1 2011-12-04 02:15:23 <Mqrius> Does GoWest hang out on IRC?
  2 2011-12-04 02:16:01 <Mqrius> If so: His mtgox ticker is broken on his site.
  3 2011-12-04 02:20:11 <Diablo-D3> I havent seen him, but he might use a different nick
  4 2011-12-04 02:33:23 <nanotube> i've seen him around, but not too often.
  5 2011-12-04 03:13:47 <theymos> Does Bitcoin Block Explorer seem super slow to anyone? It seems a little slower than normal to me, but someone on Stack Exchange says that it's really slow.
  6 2011-12-04 03:15:58 <gmaxwell> theymos: pages loading <1 second for me.
  7 2011-12-04 03:16:15 <gmaxwell> maybe a little slow, but not enough to complain.
  8 2011-12-04 03:16:31 <theymos> OK, thanks for checking. Maybe it gets worse at peak times.
  9 2011-12-04 03:59:03 <luke-jr> FWIW, OP_EVAL Stage 1 should now be live on Eligius
 10 2011-12-04 09:12:13 <gmaxwell> https://blockexplorer.com/block/0000000000000d720626d6d3ea8f9b90b8260db2db8e8dbdaf645e7fd67dff01
 11 2011-12-04 09:12:20 <gmaxwell> ^ first block with the OP_EVAL flag.
 12 2011-12-04 09:13:09 <gmaxwell> I'm sad that I wasn't paid in it. :)
 13 2011-12-04 09:13:22 <gmaxwell> luke-jr: congrats on the OP_EVAL implementation.
 14 2011-12-04 09:20:27 <Diablo-D3> wtf is that anyhow
 15 2011-12-04 09:38:52 <gjs278> yes what is OP_EVAL
 16 2011-12-04 09:39:33 <gmaxwell> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0012
 17 2011-12-04 09:52:52 <coderrr> has that miner voting strategy been standardized in anyway yet?
 18 2011-12-04 10:03:18 <[Tycho]> Hello.
 19 2011-12-04 10:40:26 <dissipate_> [Tycho], hello
 20 2011-12-04 11:01:07 <Mqrius> How many blocks do litecoin network services (ie btc-e) usually use for confirmations?
 21 2011-12-04 11:12:08 <Mqrius> Is there any services that gives a notification when block X has been reached?
 22 2011-12-04 11:12:18 <Mqrius> (On the normal Bitcoin network)
 23 2011-12-04 11:14:18 <Eliel> Mqrius: if not, sounds like a shell script someone needs to write. And a simple one at that.
 24 2011-12-04 11:15:02 <Mqrius> Eliel: Yup. Ideally it'd notify someone's phone though. But emailing or IRC notify should also work
 25 2011-12-04 11:17:22 <Eliel> here's a quick hack of a shell line that will return the latest block number:
 26 2011-12-04 11:17:26 <Eliel> bitcoind getinfo |grep blocks| cut -d : -f 2- | cut -d , -f 1-1 | cut -c 2-
 27 2011-12-04 11:21:30 <Mqrius> I'm on windows. Was gonna try to use python and RPC calls, but apparently I don't have jsonrpc
 28 2011-12-04 11:22:04 <Mqrius> On a related note: How do I cleanly exit bitcoind? Just ctrl+c it?
 29 2011-12-04 11:23:48 <Eliel> that how I tend to do it but a normal kill should be pretty clean too.
 30 2011-12-04 11:24:14 <Eliel> as long as you don't use the -KILL switch which won't give the programs any chance to do anything anymore.
 31 2011-12-04 11:24:58 <Mqrius> A normal kill on windows would equate to ctrl+alt+del, and then end task, but not end process?
 32 2011-12-04 11:26:14 <Eliel> hmm, I don't know how that works on windows.
 33 2011-12-04 11:26:38 <Eliel> but I'd expect the end task thing to give programs a chance to do stuff before they quit.
 34 2011-12-04 11:27:07 <Eliel> and if it takes too long and user then tells the system to force it dead, that will kill without any chances to do anything anymore.
