Talk:Bitcoin/Archive 2

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Valid Bitcoin address inappropriate for article

I see that 1rYK1YzEGa59eN9Aa7w7KUF2Za4jAYYTd is listed as an example of a Bitcoin address. I suggest that if that address doesn't belong to the person who put it there, it's inclusion is inappropriate on privacy grounds. On the other hand, if the editor who put it there does own it, it's inappropriate on solicitation grounds. The address could be replaced by a similarly-formed valid Base58 string which isn't a valid address, or simply described as being a Base58 representation of a 160-bit integer with certain properties. — Mike Gogulski ^{↗C•@•T↗} 09:14, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

This is one of the problems which occurs when the article is not sourced properly. If we had a source for the address we could check. It may be an example taken straight from bitcoin.org, we just do not know. A plea to all contributors, please source the article properly with inline citations or else a lot of material should just be removed so that the article can be done properly from scratch without original research. Polargeo (talk) 10:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I have just removed the address, there are no google hits on it so it is almost certainly original research. Much of the other text added along with this is likely to be original research as well. Soon I will start removing text that is not sourced or cannot be quickly and easily sourced unless it is very basic obvious stuff. Polargeo (talk) 11:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The address is one I generated for the purpose. Even if it wasn't, who cares? It is a random number which almost certainly exists nowhere in the block chain, so its privacy implications are nonexistent. If someone is seriously worried someone might randomly send me a jackpot of Bitcoins as a result, then change a digit or two. If I put a random number in an article about random numbers, is someone going to freak out because it might happen to be their SSN or phone number? Or that it isn't sourced to some reliable third party that confirms that yes, this, indeed, is a random number (an ironic requirement given the definition of randomness). A random number is meaningless if not coupled with some information that makes it notable. It is very paradoxical that this article is deemed to have sufficient notability to exist but then this discussion rampant complaints about a lack of third party sources. Either nominate the thing for deletion on the grounds of insufficient coverage in third party WP:RS, or please accept that the few that exist are going to have to be enough to support the article. Casascius♠ (talk) 18:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Polargeo, don't make such bold statements that proclaim your article ownership without at least trying to get some sort of consensus on that act. Seriously, "Soon I will start removing text that is not sourced or cannot be quickly and easily sourced unless it is very basic obvious stuff"? You are setting yourself up for an edit war at the very least and certainly your actions in this regard are abusive and contrary to the basic principles of Wikipedia.... the very pillars that build this project. DO NOT TAKE ABUSIVE MEASURES WITHOUT CONSENSUS. Your opinion on these things is not the final word, and your actions in this regard are causing more harm than good. It certainly is going to drive editors out of Wikipedia if you continue at the least, and you are certainly not assuming good faith here.

I realize that you are doing what you think is for the good of Wikipedia, but it can go too far and you don't seem to show any self-restraint with your attacks in this regard. Please work with others who are trying to write this article rather than trying to treat them and myself as enemies.

In term of an action which can be done here in terms of trying to demonstrate what a Bitcoin address might look like, I'd suggest perhaps some sort of donation address to a well known and notable group, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Better yet have an address to the Wikimedia Foundation, but at the moment that doesn't exist. This can be sourced, verified, and used as a legitimate example of a Bitcoin address. Make sure that the text of the example makes clear that the address is just an example. To cite a comparable article that uses something of this nature, see IP address where some real addresses are being used to explain the concept. I certainly think it is useful to include such an address, but I also agree with the issues of "original research" in terms of simply generating a random address. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Again, this is a personal attack on me and my motives. I ask you to please stop this approach, many editors would have made a report at WP:WQA by now. As to saying I will remove text that continues to sit there without sources, of course I will make an attempt to source it myself but I'm sure many people won't like that either because when I follow whatever source I find it won't agree with their personal view of Bitcoin. I am being extremely reasonable, I have tagged the article clearly and pleaded with editors to source their contributions and still the article isn't being sourced properly. Polargeo (talk) 22:25, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

