bitcoin

Technology beyond Politics

(Partly sponsored by Bitcoin earnings)

What is bitcoin?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Um63OQz3bjo

Open Source
(...to anybody that can read code...) (Will our financial system be left in the hands of engineers?? Are we crazy!!! Much better
in the hands of politicians J)

Software
(Decentralized Software in a Decentralized Repository... sounds like a Police song)

That Creates a Digital Currency

Image courtesy of http://dosmagazine.com/es/nace-el-bitcoin-la-divisa-preferida-por-hackers/

Features I Scarce

Image courtesy of http://falkvinge.net/2011/08/21/bitcoins-deflationary-economy-not-a-problem-initself/

Features II Digital

Image courtesy of http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-bitcoin-digital-currency-model/708855

Features III Peer 2 Peer

(Cryptography in a p2p World)

Features IV No Governments involved

(Keep on rocking in a p2p world)

Image courtesy of http://www.impactlab.net/2011/07/23/top-10-photos-of-the-week-188/

Features V Cryptography

Courtsey of xkcd http://xkcd.com/

Features VI Anonymous

Anyway, is Currency Important?

Courtesy of http://www.moneychoice.org/the-future-of-money/

Don't Blame the Government: Central Banks Rule

Extracted from the M. Goodwin & D.E. Barr, Economix: How our Economy Works (2012)

And Commercial Banks Live Out of Us...

And Take Others' Homes Away

Image courtesy of http://periodismohumano.com

In the End, Money is Just a Number in Your Bank Account

Okay, so what is bitcoin about?

Theoretical Foundation (2009)

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Basic Concepts I Blockchain

The blockchain is a shared public transaction log on which the entire Bitcoin network relies. All confirmed transactions are included in the blockchain with no exception. This way, new transactions can be verified to be spending bitcoins that are actually owned by the spender. The integrity and the chronological order of the blockchain are enforced with cryptography. http://bitcoin.org/en/how-it-works

Basic Concepts II Transaction

A transaction is a transfer of value between Bitcoin addresses that gets included in the blockchain. Bitcoin wallets keep a secret piece of data called a private key for each Bitcoin address. Private keys are used to sign transactions, providing a mathematical proof that they come from the owner of the addresses. The signature also prevents the transaction from being altered by anybody once it has been issued. All transactions are broadcast between users and confirmed by the network in the following minutes, through a process called mining.

Image courtesy of http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/bitcoin-inside-the-encrypted-peer-to-peer-currency/

Basic Concepts III Nonce

The "nonce" in a bitcoin block is a 32-bit (4-byte) field whose value is set so that the hash of the block will contain a run of zeros. The rest of the fields may not be changed, as they have a defined meaning. Any change to the block data (such as the nonce) will make the block hash completely different. Since it is believed infeasible to predict which combination of bits will result in the right hash, many different nonce values are tried, and the hash is recomputed for each value until a hash containing the required number of zero bits is found. As this iterative calculation requires time and resources, the presentation of the block with the correct nonce value constitutes proof of work.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Nonce

Basic Concept IV Mining

"Winning" the next bitcoin in a chain means happening upon a bitstring, or nonce, that when combined with the data in the chain so far, produces a SHA-256 hash with a certain number of leading zeros. The probability of finding such a pattern by chance - and there is no better way known - is 1/2z , where z is the number of needed zero bits. The Bitcoin protocol estimates the amount of CPU power currently in the Bitcoin mining network, and continually adjusts z so that, on average, one successful solution turns up every ten minutes. Each successful solution is currently worth 25 bitcoins http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/03/13/anatomy-of-a-problem-bitcoin-loses-25-percent-in-value/

Mining is a distributed consensus system that is used to confirm waiting transactions by including them in the blockchain. It enforces a chronological order in the blockchain, protects the neutrality of the network, and allows different computers to agree on the state of the system. To be confirmed, transactions must be packed in a block that fits very strict cryptographic rules that will be verified by the network. These rules prevent any previous block from being modified because doing so would invalidate all following blocks. Mining also creates the equivalent of a competitive lottery that prevents any individual from easily adding new blocks consecutively in the blockchain. This way, no individuals can control what is included in the blockchain or replace parts of the blockchain to roll back their own spends.

It's definitely geeky stuff

(how much energy does this mammuth need to produce 5 Ghz/s processing power...

Courtesy of Joshua J. Romero, Brandon Palacio & Karlssonwilker Inc. http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/06Bitcoin-1338412974774.jpg

The Ecosystem I How to Become a User

First result of a query in Google for 'usage coin' https: //www.weusecoins.com/ your portal into the world of bitcoin

Identity. Private and Public key

Relations. Digital Wallet

The original is a Java application with an open source interface, yes, from those great folks that brought you vim!

Exchange. An internet site/trader

The Supply How are bitcoins Created?

It's simple, just need a computer

Mining Client
One block every 10 minutes

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Software#Mining_apps http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/a-guide-to-bitcoin-mining-why-someone-bought-a-1500-bitcoin-mineron-ebay-for-20600

And also a Flourishing Aficionados' Market

(..this beauty ASIC outputs 60 billion hashes a second consuming 60 Watts, like a bulb)

Mining. When Processing Power == Wealth

power (or at least a chance) (on an algorithmic version of the bingo)

&

Samsung Exynos 5 Octa incorporates a full HD 60fps (frame per second) video hardware codec engine for 1080p video recording and play-back, an embedded 13 mega-pixel 30fps image signal processor interface for high-quality camera functionality, and 12.8GB/s memory bandwidth interface that enables Full HD Wifi display. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-03-samsung-exynos-octa-mobile-devices.html#jCp

Scarcity. Currency Supply

Mining is a hard day's work

it would statistically take you 40 years with a normal CPU to find out one winning ticket of hashes and nonces.

