texts: Lightning: How would I make a monthly payment to a utility company, etc

texts:
I see a number of deep theory questions and highly detailed answers for questions about fraud, opening channels, etc. What I cannot find is a simple explanation of how one would go about doing something as mundane as making a monthly payment.

The concept of opening a channel with a balance seems to imply that any amount I'd want to send will have to be allocated up front. Is there no way to add funds periodically, as one would normally do for paying bills? The existing answer here is hypothetical and seems lacking. It seems there are a some still quite shallow proposals, if there's any validity to the link in the comment on the question...

It seems that the expectation is that there will be an intermediary that I keep a large amount of funds with, and I would then use that central channel as a hub... true?

Finally, bonus kudos if you can explain what's up with the common 'Alice and Bob both add 1/2 BTC to a channel' example. I can't fathom what the real world transaction model that is supposed to represent. I can't quite grasp when I would ever use a two sided account; my transactions almost always go one direction. I realize now that the current (or recent) Lightning implementation only funds from one source, but that example is so common that it wasn't until reading the answer here that I realized this.

I'm looking for an answer that explains how I'd go about sending a payment to a hypothetical (mythical?) cutting edge utility company. I expect there are at least two answers - one where the utility company and I create a 'direct' channel, and another where I 'reuse' ('pay through') a channel I happen to have with a central hub. Any answer must assume I'm a normal person who can't pay more than one month at a time.


texts: I am new to crypto-currency. I bought a bit of bitcoin the other day on coinbase. Then I moved it to another crypto exchange which cost me ~ 10% of the total value of the bitcoin. IMHO, this is useless. I changed my BTC to bitcoin cash because of this. I have moved it around couple of times and the fee was only 0.001 BCH, which was really good. I read a bit about the difference between BTC and BCH and I could not find any justification for using BTC. Could someone explain to me the drawbacks of BCH? Maybe I can't find the right sources to educate myself.


texts: What's p2sh in decodescript RPC method ouput?

texts:
Every time i call decodescript method with any input it returns p2sh

bitcoin-cli decodescript 1234
{
    "asm" : "[error]",
    "type" : "nonstandard",
    "p2sh" : "2NBbRKQ1VhLw8xeL82ynK4VUUJs9z2pj7Ca"
}

i know that p2sh is pay to script hash address, but address of what ? the given script ?


texts: How can I stop Electrum re-using change addresses?

texts:
I had three addresses containing BTC in my main Electrum wallet.

I then performed more than three sends, to addresses not in my wallet.

The first three sends used main wallet addresses to send BTC from, depositing the change each time in the first change address where it gathered.

Sends after that sent BTC from my first change address, but they sent any change back to the same change address, which isn't ideal. How can I stop Electrum sending change to the change address it originated from, in these cases?

Update

According to Electrum documentation, addresses can be frozen. This seems to only affect where BTC are taken from, however; the docs don't say how to affect where change goes.


texts: Where did the Mt.gox Trustee sell his 400 million worth of bitcoin?

texts: Is there a way to figure out where did the Mt.gox trustee sell his bitcoins? Was it on typical exchanges we use today or was it through a private big exchange?


texts: How does the reference bitcoin wallet/client handle rejected transactions? (in the API)

texts:
I'm working on writing a wrapper for the standard bitcoin client. I'll be communicating with it via the JSON-RPC API and I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience with this;
this app is mostly geared to receive BTC, not send.

How does the client react when it sees an incoming transaction from an address of x BTC, but it is later determined by the network that that transaction was invalid (probably due to a double-spend by someone sending BTC to an address, then immediately sending the same BTC to another address but from a far away play so the lag allows both to go through. In this case I'm talking about transactions before a block is mined)

Does the transaction just disappear off the network and away from the bitcoind interface/API or is that recorded somewhere? (In the confirms result in the API?)

I want my app to be able to keep track of any instances of this happening and notify the end user.

Thanks.


texts: I was able to mine Ripple for a time using boinc, will Stellar offer something like this? are there other ways to mine Stellar?


texts:
Can anyone suggest me which crypto currency is better for trading? Is it Bitcoin or Ethereum?

Prices in USD as of 21/08/2017 and time 18:03 (UTC+05:30):

Bitcoin = $4041.53 or
Ethereum = $325.76


texts:
Someone sent money to my wallet. It arrived but then disappeared from my wallet.

When I checked on https://blockchain.info, they wrote that it arrived but was pruned from their database.

What does this mean?


texts: Re-use change address as a receive address

texts:
Technically speaking, is it possible to reuse a change address from a previous transaction and make it a receive address?
What are the pros and cons of doing so? This does look like a bad privacy practice, but I wonder whether there would be any rationale for doing this.
Are there any wallets that currently support this functionality?


texts: Should I use a large random value for i in BIP 32 instead of sequential?

texts:
BIP32 doesn't have any guidance on how to choose the i value for child keys.

Is there any benefit to using a random value for i ?

Other than documenting and saving the value of I for various purposes such as auditing and child keys, is there any reason that it should be sequential, or why it shouldn't be a large random number ?


texts: What subjects do I need to study before I am capable of understanding the mathematical problem being solved in Bitcoin mining?

texts: I am a post graduate electrical engineering student, specialising in digital electronics. I would like to foray into ASICs for bitcoin mining. But first I need to understand the mathematics of Bitcoin mining. What subjects do I need to study to get a good idea of what my ASIC has to tackle?


texts: Anonymity of Bitcoin ownership a fakery?

texts:
If John needs to send 0.1 BTC to you as payment to your product, and he wants to retain his BTC ownership confidential, and the transaction goes something like this...

  1fdfsefesf.....   ---> send 0.1 BTC to 1hsjhjkwa..... (your account)
  ---> send 999.9 BTC to 1lkskakkd... (not your account)

... then doesn't that mean John has at least 999.9 BTC left in his savings?

Even though John may not want you or anyone else to know he has that much but the transaction has just given away info of his savings.

So how can anonymity really be sure?


texts: Is it worth it to mine while using my laptop for misc. purposes?

texts: I have never mined any cryptocurrency and know nothing about the market or how the earnings from mining fluctuate, but I do have my computer turned on a lot of hours a day while studying, watching series or simply wasting time on Facebook. My computer is an hp laptop with a core i5 2540M processor, no dedicated gpu and 10 gigs of ram running windows 7 (I know, I'm about to update to 8.1). Would it be worth it to have it mine something on the background while I use it or would it just deteriorate it for no reason while not even matching the increased electricity consumption cost?


texts: Creating a unconfirmed bitcoin transaction

texts: I know that it's sounds ridiculous, but i need to create an unconfirmed bitcoin transaction that will be unconfirmed for 2+ hours.I came to a conclusion that i need to create a 0 fee transactions but can't find a solution to make it and broadcast. Another variant was to set the min. fee ( 1sat/byte ) , but sometimes it's got confirmed after 5-10 minutes.How can a achieve the desired result ?


texts: Change -mempoolexpiry in BitcoinCore 0.20.1

texts:
I have accidentally made a transaction with a very low fee (5 sat/byte) and I doubt that it will be confirmed any time soon.
Replace-By-Fee is not available since my transaction has no change.
Abandon the transaction option is also not available.
How can I change the -mempoolexpiry setting in my BitcoinCore (0.20.1), which I run on Windows 10, so that I don't need to wait for 2 weeks for the transaction to be automatically dropped out of the mempool?


texts: Transferring many bitcoins without restoring a seed

texts:
I was thinking about how would someone transferring a handful of bitcoins say 10 or so to a new hardware wallet.

Say you have 10 coins and want to transfer those coins to a different hardware wallet but do not want to use the original seed.

How would one go about transferring those coins while being as anonymous as possible but doing so safely.  Because if you just send those 10 coins to a new address now 1 address has 10 coins from tons of different inputs. So it decreases the privacy of the account from what I am understanding.


texts: What might cause the Bitcoin client to take a long time to see a new, unconfirmed transaction?

texts: I've noticed that sometimes, when I send Bitcoins from one client to another, the recipient client might not see the transaction, sometimes until it already has one or more confirmations. Both clients are connected to 30-40 nodes.


texts:
What is the tech overhead associated with supporting a new coin on an exchange (such as bittrex). Especially when most of the new coins are built on the popular ones (ETH, LTC etc.)

If it's relatively simple, why don't exchanges offer all coins?


texts: Why do we need Proof of Work in bitcoin?

texts:
I know that proof of work shows that the person has put in some time and power into the processing. I also know that bitcoin mining is adding a transaction into the blockchain and then the miner will need to solve a pow problem.

Why do we need this? What if we eliminated the proof of work step for the miners and what are the consequences of doing so?


texts:
I've seen various 'options' that the different DNS seeders support, for example x1, x5, x9, and xd:

vSeeds.emplace_back("seed.bitcoin.sipa.be", true); // Pieter Wuille, only supports x1, x5, x9, and xd
vSeeds.emplace_back("dnsseed.bluematt.me", true); // Matt Corallo, only supports x9
vSeeds.emplace_back("dnsseed.bitcoin.dashjr.org", false); // Luke Dashjr
vSeeds.emplace_back("seed.bitcoinstats.com", true); // Christian Decker, supports x1 - xf
vSeeds.emplace_back("seed.bitcoin.jonasschnelli.ch", true); // Jonas Schnelli, only supports x1, x5, x9, and xd
vSeeds.emplace_back("seed.btc.petertodd.org", true); // Peter Todd, only supports x1, x5, x9, and xd

(from chainparams.cpp)

But I can't find anything which actually explains what these options are. What do these options do and why do only some seeders offer some of the options?


texts: Will Bitcoin remember unperformed transactions?

texts: Let's say I transfer 0.05 BTC from 1 input to 1 output and don't pay a fee. If there are 6 blocks per hour, this means that my input has to be 369 hours (about 15 days) old so no fee is required. Let's also assume that the input only is 1 hour old. Does this mean that it will never be confirmed or does it mean that the money will arrive after a little more than 15 days?


texts: Where can I see the "official" texts of BIP 100 and 102?

texts: I only see BIP 101 officially at https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0101.mediawiki.  Is there a reason that 100 and 102 don't show up here as well?  Couldn't they all just be listed as drafts?


texts: Hi I just heard about a new alt coin called "Ripple". How can I find out where to buy Ripple?


texts: Is there a fixed total amount of Bitcoin cash?

texts:
As I understood from Nakamoto's original bitcoin proposal, the bitcoin algorithm was designed in such a way that there would be a fixed total number of bitcoins and that bitcoin is designed for microtransactions. Therefore, once all of the mine-able bitcoin has been mined, no new bitcoins will appear in the system. As the value of bitcoin increases, people will simply trade smaller and smaller fractions of the original fixed number of bitcoins.