My personal observations: I'm not sure Polargeo is trying to be abusive. This might be overdoing it. Casascius♠ (talk) 19:07, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey, who just sent 1000 BTC to my address above? That sounds like quite a lot just to prove a point. Casascius♠ (talk) 00:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.158.110 (talk) 16:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Technical

Difficulty

The technical section in the article could use a description of difficulty with respect to generating bitcoins. However, I'm somewhat unequipped to provide one. Any takers? KLP (talk) 17:03, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean somtehing like: "finding a hash of the candidate block that is less-than the current dificulty"?. Sperxios (talk) 23:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Generation of Bitcoins should not be the 1st section

Hi, KLP. I saw that change where you start explaining bitcoins from the generation of bitcoins. Although it is a question many of us had when we started out involvment with bitcoin, it is not easy to understand, and leads to leads to many missunderstandings(such as that "bitcoins corelate to the price of electricity") unless you can reason where this "cpu power" goes. That is why the techincal subsections were introducing more subtle details as the reader procceeded. Also, puting "generation of coins" at the top, reinforces the "greedy" impulse of all newcomers.

In general, i borrowed the order of the technical subsections from the 'developer's section of the bitcoin-wiki wich introduces the various notions progressively by their difficulty of understading them. Hence, i would suggest to keep it that way, if you don't have any disagreement. Sperxios (talk) 23:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

My intent was to describe the technical aspects of Bitcoin in a chronological fashion. Describing transactions of bitcoins prior do explaining where they come from in the first place doesn't make much sense. I realize that concisely describing Bitcoin isn't easy, but it isn't impossible. Readers seeking further explanation can follow the external links. Let's not recite the contents of those sites ad nauseam. KLP (talk) 04:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Generation of bitcoins shouldn't be the 1st section. Also, I found that there were 2.5 paragraphs regarding the generation of new bitcoins tucked into the last part of the Proof of Work section. I have moved the Generation of Bitcoins section down below the Transactions section and put those 2.5 paragraphs where they belong. I also added a new section "Bitcoin 'Coins', and removed the section header for Proof of Work. I kept the top part of the text that was in for proof of work section and put it into the bottom of the Transactions section. Dduane (talk) 15:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Restore infos about the time it would take to generate all bitcoins

In that change the following text was removed: <quote>There expected to be in total 6,929,999 blocks with generate-transactions within them, till year 2140 . After that period, the motive for participating into the system would be transaction fees.</quote> I think it is an important information to know (also related to the economics), well documented and cited, therefore it should be restored. It may be appropriate to be in the economics section, though. Sperxios (talk) 23:31, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Resilience on Open Source

In this change that section was deleted. The open-source aspect of the project has been questioned in the bitcoin forum, and this section tries to answer some of the FUD. For a representative discussion, see http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=1647.0 If there are no objections, i will restore the deleted section (along with the reference to that discussion were i got the arguments from, addressing the unreferenced tag template). Sperxios (talk) 23:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem here is mainly reliable sources. If you can find some reliable secondary source (aka not on the forums or a self-published blog entry from a "Bitcoin fan") which describes this process, go ahead and restore the necessary information. Reliable sources is what has been plaguing this article since its inception, and while "notability" has been established now I don't think you can find reliable sources for much of the information you are demanding to restore here.

If you really want to address this information, present a paper in an open source conference or do something that establishes you as a knowledgeable expert on the topic.... and post references here on this talk page for others to incorporate that content where that information has at least gone through some sort of 3rd party editorial review to become a reliable source. There are opportunities to do that, but Wikipedia is not a place to do original research. Indeed it has been for this reason I've personally tried to stay away from adding too much more to this article explicitly because I know too much of the "unpublished" details of this project and can't objectively add information. I can certainly call to question biased information which is something I believe to be factually inaccurate, but be extra cautious about adding information which hasn't been published yet. A wiki is also not a reliable source of information for various reasons.

