Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I told him specifically to bring it here (on a pull request for Bitcoin Core), as there is no point in making such convention changes to just one client. I wasn't aware of any discussion about the bits proposal here before. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance's or people's current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik's. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.com wrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
If you absolutely want a name for some small unit (which may be valuable, not knocking that part of the idea), please use anything other than bits, which is already a massively overloaded term that will confuse the hell out of people: Harddrive costs measured in bits per gigabyte? An itunes movie download that costs 200,000 bits and takes 804.2 megabytes of space? Or a 10-megabit internet connection costing 10,000,000 bits per month? It's especially bad given that bitcoin will likely be adopted first for online use, where the competing (and more recognized) meaning of bit is most prevalent. Not to mention the overlap within bitcoin itself, with people already using millibits in conversation as a shorthand for mBTC. Hence one new bit is exactly 1/1000 of the old millibit. Make something up if you have to, or just use satoshis. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 10:28 AM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance’s or people’s current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik’s. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.com wrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Here is an earlier reference to bits: https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.html I forgot that Alan Reiner was also supporting a unit equals to bits : https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.html and here the earlier going back to March 2013 and a poll at that time pushing for XBT being 1 bit https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.html Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 16:53, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: I told him specifically to bring it here (on a pull request for Bitcoin Core), as there is no point in making such convention changes to just one client. I wasn't aware of any discussion about the bits proposal here before. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance's or people's current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik's. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.com wrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I've been a staunch supporter of microbitcoin and would like to do anything I can to make sure that we jump directly to it if we're going to promote changing the default units. And I'm happy to integrate it into Armory as a default (with appropriate explanations and settings/options). I'm not so convinced about the bits name though -- I do like it, but I do also think that word is too overloaded. Though, I think we could get away with it. (Sadly, I still use microbes occasionally (as in *microb*itcoin) when I'm talking to coworkers, because it slips off the tongue and is actually a good combination of brevity and self-explanatory -- it just doesn't instill the right visuals...) We started integrating alternative units into Armory. But, of course, there were a few more loose ends than I expected, which will require some work. We want to put it in but not necessarily change the default right away. I'd /prefer/ we get some commitments from some other wallet developers, so we can make a unified push for it. I'm happy to lead that and make it default as long as I'm not the only one in the world doing it. -Alan On 04/20/2014 11:05 AM, Tamas Blummer wrote: Here is an earlier reference to bits: https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.html https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.html I forgot that Alan Reiner was also supporting a unit equals to bits : https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.html https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.html and here the earlier going back to March 2013 and a poll at that time pushing for XBT being 1 bit https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.html https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.html Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 16:53, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com mailto:pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: I told him specifically to bring it here (on a pull request for Bitcoin Core), as there is no point in making such convention changes to just one client. I wasn't aware of any discussion about the bits proposal here before. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com mailto:ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance's or people's current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik's. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.com wrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
The world is rapidly becoming a place in which a solid grasp of orders of magnitude could be considered a basic mathematical skill. People are very likely to learn what mBTC and µBTC are simply because they risk their money if they do not. This is not a bad thing and I think stands only to help people who learn about these monikers for orders of magnitude this way. Any appropriate nicknames for these denominations is sure to develop in due course. Promoting an already-overloaded term that could just as easily be applied colloquially to refer to a small amount of value in any currency seems problematic. I've been a staunch supporter of microbitcoin and would like to do anything I can to make sure that we jump directly to it if we're going to promote changing the default units. And I'm happy to integrate it into Armory as a default (with appropriate explanations and settings/options). I'm not so convinced about the bits name though -- I do like it, but I do also think that