Is this true with Bitcoin Cash? Is the only difference between Bitcoin Cash and the original bitcoin a larger block size?


texts: Hidden fees in a transaction: How to anticipate one and avoid another?

texts:
On Bitcoin.org, the page on getting started has a button for "Buy Bitcoin". It links to page with a dialog box that appears to be an interface to the service, MoonPay. MoonPay has a page, "What fees do you charge?" From that page and other analysis (described below), I infer that there are at least three fees incurred in a transaction:

Processing fee of either 1% or 4.5% for depositing or withdrawing fiat currency, depending on how the transfer is done. (Strangely, the fees page seems to indicate that withdrawals can only be made to a bank in the EU or UK, which could be a problem for people living elsewhere.)

Dynamic network fee, which is apparently calculated when a transaction is proposed. Nothing is said about how much it might be. Is there a way to know what amount of fee one should anticipate? I have seen block data for a transaction in which the transaction amount was 0.00130696 BTC and the fee was 0.00125343 BTC, or 95% of the transaction amount. Why would anyone ever make a transaction in which the fee is almost equal to the amount of the transaction?

Currency spread, or premium. I compared the exchange rate shown on Bitcoin.org to that shown by Google in the same second:

The difference shows a spread of 35,026.27 / 33,935.1 = 1.032. This indicates that there is a price premium of at least 3% built into the exchange rate used on Bitcoin.org. This premium is like the premium charged by banks for conversion of fiat currencies. It is a hidden fee that both banks and MoonPay don't state in their fee schedules. I figure this is how the crypto exchanges make most of their money.
So my two questions are:

I understand that the "dynamic network fee" is part of the process of operating the blockchain and cannot be avoided. But how can I anticipate in advance how much to expect this fee to be?

I've read that it's possible to transact bitcoin without using an exchange, and I suppose this would eliminate the price premium. What does one have to do in order to transact without an exchange?


texts: Will be possible to have the same key on more than one wallet?

texts:
On pull request https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/220 say will be possible to import/export keys.
I would like to know if will be possible to have the same key on different wallets and only be able to spend the bitcoins from this key with permission of the other users that has this same key on the wallet. Example:

I have a key on my client with 10 BTC.
I export this key and send to a friend
The key will be on my wallet and on my friend wallet
When I or my friend try to spend the bitcoins from this specific key, will be requested a password asking if we accept the transaction.

Will this be possible on next Bitcoin versions?


texts:
What is "the gap limit" in Electrum?
I don't understand this explaination.


texts: Where to find last x hour/minute trading volume for a given coin

texts: Coinmarketcap shows trading volume for the last 24 hour. Where can I find trading volume for the last x hour/minute? Or How can I calculate it myself programmatically?


texts: Can a malicious Internet Service provider launch a double spend attack?

texts: If a malicious internet service provider completely controls a user's connection, can it launch a double-spend attack against the user? How much computational effort would this take?


texts: Is it possible to add a miner's fee after you send your bitcoins?

texts: I accidentally sent a transaction without a miner's fee and I need it to clear as soon as possible. But, as far as I can tell it's going to take days if it goes through at all. Is there any way that I can pay a fee on top of what I've already sent?


texts: How to access Latest Transactions using the Blockchain.info api?

texts:
I'm new in bitcoin, I just want to return json scrutucture from latest transactions from time to time.

I couldn't figure by searching their reference, I think it requires a level of knowledge in bitcoin I don't have yet.

I just wanted to return plain vanilla json array

thanks


texts:
I would like to understand if there is a way to loose a transaction received over the payment channel.

What is a mechanism for keeping track of all the transactions occurred in a channel?


texts:
I tried to use ws to get data, but I couldn't get any response from any server. I have solved this problem for several days, and I have not been able to solve it. I hope to get your help, thank you very much,Below is my code
import websockets
from jsonrpcclient.clients.websockets_client import WebSocketsClient
    async def electrumx(self):
        async with websockets.connect('ws://10.0.100.10:50003') as ws:
            res = await WebSocketsClient(ws).request('blockchain.address.get_history', ['3D2oetdNuZUqQHPJmcMDDHYoqkyNVsFk9r'])
        print(res.data)
        return res.data

No results can be obtained by executing print, and I see the following prompt disconnected whilst throttled in the electrumx log
If I execute the following code method is correct, can return normal data
async def electrumx(self):
    async with websockets.connect('ws://10.0.100.10:50003') as ws:
        res = await WebSocketsClient(ws).request('server.features')
        print(res.data)
    return res.data

So where am I going wrong? , Please help me, thank you very much


texts: If addresses are hashes of public keys, how are signatures verified?

texts: I've skimmed through the https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_specification and it seems that when sending someone bitcoins, I would sign the transaction data (not quite sure which parts exactly) with my private key, so that people could verify it with my public key, but my address is a digest of my public key, so where do people get my public key from?


texts: How does Bitcoin transaction batching work exactly?  How does this end up looking compared to a regular block of a bunch of transactions?  Also, I have read people claim batching causes weaker privacy, how is this exactly?


texts:
I have multiple accounts on older bitcoin core version (0.16.3) but in order to move to newer releases I must migrate accounts to new label format with additional database which hold each account balance. Since I have many accounts what is best (and easier) way to move all accounts to label format and to keep addresses that each account has.
Best regards


texts: Is there any centralized cryptocurrency? Is cryptocurrency a Bitcoin oriented concept only? From what i read almost all of the cryptocurrencies are derivatives of Bitcoin.


texts: While attempting to fetch a particular block my node just gets disconnected by peers?

texts:
A system at an office has its testnet node stuck at a particular block.

The logs report "requesting block" over and over again for the same block and after each one reports "socket recv error" and that peer disconnects. Then it connects a new peer and the same thing happens. There are no log entries about INVALID blocks.

As a result the system hasn't had a new block in two days, but all the explorers report that the chain has continued to move advance.

The current block this node is on is a member of the best chain reported by the explorers, but thousands behind.

This node is running on Ubuntu in the US. The office network has a sonicwall firewall.


texts: Which Bitcoin weakness most hinder Bitcoins ability to gain market and mind share?

texts:
Bitcoin has a few weaknesses. Among the well known ones are:

Transactions are not instantaneous.
Large numbers of transactions would bloat blocks.
Transaction fees are needed in some cases.
The client is difficult to use and its operation difficult to understand.
Wallets are difficult to secure. Coins can easily be lost.
Transactions are only somewhat anonymous.
Irreversible transactions are sometimes not what people want.

Of these weaknesses (including any I didn't mention), which are probably most seriously affecting the adoption of Bitcoins, both short-term and long-term?


texts: Do any actual bitcoin credit / debit cards exist yet?

texts:
With the rumors of the Bitinstant credit card failing to deliver, and the only other one out there being a fake scam site, does anyone out there offer a solution to this?

Just the ability to pay with Bitcoin wherever credit cards are accepted in USD is all I need.


texts: What is the fee charged by MtGox to receive a wire transfer in AUD?

texts:
I know my bank (HSBC) charges me $20 AUD to make a wire transfer. But how much is charged by MtGox to receive this wire transfer on say $1000 AUD?

I'm tossing up between cryptoxchange and MtGox - MyGox has better prices to buy bitcoins in AUD, but I have to know how much it will cost to send them my money. I can deposit $1000 AUS in cryptoxchange with no fees.


texts: Which blockchains have an asset / token exchange built in directly into the core wallet software?

texts:
Doing some research on fully decentralized exchanges. Which blockchains core wallets have a built in asset / token exchange? iDex and etherdelta are built by 3rd party developers, so that doesn't really count as one would have to trust the 3rd party implementations.

I know nxt and ardor have an asset exchange built in directly to their wallet, but are there other blockchains that have something similar?


texts: Are there really messages in the blockchain?

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  How can one embed custom data in block headers?

Someone told me a hacker put messages in the blockchain. What does this mean?

Edit: related asked/answered question

How can one embed custom data in block headers?


texts: Is there actually a dilemma of whether or not to publish channel states for LN nodes?

texts:
I've heard that there is such a dilemma for LN: if channel states were not published, the payer will not able to find any viable path, unless he takes brute-force-like probing approach (which looks quite unscalable); if the channel states were meant to published, the economic privacy of LN users would be sacrificed.

Does such dilemma exist? If such idea is wrong, why?


texts: If your wallet.dat back up is outdated, do you lose your coins since the back-up?

texts: My last back up of wallet.dat was from the beginning of the year. My computer crashed recently and I don't have the most recent wallet.dat after receiving bitcoins. If I use my outdated wallet.dat, do I lose the new bitcoins I received?


texts:
I'm new to bitcoin, and my knowledge of bitcoin is quite garbled and messy (I have only a vague understanding of Satoshi's original white paper for bitcoin......)

I've been reading up on bitcoin mining lately, and I just thought of a mining strategy which may or may not work.

What I want to do is this:

(1) Obtain the hash of the previous block to use as a component of my new block. This previous block hash can be updated accordingly if a new block is added into the blockchain.

(2) Based on the previous block hash, I calculate the possible block header combinations of the nonce, the version number, the timestamp* and the Merkle root. The goal is to simply find a valid block header which has a lower hash value than the current target.

(3) Make several bitcoin accounts, and execute a transaction based on this pre-constructed block header. For example, based on the pre-constructed block header, I have to execute a transaction at a specific time, with a specific Merkle root, etc. Once my transaction has appeared in the mempool, I can immediately submit my pre-constructed block header to verify the transaction - and earn bitcoins in the process.

*: The timestamp should be within a reasonable range - (a) greater than the median of the past 11 blocks, and (b) be within 2 hours of the network adjusted time. Otherwise, the timestamp would not be considered valid by the bitcoin network.

The potential advantage (at least, that's what I think) of this strategy is that I can earn bitcoins 100% of the time because I already know the winning nonce to the puzzle, putting the other miners at a disadvantage.

Is this even remotely feasible? Does this take more computing time and power than the typical bitcoin mining process? Or am I missing something?


texts: Is there an Android app that will scan a QR code and show the balance?

texts:
What I'm looking for is an app that lets a person scan a QR code containing a Bitcoin address and then see the balance and transaction history for that address.

For a specific use case, a mobile phone (or Android tablet, more likely) is going to be made available at an event to allow people to check the balance of their bitcoin address.  Attendees with their own smartphone can use their own mobile wallet app but for those without smartphones and those who don't know (nor care) about bitcoin, the QR code on their badge (or wristband) will work as their wallet for receiving small payments (rewards for their participation).  The badge might be something like  this, for example:

http://www.paymyaddress.com/

The app can be pretty simple -- a text field to enter the firstbits (and a button to optionally allow a scan of a QR code), and then the balance is displayed (with transaction history below, optionally).