 35 2011-12-04 11:31:29 <Mqrius> sounds like it could be correct
 36 2011-12-04 11:32:37 <Mqrius> python script to get blocks: from jsonrpc import ServiceProxy
 37 2011-12-04 11:33:30 <Eliel> that's quite a bit more readable than my hacky shell script :D
 38 2011-12-04 11:36:47 <Mqrius> :)
 39 2011-12-04 11:36:55 <Mqrius> Yeah, it's pretty clean
 40 2011-12-04 11:37:03 <Mqrius> and easy to integrate to a notification script
 41 2011-12-04 11:38:32 <Eliel> looks like the time the block reward will halve is likely to be somewhere around december 2012
 42 2011-12-04 11:53:20 <pickett> when the annunaki come back
 43 2011-12-04 11:53:27 <pickett> coincidence?
 44 2011-12-04 11:53:34 <pickett> who is satoshi
 45 2011-12-04 11:53:37 <pickett> omg
 46 2011-12-04 12:06:54 <pickett> echo -n "12345" | sha256sum
 47 2011-12-04 12:07:09 <pickett> anyone know what i type if i want to hash it say 1500 times?
 48 2011-12-04 12:08:54 <cocktopus> why would you want to do that, you increase the potential for collisions
 49 2011-12-04 12:10:29 <pickett> didn't know what
 50 2011-12-04 12:10:32 <pickett> that
 51 2011-12-04 12:15:51 <Mqrius> You slightly increase the chance of collisions, however, if you have proper salting, then the speed that can be achieved by bruteforcing is 1500 times smaller.
 52 2011-12-04 12:16:26 <Mqrius> but sha256 isn't going to collide anyway, so that's not really an argument in the first place
 53 2011-12-04 12:17:59 <Diablo-D3> cocktopus: well
 54 2011-12-04 12:18:01 <Diablo-D3> what he really wants
 55 2011-12-04 12:18:14 <Diablo-D3> is pbkdf2 type hashing
 56 2011-12-04 12:18:28 <pickett> sha512 and just taking the 1st half of the output works too
 57 2011-12-04 12:18:29 <Diablo-D3> sha256(x) ^ sha256(sha256(x)) etc etc etc
 58 2011-12-04 12:18:37 <Diablo-D3> and do that 10k times
 59 2011-12-04 12:18:59 <Diablo-D3> or really, sha512 that, and throw in a 128 bit or larger salt
 60 2011-12-04 12:20:06 <pickett> you know how i'd type that into my ubuntu terminal?
 61 2011-12-04 12:43:18 <Eliel> Diablo-D3: scrypt would work too.
 62 2011-12-04 12:44:19 <Diablo-D3> pickett: pam already has a module for that
 63 2011-12-04 12:44:23 <Diablo-D3> Eliel: meh
 64 2011-12-04 12:45:42 <Eliel> tarsnap project uses scrypt for creating an encryption key out of a passphrase. heavy enough scrypt that it'll take a couple of minutes to calculate it.
 65 2011-12-04 12:46:10 <Eliel> that's annoying if you make a typo :D
 66 2011-12-04 14:05:26 <[Tycho]> !seen gavinandreson
 67 2011-12-04 14:05:27 <gribble> I have not seen gavinandreson.
 68 2011-12-04 14:05:28 <spaola> [Tycho], I don't remember seeing gavinandreson.
 69 2011-12-04 14:06:06 <cocktopus> the 'seen' must get reset after a netsplit
 70 2011-12-04 14:06:30 <[Tycho]> !seen gavinandresen
 71 2011-12-04 14:06:31 <gribble> gavinandresen was last seen in #bitcoin-dev 18 hours, 15 minutes, and 7 seconds ago: <gavinandresen> luke-jr: maybe another gavinsomething got it
 72 2011-12-04 14:06:32 <spaola> gavinandresen (~gavinandr@unaffiliated/gavinandresen) was last seen quitting from #bitcoin-dev 18 hours, 4 minutes ago stating (Quit: gavinandresen).
 73 2011-12-04 14:06:54 <[Tycho]> He has a tricky nickname :)
 74 2011-12-04 14:07:09 <cocktopus> oh right :D
 75 2011-12-04 14:08:44 <[Tycho]> I'm always expect it to be "Andersen", like the famous one.