Unless you can reference a quality source, don't put the information into this article... at least yet even if you know the details first hand by being a software developer who is working on this project. Most of the edit you are complaining about here is genuinely original research as in somebody who knows the software intimately and is stating their opinions and knowledge using Wikipedia as a primary source of information. That is not the role of an encyclopedia. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is a question of sources only. FWIW, I think the information in that section was wrong, in that there are a number of approaches that could facilitate a migration from one bitcoin system to a larger expanded one. For example, the project could build a bigger system in parallel to the existing and let users transfer assets from the one to the other, much in the way as I routinely move assets between various money market accounts. But that's neither here nor there, since I'm not a reliable source. Robert Horning is correct, as everything in WP should be backed by a reliable source. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

While i tottaly agree with what you said both of you, i still beleive that some section regarding the open-source nature of the project must exist in the article (by the way, i didn't write the previous one, i just improved and emphasized it), accompanied with the 'unreference' warning. Deletre whatever youthink is purely interprational, but there must still be a section about open-source. Sperxios (talk) 01:51, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Why? --Nuujinn (talk) 01:57, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Because, technically, the capability for everyone to inspect that the source-code corresponds to the compiled bitcoin-client distributed is an intrinsic strength of bitcoin. That would not be possible with a closed-source implementation. Sperxios (talk) 02:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

It's also an inherent weakness, since hackers can review the code to look for holes. It's an advantage, in that users can fork the code if they like, and a disadvantage since it's harder to make money off of open source code, and thus less financial incentive to code it. There are advantages and disadvantages to OSS in general, and I would suggest that the generalities of those strengths and weaknesses are not relevant to this article. The question is, what reliable sources discuss bitcoin in regard to it being an OSS project? --Nuujinn (talk) 02:22, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

You are right. I will try to look if there is any such reliable source. Thanks. Sperxios (talk) 02:30, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The infobox clearly states that Satoshi released Bitcoin under an MIT license. KLP (talk) 04:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue isn't about the licensing terms of the software, which is a well established bit of factual information. The issue here is information about Bitcoin itself that is entirely self-published here on Wikipedia in the first place rather than seeking another forum for publishing that information first... preferably something that is vetted via peer review and goes through some sort of 3rd party editorial control. Most of the popular press articles about Bitcoin have been more of an introductory nature and don't get into the fine details about Bitcoin, although there has been some discussion as to the open-source nature of the project and how that is something useful. Also, don't get distracted to write about open source software in general as it already has an article about that topic including the advantages and disadvantages of that approach.

If you can't find the sources to discuss the concepts, it is better that for now that information is kept out of the article. Stick to the information found in the sources, and there is quite a bit of information in existing "reliable sources" that can form the basis of a sound and strong article even now. --Robert Horning (talk) 17:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Tonal

Until someone presents a good explanation as to its relevance, I intend to keep reverting the additions regarding the tonal number system. Base ten works fine, and no one keeps trying to explain how to represent bitcoins in binary or hexadecimal, so I see no need for mention of any other number system. KLP (talk) 07:00, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Since the Tonal System is already on Wikipedia itself, it certainly meets notability requirements. Decimal does not "work fine", even if in your personal opinion it is "good enough". Wikipedia is not a platform to force your personal opinions on people, much less suppress anything that you have no personal interest in. Doing so is nothing more than vandalism, which you have apparently been called out on before. I will only revert your vandalism once more. If you refuse to stop, I will make a report at the "Edit war/3RR noticeboard" per Wikipedia policy. Luke-Jr (talk) 7 Timander 3 at .4T

Luke, don't accuse people of vandalism when it's not vandalism. Quoting the policy: "Even if misguided, willfully against consensus, or disruptive, any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism. Edit warring over content is not vandalism." Threats don't help a constructive discussion.