Since it would be used by people just walking up, it shouldn't require any registration or login.  Simply scan and view.

BTCBalance.net would work for this but it isn't suited well for use from a mobile.

Has anything that does this been built already?


texts: What does the sequence in a transaction input mean?

texts:
Following a transaction input:

What is the meaning of the sequence number? What does the 4294967295 tell me?


texts: I found an old wallet.dat, but I cannot import it and I don't know why.


texts: Personal computer to use for bitcoin client

texts:
My understanding is that anyone with a computer can download a Bitcoin client such as Bitcoin Core, and then they can interact with the Bitcoin network: accept Bitcoin, pay Bitcoin, and view the state of the network (and unlike when using an exchange, fully control their own secret keys).

I also understand that operating such a client requires a full copy of the blockchain, which is ~100 GB at this point. This seems like a truckload of space for a typical personal computer. For example, my MacBook Air from a few years ago has 120 GB total, of which I have only 20 GB remaining.

1) Is my understanding of the situation correct?

2) Is it typical for people get separate computers to use specifically for operating their Bitcoin client (so they don't use almost all the space on their main personal computer)?


texts: Why are there barely rounded values on btc-e?


texts: I am looking for a website that allows me to retrieve the time at which each difficulty change happened. The time doesn't need to be accurate so a time stamp from the block will do. I want to fetch this information automatically every now and then, but I can't seem to find a webpage that provides an API for this.


texts: How are reserved operations intended to work?

texts:
Bitcoin has reserved words like OP_RESERVED1 that are only valid in an unexecuted if branch. How are those words intended on being used in the future to perform some actual operation?
I understand how NOP opcodes can be modified to provide new constraints to the transaction in a soft-fork compatible way. However, RESERVED opcodes seem to not allow for soft-fork compatible modification. Is this the case, or is there some trick I'm not aware of to allow their meaning to be updated in a soft fork? Or perhaps a hardfork is the only way to use them?


texts: Needing Instant (1-2 minutes) API / IPN for bitcoin payments

texts:
Basically I'm creating a autobuy in PHP.
I'm currently using coinpayments.net but their payments take 1-12 hours to send (which defeats the object of my autobuy). I'm needing to know of any way I can allow my payments to be done after 1-2 minutes so I can send the buyer their email with their order automatically.

I wrote to coinpayments.net and am waiting for a reply.
This should help you understand what I'm needing:

  I'm creating a autobuy shop and am using your API / IPN to get callbacks from the users payments to determine the status (successful, or unsuccessful) payment. The problem is that when a user pays the bitcoins to the address on the autobuy, (in coinpayments), it takes about 6-12 hours for the payment to clear. This defeats the whole object of my website (an autobuy). Is there any way I can make payments be completed after 1-2 minutes if a user actually does pay correctly ?


texts: My Bitcoin transaction hasn't confirmed in over 57 Hours. What can I do to speed it up?

texts: Here is the transaction 5f15aae40fad7328f8ea2986595c105d423d429e3513d8bcbb1b93934ff0c0f7


texts: Why is the hash rate pumped near difficulty calculations?

texts:
My question concerns Litecoin, but could apply to any other cryptocurrency.

I was inspecting the Litecoin difficulty chart and saw a pattern that seems to occur regularly: a dip in the hash rate just before a retarget, then a large, artifical pump to set the difficulty higher than it "should be". An example:

Why would miners do this? For maximum profitability, shouldn't miners attempt to keep the difficulty as low as possible? Additionally, why the regular dip just before a retarget?


texts: What happens to non-standard transactions in the case of a blockchain reorg?

texts:
Blockchain

[m1]-> [m2] -> [m3] -> [m4]

         |  -> [f1] -> [f2] -> [new]

m - mainchain blocks
f - fork blocks
new - tip of the fork that is at greater height than the previous mainchain

In this case we must switch from the mainchain to the fork, due to the height of forkchain being greater than the mainchain.

My question is about transactions in blocks [m3], [m4]. In the case a transaction was in [m3] but not included in either the blocks [f1],[f2]. Since that transaction is not confirmed in the new mainchain (the forkchain) after the switch, would this tx be available for miners again to include for next block? Would this transactions be returned to the rawmempool?

And what if this transaction was added without isStandard check (in case adding in block), should we process isStandard check for this transaction?


texts: How we can use Blockchain to prevent Plagiarism in scientific papers?

texts: I have a research in "plagiarism prevention using blockchain" topic, and it is specialized in scientific papers. Anyone has any idea to help me through this topic?


texts: Is the Bitcoin Core software managed by a central authority? It is in the context, that once a transaction is broadcast by a user, then is it centrally published at the application level (i.e Bitcoin Core) or it is propagated physically to every other user through the Bitcoin network?


texts: Sender, nodes or miners? Who validates transactions?

texts:
I have been reading a lot about the validation of transactions. I understand the actual method in which a transaction is composed (inputs and outputs). However, I don't know what happens with that transaction once its "ready":

Do miners check it before including it in a block?
Do other nodes check it and where there is a certain consensuous miners include it into a block? Who composes the blocks then? Are all miners trying to solve the same block at the same time or different blocks?

Thanks in advance


texts:
all I want to know is what do I do when using a mining software and it asks me for a wallet address... I've tried to use bitcoin address etc but it doesn't work! says invalid wallet! where to get a valid wallet to mine!.
a simple answer will suffice thank you


texts:
Suppose Alice sent some coins to a multisig address. Even if that address is assigned to my wallet I will not see the transaction as it doesn't really belong to me. That's fine, Bitcoin-Qt has no way to show "money in your account but locked by multisig" GUI.

Now, I need the txid in order to sign it (via the API) but how do I find that txid when I am a third party (like an escrow for example) and don't have a trace of the transaction via my wallet like Alice would?

I guess I could monitor the blockchain but that sounds foolish, there has to be a better way.

So: given the multisig address xxx give me all transactions registered for that address.


texts:
How is the private key or master seed managed on iOS or Android?
In copay, using Secure Enclave? And as for Android device how is the private key or master seed managed?


texts:
What is cs_main? Why is it called cs_main?
This question was asked during the May 12th 2021 Bitcoin Core PR review club hosted by John Newbery on a Carl Dong PR to de-globalize ChainstateManager.
(The lock on cs_main was discussed in this StackExchange question.)


texts: Do transactions in Ripple have a TXID of sorts, or not?

texts: Do transactions in Ripple have a transaction ID of sorts just like Bitcoin transactions, or are they identified in some other way?


texts:
I was reading about the Sheep Marketplace:

Victims of the theft have attempted to identify the thief by sending "tagged" bitcoins to his accounts, using the public nature of bitcoin transactions to follow these moneys through the "blockchain" record of transfers.

What are "tagged" Bitcoins and how do they work? How do they differ from regular Bitcoins?


texts: When mining, does one also include Merkle root data into block header when testing for hashes?

texts:
I am just a beginner trying to understand technical details of bitcoin. As far as I know, the Merkle root of a block works to provide summarizing hash of list of transactions. And according to my understanding, mining works by first hashing block header, appended with some bits and testing whether the resulting hash satisfies difficulty requirement.

My confusion is this: when hashing to perform mining, is Merkle root included? I am asking this as if Merkle root is included, then this would mean that mining depends on the transactions chosen to form a block. Thus it seems to me that if this is the case, then a miner can, by luck, choose some group of transactions that turns out to provide the hash that is under then target faster than other agents, assuming that other conditions are equal.


texts: How to handle a ridiculous amount of receiving addresses?

texts: By ridiculous I mean something absolutely absurd. 1 million+ addresses. Like say if Amazon had started to accept payments, how could they possibly keep up? Bitcoind probably can't keep up? How would I go about solving this? How does SatoshiDice or Blockchain deal with this?


texts: Bitcoin backend integration - Do I really need the notion of "a wallet"?

texts:
I am developing an application that will accept Bitcoins targetting some specific "items" in my application, and later transfert some of those Bitcoins to externals addresses.

In many similar projects I read about, they use the notion of "wallets". For example if you use Bitcoinj: it seems the first thing to do is to create wallets!

I understand what GUI wallet softwares are and why those are important for end users. But in a backend application, if I understand correctly, a wallet is simply a seed that can generate some private/public keys pairs in a deterministic way. Is that correct?

So, in the end, the only thing that really matters in order to be able to manage the coins sent to "a wallet" (sent to a specific user or for a specific "item") is to know the private keys that were involved.

In my application, I plan on generating a new private/public keys pair for every new "receive coins" transaction. Not from a seed, simply a random pair! And since I already have a database, I was thinking about storing the generated keys in a table (the private keys begin encrypted), with information about what the transaction was for.

And when I would need to send coins to external addresses, I would decrypt some private keys, create inputs using them, create a transaction that I would sign, and then broadcast that transaction.

In other words, currently I would not really have the notion of "wallets".

So my question:

Am I missing something about what "a wallet" actually does (in a backend application)?

Do I need something else in order to implement the "receive/send" process I'm talking about or is my database table with all the private/public keys pairs enough?


texts:
i did read up some stuff about bitcoin but never used it until today. i might be asking something very obvious, but how can i get rid of address forking? that is, after several transactions my address list grown and each has a tiny amount of btc(its a mess now, and it was unexpected for me). i would like to send further transactions without implicit generation of new addresses, how can that be achieved? i use bitcoin-qt or bitcoind.

should i be using createrawtransaction to reassemble my btc to one address and avoid forking in the future?


texts: What would happen if SHA256's pre-image or collision resistance would be broken?

texts:
I'm experimenting with some self study cryptography and I was curious about the two following scenarios (simple answers and/or in relation to bitcoin)

If SHA256 was found to lack pre-image resistance, would it make solving the puzzle easier?

Alternatively, if the algorithm was found to be not collision resistant - would the puzzle again be easier to solve?

Thanks


texts: How do exchanges manage their bitcoin/crypto? It only takes 1 employee with private keys to steal it all

texts:
So hear me out. I understand exchanges have hot/cold wallets and mostly use their hot wallets. But at some point they need to send crypto from their cold wallet to their hot wallet.
Who does this? The CEO & only the CEO? Technically whoever holds the password to these keys could send it to any address and it not be retrievable. The person would be in a lot of trouble but the crypto would probably be unobtainable.
Even if that crypto is "insured" the insurance company would probably only be able to payout in fiat.
Basically, how do exchanges keep your crypto secure?


texts: how to calculate Entropy from series of outcome?

texts:
I want to generate my own private key with dice and/or other very entropic phenomenon. But how can I calculate if my data have a good entropy ? I mean if I throw dice in a certain way too much time maybe my outcome will not be trully random, maybe my dice is not a very good dice and have imperfection etc.