 76 2011-12-04 14:26:18 <jrmithdobbs> whoa, did a bunch of logging get turned off by default or something?
 77 2011-12-04 14:29:47 <jrmithdobbs> ;;bc,blocks
 78 2011-12-04 14:29:48 <gribble> 156011
 79 2011-12-04 14:49:05 <_Fireball> ha, Iwas always sure his last name is "Andersen" ;)
 80 2011-12-04 14:50:20 <[Tycho]> _Fireball: that's because of the tales from our childhood.
 81 2011-12-04 14:50:34 <_Fireball> ;)
 82 2011-12-04 19:01:21 <wonderbread> Is there a command like "listtransaction" but instead of taking an account as arg. accepts an address or is my best option to grab a lot of them and then iterate over them finding the ones related to a certain address?
 83 2011-12-04 19:02:06 <tcatm> I think there a listreceived... RPCs
 84 2011-12-04 19:03:01 <TD> wonderbread: why do you want a list of transactions?
 85 2011-12-04 19:03:55 <wonderbread> It's for a simple payments API.
 86 2011-12-04 19:04:47 <TD> wonderbread: you should be able to query the balance of an address, i thought
 87 2011-12-04 19:04:50 <wonderbread> That command specifically outputs the txid, amount and and confirmations
 88 2011-12-04 19:04:58 <wonderbread> It's not just the balance I'm after
 89 2011-12-04 19:05:20 <wonderbread> Rephrase my previous statement. Of what the command outputs, I'm after the txid, amount and confirmations
 90 2011-12-04 19:06:02 <wonderbread> The balance is easy, that's getreceivedbyaddress
 91 2011-12-04 19:06:20 <[Tycho]> Hello, luke-jr
 92 2011-12-04 19:55:28 <cthulhuzombie> hello, an idea. just like bitcoin network is used for namecoin
 93 2011-12-04 19:55:43 <cthulhuzombie> cant we use it as a CA (certificate authority)
 94 2011-12-04 19:55:44 <cthulhuzombie> ?
 95 2011-12-04 19:57:24 <theymos> Yeah, you could probably do that.
 96 2011-12-04 20:20:24 <gmaxwell> cthulhuzombie: namecoin uses the namecoin network not bitcoin.
 97 2011-12-04 20:20:43 <graingert> well it uses some mining power from bitcoin
 98 2011-12-04 20:20:53 <gmaxwell> No, it doesn't.
 99 2011-12-04 20:20:56 <luke-jr> yes, it does.
100 2011-12-04 20:20:57 <graingert> due to merged mining
101 2011-12-04 20:21:01 <gmaxwell> You could equally say namecoin uses bitcoin mining power.
102 2011-12-04 20:21:09 <luke-jr> that's what he said.
103 2011-12-04 20:21:12 <graingert> that's what I said
104 2011-12-04 20:21:17 <gmaxwell> er reverse that.
105 2011-12-04 20:21:18 <gmaxwell> :)
106 2011-12-04 20:21:20 <luke-jr> lol
107 2011-12-04 20:21:26 <gmaxwell> You can equally say bitcoin uses namecoin mining power.
108 2011-12-04 20:21:37 <luke-jr> cthulhuzombie: I think CA could be added to NMC
109 2011-12-04 20:21:39 <graingert> well not quite the same
110 2011-12-04 20:21:49 <graingert> cthulhuzombie: it would be DNSSEC
111 2011-12-04 20:21:49 <luke-jr> cthulhuzombie: in fact, IMO that would be the first *good reason* to use NMC
112 2011-12-04 20:21:55 <graingert> basically
113 2011-12-04 20:22:00 <gmaxwell> graingert: it really is other than the fact that namecoin gets the slightly overhead higher than the two.
114 2011-12-04 20:22:03 <luke-jr> cthulhuzombie: because it wouldn't be a CA you need, it'd be a keyhash
115 2011-12-04 20:22:11 <graingert> ala DNSSEC
116 2011-12-04 20:22:18 <gmaxwell> luke-jr: iirc key signatures for namecoin are already well defined.
117 2011-12-04 20:22:34 <Eliel> by the way, how would a CA implemented in blockchain work?