word is too overloaded. Though, I think we could get away with it. (Sadly, I still use microbes occasionally (as in *microb*itcoin) when I'm talking to coworkers, because it slips off the tongue and is actually a good combination of brevity and self-explanatory -- it just doesn't instill the right visuals...) We started integrating alternative units into Armory. But, of course, there were a few more loose ends than I expected, which will require some work. We want to put it in but not necessarily change the default right away. I'd *prefer* we get some commitments from some other wallet developers, so we can make a unified push for it. I'm happy to lead that and make it default as long as I'm not the only one in the world doing it. -Alan On 04/20/2014 11:05 AM, Tamas Blummer wrote: Here is an earlier reference to bits: https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.htmlhttps://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04248.html I forgot that Alan Reiner was also supporting a unit equals to bits : https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.htmlhttps://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04264.html and here the earlier going back to March 2013 and a poll at that time pushing for XBT being 1 bit https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.htmlhttps://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg04256.html Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 16:53, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: I told him specifically to bring it here (on a pull request for Bitcoin Core), as there is no point in making such convention changes to just one client. I wasn't aware of any discussion about the bits proposal here before. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Tamas Blummer ta...@bitsofproof.com wrote: People on this list are mostly engineers who have no problem dealing with magnitudes and have rather limited empathy for people who have a problem with them. They also tend to think, that because they invented money 2.0 they would not need to care of finance's or people's current customs. The importance of their decisions in these questions will fade as people already use wallets other than the core. Bring this particular discussion elsewhere, to the wallet developer. BTW the topic was discussed here several times, you have my support and Jeff Garzik's. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 20.04.2014, at 15:15, Rob Golding rob.gold...@astutium.comrob.gold...@astutium.comwrote: The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, The use of any 'prefix' is one of choice and entirely unnecessary, and there are already established 'divisions' in u/mBTC for those that feel they need to use such things. people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, Exceptionally unlikely - I deal every day with currencies with 0, 2 and 3 dp's in amount ranging from 'under 1 whole unit' to tens of thousands - Not once in 20 years has anyone ever 'sent' more or less than intended - oh, they've 'intended' to underpay just fine, but never *unintended*. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. I propose that for people unable to understand what a bitcoin is, they can just use satoshi's and drop this entire proposal. Rob -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: The term bit is really only overloaded for those who are techy. 95% of the population never uses the term bit in their daily lives and I doubt most could even name one use of the term. Plus bit used to be a unit of money way back when, so this is kind of reclaiming it. I think it's a great fit. That's a very anglocentric way of thinking. Here in the Netherlands, a bit is something you put in a horses's mouth. It's also used as imported word (in the information sense). We've never used the term for money. Wladimir -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
You're correct, my impression of the term is based of what I experience in the US. If it is more widely used in other cultures that should be a consideration. On Apr 20, 2014 12:27 PM, Wladimir laa...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Chris Pacia ctpa...@gmail.com wrote: The term bit is really only overloaded for those who are techy. 95% of the population never uses the term bit in their daily lives and I doubt most could even name one use of the term. Plus bit used to be a unit of money way back when, so this is kind of reclaiming it. I think it's a great fit. That's a very anglocentric way of thinking. Here in the Netherlands, a bit is something you put in a horses's mouth. It's also used as imported word (in the information sense). We've never used the term for money. Wladimir -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
As someone who has put a lot of thought into how to best help typical everyday people understand bitcoin, I strongly favor 1 bit = 1e-6 BTC as being very straightforward to explain to non technical types, and also XBT as one bit. There are a million bits in a bit coin is highly intelligible to average people. I consider overload/conflict with existing meanings of bit as a non-issue for typical population at large. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 10:31 AM, Alan Reiner etothe...