If your edits are reverted/removed then please follow the bold-revert-discuss process. It's up to you to voice your arguments to support your edits first. The only claim resembling an argument in your reply was "Decimal does not "work fine", even if in your personal opinion it is "good enough"", but you don't offer any justification. Also, notability guideline is irrelevant here, since it doesn't govern the content of articles. Verifiability is the policy you should be looking at. Your edit introduced a reference to Bitcoin wiki, but wikis are not reliable sources. -- intgr [talk] 19:57, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

When he has no solid basis for the removals, I don't see how it can really be "good faith". Pushing ones personal views isn't a reason. The Bitcoin wiki is in this case the official place for Bitcoin-related specifications (both draft and stable). It is no different than, for example, citing a video game's official website for facts about its workings in an article about that video game. [[WP:RS|Your reliable sources link] does not specifically exclude wikis as being unreliable, and were it expanded to do so, should certainly make an exception for wikis used as ordinary webpages. --Luke-Jr (talk) 7 Timander 3 at .7T

The revert was entirely justified per WP:BRD. The burden of proof on you, not the person reverting your edits. See also WP:AGF. -- intgr [talk] 08:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The tonal system does not deserve any mention in Bitcoin until it has reliable sources supporting that. No one is using or promoting it other than Luke-Jr. There is absolutely no consensus for it anywhere. I likewise intend to remove any mention of it. Casascius♠ (talk) 22:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Unless some sources can be found to demonstrate any sort of verifiable use of this system with Bitcoins, I really don't see how it applies to Bitcoin as a software package. The main software doesn't use this tonal enumeration system, and I have never even read about it on the forums. This sounds more like a fringe theory riding the coattails of an already controversial topic where I would argue it really isn't needed at this time. The concept of tonal counting already has its own Wikipedia article, and it seems very much inappropriate to expand Bitcoin to incorporate this theory. See also WP:UNDUE for a similar related policy that this concept seems to violate.

I'm glad that there is at least some discussion about this, as I've been watching this protracted edit war (technically 3RR is three reversions in 24 hours... even though the spirit of the policy does suggest avoiding even a protracted edit war). There are enough people who watch this article and are active on Wikipedia that I don't think you need to "call in the cavalry" to win your point. Bringing the issue up here on this talk page is more than sufficient and will get plenty of commentary on the topic. It is what should have been done after the first reversion. I apologize for not doing that earlier. --Robert Horning (talk) 22:22, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the real problem is this article's partial assumption that BitCoin is a software package, when it is in fact a peer-to-peer network. The network itself uses only base units, while end-user software (such as the original client, QBitCoin, Block Explorer, MyBitcoin, etc etc) translates these into human-readable values (currently either Decimal/SI BitCoin or Tonal BitCoin). While the majority admittedly use the Decimal/SI notation/units, there is no reason to oppress the minority who choose to use Tonal. --Luke-Jr (talk) 7 Timander 4 at 1.8T

Not including something in a wikipedia article is not oppression. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:35, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

You've taken up your cause in the wrong place, Luke-Jr. Notice that your signature automatically features the date and time in its typical format. If tonal really matters to you, I recommend going after the bits of oppression systematically embedded in Wikipedia first, or at least signing your posts manually. Otherwise, good troll. KLP (talk) 18:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. --Luke-Jr (talk) 7 Timander 4 at .77T

Bitcoin is a software package, although it happens to use an "experimental" networking protocol too that has been attempted to be replicated by other software developers as well. Please re-read WP:UNDUE again and explain why this isn't giving undue weight to something that is very much off-topic in terms of computer software and a networking protocol that doesn't mention this "alternative" counting system at all. Bitcoin as a software package is mentioned in numerous places and at least has "reliable sources" which can back up its existence and features. I don't see that happening with this counting system at all, and I don't see even within the Bitcoin user community any significant mention of this counting system. Can you find Satoshi suggesting it might be interesting or something to be used with Bitcoin? Are there any newspaper articles or for that matter much of anything other than the wiki itself that even describes this tonal counting system? I've read just about everything there is to know about Bitcoin as a protocol and software package, and besides the wiki I have never heard of this counting system being used with Bitcoin. The onus is upon you to prove that it exists and is being used, and that it is a part of the Bitcoin community. I don't see that happening. BTW, if you really want to put the tonal system into your sig, I could help you with that, but that is a completely separate issue and irrelevant to this article as well. --Robert Horning (talk) 20:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

