Bitcoin open source implementation of P2P currency

[Satoshi Nakamoto]

I've developed a new open source P2P e-cash system called Bitcoin. It's completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties, because everything is based on crypto proof instead of trust. Give it a try, or take a look at the screenshots and design paper:

Download Bitcoin v0.1 at http://www.bitcoin.org

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.

A generation ago, multi-user time-sharing computer systems had a similar problem. Before strong encryption, users had to rely on password protection to secure their files, placing trust in the system administrator to keep their information private. Privacy could always be overridden by the admin based on his judgment call weighing the principle of privacy against other concerns, or at the behest of his superiors. Then strong encryption became available to the masses, and trust was no longer required. Data could be secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what.

It's time we had the same thing for money. With e-currency based on cryptographic proof, without the need to trust a third party middleman, money can be secure and transactions effortless.

One of the fundamental building blocks for such a system is digital signatures. A digital coin contains the public key of its owner. To transfer it, the owner signs the coin together with the public key of the next owner. Anyone can check the signatures to verify the chain of ownership. It works well to secure ownership, but leaves one big problem unsolved: double-spending. Any owner could try to re-spend an already spent coin by signing it again to another owner. The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.

Bitcoin's solution is to use a peer-to-peer network to check for double-spending. In a nutshell, the network works like a distributed timestamp server, stamping the first transaction to spend a coin. It takes advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle. For details on how it works, see the design paper at http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

The result is a distributed system with no single point of failure. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of the P2P network to check for double-spending.

Satoshi Nakamoto
http://www.bitcoin.org

[CHOI YONG KWAN]

Satoshi Nakamoto has rejoined the forum and is likely following related discussions. They will post their position directly. Please be patient.

[satoshi nakamoto]

Hello,

my account was hacked, so I had no choice but to sign up again with a different email.

[Too Hot]

Omg

[Very Good]

Bitcoin has become more of an betting app, please are just betting weather its price will go up or down. It's no way near the real world applicaton of currency exchange.

It's unfair with people buying bitcoin @ 1 USD and selling at 65k USD. Bitcoin price should not be judged but the price of commodities using bitcoin has to be judged. Somewhere the logic is lost. Any currency in the world has to be connected to the parameters of supply chain. Example, for a sample population of 1000 people if 1000 eggs are generated in a day then the price would be near the production cost plus a standard profit margin, but if 250 eggs are produced then the price would go up due to less supply and more demand. This will serve in two purposes, one is fair distribution irrespective of demand, planning and scaling production based on demand. You should have gone deeper. All goods today are fake inflated by value. With a high extent of digitization and readily avaliable applications, we can get standard supply chain parameters. Assymetry of information is directly resulting in someone having the ability to control and inflate the prices which can only be removed by decentralizing the supply chain data (which actually means decentralizing ---- not decentalizing the banking system).

              Better to dissolve the bitcoin so that a better excahnge evolution comes and people start to think deeper on how the value is decided (rather than transaction platform). The way I see now, almost all major economies - USA, Europe, Asia are moving into a civil war with a sight on larger good and decentralized supply chain system. Economy should be seen as goods and services, rather than the mere monetory value.

[Haans Thrice the Great]

Incoherent ramblings riddled with inaccuracies & errors.
Your FUD has been weighed & rejected.

[Evgeni Pandurski]

I see that this thread is kind of alive (hopefully).

I have been working on Swaptacular for quite some time now. Maybe you will be interested to check it.