118 2011-12-04 20:22:43 <gmaxwell> Eliel: name way naming works.
119 2011-12-04 20:22:58 <luke-jr> gmaxwell: so you can already use a self-signed cert for a NMC domain, and get the same security level regular DNS needs a CA for?
120 2011-12-04 20:22:59 <gmaxwell> The downside is that namecoin can't provide a low/no trust light resolver yet.
121 2011-12-04 20:23:01 <graingert> well it would be based on name coin, as well as registering a ZONE you register a list of certs
122 2011-12-04 20:23:11 <luke-jr> Eliel: the browser would need to be aware of NMC ofc
123 2011-12-04 20:23:48 <Eliel> I mean, what would it provide that you can't currently get by using self-signed certificates?
124 2011-12-04 20:24:03 <graingert> you can insure that the page is the page of the domain
125 2011-12-04 20:24:10 <graingert> which you get with DNSSEC anyway
126 2011-12-04 20:24:33 <theymos> You'll know that the certificate you get is correct because you got it (or a hash of it) form DNS, which you know is reliable.
127 2011-12-04 20:24:38 <graingert> and if you set an HSTS record you can prevent ssl stripping
128 2011-12-04 20:24:41 <gmaxwell> http://dot-bit.org/Domain_names#Value_field
129 2011-12-04 20:24:43 <luke-jr> Eliel: with straight self-signed certs, you don't know if it's the original self-signed, or if it's a new MITM self-signed
130 2011-12-04 20:24:52 <gmaxwell> http://dot-bit.org/Domain_names#TLS_support
131 2011-12-04 20:25:27 <Eliel> ah, so with NMC support for certificates, you can tell if someone is MITMing you.
132 2011-12-04 20:25:28 <gmaxwell> Eliel: in any case, it can only do first come first serve CA.. but thats all real CAs really do anyways.
133 2011-12-04 20:25:36 <gmaxwell> Eliel: what! no!
134 2011-12-04 20:25:40 <luke-jr> Eliel: yes, you no longer need the CA at all
135 2011-12-04 20:25:55 <luke-jr> the whole purpose of the CA is to sign off that the person making the key is authentic
136 2011-12-04 20:25:59 <gmaxwell> Eliel: you can tell because you'll get a cert with a fingerprint that matches the one in the name lookup.
137 2011-12-04 20:26:14 <graingert> how does transferring work
138 2011-12-04 20:26:19 <graingert> and changing the records
139 2011-12-04 20:26:36 <gmaxwell> graingert: namecoin has transaction types to change records.
140 2011-12-04 20:26:48 <Eliel> so, it could potentially remove the need for asking the user separately for every site that has a self-signed certificate.
141 2011-12-04 20:27:22 <luke-jr> graingert: you basically send the domain to yourself, like when you transfer Bitcoins
142 2011-12-04 20:27:26 <gmaxwell> Eliel: it would just authenticate that the name was the real namecoin name. There would be no reason to prompt the user. The identity is validated.
143 2011-12-04 20:27:38 <graingert> luke-jr: I see, that makes sense then
144 2011-12-04 20:29:55 <Eliel> I think namecoin could benefit quite a bit from including a merkle tree of the state of all domains in every block.
145 2011-12-04 20:30:23 <Eliel> would allow lite-clients to verify they're not being spoofed.
146 2011-12-04 20:31:07 <graingert> bitcoin could do that was well
147 2011-12-04 20:31:13 <gmaxwell> Eliel: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21995.0
148 2011-12-04 20:31:18 <graingert> a current state of all outputs
149 2011-12-04 20:31:19 <gmaxwell> graingert: doesn't provide as much value for bitcoin.
150 2011-12-04 20:31:36 <Eliel> gmaxwell: yes, I've read that :)
151 2011-12-04 20:32:16 <Eliel> gmaxwell: how's it more valuable for namecoin?
152 2011-12-04 20:32:50 <gmaxwell> Eliel: because you don't need to know if a txn is still open in bitcoin the txn you care about are yours and you know if you've spent them or not without asking the network.
153 2011-12-04 20:33:18 <gmaxwell> a lite bitcoin node just needs to see proof that txn paying them were mined at some point, and the existing system can provide that to lite nodes.
