wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: Building a tiny blockchain
Indeed. But there is a lot of talk about bitcoin and blockchain in general lately, and a lot of existing cryptocurrencies which are unworkable, created by people who want to get rich quick.
wildbunny's comments
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: Building a tiny blockchain
When you're talking about people's money, just following tutorials and piecing something together does not cut it.
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: Building a tiny blockchain
In a p2p environment, timestamps are totally useless at proving when I sent you bitcoins. However, when I sent you bitcoins is fundamentally important when it comes to ordering transactions, because I can send you bitcoins, but also send them to myself after you accept them. If I can forge timestamps then this attack is trivial to pull off.
You need an analogue to elapsed time to solve this problem. Hashes in bitcoin are probabilistic, there is an expected number of hashes required to solve the PoW (on average). Each hash takes an amount of time that cannot be made faster, so you suddenly have an unforgeable, easily provable analogue to elapsed time.
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: Building a tiny blockchain
Again, that's how it works, but not why it works. It bitcoin it is used as an unforgeable proxy for elapsed time.
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: Building a tiny blockchain
This worries me. Bitcoin solved the double spend problem by using the LCR with PoW. That is the novel aspect which allowed cryptocurrencies to come into existence.
If you remove the LCR and PoW, all you are left with is a toy example which cannot work in practice.
What is needed is education about censensus design and bitcoin's implementation of the solution, rather than a 'how to guide' for building a basic linked list under the guise of 'blockchain'.
Cheers, Paul.
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: Show HN: Very basic blockchain-free cryptocurrency PoC in Python
I'd like to direct interested readers to a thread containing a link to a draft paper I wrote about addressing these issues in a blockless DAG based cryptocurrency:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1992827.0
Cheers, Paul.
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
On the contrary, this is the major strength of the system.
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
If miners chose to mine on a chain that no-one wants, then everybody has to grudgingly go along with it, or cease to transact.
The longest chain is always the most valuable.
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy
He misses the point that the developers do not control bitcoin; the miners control bitcoin. The developers suggest improvements which will only be adopted if the miners support those improvements.
The miner's interests are purely profit based, so they will not adopt changes which reduce their chance of profit.
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: Show HN: A Browser-based Blockchain
This is interesting - but how can a browser serve incoming connection requests?
wildbunny | 8 years ago | on: A peek under Bitcoin’s hood: Writing a client that can create a transaction
wildbunny | 11 years ago | on: MetricsGraphics.js – D3-based library optimized for visualizing time-series data
Cool, but needs candlesticks!
wildbunny | 12 years ago | on: Game servers: UDP vs TCP
TCP can get you quite far, even in a fast paced multiplayer game, as long as the game is suited.
For example, the multiplayer version of asteroids in this article uses TCP sockets:
http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2012/11/20/how-to-make-a-mul...
Cheers, Paul.
wildbunny | 12 years ago | on: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency
This article misses the true breakthrough which bitcoin represents which is a trustless, decentralised store and exchange of value.
wildbunny | 13 years ago | on: Kickstarter launched in the UK
My retro 2D MMO is one of the first UK projects accepted on Kickstarter :)
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1375039912/mmoasteroids-...
wildbunny | 14 years ago | on: Facebook’s stock should trade for $13.80
They have, and it was facebook credits. If that didn't maximise their profits then nothing will.
wildbunny | 14 years ago | on: MMO Asteroids
For those who can't be bothered - the game just keeps playing, with all the players following/attacking etc.
I.e - it's fake. Such a shame!
wildbunny | 14 years ago | on: MMO Asteroids
Fiddler shows a connection to node.seb.ly on keep alive - not sure if any data is getting sent/received though....
wildbunny | 14 years ago | on: Fun with convex polygons
Thanks very much :)
wildbunny | 14 years ago | on: I Launched My Startup Yesterday, This Is How The Hectic Day Went
Its getting there slowly - the problem is traffic, as you rightly identified earlier. Its slow to build, takes a lot of time and effort. The spikes from posting on reddit never last, so its either a question of constantly writing quality content and posting it, or having a massive marketing budget :)