@gmail.com wrote: Whatever we call it. I'm happy to support it as long as it's 1e-6. -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Hello, While SI units are great for people well versed in them, there is a very good reason people aren't asking for 100 micro dollars in change. The average person is not going to be confident that the prefix they are using is the correct one, people WILL send 1000x more or less than intended if we go down this road, and these mistakes will happen frequently. Labeling should be easy enough for kindergarten kids. Agree - but why do you propose not only a new label but also a different subunit? Also, everybody in the metric world is used to the milli- prefix due to meters and millimeters. It's not such a stretch to expect people to master that; but I agree that most people would struggle with microbitcoins. I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. There have been many proposals for more or less arbitrary subunits. What would be the merit of your proposal? I don't really follow the reasoning that it's better if it's uncommon for everyone rather than just uncommon for people not used to metric units. Regarding the label of a bit: I have to agree with the others that bit is heavily overused as a unit, but I am a computer scientist, so I don't have the average joe's perspective on this. I find it weird to use as it's already in use in English - a bit of work etc I don't really see the advantage of a bit - it is part of bitcoin and it's short, but that's about it. I think we are free to pick anything we want for a label, so why not avoid ambiguities? See this thread for many creative ideas for labels (and another arbitrary subunit proposal: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=396522.0 Arne -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 I agree that a unit based on 1e-6 BTC is easier to use in practice than BTC. The name microbitcoin is ok-ish. Nearly all countries officially use the SI-system, but that doesn't mean that the average citizen knows all the SI prefixes. Mega, kilo and milli are universally understood, micro not so much. This is a serious accessibility concern. But I dislike the term bit for the already stated reasons: It's already used in various languages for various things. Simply using Satoshis may be easier and is universally understood. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.13 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJTVAgZAAoJEBrvn3PsoRcmWYgP/0JMXmJjzdBFBQscl3+yA987 4zD+W+7o/wPqRmtCU9voJ1PFj9zM6zagHAz455wjnF4IwdgYZjqtadyfxgP5Mg8p WGoplGQPWJ5KorsQfbiJP8uTOfTzJK5p6Aw9DwscN4aBjCMaHskvyWGVpE8U7ibQ Pk+a6lX1UUOnjm/G7v5UDKFSlUGAe0GCTnI8FDjxAfF8mzS9XzMSPCfbZfoc7eEx F7yKkAQGZCDJKP4y6oenj4CGXn100KSZEmombNQ7PeOEwqcKsd1RgPtHWTZzb0Ya hk2sSnEEt05uwyYsGRnb1EYUwiSS/6sgT9m7fU3bpFf3dWqGuMweSVuGgCTMPrRb 3ei18TJAI59lF/du5zbhQOujpNx/ocmf538hcpFkqaM3RTpeXifaSAefp37S5Zbq xw013M5T55SmJZYQwdWTFA689kvmOT1N33ht2QtSszl6ZJDFOrwICdcIqMsS6a0a cGcigi2Ru4M9J7w7wk448ky22Z8VjZrKTQFqhiKzoRk2t0N/SQbKSFKCm7ffsAB/ 7EGB9cA3va5ZFBnDAae84Vj0RAMJDHYO7VZIg/mF5qNs8YWs6okQoeJ8FMfNAhW2 pDgZdJfl46lnzfQvgiV/jAMkFr/oSj0UZUPAWXbaGcAm3ZFNO4B0SgNB2VYUfLIe VNW1pzTKiwL83RjNTGfV =EPvS -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
It is a paradigm that is easy to explain and grasp for neurotypical people. The average mind has no problem overloading words and distinguishing the intended meaning from context. For most people, overloading a single syllable word with a new meaning is much less complicated than using a unique 3+ syllable word like satoshi or micro-anything. Doing software development warps our minds to demand fully qualified names for everything. We know our compilers would say bit? Fatal error 0xaaawtf, can't continue, not sure if you mean a Boolean or a dog bite. But this peculiarity should not be projected onto the people we are trying to get bitcoin to appeal to, not if we want them to feel like we think about their experience. If I were to say a Bitcoin can be divided into a million bits, less than 0.1% of average joes would think I was talking about German beers or the thing that goes in horses mouths. Really, most people are good at using context to relate this to a dollar can be divided into 100 cents and accepting it. This requires much less of their mind resources than using SI prefixes correctly or learning 3 syllable words that (to them) have no instantly apparent relationship to Bitcoin. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 11:44 AM, Arne Brutschy abruts...@xylon.de wrote: I propose that users are offered a preference to denominate the Bitcoin currency in a unit called a bit. Where one bitcoin (BTC) equals one million bits (bits) and one bit equals 100 satoshis. There have been many proposals for more or less arbitrary subunits. What would be the merit of your proposal? I don't really follow the reasoning that it's better if it's uncommon for everyone rather than just uncommon for people not used to metric units. Regarding the label of a bit: I have to agree with the others that bit is heavily overused as a unit, but I am a computer scientist, so I don't have the average joe's perspective on this. I find it weird to use as it's already in use in English - a bit of work etc -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Mainly because it is short, memorable, effectively leads the listener to infer the proper meaning, is culturally neutral, is easy to say by speakers of just about any language, and many other reasons. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 12:23 PM, Arne Brutschy abruts...@xylon.de wrote: agree that overloading isn't an issue when necessary, but my point was that the necessity is lacking. If we're free to pick anything, why pick something that is overloaded? Moreover, bit is an abbreviation of bitcoin and might be confused with it. Most currencies use a work that is phonetically very different and short, so why not do the same? Pluk, or cred, or finney (as proposed the thread I posted), or whichever. We could call it unsp for unspent ;) Arne -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
People in the Bitcoin community are sometimes resistant to the idea of using the word credit as a unit of Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is not a credit-based system. However, given that the average person has close to no understanding of what credit means, and probably no concern for the distinction even if they do know, it may be wise to use the futuristic and easily understandable credit as our human-friendly unit. Do others agree that credits as a unit of account has a desirable futuristic connotation? Will smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