154 2011-12-04 20:33:26 <Eliel> ah yes, NMC domains you do care about everyone's records.
155 2011-12-04 20:34:30 <gmaxwell> Right. In the NMC case you want neighbors to prove to you that a NMC transaction is still current as of a recent point on the chain.  Otherwise they can lie to you and give you NXDOMAIN or old responses that don't work.
156 2011-12-04 20:35:00 <gmaxwell> I dunno if there is any plan of doing this, however. It wouldn't be hard though.
157 2011-12-04 20:35:54 <gmaxwell> well, releatively there are some things to work out like how do you prevent people from attacking the tree to make long branches.
158 2011-12-04 20:37:08 <luke-jr> so anyhow
159 2011-12-04 20:37:12 <luke-jr> anyone want to test my theory?
160 2011-12-04 20:37:19 <luke-jr> I think the current bitcoind release has a bug:
161 2011-12-04 20:37:23 <graingert> you mean hypothosis
162 2011-12-04 20:37:32 <luke-jr> it will accept 0.0001 BTC instead of 0.0005 BTC for fees
163 2011-12-04 20:37:38 <graingert> Hypothesis*
164 2011-12-04 20:37:44 <luke-jr> graingert: no, I mean theory.
165 2011-12-04 20:37:57 <Eliel> why not test yourself?
166 2011-12-04 20:38:01 <luke-jr> Eliel: too lazy
167 2011-12-04 20:38:19 <graingert> if it's not tested, it's a hypothesis
168 2011-12-04 20:40:54 <Eliel> luke-jr: you mean, nodes will rebroadcast transactions that have 0.0001 as the fee?
169 2011-12-04 20:41:17 <luke-jr> Eliel: I mean, they will put it in blocks
170 2011-12-04 20:41:22 <luke-jr> graingert: I disagree.
171 2011-12-04 20:41:44 <graingert> luke-jr: well you're wrong
172 2011-12-04 20:42:20 <luke-jr> graingert: no u
173 2011-12-04 20:42:30 <Eliel> there was also this thing called theorem, no?
174 2011-12-04 20:42:34 <luke-jr> the dictionary agrees with me
175 2011-12-04 20:42:48 <luke-jr> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theory
176 2011-12-04 20:43:18 <graingert> People refer to a trial solution to a problem as a hypothesis, often called an "educated guess"[7][8] because it provides a suggested solution based on the evidence. Experimenters may test and reject several hypotheses before solving the problem.
177 2011-12-04 20:43:48 <graingert> 6 a: a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
178 2011-12-04 20:44:57 <graingert> appeal to violence, nice one
179 2011-12-04 20:45:49 <Eliel> graingert: I think the difference between theory and hypothesis is the scale.
180 2011-12-04 20:46:48 <graingert> no it doesn'
181 2011-12-04 20:46:48 <luke-jr> graingert: that agrees with me
182 2011-12-04 20:46:53 <graingert> doesn't*
183 2011-12-04 20:47:06 <luke-jr> yes
184 2011-12-04 20:48:12 <luke-jr> 1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
185 2011-12-04 20:48:25 <luke-jr> 2: abstract thought : speculation
186 2011-12-04 20:49:19 <luke-jr> 6b : an unproved assumption : conjecture
187 2011-12-04 20:49:24 <Eliel> hypothesis doesn't tend to get used much by general public, it's more scientist vocabulary. Theory however, is reasonably common word in common speech.
188 2011-12-04 20:49:25 <graingert> 1. Theory, hypothesis  are used in non-technical contexts to mean an untested idea or opinion. A theory  in technical use is a more or less verified or established explanation accounting for known facts or phenomena: the theory of relativity.  A hypothesis  is a conjecture put forth as a possible explanation of phenomena or relations, which serves as a basis of argument or experimentation to reach the truth: This idea is only a hypothesis
189 2011-12-04 20:49:27 <graingert> .