You should add some sort of (SHORT) explanation of relevance for this whole thing. It seems like a complete waste of time without any point to it at all. --IceHunter (talk) 20:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The issue seems to have been settled already. KLP (talk) 00:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Reference #2

Reference #2 (answers.com) is pathetic. It's an internet discussion among laypeople and no conclusive 'answer' was given. I think having no source at all would be better than that! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.58.46 (talk • contribs) 04:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

This has been fixed already. — DataWraith (talk) 11:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Gavin Andresen aka Satoshi Nakamoto

An anonymous user threw this little tidbit up on the page, and I'm reverting it due to the fact that this bit of information is unsourced and such a major factual detail that needs some fact checking before it can be confirmed as fact. I admit that the circumstantial evidence seems interesting, but I would either like a link to an article where Gavin admits he is the original author (Gavin has claimed otherwise) or somebody else has "spilled the beans" with "proof" beyond some IP editor throwing this bit in.

All in all, I do believe that Satoshi is a psuedonym for somebody, but I have no proof of that fact or any real clue as to who it might be. Unless it is sourced, it does not belong in this article. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

That IP only seems to vandalize. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.1.73.218 (talk) 21:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd have to agree. It looks like he has tried to make this same edit a couple of other times, and is being persistent to inject this particular tidbit into the article. I would dare say he has failed the spirit if not the letter of WP:3RR and deserves to be blocked for that purpose alone. Further injection of this will have to be considered a sock puppet. --Robert Horning (talk) 22:06, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems extremely misleading to treat Satoshi Nakamoto as a real person, however. Shouldn't there be some reference to the discussions about the fact that he doesn't exist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.90.167 (talk) 05:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

What discussions meet any sort of criteria for a reliable source? Adding to that, is there any possible "reliable source" to suggest that Satoshi Nakamoto isn't the real name of the person who wrote the software? Simply put, until something solid can be referenced even the entire debate is purely speculative.

I would count an actual admission by the "real" Satoshi on the Bitcoin forums using the "Satoshi" account as reliable in this case (assuming the account wasn't hacked), as would a hard hitting investigative journalism piece done for a major computing or news publication where somebody tries to track this bit of trivia down. It certainly would make for an interesting story to at least find out just who it is that wrote the software that is now stirring up some controversy. A blogger who heard third hand from somebody's cousin that Satoshi isn't real or worse yet raw speculation on the Bitcoin forums by the other participants is not what I call a reliable source at all.

There is at least some sort of "real life" person that does exist in terms of somebody who wrote the software. In that sense he does exist, and the question is only if the name "Satoshi Nakamoto" is the real name of the person who authored the original software. --Robert Horning (talk) 13:28, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

So maybe the opening sentence would best read, "Bitcoin was created either by a person named Satoshi Nakamoto or by a person using the pseudonym 'Satoshi Nakamoto'." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.106.138.11 (talk) 14:09, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

So should we go around at put that on every article where the author's identity isn't well established? … If there were a reliable source on it probably being a pseudonym— rather than just random speculation, as Robert Horning says— then I suppose it would be fine to mention, but I think it would be a little difficult to avoid making it disproportional since the article currently says very little about the developers of the software. --Gmaxwell (talk) 13:44, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Bubble and POV

