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The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

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Re: The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

#91

Post by mirimir »

_ph_ wrote: post #73
keymone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You might disagree, but please don't put words into my mouth i don't disagree, i'm trying to help you understand that what (allegedly) makes bitcoin popular for ransomware and illegal transactions is a set of properties that are also shared with cash. either your argument is that those properties are evil and you're in favor of cashless society where big brother is always in control of all money flows - in which ca…

And you still haven't explained how you would pay for ransomware over the internet via cash. We are talking here about the ransomers being in a different continent even. And we have strict limits on cash to provide a stop of a complete abuse of it for criminal activities. Cash transactions over a certain limit have to be logged, there are physical controls at the borders as well as searches. So having a suitcase of c…

I'm not sure why you got into this argument about paying for ransomware unlocking with cash. I mean, one can mail cash, and I've done it many times. To buy Bitcoin, back in the day, and VPN subscriptions.

Anyway, ransomware operators request payment in Bitcoin because it's much less hassle than mailing cash. And there's much less risk of theft by dishonest postal workers.

But with thorough mixing and other good OPSEC, Bitcoin can be as anonymous as cash. So that helps protect ransomware operators from arrest. I think that we all agree on that.

However, you seem to see that as a negative for Bitcoin. That it can be used for such horrible things. But I see it as a stress test for using Bitcoin ~anonymously. If assholes infecting people with malware can use Bitcoin safely, that inplies that decent anonymous cowards like me can also safely use Bitcoin.

And if some of them get busted, there's the chance that investigative methods will be revealed, and so I can tweak my OPSEC to deal with them.

Another key benefit is evading all that bullshit about limiting cash transactions. It's not that I'm a criminal, it's just that I don't acknowledge government authority.

Re: The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

#92

Post by simplecomplex »

_ph_ wrote: post #24
simplecomplex wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valuations are not tied to intrinsic value... whatever that means. “Value” is measured by what someone paid. Nothing more, nothing less. If I buy an apple from you for $5, that means both of us valued the apple at $5. The end. To understand how meaningless the notion of intrinsic value is, ask yourself what the intrinsic value of water is? Drinking it? Bathing with it? Swimming in it? Cooking with it? Watering a gard…

Value certainly isn't something you can objetively tie to a fixed number. But water is a good example. It definitely has a value and this value nicely shows the basic mechanisms of economy. First of all, water supply differs strongly by region. Lots of water around the great lakes, little in Arizona. Ocean water is plentifull, but of little value due to the salt, which can be removed only very expensively. So the val…

We are conflating different terms. You're saying "value" but meaning something different than the market value of something. Value is a measure. It's quantitative not qualitative.

When someone says "this thing is valued at $5" it means someone traded or is willing to trade $5 for that thing. It doesn't have anything to do with what you can use that thing for.

Yes, water is "valuable" as something to drink. That has little to do with what someone paid for some water.

Re: The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

#93

Post by mirimir »

_ph_ wrote: post #86
keymone wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you still haven't explained how you would pay for ransomware over the internet via cash you're not seeing the forest behind the trees. bitcoin like cash is permissionless, private and fungible (to some extent). these properties enable illegal activities both in cash and in bitcoin. with cash it happens in face to face exchanges, with bitcoin it happens over the network. > we have strict limits on cash to provid…

you're not seeing the forest behind the trees. bitcoin like cash is permissionless, private and fungible (to some extent). these properties enable illegal activities both in cash and in bitcoin. with cash it happens in face to face exchanges, with bitcoin it happens over the network. Well, and that was the difference I was pointing out to. Bitcoin allows unchecked transactions about the network, this is not possible…

> Not only do Bitcoin exchanges have a horrible track record about keeping your coins secure ...

I've been using Bitcoin since it first went public. And I have never used an exchange. They want to know too much, for one thing, with all that KYC bullshit. And as you say, they can't be trusted.

But I have used less formal exhange services. And although I've been ripped off a few times, it's worked well for the most part.