190 2011-12-04 20:49:44 <graingert> #bitcoin-dev is technical
191 2011-12-04 20:49:55 <gmaxwell> 13:37 < luke-jr> it will accept 0.0001 BTC instead of 0.0005 BTC for fees
192 2011-12-04 20:49:58 <gmaxwell> ^ by design
193 2011-12-04 20:50:08 <luke-jr> graingert: sorry you can't speak regular English
194 2011-12-04 20:50:17 <gmaxwell> The idea was that we'd get ahead of lowering the fees by accepting less than we impose.
195 2011-12-04 20:50:29 <graingert> I don't speak non-technical English in a technical channel
196 2011-12-04 20:50:33 <luke-jr> graingert: in any case, my theory, while untested, is not without basis for belief
197 2011-12-04 20:50:40 <gmaxwell> so that a new version could be switched to 0.0001 without waiting for a network rollout.
198 2011-12-04 20:50:40 <luke-jr> graingert: English is English
199 2011-12-04 20:50:58 <gmaxwell> But this was done back when bitcoin was at $20 heading to $30.
200 2011-12-04 20:51:02 <graingert> you've got to investigate the cultural context
201 2011-12-04 20:51:18 <graingert> surely you should know about that ;)
202 2011-12-04 20:51:31 <gmaxwell> It would probably be undone now... except for the fact that there hasn't been obvious attacks abusing the fees being too low.
203 2011-12-04 20:52:09 <gmaxwell> I guess it might make sense in .6 to go ahead and drop the UI imposed fees to 0.0001 just so attackers don't pay less fees than regular users.
204 2011-12-04 20:53:43 <luke-jr> or fix it so .0005 is required for blocoks
205 2011-12-04 20:53:46 <luke-jr> like it was supposed to be
206 2011-12-04 20:54:18 <graingert> what a load of blocoks
207 2011-12-04 21:01:38 <gmaxwell> luke-jr: It is how it was supposted to be.
208 2011-12-04 21:01:49 <gmaxwell> Go look for the message where jgarzik announced the change.
209 2011-12-04 21:02:10 <gmaxwell> But, sure, changing it to 0.0005 would also work.
210 2011-12-04 21:08:13 <luke-jr> gmaxwell: I saw no such announcement.
211 2011-12-04 21:13:13 <gmaxwell> luke-jr: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=printpage;topic=16553.0
212 2011-12-04 21:14:24 <luke-jr> gmaxwell: that concurs with what I thought it was supposed to be, not what it actually is now in code
213 2011-12-04 21:14:37 <gmaxwell> oh! you're saying it will relay _and_ mine.
214 2011-12-04 21:14:46 <gmaxwell> oh, indeed, I think thats a bug. I'm sorry.
215 2011-12-04 21:19:11 <luke-jr> gmaxwell: right
216 2011-12-04 21:19:59 <cthulhuzombie> thanks guys for the info about  CA (certificate authority) with bitcoin/nmc
217 2011-12-04 21:37:29 <[Tycho]> luke-jr: Is there any progress on the listtrasactions bug ?
218 2011-12-04 22:02:12 <luke-jr> [Tycho]: not that I know of.
219 2011-12-04 22:07:48 <[Tycho]> luke-jr: so sad.
220 2011-12-04 22:08:50 <luke-jr> [Tycho]: I imagine Gavin doesn't work on the weekend.
221 2011-12-04 22:09:08 <luke-jr> [Tycho]: oh, he did confirm it didn't affect the 0.3.23 backport tho
222 2011-12-04 22:09:17 <[Tycho]> Oh, It's weekend there...
223 2011-12-04 22:09:38 <[Tycho]> Why it didn't affect the backport ?
224 2011-12-04 22:12:34 <luke-jr> [Tycho]: I don't know, I didn't look into the bug beyond confirming who to blame.
225 2011-12-04 23:13:17 <GFlam> hey
226 2011-12-04 23:13:23 <nanotube> hi
227 2011-12-04 23:14:52 <GFlam> with bitcoin mining why exactly do you get paid? like what exactly is being done on our computers?
228 2011-12-04 23:15:27 <nanotube> ;;bc,wiki how bitcoin works
229 2011-12-04 23:15:28 <gribble> https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_bitcoin_works | 6 days ago ... How bitcoin works. From Bitcoin. Jump to: navigation, search. This page explains the basic framework of Bitcoin's functionality. ...
