Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Satoshi Nakamoto
satoshin@gmx.com
www.bitcoin.org
Abstract.
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a
financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main
benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending.
We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network.
The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of
hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing
the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of
events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. 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 attackers. The
network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort
basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest
proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.
1. Introduction
Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as
trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for
most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model.
Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot
avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the
minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions,
and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for nonreversible services. With the possibility of reversal, the need for trust spreads. Merchants must
be wary of their customers, hassling them for more information than they would otherwise need.
A certain percentage of fraud is accepted as unavoidable. These costs and payment uncertainties
can be avoided in person by using physical currency, but no mechanism exists to make payments
over a communications channel without a trusted party.
What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust,
allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted
third party. Transactions that are computationally impractical to reverse would protect sellers
from fraud, and routine escrow mechanisms could easily be implemented to protect buyers. In
this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed
timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions. The
system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any
cooperating group of attacker nodes
hat problems with this on a much earlier version of Amethyst, now it's working perfectly
test 4
think it was an Amethyst hiccup - i couldn't zap you, working now!
awesome j-nostr image 🏆💜
posting via nostr.build below
Current status: (IYKYK):
Palentir - THAT's who we should trust to pioneer Three Laws Safe: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjvb4x/palantir-demos-ai-to-fight-wars-but-says-it-will-be-totally-ethical-dont-worry-about-it
I'm interested to explore each one to some degree and reflect on what all is going on and wonder how it's all going to pan out.
So I R/W a bunch but not with the same energy everywhere for sure. Bluesky at least seems like it's got a "good" vector IMHO but it's being heavily curated in many ways, I find it esp odd that I get several new follows every day from users that don't seem to have any much in common with me and have a huge number of following vs followed counts, here's just two.
Nostr is a strong cognitive bias for me bc of some of my main interests ($XBT/⚡ and highly decentralized/permissionless innovation systems) and that's great but at the same time it's a bit limiting and risks feeling like an echo chamber at times. Do see more general interest users in the last month or two which is good.
Going to be interesting to look back at the landscape across all this stuff in ~5 years or so.
Lame!
$AAPL removes #bitcoin whitepaper in macOS Ventura 13.4 beta 3
https://9to5mac.com/2023/04/25/apple-removes-bitcoin-whitepaper-from-macos
Ah NIP-21? Seems like snort hasn't updated to that yet (as well as several other clients)
no longer meaning in v35, this worked in v32