My impression: Good because it is short, memorable, and pronounceable by speakers of most languages (though to most of the world that would be oo-bit, as u being yu is mostly an English thing) Downsides include the fact that μ is not a U, it just resembles one. It is a lowercase M in Greek, a live spoken language also studied by many, and calling it a U conveys a notion of global unawareness. And the potential for XBT to be 1e-6 BTC on the world stage would be huge, worth pursuing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 6:16 PM, Justin A allp...@gmail.commailto:allp...@gmail.com wrote: delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.commailto:mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.commailto:christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.demailto:bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. My 2 cents goes for bit. Because: Bitcoin is a digital currency, BTC starts with bit, bit refers to a small amount of something in its regular english usage and lastly 99.9876543% of people on the planet don't know what a digital bit is yet ... Gavin On 21/04/2014, at 9:20 am, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: My impression: Good because it is short, memorable, and pronounceable by speakers of most languages (though to most of the world that would be oo-bit, as u being yu is mostly an English thing) Downsides include the fact that μ is not a U, it just resembles one. It is a lowercase M in Greek, a live spoken language also studied by many, and calling it a U conveys a notion of global unawareness. And the potential for XBT to be 1e-6 BTC on the world stage would be huge, worth pursuing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 6:16 PM, Justin A allp...@gmail.com wrote: delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source
[Bitcoin-development] Economics of information propagation
Hi all, I am a post-graduate economist writing a paper on the incentives of mining. Even though this issue has been debated in the forums, I think it is important to get a sense of the magnitude of the incentives at play and determine what implications this has for the transaction fee market. As it has been pointed out before the marginal cost for miners does not stem from the private cost of the miner validating the signature and including it in the list of transactions in the block but rather the increased probability that the block will be orphaned as a result of slower propagation. Gavin did some back of the envelope worst case calculations but these overstated the effect of propagation delay. The reason being the 80ms additional time to reach 50% of the network is spread throughout the time that it takes to reach 50% of the network. During this time miners are notified about the block and treat it as the longest chain and hence are no longer mining with the aim to produce a competing block. I am looking to calculate the change in the curvature of the probability mass function that a block hears about my block in any given second as a function of the block size. Although there is likely to be significant noise here, there seems to be some stable linear relationships with the time that it takes to reach different quartiles. Has anyone done this? I have used some empirical data that I am happy to share but ideally I would like analytical solutions. Following Peter Todd, I also find the concerning result that propagation delays results in increasing returns to higher shares of the hashing power. Indeed it may well be in the interest of large pools to publish large blocks to increase propagation delays on the network which would increase orphan rates particularly for small miners and miners that have not invested in sufficient bandwidth / connectivity. If a small miner hears about a block after 4.5 seconds on average there is a 0.7% chance that there is already a block in circulation. Large miners can increase the time that it takes for small miners to hear about blocks by increasing the size of their blocks. For example if the time that it takes for a small miner to hear about the block goes to 12 seconds there is a 2 percent chance there is already a block in circulation for the small miner. There is also a 1.2% chance that there will be a competing block published after a small miner propagates in the time that it gets to full propagation. Am I getting this right that the probability of a miner’s block being orphaned is comprised of the probability that the miner was not the first to find a valid block and the probability that given they are first, someone else in the absence of hearing about it finds a competing valid block. One question is: Are orphans probabilistic and only resolved after hearing about a new block that lengthens the chain or is there a way to know in advance? Is it frowned upon to mine on top of a block that you have just found even though it is very likely going to end up an orphan? Would be happy to share the draft form of the paper and receive any feedback. Finally, at coinometrics we are working on a modified client to capture information on network propagation and would invite any suggestions of any other useful statistics that would be useful in the development of software. Best, Jonathan On 21 Apr 2014, at 01:16, bitcoin-development-requ...@lists.sourceforge.net bitcoin-development-requ...@lists.sourceforge.net wrote: Send Bitcoin-development mailing list submissions to bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to bitcoin-development-requ...@lists.sourceforge.net You can reach the person managing the list at bitcoin-development-ow...@lists.sourceforge.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Bitcoin-development digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: bits: Unit of account (Oliver Egginger) 2. Re: bits: Unit of account (Christophe Biocca) 3. Re: bits: Unit of account (Gmail) 4. Re: bits: Unit of account (Mike Caldwell) 5. Re: bits: Unit of account (Justin A) -- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 20:43:24 +0200 From: Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account To: Bitcoin Development bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net Message-ID: 5354154c.1080...@olivere.de Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation.