> ... it is grotesque that you fear the monetary policy for your "moneys value", when Bitcoin can collapse to 0 any time enough people lose interest in it for speculation.

You keep saying that, but the data doesn't support it. Just look at Bitcoin price history. I used a nine-month moving average for price. And plotted log price, to clearly show older prices.[0]

After the peak in early 2013, price bottomed at ~50% of peak, until the next peak. After the peak in late 2013, price bottomed at ~20% of peak, until the next peak. And the bottom was about twice the previous bottom. After the peak at the end of 2017, price bottomed at ~50% of peak, during early 2019. And the bottom was ~17 times the previous bottom.

So there hasn't been any "collapse to 0".

0) https://keybase.pub/mirimir/Bitcoin-history.png

Re: The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

#94

Post by lpellis »

skohan wrote: post #69
lpellis wrote: post #22

This looks like something from Tron, trippy. The height of the block is the amount of BTC, there are some huge (thousands of BTC) transactions happening. On a semi related note, I built a 3D visualization (globe) to see where these blocks are geographically mined. https://coinminingstats.com/globe

Very snappy site, nice work! What front-end technologies did you use to build it? I guess you're synching data to local storage and then querying it to get those quick page loads?

Its a vue.js site that I host statically on Netlify, with django backend on heroku that pulls all the data. The trick to get things to load quickly is caching the data on https://www.keycdn.com/ (with the right headers you can set it up that the CDN queries the slow pages in the background and serves the cached ones meanwhile to keep things near real-time). I might do a writeup about that it took me a while to figure out.

Re: The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

#95

Post by lpellis »

lowercased wrote: post #66
lpellis wrote: post #22

This looks like something from Tron, trippy. The height of the block is the amount of BTC, there are some huge (thousands of BTC) transactions happening. On a semi related note, I built a 3D visualization (globe) to see where these blocks are geographically mined. https://coinminingstats.com/globe

I see you've bought in to the 'earth is a globe' conspiracy :) What's the tech behind that visualization?

I'm using https://threejs.org/ for the webgl stuff, the tricky part was figuring out how to map the coordinates to change the country highlighting. Ended up having to write a custom shader which was quite the learning curve :)

Re: The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

#97

Post by cookingrobot »

There are a lot of big bars in there, like 4000Btc transactions. Does anyone have a sense of whether those usually represent private buying/selling of coins, or are they exchanges like Coinbase cashing in/out, lightning network, etc? What's the story of these massive trades?

Re: The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

#98

Post by ilaksh »

ignaloidas wrote: post #34
akuji1993 wrote: post #32

It tells me there are only 30.000 transactions? In the last block? Because that number seems very small compared to the hype that surrounds Bitcoin if that is "All Transactions of all time"

This doesn't represent Lightning network, which is used for smaller, quicker transactions later synced onto the main Bitcoin chain by transferring only the differences between the nodes to save on transaction fees.

I didn't know LN was a real thing I could use. What app or whatever do I get for a wallet?

And what places or sites accept LN? Or it works with any btc transaction?

Re: The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

#99

Post by skohan »

lpellis wrote: post #94
skohan wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very snappy site, nice work! What front-end technologies did you use to build it? I guess you're synching data to local storage and then querying it to get those quick page loads?

Its a vue.js site that I host statically on Netlify, with django backend on heroku that pulls all the data. The trick to get things to load quickly is caching the data on https://www.keycdn.com/ (with the right headers you can set it up that the CDN queries the slow pages in the background and serves the cached ones meanwhile to keep things near real-time). I might do a writeup about that it took me a while to figure…

I would happily read such a write-up.

Re: The Bitcoin Blockchain Visualized in 3D

#100

Post by ric2b »

remarkEon wrote: post #89
woah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lightning network is a bunch of running tabs between people which can theoretically route transactions to a destination.

And the “final” destination is what gets verified? Is there a visualization of this model?

Here's a simplified explanation: https://youtu.be/rrr_zPmEiME

If you want a more technical explanation: https://youtu.be/MpfvhiqFw7A

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