So can I just throw it 300+ and if I don't have 0.166666% each result (1,2,3,4,5,6) it's not good ?

Also I want to write my own series of dice result just to compare how deficient is my brain when I try to generate true randomness.

Thanks


texts: How can get Bitcoin client API account() name

texts:
I have setup the BIK_php API of  http://bitcoindevkit.com/  in PHP.
Now, I am able to connect and generate new addresses, but when I am going to call some functions like getaddressesbyaccount, sendfrom etc as given in Bitcoin API call list at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Original_Bitcoin_client/API_Calls_list , these functions requires "account" parameter as , but I could not understand where from I can get the account value?
So, Please let me know what will be the value of , and how can I get the   value from?


texts: Is there a way to tell if a specific Bitcoin node is on the network?

texts: I have a bunch of Bitcoin nodes supporting the Bitcoin network. Is there a way to tell if one of my servers is in fact running without installing a 3rd party software. Say I wanted to pay one of my users that hosts a Bitcoin server, but I don't want to pay him unless I can detect his Bitcoin server is indeed running. Is there some type of unique identifier to tell if one of my nodes is running?


texts: At what rate are new addresses appearing in the blockchain?

texts:
How many new addresses are the recipient of transactions hourly? daily? weekly? monthly?

I understand that this is always changing, so bonus points if you can provide code to calculate it!


texts: How to find the aggregate geographic distribution of bitcoin traders using a certain exchange?

texts: I wonder whether it is possible. Are there any ways of doing this via e.g. somehow collecting the IP addresses of all traders on an exchange such as Bittrex?


texts: Can you shutdown part way through synchronization process and start up again from the same point?  When opening bitcoin software again will the process start from where it left off or does it need to begin all over again?


texts:
I have an Insight API Server running, it's fully synced and working. I would like to get a json to receive every tx within a block.

On https://github.com/bitpay/insight-api it says I have to use:

Transactions by Block
  /insight-api/txs/?block=HASH
  /insight-api/txs/?block=00000000fa6cf7367e50ad14eb0ca4737131f256fc4c5841fd3c3f140140e6b6

For example we take block #301453. This block has 725 transactions.

https://insight.bitpay.com/block/00000000000000004dff81aadf782cceb8a2d082f0f255472791c8bb2984e958

If I use the api to get the json file with this link:

http://localhost:3001/insight-api/txs/?block=00000000000000004dff81aadf782cceb8a2d082f0f255472791c8bb2984e958

... then it shows the first 10 transactions only (numbers 0 - 9). But there are 725 tx in this block.

It looks like the number 10 are those addresses are the first who are displayed. If i scroll further down, more transactions appear. But why does the json request only show 10 txs?

How can I get ALL transactions in this block - as the documentations mentions?


texts: How to get the Z value aka Hash of the outputs to be signed

texts:
I get it that the "OP_CHECKSIG" does this, but I can't see how to recreate it.  I tried SHA1 and SHA256 of some of the info in a given bitcoin transaction but it didn't give me confirmed values of Z.  Can someone please select a transaction, tell me which one it is and show me what I need to cut and paste into a SHA1 calculator to get the actual Z value?

The hash value of TX 9ec4bc49e828d924af1d1029cacf709431abbde46d59554b62bc270e3b29c4b1 is supposed to be z = c0e2d0a89a348de88fda08211c70d1d7e52ccef2eb9459911bf977d587784c6e
and also z = 17b0f41c8c337ac1e18c98759e83a8cccbc368dd9d89e5f03cb633c265fd0ddc but I do not see how the z values are achieved.


texts: Installation instrucion the for bitcoin core (tar.gz file from bitcoin.org in Linux/Ubuntu Desktop 18.04.)

texts:
There are many discussions going on as there is a lack of a simple tutorial as to how to install Bitcoin Core (GUI) on Linux distributions, i.e Ubuntu 18.04.
Bitcoin.org offers the tar.gz file (i.e. available here: https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.20.0/bitcoin-0.20.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz) which can be installed in Linux, i.e. Ubuntu Desktop 18.04 or 20.04.
It would be great if someone could provide such instruction to reach out to a broader user base.
Not all users wish to use the Snapstore.
See also here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/hka0qc/why_are_there_no_packages_for_bitcoin_in_linux/
Is there anybody who could write up a tutorial or just post a video for a safe & quick installation of the tar.gz file which is downloaded from Bitcoin.org?


texts: Bitcoin elliptic curve encryption with forward secrecy?

texts:
I've been looking for a way to do encryption using Bitcoin private keys. I've looked at all implementations of ECIES encryption, and none of them seems to provide forward secrecy--basically there is only a single session key between two unique addresses, so if that gets leaked, all the past encrypted messages are automatically cracked, as well as there is no longer a safe way for the two keys to communicate (since there was only one deterministic session key).
When using something like RSA for encryption, I would encrypt a large file using an AES session key, and then encrypt the session key using a receiver's RSA public key, and then send the resulting AES-encrypted file + encrypted session key to the receiver, and the receiver can decrypt the session key with his private key, and then decrypt the file using the session key.
But is there any way to do something similar using ECC?


texts: Clarification on the script P2SH, how is executed to Bitcoin core?

texts:
This question is a continuation of the my post yesterday.

Today I have a question on P2SH execution so, an example of the script should be this

OP_0 <A Signature> <B Signature> OP_2 <Public key A> <Public key B>
<Public key C> OP_3 OP_CHECKMULTISIG
OP_HASH160 <ScriptSig Hash> OP_EQUAL

or if used the P2SH key should be is this (I think in this script left-hand something to convert the hash160 inside the P2SH key, right?)

OP_0 <A Signature> <B Signature> OP_2 <Public key A> <Public key B>
<Public key C> OP_3 OP_CHECKMULTISIG
OP_HASH160 <P2SH key> OP_EQUAL

Now if I have understood well the simulation of the execution is divided into two phases

The hash scriptSig is equal to hash inside the scriptPubKey

Simulation

Put on the scriptSig on the stack, so the stack now is <A sig> <B sig> <A pubkey> <B pubkey> <C pubkey>
Calculate the hash160 with the data inside the stack, so now the stack status is <scriptSig hash>
Put on the scriptSig hash expected, now the stack status is <hash scriptsig> <hash scriptsigexpected>
return the result of the operator OP_EQUAL (true or false)

the scriptSig will execute such as the script multi-signature

Simulation

put on the stack the scriptSig, the stack status is <A Signature> <B Signature>
push the public keys, that stack status is <A Signature> <B Signature> <Public key A> <Public key B> <Public key C>
apply the OP_CHECKMULTISIG operator and get the result

My questions are:

With the P2SH key, the execution is the same? if not, what is the form of the P2SH with the P2SH key?

Also, I read this post but I don't think contains this answer.

If my example script is wrong, I'm sorry to give me a corrections


texts: Accepting Donations For Your Charity In BITCOIN

texts:
The tutorial is here: https://developers.coinbase.com/docs/wallet/tutorials/donations

First step: Sign up for a Coinbase account

Problem: "Merchant Services: We're no longer accepting new merchant services businesses. Stay tuned for new offerings that are coming soon."the

Is there currently a way to enable BitCoin donations for my favorite charity? I wanted to use Coinbase because they will generate a donor letter which will enable the contribution to be tax deductible in the U.S. While it is possible to create a wallet and publish the QR Code, it will be non-trivial to return Donor Letters and to immediately convert the Bitcoins into USD and to automatically deposit the donation into the nonprofit's checking account.


texts: What information can an attacker gain from watching the users behavior in block chain?

texts: Given the blockchain is a public ledger, if user chooses not not change their public key (address) every time they make a transaction, what information can an attacker gain from watching the users behavior?


texts: How does mimblewimble protect the chain state?

texts: I have recently learned about some concepts of mimblewimble. I heard that in a mimblewimble implementation, the blockchain history is not kept. Does that mean that all blocks that include the hashes (which represent the proof of work) are being thrown away, too? How does a mimblewimble implementation protect the chain state if all the proof of actual work is being thrown away? Anybody could just replace the state with something else. What am I missing?


texts: Can you always derive a public Bitcoin address from a message and a random signature?

texts:
Let's say my Bitcoin address is 1Nu5mzpUD9A7daZ76QJEsBfkBjCWVLh7pJ and I sign the message random-challenge with its private key.

The result is :

IAjU1mpvy70Li2Q1jDaNJKaQudaAJia1oF9SYJ8HGGuNffT9ERmc77WgPMONPLHKAhO8d0bhDF5Nvn+AUzS6R04=

Bitcoin uses a unique property of ECDSQ which allow to calculate the public key from the message and signature. So if I send to the recipient the above message and signatures he/she will be able to get my address 1Nu5mzpUD9A7daZ76QJEsBfkBjCWVLh7pJ

Now, if I send the same signature and a completely different message, will it derive all the time a valid random Bitcoin address ? And if yes, doesn't this have some serious security implication allowing people to prove they control an address without having the private key ?


texts: How do extremely difficult vanity addresses get found in the first place?

texts:
I haven't found a specific answer to my question so please excuse me when an answer is somewhere out there.
Regarding the '1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE' address. If it would take more than the universe's time to crack such address how did this address get found and by whoem in the first place? Not any and all combinations of characters is a legit address or am i wrong?
Really confused about this, hope someone can clear this out for me!
And are there more longer known messages in exsisting addresses? Love to know about them!
Source: https://miro.medium.com/max/700/0*cg3mwxEbN7vIKbDS.jpg
Edit: What I refer to is a burn (lost key) address instead of vanity (owned key)
Thanks in advance


texts: What is a good place to ask for bitcoin to fund a scientific project?

texts: I have a great idea for an invention, but I am currently limited to purchasing parts for building a prototype of it with bitcoins. Unfortunately, I do not have that many bitcoins and need a way to ask the bitcoin community for donations. Yes, I have an address, I am not a newbie to bitcoin. I would like to know where I can ask for bitcoin for a scientific project that could benefit the world. If anyone is interested I will disclose some information about my project.


texts: What is the formula for calculating the private key? resued R value


texts: Confirmations on sent/receive transactions, still have 0 balance

texts:
I've tried to transfer Bitcoins from one address to another address, both of which I own. I bought a new computer, so I downloaded the Bitcoin client for OS X, and transfered from the old computer to the new computer. This was before I realized I could simply copy over my wallet.dat file.

