I have read the Satoshi´s white paper \ stacker news ~bitcoin

1857 sats \ 12 comments \ @Carresan 17 Jul bitcoin_beginners

zaps forwarded to @lunaticoin (25%) @Taft (15%) @DarthCoin (25%)

I was reading yesterday @taft´s post about how we get involved with bitcoin. It brought my attention as he got involved around the same time as me. I am not going to repeat my way as I mentioned earlier in this previous post #559500 .

As he explained his way, he received some comments about where he started and the reasoning behind it. One of them referred about reading the Satoshi´s white paper and how important is to know it. I have been putting off myself this read as I thought it could be too technical and not sure whether I could follow it.

I must admit that since I started my way, I have listening countless hours to @lunaticoin podcast and I have been able, I believe, to get a good grasp of what Bitcoin means. Sometimes he gets too technical, and, in other occasions, you can follow easily as he has some very basics pods. Also, the same episode may take you from the beginner camp to the most advanced bitcoiner. He recently published one episode about nodes that could apply to everyone.

In addition, @DarthCoin´s guidelines have helped me a lot about learning from the very beginning including lightning and wallets. I keep checking them every time I have a doubt.

So, after reading yesterday that the white paper is a “must read”, I took action. I read it and, to be honest, at some points was too technical. But I was relieved as most of the message, I could understand it from my previous reading and listening. It is definitely a gem, considering he/they found a way to avoid double-spending .

The only thing that concerns me is related to possible attackers. I have recently listened to a podcast, where Luke Dashjr mentioned that most of mining is concentrated in just a few companies, which could be a risk for the whole system. That was what moved him to develop Ocean as an alternative to other mining companies.

Do you think there is a risk there? What can it be done to avoid the risks?

view all related items

316 sats \ 2 replies \ @nullcount 17 Jul

According to page 8 of the Bitcoin whitepaper, if a single miner has more than 45% of hashpower (as Antpool likely does). We should be requiring upwards of 300 block confirmations to reduce the probability of a reorg to 0.1% for that transaction.

https://m.stacker.news/40215

Since there are miners with ~50% hashrate, anyone who only accepts a tx after only 3-6 confs is still facing a 20-30% probability that their tx could be undone by the miner (if the miner wanted to).

If you mine BTC, consider joining a pool which is not a proxy of Antpool or Foundry. Or better yet, switch to solo mining.

If you don't mine BTC, you can spread awareness of the pool centralization issue. You can also demand that any transactions you do in BTC require at least a couple hundred block confirmations (wait a couple days) before you call the transaction settled. If enough people acted rationally in this regard, it may be enough of an inconvenience to spark action.

However, most BTC users are still comfortable accepting 6-confirmations and trusting the largest miner won't reorg their tx.

23 sats \ 0 replies \ @Carresan OP 17 Jul

Thanks for the explanation, I did not get this part quite clear from the paper.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @tolot 18 Jul freebie

Agree on all of that. I would say that statistically it's very likely for your transaction to be in the reorged timechain, because if it were included in a block in the first place, it means that the miner found it economically reasonable. Thus, a timechain reorg would simply change the hash of the block your transaction is included in, most likely.

This excluding the fact that a reorg could be malevolent, for example a reorg financed by a nation state aimed at mining empty blocks. In such a case, your transaction will not be included in the reorged timechain anymore. But that's a bit of a corner case I guess

137 sats \ 0 replies \ @freetx 17 Jul

I think a large part of the success of bitcoin is the whitepaper. It is written with the perfect balance of technical facts + conversational explanation.

In 2012, I would not have been able to understand an "academic" explanation of bitcoin. However I was able to understand enough of it over the first read to change my opinion on what bitcoin represented.

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @random_ 17 Jul

Needs to be an audiobook for the illterate me.

24 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinAbhi 18 Jul

I read it. Some part is too technical.

24 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 17 Jul

I've read it recently and baring the technical stuff I thoroughly enjoyed it!!!

124 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 17 Jul

IMO, the first move after someone gets into Bitcoin must be to read the white paper. It's one of the best if not the best thing ever written about the concept of money.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin fwd 17 Jul

Very good that you read it! Very good! I am sure it change your view about Bitcoin even that you already learn from other sources.

47 sats \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln 17 Jul

The simplicity yet powerful logic presented in that paper is not achieved by many peer reviewed documents by career academics... It's a beauty to behold ❤️

26 sats \ 0 replies \ @quark 17 Jul

Don't worry about that risk. It is not in their interest for them to attack the network.

23 sats \ 0 replies \ @jerrybature 18 Jul

Indeed, reading the white paper will help you comprehend bitcoin the most.

Concerning risk, there is a huge risk with concentration mining in few companies resulting in the 51% attack. The only solution, the best of all solutions, is to have far more distributed mining activities.