Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

bitcoin.org ^ | October 31, 2008 | Satoshi Nakamoto

[ConservativeDude]

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.

[Georgia Girl 2]

This what Trump’s quantum financial system is going to be. Banks will be obsolete.

[Georgia Girl 2]

You are right the Rothschild are going to be SOL.

[Truthoverpower]

What or who backs up bitcoin?

[Prov1322]

We need to start a FReepCoin.

My coding skills are non-existent but I’ll be in on the hashrate immediately!

[cranked]

Yeah, ‘peer-to-peer’ until the first EMP or catastrophic solar occurrence wipes out all satellites and electronics.....

[ConservativeDude]

that’s true of a lot of things

if you destroy electric power or destroy the internet, that’s gonna hurt

true true true

but

there is some emerging wireless power transmission techs.....so perhaps in next twenty years of so, that could become decentralized

[bgill]

Until a 12 year old hacks in.

[Vaduz]

Electronic Cash System is as useful as an IOU in a mouse trap.

[Pollard]

Nimiq may change that with it’s browser based wallet. Takes 30 seconds to get a wallet. Of course it’s an empty wallet(actually they’re giving people one NIM for creating the wallet).

Then you still have to send someone a copy of your ID to buy crypto unless you use a crypto ATM but they charge big fees, 5-10%.

I think eventually things will evolve enough for wide acceptance. It’s a technology race right now with thousands of different cryptos.

Eventually, they’ll get whittled down to several and those several will be interoperable.

[enumerated]

I am a long, long, long way from accepting a digital currency.

Having said that - it couldn’t be any worse than the baseless fiat currency we are all forced to accept now.

But that’s not saying much!

[Pollard]

Unless you’re a cash hoarder and do no banking, you’re already using digital money. Banking computer systems, debit cards, investments, 401k etc. After a quick search, 92% digital and 8% cash worldwide.

Wife and I have about $30 in cash between us and 1,000s in the bank which is digital unless we hit the ATM or make a check out to cash.

[Pollard]

A transaction Ledger that exists on thousands of different computers keeps records. That's the safety factor. Anyone can download the entire blockchain to their computer and have their own copy of the ledger. The Ledger's records consist of the sender's public key, the receiver's public key and the amount sent. Public key is a very long alphanumeric character set, like a long password.

No assets back Bitcoin though.

There are asset backed crypto currencies like USDC, backed by USD. Others backed by gold or other assets. These are called Stable Coins because they're not volatile like Bitcoin.

A few days ago, 1 Bitcoin was valued at $55k. Today, it's just under $50k. It's been as low as $77 back in 2013 so some people made big money.

One USDC coin remains valued at very close to $1 usd. $0.998329 as of right now but can go just above $1.00 at times.

Below is coingecko.com crypto tracking site. As you can see, Tether aka USDT (backed by gold) and USD Coin aka USDC(backed by USD) are stable(fluctuations are less than a penny) and the rest volatile.

[enumerated]

True - which is part of why I said crypto currency can’t be any worse than the fiat currency we use right now.

[Pollard]

There already exists decentralized social networks.

https://bitshills.com/best-decentralized-social-media-networks/

[backwoods-engineer]

I read that paper years ago when it all started. Read it again just now, and it’s just as brilliant. There are some amazing insights into human nature in there, right alongside the math.

[backwoods-engineer]

Um, did you read the paper? There is no connection between a Bitcoin public key and the owner of the transaction, except for the outputs of the transaction, and that can be mostly solved by generating a new public/private key pair per transaction.

So the FEDS DON"T KNOW.

[backwoods-engineer]

You're applying the characteristics of the old financial system to a completely new system.

It doesn't need a trusted third party or "backing". Gold only has value because it is useful industrially. Bitcoin transactions represent the kilowatt-hours of electricity and hours of CPU time required to bring the blockchain transactions to that point. You might say that the numbers themselves have value because it costs so much to calculate them.

[backwoods-engineer]

I don’t think every computer will be wiped out. Sure, it’s a concern, but the blockchain can be reconstructed if even one peer has it.

[backwoods-engineer]

No 12 year old can “hack” it, because there is no central server. Read the paper.

[backwoods-engineer]

I’m a big fan of bitcoin, but cash solves a LOT of problems in an emergency. Everyone should have at least $1000 of cash stashed somewhere. Just a suggestion.