401G (@880401) • Hey
ride the beta, bet the alpha
Publications
- Life equals…
- The cost of the mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for non-reversible services.
With the possibility to reversal, the need for trust spreads. Merchants must be wary of their customers, hassling them for more information than they would otherwise need.
- The network itself requires minimal structure. Message are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.
- The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as the majority CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they’ll generate the longest chain and outpace the attackers.
- Bitcoin: a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.
Abstract：
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent 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. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network.