This was also before I had a good idea of how Bitcoin actually worked. Just a few minutes after I hit send on the transfer, I shut down the old computer and put it away.

I sort of forgot about the whole thing until yesterday evening. I tried to check in on my balance and found it at 0.

However, after about an hour, I see that there are transactions in my Bitcoin client for the Bitcoins sent, and the Bitcoins received.

The received address is mine, there is a credit for the amount of Bitcoins I sent, and there are 20k+ confirmations for that transaction. The weird part is that transaction is dated 6/15/2011. The sent from transaction address is also mine, there is a debit of the correct amount, there are 68 confirmations, and the transaction is dated 8/6/2011.

The problem is that the balance is still 0.00.

Is there something I can do to make sure I still have these Bitcoins? Is it a matter of waiting until there are more confirmations? Have a made a horrible mistake?


texts: Is auditing a BIP32 tree only possible if it is non-hardened?

texts:
BIP 32 allows you to to implement the auditor use case:

  Audits: N(m/*) In case an auditor needs full access to the list of
  incoming and outgoing payments, one can share all account public
  extended keys. This will allow the auditor to see all transactions
  from and to the wallet, in all accounts, but not a single secret key.

If I want all my bitcoin transactions to be fully audited, then I would need to give my auditor my master node details. However I obviously don't want to give him my master node secret key since he would be able to steal my money. Thus I could only give the auditor my master public key and the chain code. With that he will be able to derive all public keys and see all my transactions.

But that means that my entire tree can only use non-harded BIP-32. Is that correct or am I missing something?


texts: Remaining bitcoins sent to a different address

texts:
Let's say I have 20 bitcoins in address A. I sent 5 bitcoins from address A to address B. Why is that the remaining bitcoins got sent to address C that I never used or knew before.

I still get access to the remaining 15 bitcoins using the private key of A, but it doesn't show anymore in recipient address A. This is very confusing and would appreciate if someone would clarify.

Also, when I need to receive any bitcoins, which I address should I use? Original address A or address C?


texts: Double transaction on same hash (transaction ID) - Loosing 0.01 btc each time

texts:
Each time I send some btc to another bitcoin wallet there is a second transaction on the same transaction ID (hash) and each times i am loosing around 75 USD.

You can see by yourself here;

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1NrZWuS4J8MAqX63NHFuLrdmBYf6FttX29

Another weird fact is that on my bitcoin wallet software balance, it's not showing to balance I lost.

Any help would be very appreciated,

Thanks.


texts: Where can I find an overview of Bitcoin exchange APIs?

texts: Where can I find information on a large number of "exchange" or "trading platform" APIs showing which currencies (digital and fiat) they convert between?


texts: Laymans guess to determine how many hashes must be computed to you find a specific value

texts:
I have a question about bitcoin, lets say that the output is uniformly random and that it is 256 bits in length.  The output of the hash function y=H(t) begins with 25 zeros - how many times would one have to call the hash function to get something that starts with 25 zeros?

Secondly, how does one verify the solution and how many hashes would be attempted to solve it?


texts:
I'm trying to understand how order fulfillment algorithm works from technical point of view.

Let's say I created an order to sell 0.8 BTC and buy 5400 XRP along with other orders to sell 0.35 BTC, 2.7 BTC, etc. On the other side, there are some traders who sell different amount of XRP to but BTC.

To be more specific, imagine:

trader1 wants to sell 0.8 BTC,

trader2 wants to sell 2.7 BTC
...

But there are no traders that are willing to sell exactly the same amount of XRP. There is a traderX who wants to sell 7000 XRP so in this case he may have a deal with trader1 and partial deal with trader2. However, this is not how all exchangers work, right? Usually all orders processed as a single transaction.

So how all these orders match to have a trading?
Any algorithm or code in any programming language would be very helpful. Thank you!


texts: Could a 2/3 majority vote be used as a consensus

texts: I understand that Bitcoin currently is using the chain with most proof-of-work as consensus. However could this method be improved, like only allow one block being generated at any given time, and each node verifies this block with its own past data. If there are more than 2/3 nodes prove the block to be valid then the block is added to the chain. If someone wants to create a fake block, then he must control at least 2/3 of the total nodes. What kind of attack is this consensus vulnerable to?


texts: download the bitcoin chain begining from a certain date

texts:
I am building a bitcoin lightning network using lnd on a separate computer

this computer has less than 200G avaible and the actual blockchain is more than 220G, so I am gonna need to use prude mod and began the download of the chain starting from march 2018 as recquired by lnd,

my question is which bitcoin client is able to do that and how to configure it for this procedure ?


texts:
I am trying to find out how much BTC has been mined over time hence I would like to query the rewards associated with a block. However, I cant seem to find the API endpoint from the BTC databases I searched.

Ideally, it will be something like www.blockchain.com, where we can see all the block data, including the rewards data.

Can anyone help me with this?


texts: Mining with BFL at 440 GHS over 24 Hours and no bitcoin?

texts: Is this even possible.  I have been mining for about a month now, steadily building up my machines.  When the big daddy from BFL comes (and the 230 is fixed) I will be mining at 1.2 THS.  I have never gone more than 24 hours and gotten NOTHING and was wondering if anyone else has had this happen with this kind of power.  I am in three pools now, no user names.  Have been getting paid regularly all along.  SHould I change to a different pool? consolidate and only use one pool? if so what is the best pool at this point in time for payouts?


texts:
can you recommend me any desktop clients ? So far I have tried bitcoin-core, Electrum and MultiBit. I liked Bitcoin Core, but as the blocks increase, it becomes extremely heavy. In my computer, it takes more than 10 minutes just to start, and while it is syncing I can't do anything else without freezing my computer, MultiBit uses the file from a server, so it syncs very fast, but the wallet seems to be incompatible with the wallet.dat and it doesn't seem to allow importing the private key, it only allows importing wallets generated by itself. Electrum is fast, doesn't freeze anything, it allows to import private keys, but it is taking way too long to sync, so i think it is downloading the blockchain...

So, I would like a wallet with these characteristics:

Allows to import/export wallet.dat file (or private key) (like Electrum and Bitcoin Core)
Don't need to download the whole block (Like MultiBit)
Runs on Linux

thank you all :)


texts: Does OP_HASH160 consume the top stack element?

texts:
In a standard P2PKH configuration, the scripts look like:

Pubkey script: OP_DUP OP_HASH160 <PubKeyHash> OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG
Signature script: <sig> <pubkey>

When redeeming P2PKH outputs, OP_DUP is done because the pubkey is used twice, once in the hash and then verifying the hashes match, and then again in verifying the signature. So, here it seems like OP_HASH160 is consuming the top stack element and replacing it with the HASH160() of what was there.

In P2SH transactions, the scripts look like:

Pubkey script: OP_HASH160 <Hash160(redeemScript)> OP_EQUAL
Signature script: <sig> [sig] [sig...] <redeemScript>

When redeeming P2SH outputs, there is no OP_DUP. Won't this mean that the redeemScript will be consumed by the OP_HASH160? How can the redeemScript be executed if it was consumed by the OP_HASH160? I think I am missing something here.


texts: What gives bitcoins value? A simple explanation please

texts:
I hear that miners solve math problems to secure Bitcoins...  what kinds of problems? And why are the solutions worth "money"?

Also, what does an exchange get in return for real money when they get Bitcoins? I am talking tangible assets?

I understand that fiat money is not backed by anything tangible, so obviously the exchange is a promise of stated value for a Bitcoin's vaule.  I just don't understand what gives the Bitcoin it's value?

I suppose that with a national currency I understand that there is an agreement to value all things tangible by the labor rate it takes to produce it.  Thereby tying value from one item to another making the currency valid. Obviously Bitcoin works the same way.  So what is the labor that is making the currency value standardized to Bitcoin it's self.

I hope those questions make sense. Please let me know.  Thanks.


texts: How was the blockchain's "hard fork" automatically resolved?

texts:
As a result of an "official" change in back-end databases from BDB in v0.7 to LevelDB in v0.8, in addition to an increase (by some mining pools) to a higher block size limit, there was recent "hard fork" at blockchain height 225430.

Miners were originally told to switch back to v0.7, but then later informed that v0.8 was fine as long as they don't increase the default (256kb -- soft limit) block size.

So what happens to block 225430 for v0.8 miners? Are they required to reload the database from <225430 with new "max block size" limits? How did this problem supposedly just fix itself (as has been reported here), or is this still a problem as blockchain.info continues to "sequentially" report orphaned blocks here? My last question would be what happens to the transactions that were linked to block 225430 (and are now UTXO), won't v0.8 still consider them spendable?

  I'm sure this all would make a lot more sense if I had a better
  understanding of Bitcoin's block reorg logic. Perhaps a pseudo-code
  walk-through of the process might help.

Edit: the 2 chains seemed to have merged here (after 32 sequentially orphaned blocks). So how exactly did v.0.8 clients handle the reorg for 32 blocks? Is there a maximum reorg that Bitcoin can handle? Was it easier to double-spend during the 5+ hour blockchain correction?


texts:
I am writing a project on cryptocurrencies. As a part of this project, I thought of a new token for web services exchange. I tried to combine PoW and PoS and here is what I have. I called it Proof-of-Action - it works like Proof of Stake only it depends on a node's activity coefficient rather than how much money you have.

A server/ full node, just like a bitcoin: receives transaction messages, validates them, broadcasts them to the other full nodes to validate, and calculates its own and other full node's it knows activity record.

Then full node selects the best candidate it knows and shares with other full nodes. Once all the nodes agree on the candidate, that node will be able to create a block from transactions it received and mine it. The miner will get a reward. Once the block has been broadcast and added to the chain, the candidate's activity record resets and it gets the reward.

I wanted to make sure that new users have as much chance as the old ones and it should not matter how much money they have. Thus, the activity record should depend on: how many light-weight wallets the node is connected to, how many transactions the full node received from these wallets, how many hr it participates...

I thought in this case, it ensures more or less fair distribution of money and does not waste a lot of energy - no hardware for miners, plus, there is no need for transaction fees (until all the money has been released).

Thank you for reading this long text and please tell me what you think. Do you think it could work at least for a small network? Do you see any big flaws associated with it right away?


texts:
Just for fun i decided to check out bit coins and do some mining. No visions of making millions or anything I just find the concept pretty cool. At any rate I have installed guiminer in windows and i have installed the bit coin wallet from the bitcoin site.

How do i get my address so that i can have someone send me funds and in the mining software how do i set it up so that it knows where to deposit funds? I have it up and running using btc guild pool but it has never asked me about how to send me bit coins.

