivengood wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well that’s obviously and trivially wrong so... I mean you can’t pretend away one Chile of electricity use to play multiplayer excel. It's horribly wasteful now. As the block reward decays it may transition to being less wasteful; it depends on how high transaction fees rise. Last time I tried to work it out the total electrical+transaction fee cost of bitcoin compared to spend volume (not including obvious change…

Currently about $80 of electricity and goes into each transaction, which is socialized across all holders as inflation. It’s this incentive which keeps miners mining. Once the reward drops to zero, transaction fees will be born directly by parties to the transaction and will have to be high enough to stave off a 51% attack directly.

> Once the reward drops to zero, transaction fees will be born directly by parties to the transaction and will have to be high enough to stave off a 51% attack directly.

This is something I don’t see talked about much, but the asymptotic state of Bitcoin when mining fees are zero is interesting to think about. It’s not obvious to me that the economic incentives against running a 51% attack will exist in the “terminal” stage of Bitcoin in the way that they do in the “inflationary” (positive mining reward) stage.

Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#49

Post by arcticbull »

alwillis wrote: post #40
benlivengood wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well that’s obviously and trivially wrong so... I mean you can’t pretend away one Chile of electricity use to play multiplayer excel. It's horribly wasteful now. As the block reward decays it may transition to being less wasteful; it depends on how high transaction fees rise. Last time I tried to work it out the total electrical+transaction fee cost of bitcoin compared to spend volume (not including obvious change…

A nice collection of articles regarding bitcoin’s energy usage. Spoiler: it’s quite different than the narrative that’s out there: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/tags/energy-consumption

The only spoiler is that a pro Bitcoin source is going to extreme levels of mental gymnastics to justify the unjustifiable use of an entire countries worth to electricity to write 7 entries per second into the worlds slowest and least efficient database.

Re: Bitcoincore.org removes Satoshi's whitepaper from website after threats from CSW

#50

Post by vmception »

Nursie wrote: post #8

Isn't this guy literally billions in the hole to the estate of someone he claims was his partner in creating BTC, and who is co-owner of the Satoshi hoard of coins which haven't moved (ever)? Did that court case ever finish or is he still using every trick in the book to draw it out? (Kleiman v. Wright, that's what I'm thinking of) (Looks like it got kicked back to June this year due to covid)

Yes, he failed to produce any keys, the courier with the keys never materialized, the judge has not thrown Craig Wright in jail for contempt of court nor has be been charged with perjury. The judge seems to be mildly entertained by this and views Craig Wright as mentally ill, but won't have him committed. It is all sad and strange. There are a lot of guardrails against using the system this way, but they aren't being used.
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