Coal miner Lee Hipshire in 1976, shortly after emerging from a mine in Logan County, W.Va. at the end of his shift. At age 36, he had worked 26 years underground. A few years later, Lee took early retirement because of pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease. He died at 57.
(Courtesy of Earl Dotter http://www.npr. org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/07/06/1563 86882/documenting-dirty-jobs-minersat-work)

Just a little help of my friends

(Pooled mining is a mining approach where multiple generating clients contribute to the generation of a block, and then split the block reward according the contributed processing power. Pooled mining effectively reduces the granularity of the block generation reward, spreading it out more smoothly over time. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Pooled_mining)

The Ecosystem II Where Can They Be Used?

Digital Goods

(or why I don't buy cds anymore)

The Ecosystem and its Amenities

(Amenities (Def.) 2. Something that contributes to physical or material comfort)

Other Uses

bitcoin and Capitalism

Welcome to the Darkside!

The Ponzi Scheme (or why are there so many exiled princes in Nigeria sending me emails)

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. Perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to keep the scheme going. http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

Recycling Debt or The Roots of Crisis

"Finance capitalism has become a network of exponentially growing interest-bearing claims wrapped around the production economy. The internal contradiction is that its dynamic leads to debt deflation and asset stripping. The economy is turned into a Ponzi scheme by recycling debt service to make new loans to inflate property prices by enough to justify yet new lending."
http://michael-hudson.com/2010/07/from-marx-to-goldman-sachs-the-fictions-of-fictitious-capital1/

Speculative Bubble: The Case of the Dutch Tulips

Image and story courtesy of Aleix Sal, Simiocracia, Crnica de la Gran Resaca, 2011.

Nevermind the Bollocks, We Got Gold

Nixon Shock
(...or why I am not backed by gold anymore (although I never was since I printed more money than the system produced), but by the fiat, the trust markets have in lending money to different governments.)

To prevent a run on the dollar, stabilize the economy, and decrease unemployment and inflation rates, on August 15, 1971, Nixon issued Executive Order 11615, pursuant to the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, which imposed a 90-day maximum wage and price ceiling, a 10% import surcharge, and, most importantly, "closed the gold window", ending convertibility between U.S. dollars and gold. The President and fifteen advisers made that decision without consulting the members of the international monetary system, so the international community informally named it the Nixon shock http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Nixon_Shock

Moral: States are Fancy Pants (with fancy currencies)

MStates are fancy pants (with fancy currencies)

Do We Really Need Banks?

Image courtesy of M.Goodwin & D.E. Carr, Economix: How Our Economy Works, 2011

Early Digital Alternatives

The basis of economy (and most things humans do as social

creatures)

In Banks we Trust
"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." Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Cash System, 2009

In Bitcoin we Trust?
Bitcoin isnt tied to any commoditybesides trust. As a statement on the global economy, Bitcoin is hilarious. As a currency for the disenfranchised and distrustful, its as serious as can be.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-28/bitcoin-may-be-the-global-economys-last-safe-haven

The whole thrust behind Bitcoin is that it removes the need for trust in currency; trust in bankers, trust in governments, trust that the two wont collude to do you over, like they did with everybody in Cyprus.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/hugo-rifkind/8874321/how-bitcoin-could-destroy-the-state-and-perhaps-makeme-a-bit-of-money/

Who You Gonna Trust? Watergate! Corruption Ricky

(...or why the political party system will depend on capital and banks)

The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate complexon June 17, 1972. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) connected cash found on the burglars to a slush fund used by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, a fundraising group for the Nixon campaign.[1][2]

Marx: an ethics of liberation

"MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer." Poor iluse, The Contract Social, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762)

Courtesy of http: //endofcapitalism. com/2010/11/04/zombiemarxism-part-2-what-marxgot-right/

Actually Ricky did not Like Marxism

The election of Marxist candidate Salvador Allende as President of Chile in September 1970 led Nixon to order that Allende not be allowed to take office.[142]:25 Nixon pursued a vigorous campaign of covert resistance to Allende, first designed to convince the Chilean congress to confirm Jorge Alessandri as the winner of the election. When this failed, false flag operatives approached senior Chilean military officers, in "some two dozen contacts", with the message that "the U.S. desired....a coup."[142] http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Richard_Nixon

Courtesy of http://www.westernfreepress. com/2013/01/15/odd-celebrityencounters/groucho-marx/

Marxists don't have a dress code

(...although anything red is recommended... Btw guys do also seem more appealing to girls when wearing red and it's science! http://news.discovery.com/human/women-are-more-attracted-to-men-wearing-red.htm)

Anarchist Entrepreneurs

Engineers are the architects of the new world

Will 'money' still make the world go 'round?

(The yore of the Lira, the feel of the Franc and the heel of the Deutsche Marks not anymore...)

Courtesy of the always oddly fabulous Monthy Python