I am confused i feel  like i am missing the most important piece of the puzzle.


texts:
So i want trying to use both bitcoin and bitcoin-abc json-rpc on raspberry pi but they will overload the whole pi when downloading and sync @ same time.

So is there anyway to use json-rpc without downloading and sync the whole blockchain or overload the raspberry pi?


texts: Can bitcoind still do CPU-based mining or was that feature removed?

texts:
I'm seeing conflicting claims about whether  bitcoind can still do CPU-based mining. As far back as 2011 people were saying that feature was going to "soon" be removed. Was mining removed?
By the way if mining is removed from bitcoind, what are the things it can still do?


texts: The BTC shows 10^8 times more than what is received in the account

texts:
I work with Java/Maven/JSP app with BitcoinJ and I have transfer about 0.0048 BTC from a testnet faucet. However, after receiving, I see that my account has balance of 480000.00  BTC.

This is the method I have used to get the Satoshi Coin.

public Coin getBalance() {
        return balance;
    }

I have checked the code and at least my backend part looks normal to me. How to approach to this problem?


texts: When does a miner decide to stop collecting transactions and start calculating hashes to try to win?

texts:
I am confused about whether a miner chooses to wait for more transactions (more fees) or starts as soon as it receives the first transaction from the network. Once a miner has started calculating the hashes, it will queue the new transactions, correct?

My confusion is: each miner node will be calculating the hash for a different block. Some will have more transactions than others. Does it matter?

If I am lucky to find the solution for a block with just one transaction, but someone else finds the solution for a block with my transaction and one more, so he wins, correct?

So the more transactions there are in a block the more difficult it is to solve the hashing puzzle, is that correct? If yes, why?

Can someone clarify how this transaction grouping is done by mining nodes?


texts: Is there a way to import a private key that I have been using in bitcoin-qt to my coinbase wallet?


texts: Could not sign Transaction with SignRawTransactionWithKey through the RPC (RegTest)

texts:
I am able to sign following transaction with Complete=true result, but when trying to decode signed transaction, it returns error "TX decode failed" both from DecodeRawTransaction and SendRawTransaction RPC calls.

signed_Tx = "020000000103d3049e968d8b3e3e967aa90b45d3f64b5e2117ee9610b0c9d5a96081a24e3e000000004847304402201921a1acf601acb0f9e6297a55eeb853c2dd6cd246ea05f060eaa4d327d4124a02206e08e2c90b92113a64d6de1447f81bf19703f88bffeacc6d2cc4bf0e21ed8ac501ffffffff0200e1f5050000000017a9140796253e13d88cda530bf88b07eb1672952a3a7887608a0e24010000001976a914957b73da3bf34440ab2f78937a7a420835255a0988ac00000000"

[TestMethod()]
public async Task CreateRawTxTest()
{
    Dictionary<string, object> prevTx = new Dictionary<string, object>() {
                    { "txid","3e4ea28160a9d5c9b01096ee17215e4bf6d3450ba97a963e3e8b8d969e04d303"} ,
                    { "scriptPubKey", "21033ff1181726af279fb2328e9ae041d71f323a91483f76841fe23aa03f87ecf3d3ac" },
                    { "vout", 0} };

    List<object> txIn = new List<object>()
            {
                new Dictionary<string, object>() {
                    { "txid","3e4ea28160a9d5c9b01096ee17215e4bf6d3450ba97a963e3e8b8d969e04d303"},
                    { "vout", 0} }
            };

    List<object> txOut = new List<object>()
            {
                new Dictionary<string, float>
                {
                    { TestNet_ReceiverAddress, 1.0f}
                },
                new Dictionary<string, float>
                {
                    { "TestNet_SenderAddress", 48.99900f }
                },
            };

    RPCResultPrime<string> rawResult = await disp.CreateRawTransactionAsync(txIn, txOut);

    if (rawResult.Error == null)
    {
        string TxRaw = rawResult.Result;

        Dictionary<string, object> param = new Dictionary<string, object>()
                {
                    {"hexstring", TxRaw },
                    {"privkeys", new string[] { PrivateKey }},
                    {"prevtxs", new List<object>(){ prevTx } }
                    {"sighashtype", "ALL" }
                };

        string signedTx = await disp.SignTransactionAsync(param);

        //at this point transaction signed successfully but could not be Decoded in the next step

        string decode = await disp.DecodeRawTransactionAsync(signedTx);

        string jsonSend = await disp.SendRawTransactionAsync(signedTx);

        Debugger.Break();
    }

}


texts:
I have a bitcoin cash xpub

I can derive Internal and external addresses
I have a full node so I
can check each individual addresses

My Question

01 - how do I calculate the balance ?

02 - do I need to combine the external and internal unspent amount ?

Please advice


texts:
What time of day (in GMT) does the volume get reset to zero?

I'm trying to correlate this with the charts, however I'm unclear as to when this actually would occur


texts: secp256k1 recovery id and how does the code work

texts:
Here I have some questions regarding the recovery id (recid) defined in secp256k1 implementation.
I had found few posts about how the recid is defined and what does it mean, also the source code (https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1/blob/master/src/modules/recovery/main_impl.h).
As explain by bitcoin developers like Peter Wuille the recid is [27~30] for compressed pubkey and [31~34] for non-compressed pubkey.
my question are:
1). from the secp256k1 code I did not find 27~34 value, all I found are 0~3; so where the difference come from?
2). I guess [27~30 and [31~34] such value set does not come from nonsense, but why using these two value set to map to [0~3]? Guess some tricky hidden inside--is that because of some trick on bit-level operation?
3). can someone help to explain this piece of code (come from https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1/blob/master/src/modules/recovery/main_impl.h#L104-L112)
looks for me recid &2 (0x10) actually select recid=2/3 case.
and if recid !=2/3 all left code will be executed--is that understanding correct?
if (recid & 2) {
    if (secp256k1_fe_cmp_var(&fx, &secp256k1_ecdsa_const_p_minus_order) >= 0) {
        return 0;
    }
    secp256k1_fe_add(&fx, &secp256k1_ecdsa_const_order_as_fe);
}
if (!secp256k1_ge_set_xo_var(&x, &fx, recid & 1)) {
    return 0;
}


texts: Accidentally sent Blockchain BCH to Coinbase BTC?

texts:
I have made a mistake by sending cash bitcoin from Blockchain to Coinbase bitcoin address ( instead of Coinbase cash bitcoin address)..

i want to retrieve the fund or send it back to my blockchain so i can input the correct address again ? anyone knows how ? please make it as simple as possible because i do not have a lot of knowledge about bitcoin since i am very new to this world..

I have emailed both Coinbase and Blockchain about this matter, it has been two days and no answer..

thanks for your time and help in advance...


texts: Listening for changes to my own wallet in the blockchain

texts:
I would like to be notified of changes to any of my many wallet address as soon as they happen and then programmatically take action. I have been using wallet notify but this has been giving me really inconsistent behavior and I have found that I cannot rely on it.

I'm in search of another solution, and was thinking that I could monitor the blockchain for any changes to addresses I own. Is there some known way to do this?

Other suggestions on how to solve this problem are also appreciated.


texts: How much can you compress a bitcoin for storage?

texts: I've just implanted an NFC chip in my hand and I'm wondering if a bitcoin will fit in the chip. it has a capacity of 868 bytes.


texts: Question on interpreter.cpp in Bitcoin core - set_success method

texts:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/script/interpreter.cpp

Line 22 => Where is declare "ScriptError" ? What does the "*" mean ?

           "inline bool set_success(ScriptError* ret)"


texts: How to create multi-user wallet or wallets supporting off-chain transactions

texts:
I want to implement the wallet to create bitcoin and altcoins exchange and store system.

Somehow create random or HD wallet that holds and store upto 50 user public keys.But users will not have access to private keys so the user cannot sell coins directly. User A should be able to transfer coins to user B without paying transaction fee using our system.
(Thinking of some kind of HD wallet on which I control all the private keys and only provide users with public address within this wallet for receiving the coins)
Users hold the private keys themselves on mobile/pc using our system. User A should be able to transfer coins to user B without paying transaction fee using our system.(I think its not possible without private key in this case)

How to create wallet for case 1 and different wallet for case 2 ?


texts: Scripting multiple cgminer processes / running on a router

texts:
I'm running TomatoUSB (a Linux-based firmware) on a Broadcom-based home router. Connected to the router's USB port is a 7-port D-Link hub and a number of Asicminer USB Block Erupters.

Am finding some curious behaviors using this cgminer 3.3.1 binary as so:

./cgminer -o pool:port -u username.worker -p password

A single cgminer instantiation will crunch at the advertised 333 MH/s rate if one USB device is connected. But that number drops off precipitously when additional devices are added.

Interestingly, adding the "--usb :1" flag (which restricts the process to using one hotplug device) and then firing n processes this way gives me 333*n as hoped.

(I think) I need a worker for each process (not a huge issue I suppose). However on a headless system as this is, running these separately can get unwieldy very quickly. Currently I'm running one SSH client window for each process and firing each from the command line.

Is there a convenient way to script a number of these to be fired at once, each using one hotplug device, and hopefully redirecting the numerous console outputs somewhere useful? Maybe somehow share a configuration file among many processes?


texts: How many correct hashes are there giving a difficulty?

texts:
I asked a question about mining difficulty in this SO post, Nate explained that the estimated total amout of hashes being calculated to date is 100000000000000000000000000 which is about 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the total number of possiblilities.

This brings up my question: If all of the computing power to date has only calculated a tiny small amout of all the possbilities, how can miners still earn their reward every 10 mintues? Does that mean the number of correct hashes (i.e. hashes less than the target) is also large so that bitcoin rewards are given out frequenlty?


texts: What is the impact of purposely sending a signed message with zero fee?

texts:
Would it be appropriate use of me to send a message with 0 fee on purpose if I have no need for the message to remain on the blockchain after it is seen by the recipient?

I could sign a transaction with 0 fee and provide the recipient with the txid. It would not hurt me if the transaction was confirmed but it would also provide me with no benefit once the (pending transaction) is seen by the other party.

Would I be helping the network by providing no permanent bloat of no value (assuming my txid is never confirmed) more than I am hurting it by adding no miners fee?


texts: What is the difference between key aggregation and signature aggregation?

texts:
What is the difference between key aggregation (e.g. MuSig) and signature aggregation?
Many people (including myself) have in the past used these terms interchangeably. Why is it important to be careful to use the correct term in its correct setting?


texts: How can an online system detect coins sent to its offline (cold) wallet?

texts:
Say, for security reasons, that a bitcoin business has an online wallet (aka hot wallet) with enough coins for day-to-day operations. The rest of the funds are in an offline wallet (aka cold wallet or cold storage).

