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Trimmed the TradeHill section. A new user had made it a bit too promotional. The article implies TradeHill is still offering to convert Bitcoin to traditional currencies. This may be in error. There is no indication on the site when or if the situation will change.
I've been looking into this for about an hour and normally that would be enough to understand the rudiments of how it works. This is supposed to turn into a widespread medium of exchange, right? That would suggest that you don't need an engineering Ph. However, the language with which the Bitcoin community defines and introduces the subject is impenetrable.
There is a lot of talk about how it can't inflate, can't be controlled centrally, or can't be traced, but next to nothing about what it is. That is also true of this article. I'm certain that it's bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages just me being dense. Besides, even dense people should be able to understand this. Fifth graders -- third graders! That would seem to be necessary in any scheme that purports to also be money. Therefore I urge prospective authors of this article to think like someone who has no idea about Bitcoin, get out some simple metaphors and primer language, and answer simple questions for the uninformed:.
How is it money? Would it bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages correct to call it an electronic community currency? If so, how does it work without a central log of who owns a given "coin" in real time? How can I just open up unlimited numbers of accounts "wallets," if I've understood it? Does news of a bitcoin's transfer somehow travel through the full network, so that the spender can't use it again? Does the file representing a coin somehow get erased when I spend it?
Since it's a file, why can't that be stored in multiple locations, like any other digital information? What is the issuing authority? If the answer is none, then how does that work? Is there a program running somewhere by some algorithm that just issues Bitcoins on a schedule? How can it be "mined"? What is this "puzzle" you solve while "mining" and what makes that a legitimate means of creating a currency? Who are these people who will exchange Bitcoins bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages other currencies.
The article fails to answer most of these mostly-simple practical bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages. Thanks in advance to anyone who can communicate it in English. The basics of the crypto part are explained in the short and sweet Hashcash article: You spend some time to solve a puzzle. Checking your result is much faster than finding it, all cryptographic hash functions have this feature. For BitCoins the puzzles get harder over time, and the total number of puzzles is limited.
I agree that it's difficult to understand the mechanics of Bitcoin. The problem is that it 'first' requires you to understand the basics of public-key crypto, which, by itself, is hard for the average person certainly third graders! And unfortunately, it's hard for people to learn public-key crypto from Wikipedia as well, since the articles thereon are highly technical.
A blogger I read recetnly posted a link to this post, which tries to fill in that gap. It doesn't completely explain bitcoin, but it gives a layperson level intro to how the crypto works, leaving off some of the more complicated details. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. Think this can leave the discussion page.
I think everyone can agree on the fact that this is a geeky hype created by geeks for geeks, with no relevance for the real world. This clearly shows in the fact that some very basic and decisive questions about it have now been raised here three times, and every time, a cryptic, technical, and evasive answer has been supplied.
If something is so complicated and incomprehensible that the most basic questions about it can't be answered by its advocates, then it's meaningless. I just came here to post this exact same request. Knowing nothing about Bitcoin, I came here to find out what it is useful for and why it might interest me. This entire article talks about the mechanics of how it functions and why it may or may not be foolproof or secure or whatever.
I might be interested in how it works after I understand what it does. How can the general public be expected to buy into this concept if an understanding of cryptography is a prerequisite? QuentinUK talk —Preceding undated comment added A few people here seem to get what I'm talking about: If a few bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages can give the gist of general relativity for the layperson, then that should also be possible for bitcoin.
Just for kicks, and because I hate not getting something, here's an attempt at a completely new intro. Maybe someone more knowledgeable wants to fill in the blanks and turn this into a new introduction. Bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages is a project to establish a new, universal digital currency suitable for settling electronic transactions on a peer-to-peer basis, without need of financial service institutions as intermediaries.
The currency is generated and supported by a decentralized software system running on a distributed network accessible to all Internet users. The currency, which is already in use, does not require the backing of a government or other formal institutions, and in fact is intended to be independent of states.
The Bitcoin software was created by SN and launched in The system is designed to gradually create X million units of the currency, known as "bitcoins," over a period of Y years, and issue these to users at random by a process known as "mining. Some Bitcoin advocates have gone as far bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages to claim that bitcoins will eventually become the new standard international currency.
Some critics see the entire venture as an elaborate Ponzi scheme, while others view it as a limited diversion for a select class of the technologically savvy that cannot possibly catch on among most people because of its complexity. A US senator expressed alarm at the implications of Bitcoin as an unsupervised alternate system of payments and its potentials to facilitate illegal activities or tax evasion.
These views bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages be treated below. Bitcoin currency creation or "mining" is based on an extremely complex cryptographic puzzle that allows up to Y solutions. Finding these solutions requires enormous computer processing power. Users who wish to "mine" for bitcoins can have their computer run a program that contributes processing power toward finding solutions to the puzzle. Although the total number of possible solutions is known, it is impossible to predict with certainty when a given solution will be found, or in which order, or by which of the participating computers.
The cryptographic puzzle is used as a means both to automate and to randomize the process of creating and issuing the currency to users. Each time a solution to the problem is found, a number of bitcoins each consisting of a unique alphanumeric code? Technical aspects of the cryptographic puzzle and the "mining" or currency creation process are explained in greater detail below. Once issued, bitcoins are used as currency and also traded for standard currencies. One need not "mine" to acquire bitcoins.
One may also enter the bitcoin system by trading existing currencies, such as dollars or euros, for existing bitcoins. The value of bitcoins floats against other currenices as the market determines. Like any other money system, Bitcoin is based on the faith of the users in its status as a medium bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages exchange.
Since users of the system move bitcoins among each other as though these were money, in exchange for goods and services, bitcoins therefore are money to those who use and accept them. Bitcoins exist only in digital form. A bitcoin used to pay for a good or service is transferred from the account known as a "wallet" of the payer to that of the recipient. Information about each transaction is distributed to the entire network, so that bitcoins cannot be counterfeited and so that the same bitcoin cannot be spent for more than one transaction at a time.
Advocates of the system pointed to several claimed advantages: First, bitcoins do not require state backing and elude state supervision altogether. Second, bitcoins can only be issued by the mining process on an arbitrary schedule determined by the process of finding solutions to the cryptographic puzzle, and therefore no human authority can issue its own bitcoins. Furthermore, there is a limit to the ultimate total number of bitcoins in the world, which will reached when all solutions to the cryptographic puzzle have been found, a point expected around the year 20XX.
Theoretically, these features prevent manipulative monetary policy and means the currency cannot be artificially inflated. However, one bitcoin is divisible into smaller units, and so enough fractions of bitcoins will be generated via transactions to cover the possible future growth of the Bitcoin economy. Because of these features, advocates theorize that the value of a bitcoin will constantly rise.
After that there would be room for sections on 1 practical use wallets, etc. And I revised it just now. I'm sure parts are off and if I thought I had it all right, I'd have posted it. Rather, I am suggesting it as a model for how to write about this subject in English.
In fact, I am hoping someone who knows the subject well takes it as a cue, corrects and adapts bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages, and uses it as the new first part of this otherwise not very encyclopedic article.
The "flash crash" was apparently due to a break-in to the Mt. All their account bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages names and passwords were compromised. Someone who broke into an account sold a huge number of Bitcoins, causing the flash crash. They moved some of those Bitcoins out of Mt. Gox exchange is off line until further notice, stranding customer funds. Gox proposes to roll back transactions to before the theft, but since some bitcoin wikipedia donation advantages and disadvantages were moved out of Mt.
Gox, the exchange may have to make up losses.