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
If bit had to be preceded by a letter I would nominate ebit or xbit (which could still be XBT) Those needing a definition for x could define it as coin/100. That said, I am still more in favor of bit. Xbit would just solve the problems others cite about ambiguity if they had to be solved without the resulting name being too long. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 7:33 PM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.commailto:slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. My 2 cents goes for bit. Because: Bitcoin is a digital currency, BTC starts with bit, bit refers to a small amount of something in its regular english usage and lastly 99.9876543% of people on the planet don't know what a digital bit is yet ... Gavin On 21/04/2014, at 9:20 am, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.commailto:mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: My impression: Good because it is short, memorable, and pronounceable by speakers of most languages (though to most of the world that would be oo-bit, as u being yu is mostly an English thing) Downsides include the fact that μ is not a U, it just resembles one. It is a lowercase M in Greek, a live spoken language also studied by many, and calling it a U conveys a notion of global unawareness. And the potential for XBT to be 1e-6 BTC on the world stage would be huge, worth pursuing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 6:16 PM, Justin A allp...@gmail.commailto:allp...@gmail.com wrote: delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.commailto:mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.commailto:christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.demailto:bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.netmailto:Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today -
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Economics of information propagation
As soon as we switch to headers first - which will be soon - there will be no difference in propagation time no matter how large the block is. Only 80 bites will be required to propagate the block header which establishes priority for when the block is fully validated. On Apr 20, 2014 6:56 PM, Jonathan Levin jonathan.le...@sant.ox.ac.uk wrote: Hi all, I am a post-graduate economist writing a paper on the incentives of mining. Even though this issue has been debated in the forums, I think it is important to get a sense of the magnitude of the incentives at play and determine what implications this has for the transaction fee market. As it has been pointed out before the marginal cost for miners does not stem from the private cost of the miner validating the signature and including it in the list of transactions in the block but rather the increased probability that the block will be orphaned as a result of slower propagation. Gavin did some back of the envelope worst case calculations but these overstated the effect of propagation delay. The reason being the 80ms additional time to reach 50% of the network is spread throughout the time that it takes to reach 50% of the network. During this time miners are notified about the block and treat it as the longest chain and hence are no longer mining with the aim to produce a competing block. I am looking to calculate the change in the curvature of the probability mass function that a block hears about my block in any given second as a function of the block size. Although there is likely to be significant noise here, there seems to be some stable linear relationships with the time that it takes to reach different quartiles. Has anyone done this? I have used some empirical data that I am happy to share but ideally I would like analytical solutions. Following Peter Todd, I also find the concerning result that propagation delays results in increasing returns to higher shares of the hashing power. Indeed it may well be in the interest of large pools to publish large blocks to increase propagation delays on the network which would increase orphan rates particularly for small miners and miners that have not invested in sufficient bandwidth / connectivity. If a small miner hears about a block after 4.5 seconds on average there is a 0.7% chance that there is already a block in circulation. Large miners can increase the time that it takes for small miners to hear about blocks by increasing the size of their blocks. For example if the time that it takes for a small miner to hear about the block goes to 12 seconds there is a 2 percent chance there is already a block in circulation for the small miner. There is also a 1.2% chance that there will be a competing block published after a small miner propagates in the time that it gets to full propagation. Am I getting this right that the probability of a miner’s block being orphaned is comprised of the probability that the miner was not the first to find a valid block and the probability that given they are first, someone else in the absence of hearing about it finds a competing valid block. One question is: Are orphans probabilistic and only resolved after hearing about a new block that lengthens the chain or is there a way to know in advance? Is it frowned upon to mine on top of a block that you have just found even though it is very likely going to end up an orphan? Would be happy to share the draft form of the paper and receive any feedback. Finally, at coinometrics we are working on a modified client to capture information on network propagation and would invite any suggestions of any other useful statistics that would be useful in the development of software. Best, Jonathan On 21 Apr 2014, at 01:16, bitcoin-development-requ...@lists.sourceforge.net bitcoin-development-requ...@lists.sourceforge.net wrote: Send Bitcoin-development mailing list submissions to bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to bitcoin-development-requ...@lists.sourceforge.net You can reach the person managing the list at bitcoin-development-ow...@lists.sourceforge.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Bitcoin-development digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: bits: Unit of account (Oliver Egginger) 2. Re: bits: Unit of account (Christophe Biocca) 3. Re: bits: Unit of account (Gmail) 4. Re: bits: Unit of account (Mike Caldwell) 5. Re: bits: Unit of account (Justin A) -- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 20:43:24 +0200 From: Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de Subject: Re:
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
Bit is simple phonetically, I'm for it. On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.comwrote: If bit had to be preceded by a letter I would nominate ebit or xbit (which could still be XBT) Those needing a definition for x could define it as coin/100. That said, I am still more in favor of bit. Xbit would just solve the problems others cite about ambiguity if they had to be solved without the resulting name being too long. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 7:33 PM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. My 2 cents goes for bit. Because: Bitcoin is a digital currency, BTC starts with bit, bit refers to a small amount of something in its regular english usage and lastly 99.9876543% of people on the planet don't know what a digital bit is yet ... Gavin On 21/04/2014, at 9:20 am, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: My impression: Good because it is short, memorable, and pronounceable by speakers of most languages (though to most of the world that would be oo-bit, as u being yu is mostly an English thing) Downsides include the fact that μ is not a U, it just resembles one. It is a lowercase M in Greek, a live spoken language also studied by many, and calling it a U conveys a notion of global unawareness. And the potential for XBT to be 1e-6 BTC on the world stage would be huge, worth pursuing. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 6:16 PM, Justin A allp...@gmail.com wrote: delurk What about ubit, pronounced YOU-bit, representing 1e-6 bitcoin? Easy to say, tied in a visual way to the metric micro, leaves the required 2 decimal places for the marginally numerate.. What more could one want? /delurk Also, hi. My first post; plan to get involved over the southern hemisphere winter if I can learn enough. On Apr 20, 2014 4:32 PM, Mike Caldwell mcaldw...@swipeclock.com wrote: By culturally neutral I mean we avoid deliberately invoking a cultural reference in the name. For example satoshi would be a reference to Japanese culture just for being a common Japanese name regardless of who Satoshi turns out to be. Mike Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Christophe Biocca christophe.bio...@gmail.com wrote: Culturally neutral? bit in French phonetically collides with slang for phallus (bitte, with a silent e). Apparently it means louse in Turkish as well. Not that this really would be avoidable with any short word (all the short possible words are usually taken), but it's not neutral. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Oliver Egginger bitc...@olivere.de wrote: Hello, just my two 'cents': Terms arises by itself. Just as most people speak of coins when they mean bitcoins. I do not see that bitcoin is currently in common use except for speculation. Therefore no term for smaller units has established yet. No problem in my eyes. Time will tell. - oliver -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book Graph Databases is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/NeoTech ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet -
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Economics of information propagation
Of course, in reality smaller miners can just mine on top of block headers and include no transactions and do no validation, but that is extremely harmful to the security of Bitcoin. If it's only during the few seconds that it takes to to verify the block, then would this really be that big of a deal? E.g. even if all miners did this, a 10 second delay would only yield an average of a couple blind/empty blocks per day. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 10:06 PM, Peter Todd p...@petertodd.org wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 That is mistaken: you can't mine on top of just a block header, leaving small miners disadvantaged as they are earning no profit while they wait for the information to validate the block and update their UTXO sets. This results in the same problem as before, as the large pools who mine most blocks can validate either instantly - the self-mine case - or more quickly than the smaller miners. Of course, in reality smaller miners can just mine on top of block headers and include no transactions and do no validation, but that is extremely harmful to the security of Bitcoin. On 20 April 2014 23:58:58 GMT-04:00, Mark Friedenbach m...@monetize.io wrote: As soon as we switch to headers first - which will be soon - there will be no difference in propagation time no matter how large the block is. Only 80 bites will be required to propagate the block header which establishes priority for when the block is fully validated. On Apr 20, 2014 6:56 PM, Jonathan Levin jonathan.le...