How can the online servers detect when coins are sent to the offline wallet?

Can this be (easily?) done with bitcoind or is another bitcoin client needed?

Technical details may be interesting, but I think more important is how a merchant can achieve this sort of functionality.


texts: what are my tax implications for cryptocurrency?

texts: Do I pay any taxes to purchase or sell bitcoin? If I use a Bitcoin debit card and withdraw USD from an ATM, is it a taxable event?


texts: Creating a Bitcoin address using the 9 steps. Stuck on stage 2

texts:
I need to write a script using C++ and the OPENSSL library that takes this: 0250863ad64a87ae8a2fe83c1af1a8403cb53f53e486d8511dad8a04887e5b2352
performs a SHA256 Hash using the sha256 function from the OpenSSL library and then returns 0b7c28c9b7290c98d7438e70b3d3f7c848fbd7d1dc194ff83f4f7cc9b1378e98 as the digest.

The issue I am having is that I get a different message digest after performing the sha256 hash function: a9ce83de3a0ff3516b7c50cdd787e9f69f152f227d93c9512774231e7132e925.

I've been stuck on this for about 2 weeks and from my research I have been told that my function is not doing the right conversion of my message before performing the Sha256 hash function.

Code

string sha256(const string str)
{
  unsigned char hash[SHA256_DIGEST_LENGTH];
  SHA256_CTX sha256;
  SHA256_Init(&sha256);
  SHA256_Update(&sha256, str.c_str(), str.size());
  SHA256_Final(hash, &sha256);
  stringstream ss;

  for(int i = 0; i < SHA256_DIGEST_LENGTH; i++)
  {
    ss << hex << setw(2) << setfill('0') << (int)hash[i];
  }
return ss.str();
}

int main()
{

  cout << endl;
  cout << sha256("0250863ad64a87ae8a2fe83c1af1a8403cb53f53e486d8511dad8a04887e5b2352") << endl;
  return 0;
}


texts: Do local nodes work across crypto types?

texts:
Newbie to all of this, hoping you can help with what is probably a "duh" question. I'll keep it brief, though: if I download the blockchain using the instructions given for the Bitcoin GUI, will I be able to use it as a local node for my Monero GUI wallet, as well?

Thanks so much! :)


texts:
I am getting this problem today:

when syncing, the client suddenly crashes with the following debug.log:

.....
2015-06-29 14:30:34 IO error: C:\Users\Internet\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\chainstate\713704.ldb: Zugriff verweigert (access denied)

2015-06-29 14:30:34 * System error while flushing: Database I/O error
2015-06-29 14:36:59 ERROR: ProcessNewBlock : ActivateBestChain failed
2015-06-29 14:37:00 net thread interrupt
2015-06-29 14:37:00 opencon thread interrupt
2015-06-29 14:37:00 dumpaddr thread stop
2015-06-29 14:37:00 addcon thread interrupt
2015-06-29 14:37:03 msghand thread interrupt
2015-06-29 14:37:03 Shutdown: In progress...
2015-06-29 14:37:03 StopNode()
2015-06-29 14:37:03 UPNP_DeletePortMapping() returned : 403
2015-06-29 14:37:03 upnp thread interrupt
2015-06-29 14:37:03 IO error: C:\Users\Internet\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\chainstate\713704.ldb: Zugriff verweigert (access denied)
2015-06-29 14:37:03 * System error while flushing: Database I/O error

The message says client is stopping but the process never closes. Any Ideas?


texts: -walletnotify on 6 confirmations instead of 1?

texts:
Pretty straight forward. Right now im using -walletnotify to run some node.js code when i get an incoming transaction and when theres 1 confirmation. However, after reading around, i found out that 1 confirmation is not secure, which now makes me want to execute this confirmation code when theres at least 6 confirmations.

TL;DR, Is there a parameter or an equivalent for -walletnotify to run on N confirmations?


texts: What can be done if Bitcoin is used for money laundering?

texts:
If a criminal uses Bitcoin to launder his funds, can the bitcoin network stop him from using Bitcoin?
Can we close his account?


texts: What's the purpose of a maximum block size?

texts:
Bitcoin has a maximum of 1 MB of transaction data in each block.

Why is this limit present?
When was it added?
Was it intended to be temporary?


texts: Can i create wallet services of bitcoin core wallet

texts: Is it possible to create wallet url services for bitcoin core wallet


texts: Does bitcoind (as of 0.15) support BIP39 mnemonic phrase for wallets?

texts:
Can bitcoind print out a BIP39 seed phrase to backup the wallet?

Can I import a BIP39 seed phrase (from, for example, Breadwallet on iOS)into bitcoind?

I know bitcoind wallets have been BIP32 format since 0.13, what is used as the seed? What is backed up when I make a copy of wallet.dat? If the wallet is encrypted, does the seed change (the way BIP32 uses a passphrase as "the 13th word"?)


texts:
After reading many articles, I didn't find an answer to the following.

  "Miners use special software to solve math problems"

Okay, but for whom? Are there organizations or people that need those math problems to be solved?


texts: Can not decode transaction. Script was manually verified successfull

texts:
I can not decode transaction in Bitcoin-QT.

The error is: TX decode failed (code -22). But blockexplorer site decode it.

Then I try to send transaction from blockcypher.com site, and the error is:
Error validating transaction: Error running script for input 0 referencing c806c9ae2ac9c71fad307c9fedeca2133edb195cae9e924424885f57a63ba9a9 at 0: Script was NOT verified successfully..

Please help what is wrong. I check transaction structure by hand and check signatures. It's all ok.

I upload signed and unsigned transactions on pastebin.

Unsigned transaction: https://pastebin.com/XfE73U57

Decoded unsigned transaction: https://pastebin.com/RH2tNrNn

Signed transaction: https://pastebin.com/K15c29tK

Decoded signed transaction: https://pastebin.com/Mfs0bXgR

I check signatures and structure of transaction by hand, and they are all correct. Inputs are unspent. So what is the problem? Please help me.


texts: I have an issue with my wallet. it is giving me fatal error

texts:
Sorry to ask it here because I can not find a better place..
This question is related to my Dogecoin wallet ...

I accumulated some dogecoin in the past, but I have not been able to recover them for weeks but finally today I managed to recover them.

However, when I closed my wallet, I was never been able to open as the wallet until now as it keeps giving me this error message

A fatal error occurred. Dogecoin can no longer continue safely and will quit.

EXCEPTION: St13runtime_error
CWalletDB::ListAccountCreditDebit(): cannot create DB cursor
D:\ML\Other Files\Altcoin Projects\Dogecoin Project\Program\Dogecoin\dogecoin-qt.exe in Runaway exception

Link to error

I don't really know what to do now. Please help me


texts: Help with Coinbase? Confused BCC address with BTC one

texts: As a newbie a friend who owed me some money suggested I get Coinbase and let him pay me in bitcoin.  I got the address but didn’t realize I got the address to my BCC wallet instead of bitcoin wallet.  It is quite a lot of money and I have no idea what to do.  Am i just out of luck?  Thanks a lot for any help.


texts: Has anyone attempted to rewrite the bitcoin software and protocol?

texts: As anyone who has looked at the bitcoin protocol in depth can tell, it is really a huge mess of different encodings, hashing styles, and endian conversions. Although it would be a fairly cosmetic change, are there any projects out there to attempt to rewrite bitcoin and it's protocols to be more consistent and easier to maintain for the developers? (yes, I know it would have to be it's own coin or whatever)


texts: Holding all your money in one address = Paper wallet?

texts:
A paper wallet is a very misnamed term, since it's in fact a "paper address" indeed (contrary to a "wallet" which stores multiples addresses, for ewample inside the wallet.dat file).

Lots of people are speaking about the safety of paper wallet. It's indeed easier than holding offline a wallet.dat file.
But isn't it dangerous holding all your money inside only one address like the paper "wallet"?


texts: Using Bitcoin Core Wallet, encrypted it, now it won't recognize password

texts: I typed in the password very carefully, the same 5 digit password I use on another program. I know and remember exactly what I typed, I didn't type anything incorrectly. I got an error message saying the password was too short. Then the program crashed. When I relaunched it, the wallet is encrypted but it won't accept the password that I put in. How can I get my bitcoins back and/or unencrypt the wallet?


texts: Where do I find my Blockchain wallet's change address?

texts: Six days ago, I sent some bitcoin and it hasn't been confirmed. In an attempt to execute a Child-pays-for-parent transaction, I used my mnemonic seed to derive addresses from my blockchain wallet(in order to access my private keys), but I can't seem to find the change address on the list of derived addresses. Where can I find it?


texts: Is there some way to take advantage of the fact that I own 10 BTC without spending them or giving up control of them?

texts:
Is there some kind of "Bitcoin society" where I can instruct my Bitcoin Core to run a command which then spits out some kind of cryptographic code which verifies that I control/own the number of BTC in my wallet?

And then I give them that code, which only proves that I (as in "whatevernickname123 on BitcoinGentlemanclub.com") own this amount of Bitcoin, so that my account there can be labeled with a "verified to own X BTC" text?

And then that, in itself, without me having to try to convince anyone with words or easily faked screenshots, gives me power of the same kind that somebody who is known to own X amount of US dollars on a fiat bank would have without actually having to spend that money?

I don't want this in any way associated with my actual name/person; only the account on this site which I assume exists and whose purpose is to connect people who own Bitcoin for potential cooperation/business deals, avoiding all the scammers because they have to cryptographically verify that they own the coins.


texts: Transaction has 900+ confirmations but doesn't show up in my wallet

texts: I've received a payment to 1KGUphZbuMj5dU9WD4ZKVqHdtz2jSLPXv3. It has over 900 confirmations, but it doesn't show up in my Exodus v20.12.22 wallet on Windows, yet. I have no idea what to do. Is there a way that I can get my wallet to recognize the transaction?


texts: Permissioned or Permissionless blockchain? Which one is PoS more adapted for?

texts:
Since in proof-of-stake (PoS) there is no mining process, according to functionality of permissioned and permissionless blockchains, which type is PoS more adapted for?

In the other words, is a PoS-based public permissionless blockchain as secure a PoW-based public permissionless blockchain ? Or Do we need to restrict the permission for the transactions validation to a limited permitted and known validators (i.e. private permissioned blockchain) ?