"Bitcoin's peer-to-peer topology and lack of central administration make it infeasible for any authority, governmental or otherwise, to manipulate the value of bitcoins or induce inflation by producing more of them.[citation needed]" without any mention about Economic bubble [1][2][3] is POVish Bulwersator (talk) 12:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Why is it "POV-ish"? The statement is factually accurate and doesn't seem to be related to economic bubbles. I'm going to delete the POV dispute marker, I think you need to explain your objection better or just edit the page yourself. A discussion of bubbles might be worth putting in to a separate section, but I'm not sure if it'd have anything useful to say beyond "Bitcoin is an asset and therefore can experience bubbles". Mike Hearn (talk) 18:54, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I restored it as possibility of bubble is hidden in truncated criticism section (and bitcoin bubble is frequent opinion so omitting it violates WP:UNDUE). It should be in lead. Sorry for bad English, Bulwersator (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I can see why it would be POV-ish, that's due to the suggestion that the value cannot be "manipulated". Sure, it can't be manipulated by producing more of them, but from the looks of things, they can be easily manipulated just by creative trading due to the small size of the market. Fair to say that BTC can't be counterfeited, but that's about it. Casascius♠ (talk) 00:53, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, whatever, but could you guys fix the article instead of just putting a marker there? If you think there needs to be a bigger discussion of bubbles go right ahead and add one. Or maybe if the middle clause about "manipulation of value" is deleted it'd be OK? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Hearn (talk • contribs) 11:19, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, I can try but my English is rather poor Bulwersator (talk) 20:14, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

That's no problem, I'm happy to fix spelling or grammar mistakes. Mike Hearn (talk) 20:55, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Bulwersator has placed a POV notice on the article with an edit summary "no mention about bubble (common opinion) in the lead, violating wp:UNDUE)". This is somewhat perplexing to me, the lead of the article makes no mention of the economics or "value" of bitcoin. The only parts of the article that do is the section entitled "Outcome", and his concerns are addressed there. It would be editorially infeasible to elevate a even handed discussions of the economics of bitcoin into the leads but promoting the concerns of an asset price bubble without that context would almost certainly create exactly the undue weight Bulwersator is concerned about. Perhaps this highlights the importance of separating bitcoin-the-technology (which is now seeing some independent use outside of bitcoin proper) from bitcoin-the-currency. This is all made more complicated by the lack of reliable secondary sources on any of the economics aspect of it, mostly the available information on that aspect of it appears to just be weakly informed speculation.

Any other views on this? I don't think Bulwersator's demand is a reasonable one. The outcome section could use a lot of improvement but demanding particular coverage in the lead seems like undue weight to me.--Gmaxwell (talk) 04:42, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Historic time-line

What are the sources for this section? Do we have a reliable independent source that establishes this timeline and the relationship between the various elements? --Nuujinn (talk) 22:19, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

External links

Gmaxwell, I encourage you to look at Wikipedia:El#Links_normally_to_be_avoided. The two links you re-added seem to fall short of the requirements in #10 and #12. "Useful" is not a sufficient qualification. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 14:45, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Hm? I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of the suggestion there— My longstanding expectation is that focus there is on third party resources (e.g. trying to promote your starwars wiki by linking to it on every wikipedia about startwars), and not the official resources for the article's subject. It would be weird to exclude official references for a subject merely because they choose to use, e.g., a wiki rather than a book. In this case the references are not overlapping with material we'd permit in Wikipedia, they're an official resource, no one appears to have a particular pecuniary interest in promoting them, and they'd be useful to readers of the article. I'm not following how the users of Wikipedia are anything but benefited here. --Gmaxwell (talk) 15:37, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

OK--the forum is run by the main organization, as is that Wiki, I see now--it's linked on their homepage. Then see Wikipedia:El#Official_links, which basically boils down to one is enough in most cases (and this is a typical case). In other words, we have three where one would do, because the other two are directly linked from the one. Drmies (talk) 17:27, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I cant find anything about EFF bitcoin donations at the EFF link provided (https://www.eff.org/helpout#bitcoin). This is notable since the article mentions EFF granting legitimacy to the project by accepting Bitcoin donations. I didnt remove the link though since I dont know why the bitcoin donations have been removed. Gnurkel (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:20, 31 May 2011 (UTC).