230 2011-12-04 23:15:31 <nanotube> start there
231 2011-12-04 23:16:42 <GFlam> yea just skimmed that but just wondering exactly what's being done on the computer like why are people paid for this? is it basically like someone else is paying to use my machine?
232 2011-12-04 23:16:44 <gmaxwell> GFlam: mining is the process of adding transactions to bitcoin's shared database of transactions and simultaniously securing the database against modification.
233 2011-12-04 23:17:38 <gmaxwell> It also serves the purpose of performing the initial distribution of bitcoins when a miner adds a block of transactions to the chain, the system lets him give himself a limited amount of new bitcoin out of thin air.
234 2011-12-04 23:18:46 <GFlam> okay but then where exactly is the money coming from when you exchange the coins for cash if the coins come from thin air?
235 2011-12-04 23:18:48 <nanotube> gmaxwell: you mean, out of the thick, hot, dusty air coming out of the back of the computer :)
236 2011-12-04 23:19:06 <nanotube> GFlam: from other people wanting to buy them.
237 2011-12-04 23:19:10 <gmaxwell> GFlam: people who want to buy bitcoins.
238 2011-12-04 23:19:47 <gmaxwell> The programming of the system limits the supply so there will never be more than 21 million bitcoin. (there are 7200 created per day now, but that rate slows geometrically over time)
239 2011-12-04 23:20:29 <GFlam> okay so it sounds like it's just moving money around?
240 2011-12-04 23:20:36 <gmaxwell> Like anything else with a limited supply: if you have it, and other people want it and they have something you want, you can agree to trade.
241 2011-12-04 23:20:46 <GFlam> like someone gives money for coins then those who mine get that money
242 2011-12-04 23:22:02 <gmaxwell> There isn't any direct connection. You get bitcoins (somehow) then later you trade them for something else (maybe USD, maybe pizza)... the person who got those can trade them elsewhere (maybe for pizza sauce, maybe for socks, who knows)
243 2011-12-04 23:23:15 <gmaxwell> Some people who mine it hold on to it hoping that it will have more spending power in the future, some convert it directly to USD at the going rate... some people do things in between (like only use it to buy goods/services in bitcoin, in order to help grow the bitcoin economy)
244 2011-12-04 23:24:46 <GFlam> okay cause it just sounds like you're basically moving money around then really and then i just am not really understanding how you can just basically make money from mining really but i guess that;s all just complicated i was more just curious ha
245 2011-12-04 23:25:08 <GFlam> so have you made money doing this? like it's something you've done yourself right?
246 2011-12-04 23:26:00 <gmaxwell> Sure.. though mining isn't terribly profitable it takes electricity to run the computers to do the mining.
247 2011-12-04 23:27:27 <GFlam> yea i mean obviously the machines and what not cost a ton but i just am not getting my head around why you are paid and what exactly is being done on these machines
248 2011-12-04 23:28:28 <gmaxwell> GFlam: the machines are solving puzzles based on the prior bitcoin transactions, the puzzles are easy to verify so that other people can tell that work was expended on them.
249 2011-12-04 23:28:49 <gmaxwell> This makes it possible for bitcoin to have a transaction log which can't be undone without having any centeral party in charge of it.
250 2011-12-04 23:29:17 <gmaxwell> central*
251 2011-12-04 23:29:24 <GFlam> k got you was more just curious thanks for the help
252 2011-12-04 23:29:55 <gmaxwell> GFlam: http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf  has a good overview.
253 2011-12-04 23:30:12 <gmaxwell> GFlam: this is also good, and a bit less technical: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source
254 2011-12-04 23:32:41 <GFlam> alright thanks for the info :)
255 2011-12-04 23:40:31 <applejack19> hello?
256 2011-12-04 23:40:38 <gmaxwell> Hello.
257 2011-12-04 23:41:22 <applejack19> hello mr maxwell
258 2011-12-04 23:41:44 <applejack19> so are you like a bitcoin wizard :D?
259 2011-12-04 23:43:46 <gmaxwell> Ha. Hardly. I know a few things though. This is where the wizards hang out however.
260 2011-12-04 23:44:03 <gmaxwell> Though if you have a question you might need to wait a bit since I think most people are not active now.