The term "permissioneless or public blockchain" is referred to as a blockchain platform in which a user does not have any permission for using (sending transaction) or participating in validating transactions process. For example, Bitcoin and Ethereum are public permissionless blockchain, such that they are open to everybody for both sending transaction and participating in validation of transactions (i.e. PoW process).
On the other hands, "permissioned blockchain" allows the network to appoint a group of participants in the network who are given the authority to provide the validation of blocks and transactions, meaning that there is an an access control layer to allow certain actions to be performed only by certain identifiable participants. Since access to this type of blockchains is not open to everybody, unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, they are usually called also private blockchains. For example, Ripple and Hyperledger Fabric are permissioned blockchain.

If you need additional explanation for more clarification, kindly let me know to extend the question.


texts: Bitcoin-Core re-synchronizing after updating to v0.18.0

texts:
I recently updated Bitcoin-Core to 0.18.0 and then it had to resync the blocks which has taken 8 days so far and is only on 67% completed (using windows 7). I have the files saved in D:/.. I noticed the config file was blank. What should be written in there in a standard case?

I did try to install node launcher but was to technical for me, but after I tried this I noticed I had another bitcoin folder in F:/ which I have since deleted.


texts: What does a comparison of Bitcoin Days Destroyed say about Bitcoin vs Namecoin vs SolidCoin?

texts:
The Abe blockchain explorer provides statistics for percentage bitcoin days destroyed, using the generic term "% CoinDD".  Currently Bitcoin is 36.1245%, Namecoin is 41.5547%, and SolidCoin is 47.0952%.

My guess is that the relatively high numbers for Namecoin and SolidCoin could indicate that people are cashing their mined coins in for other currencies or goods more regularly than people have historically done with Bitcoin.  What is known about the Namecoin and SolidCoin transaction cultures?

But of course Bitcoin only became really active in recent months.
It would be interesting to see comparisons of recent activity.  Are regularly updated graphs over time available for these % CoinDD values?


texts: Is bitcoin-gold more ASIC-resistant than Litecoin?

texts:
Bitcoin Gold's main point for existence has claimed to be ASIC-resistant in order to have mining power more distributed.

But wasn't this tried already with Litecoin via Scrypt mining algorithm? I've heard there are already Scrypt-capable ASICs, so is Bitcoin Gold now a better alternative?

What's Bitcoin Gold algorithm? Can it become minable by ASICs at some point too? Could Litecoin switch to this algorithm to be ASIC resistant again?


texts: How is Electrum able to find my default wallet even though I deleted it?

texts: OK I didn't delete it. I closed Electrum, renamed the wallet to xxx.default_wallet.xxx and moved it to my Desktop from C:\Users\Chloe\AppData\Roaming\Electrum\wallets. I wanted to test wallet restore. However, it opened the default wallet still! How is it able to find the default wallet file when the file it's looking for doesn't exist? Does it store the wallet in the registry?


texts: How do we know how many BTC have not been spent since being mined? Any tool to see this information?

texts: I would like to know how many BTC have not moved from the block they were mined in - never transferred or spent. (With this information I believe could have an idea of how many BTC have been lost). Is there a tool to see this kind of information?


texts: Legally shuttering miners and full nodes by adding illegal information to blockchain

texts:
In many jurisdictions possession or distribution of certain information or content is illegal. Illegal primes, classified information, magnet links to copyrighted torrents, hate speech, outlawed pornography, incitements to terrorism, etc. Not all of this is efficiently encoded in the blockchain, but at least some can be.

Let's say a wealthy malicious actor wanted to disrupt the bitcoin network or crater the price. He could subsidize transactions containing illegal content. Moreover he could most likely do this anonymously or near-anonymously.

One or two instances would most likely be ignored by legal authorities. But persistent violations would most likely raise the ire of the courts. US federal judges regularly issue injunctions taking down websites. It's unlikely that they would make an exemption for block chains. Especially considering that most judges are technically illiterate.

Since all full nodes would contain the illegal information, it would become illegal to run the existing blockchain in the US. It would probably be impossible to enforce against your typical home user. But any public facing wallet provider or large-scale miner based in the US would be shuttered. GDAX, Coinbase, all the wallet providers, all the US-based exchanges, etc.

The scenario would be extremely disruptive, and either require a hard fork or make bitcoin untenable in the US. Very likely it would crater the price, as nearly all US demand leaves the market. Is there any possible remedy if such a situation were to occur?

EDIT Re duplicate question: The designated answer to the original question is fallacious. The assumption is that the protection of ISPs would extend to blockchains. Even if that was exactly true, it's still insufficient to protect against this attack.

Yes, US law exempts ISPs from copyright infringement liability. But only if they remove the offending content. A federal judge would likely extend the same logic to the blockchain in question. The only way to remove content from the chain is to hard fork at the point it was inserted.

Not only would that reverse all transactions that occurred subsequent to the offensive content. It would likely destroy split the currency every single time a content violation block is added. Theoretically that could be every single block. From the standpoint of US compliant parties, the network would be unusable.


texts: people requesting to connect and mine on facebook are legit?

texts:
I recently joined a facebook group and lot of folks have been bombarding me to join my bitcoin wallet with some server for mining. Precisly, one of the guys mentioned as it is below

  KEEP your Btc in your wallet (normal 0.03) and start
  earning If you have blockchain wallet you can start to earn FREE by
  connecting your wallet direct to servers!!!  No investment, no ads, no
  refferals! PM for info

are these worth it? can they be trusted for mining association and all?


texts:
Is there any way to check for this data in blockchain?

I want to search this value: 554e6963444320 and want to return this transaction https://blockchain.info/tx/7e92e90f221ad28daf42b5b8bda4c8e244e37af48527fcd12b2518db5d3315bd


texts: sent bitcoin and its not in the blockchain and not showing "unconfirmed" to my other wallet

texts:
Last night I transferred $400 btc from purse.io to my paxful.com wallet. and it didn't show in my blockchain record and I didnt received any "unconfirmed" . What happened? is my BTC lost?

paxful address: 3EHttCtQtNU4BZvf5YvjbnDruhd1ubDvBT

purse.io address: 1BM6mMXb4ZHMMSx3JnZnhnTkE5Rh5VNnj9

my tx said by purse : https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/e68ad64dba66c61d316bb628a97d0346f11eaa2a5d86f27233b8b5b2178903c2


texts: How do I install Phoenix 2 on Mac OSX Mountain Lion?

texts:
I'm trying to install the latest version of Phoenix2 on Mac OSX Mountain Lion (on a Macbook Pro Retna) and unable to get it to work

What works:

The BitMinter client says OpenCL works on my CPU and GPU (It's Java based)

What I've tried:

The BitMinter client on older macs says OpenCL fails for the video card (which is expected)
This OpenCL Test Script fails
python -c "import numpy; print numpy.version.version"  returns 1.6.1
Installing PyOpenCL by running make and python configure.py
Running the command: sudo easy_install --upgrade twisted
Checking dependencies: python setup.py --requires
Installing Phoenix by running sudo make install and `sudo python ./setup.py install'
Running Phoenix by typing python phoenix.py example.py

Question

Can anyone walk me through the process of installing Phoenix2 (or other client) on OSX?

I suspect I need to uninstall OpenCL, twisted, etc, and replace it with a download from http://www.macports.org/, among other tasks


texts:
So recently, I had some bitcoins transferred to my desktop wallet account. The transfer happened yesterday. The way I did it, was that I created an address as you all know, without label or specific amount of bitcoins receiving. Then, that address, I pasted it on the website I am using to mine bitcoins, so when the Bitcoins were ready to be transferred, they already could use the address I provided. I still don't see them reflected on my desktop wallet and I am little concerned whether they will show up or not.

Thank you guys, if anything please let me know if this scenario happens often or not, so I take it easy.


texts: How to charge a fee to process Bitcoin payments in a mobile point of sale app?

texts: I have a mobile point of sale app for local businesses.  We want to integrate Bitcoin as a new payment processor for our merchants.  We currently charge $.30 per transaction for credit card swipes and we want to charge the Bitcoin equivalent. How do we grab a transaction fee for submitting the transactions on the merchants behalf via our app?  I mean, how do we do this in Bitcoin? Is there a property in BitPay we can use that says pay this API_Key this fee amount?


texts: Signrawtransaction is not working on bitcoin core V0.17.1

texts:
I am having trouble signing a transaction on bitcoin core since it appears signrawtransaction no longer works.

I get the following error message :

signrawtransaction is deprecated and will be fully removed in v0.18. To use signrawtransaction in v0.17, restart bitcoind with -deprecatedrpc=signrawtransaction.
Projects should transition to using signrawtransactionwithkey and signrawtransactionwithwallet before upgrading to v0.18 (code -32)

Any advice on what to do? tahnks in advance!


texts: How can I recover a electrum wallet with passphrase and keystore file?

texts:
Is there a way to recover a electrum wallet without the seed? I have the adress, passphrase and the wallet file. I tried restoring it but it asks for seed/ master key. I don't have those? Is there anything else I can try? When I load the file..it gives a unicode error. It looks like this. Is there a way to know, if this corrupted?
楏ĸ滐막댁痡䋆篅㧟ᑺ铙ꋧ亿龏レ祯᧻檊�籅−⥷㳀⁼澀秴思緽쏹褪髊灒轣ꀠ垥�ﰘុ᝱缉疰ᘹ뮋戔〤ୠ紟糸綝⩵懼ݦ젗䲢墜賕派쭈ꑘ䗙�奲쯅Ს䫨꥓ሌ昗﮽ꯔፇ婤㹱䍈삗휶쨜⽐⭳暷ᢠ蘘᭩췛뻦庄
I opened it in a hex editor to look for seed. There is no seed in it.


texts: Beginner's question: Why must proof-of-work be useless?

texts:
I wonder why the proof-of-work under no circumstances may be usable. The argument I understand is: If the proof-of-work could be used, its results could be sold, and doing the proof-of-work would cost the user nothing - or even could be valuable - and so would not restrict the usage of the service (e.g. bitcoins).
But why not use ideas from captchas of which the usage can be monetarized (e.g. by improving character recognition systems)?
Is a crypto currency system unconceivable where the user must pass the results of the proof-of-work to a central instance which can use them? (Prohibiting that the user can monetarize them on his own account.)
This would make crypto currencies much more sustainable than they currently are.


texts: Why did the price of bitcoin increase so dramatically?

texts:
I read this question on money.stackexchange, in which a user asks how to tax the speculation gain they (involuntarily) made. This guy (or girl) bought BTC for a few hundred USD a few years ago, lost the respective harddrive, and when they found it again, the BTC were (supposedly) worth a million or so USD.

So I am wondering, why did BTC appreciate so dramatically in other currencies? Is it just because of rising demand, in turn due to increasing trust in BTC?

As a corollary, could the BTC appreciation also be driven by a speculative bubble?

Sorry if this is a very noob question.