@sant.ox.ac.uk wrote: Hi all, I am a post-graduate economist writing a paper on the incentives of mining. Even though this issue has been debated in the forums, I think it is important to get a sense of the magnitude of the incentives at play and determine what implications this has for the transaction fee market. As it has been pointed out before the marginal cost for miners does not stem from the private cost of the miner validating the signature and including it in the list of transactions in the block but rather the increased probability that the block will be orphaned as a result of slower propagation. Gavin did some back of the envelope worst case calculations but these overstated the effect of propagation delay. The reason being the 80ms additional time to reach 50% of the network is spread throughout the time that it takes to reach 50% of the network. During this time miners are notified about the block and treat it as the longest chain and hence are no longer mining with the aim to produce a competing block. I am looking to calculate the change in the curvature of the probability mass function that a block hears about my block in any given second as a function of the block size. Although there is likely to be significant noise here, there seems to be some stable linear relationships with the time that it takes to reach different quartiles. Has anyone done this? I have used some empirical data that I am happy to share but ideally I would like analytical solutions. Following Peter Todd, I also find the concerning result that propagation delays results in increasing returns to higher shares of the hashing power. Indeed it may well be in the interest of large pools to publish large blocks to increase propagation delays on the network which would increase orphan rates particularly for small miners and miners that have not invested in sufficient bandwidth / connectivity. If a small miner hears about a block after 4.5 seconds on average there is a 0.7% chance that there is already a block in circulation. Large miners can increase the time that it takes for small miners to hear about blocks by increasing the size of their blocks. For example if the time that it takes for a small miner to hear about the block goes to 12 seconds there is a 2 percent chance there is already a block in circulation for the small miner. There is also a 1.2% chance that there will be a competing block published after a small miner propagates in the time that it gets to full propagation. Am I getting this right that the probability of a miner’s block being orphaned is comprised of the probability that the miner was not the first to find a valid block and the probability that given they are first, someone else in the absence of hearing about it finds a competing valid block. One question is: Are orphans probabilistic and only resolved after hearing about a new block that lengthens the chain or is there a way to know in advance? Is it frowned upon to mine on top of a block that you have just found even though it is very likely going to end up an orphan? Would be happy to share the draft form of the paper and receive any feedback. Finally, at coinometrics we are working on a modified client to capture information on network propagation and would invite any
[Bitcoin-development] Mailing list abuse
What is the procedure for dealing with it? Is it considered abuse to reply to and quote the entire digest for the sake of a few lines of content? Am I the only one annoyed by this (if so I'll just shut right up). Rodney -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not relevant to this discussion in my opinion. It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC bits. That's fine, but using that as official name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling dollars bucks in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with having colloquial names, but US dollar or euro are far less ambiguous than bit. I think we need a more distinctive name. -- Pieter -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Mailing list abuse
On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 6:58 AM, Rodney Morris rodney.mor...@gmail.com wrote: What is the procedure for dealing with it? Is it considered abuse to reply to and quote the entire digest for the sake of a few lines of content? Am I the only one annoyed by this (if so I'll just shut right up). I would not go as far as calling it 'abuse' if it is not done on purpose. Probably the person doesn't even know he/she is doing this. Best to mail the person and ask (nicely) instead of complaining to the list. Wladimir -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] bits: Unit of account
I think we have two very good candidates both substantiated with arguments for their use in their context: bit - the word for everyday use XBT - the acronym to fit into the ISO currency set. both meaning 100 satoshis or 1e-6 Bitcoin. I am glad that I erred, and this list finaly cares of finance customs and average Joe’s. Regards, Tamas Blummer http://bitsofproof.com On 21.04.2014, at 07:41, Pieter Wuille pieter.wui...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, Un Ix slashdevn...@hotmail.com wrote: Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common usage I.e. bit. What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not relevant to this discussion in my opinion. It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC bits. That's fine, but using that as official name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling dollars bucks in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with having colloquial names, but US dollar or euro are far less ambiguous than bit. I think we need a more distinctive name. -- Pieter -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail -- Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