The bitcoin option does appear to have been removed recently. It's still visible in this Google cache copy. I'll remove it from the article until evidence can be produced that they do in fact still accept them.--Eloquence* 06:34, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It should not have been added without a reliable source. [4][5][6] The amount of unpublished material on this article amounts to undue weight being given to this, admittedly cool, technology. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 20:58, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

EFF accepted BitCoin donations, but was removed because of legality concerns. I'm gonna add a section about it. Gnurkel (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:07, 9 June 2011 (UTC).

Recent Media Attention

It would be nice if this article could mention the recent media, as well as gov. attention that BTC has been getting... particularity the various Senators trying to "crack down" on illegal sales through Bitcoin. Kevinslemons (talk) 02:26, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Out of curiosity.... do you have some sources for this kind of government attention? An official press release from some senator's office or a news story from even a local media outlet would be an excellent addition to this article, even if it is negative reactions to Bitcoins in this manner. --Robert Horning (talk) 11:46, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

There should be mention of the legalities of this proposed currency.

BitCoin is not legal tender, and advertising it as such is against the law. While it may be a decentralised system based on open source technologies; that doesn't change that the rate you can 'mine' BitCoins is determined by a central authority. Where does the power to regulate and control inflation come from? Does it concern any economists that one can only 'create' money, not destroy it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.142.140 (talk) 13:15, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

"Tender" is a verb. A "legal tender" is an offer of payment that must be accepted by law, and originally was used on US Treasury notes to say, "This note is a legal tender of one dollar of gold." - meaning it had to be accepted the same as gold if offered in payment of a debt, as per the " Legal Tender Act" of 1862.

Unless otherwise prohibited by law, any two people can agree to exchange one type of good for another - this is called "freedom of contract". Therefore, Bitcoin does not require any kind of government stamp of approval. If someone agrees to accept it as payment, there is nothing illegal about that unless it has been specifically outlawed in a jurisdiction. Cadwallader (talk) 21:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Coins can actually be destroyed trivially: generate a new address, transfer coins to it, and delete the private key for the address. The coins are now unusable. Also, the rate of mining is not based on a central authority. AFAIK it is a well defined function of the aggregate processing power of miners. 90.163.167.157 (talk) 02:01, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

If this is the case, then how can the global maximum of $21 million be ensured? Also, if it is a function of computing power; doesn't this incentivise using massive data centers to mine? If this is the case, it means people with larger clouds win - hardly an even society. Also, I'd like to think there are better things our data centers could be doing than having to use some useless function to generate money for a completely abstract economy. Tyraz (talk) 02:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

As mentioned, the rate of creation is adjusted by the nodes of the network (difficulty increasing/decreasing as a function of previous weighted average rate). After a fixed set of blocks the number of coins generated (mined) is halved. The halving is a binary shift such as 1000 to 0100 to 0010 to 0001 to finally 0000 (zero). This is fixed in code, incredibly simple, and verified by ALL nodes in the network. It is only centralized in the sense that one human programmed the algorithm two years ago and it would be incredibly difficult (impossible) to change by consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexgenaud (talk • contribs) 12:21, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

This isn't a forum for discussion of bitcoin "fairness" or even a discussion of what you think cloud computing resources should be used for. 24.130.82.66 (talk) 03:57, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It is the case. The global maximum still applies regardless of computing power. As for your other criticism, think how productive it is to drill holes to extract gold. Not much, right? And the one with more drilling power finds more gold. Yet we do not think it is unfair. It's the same concept. Useless function? People are trading bitcoins at around 5 usd lately.. 90.163.167.157 (talk) 05:13, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

If "people are trading bitcoins at around 5 usd lately", then by definition US finance and tax laws apply. So in addition to wasting computer resources "mining" bitcoin, we are now wasting human resources, in the form of attorneys, accountants, judges, law enforcement officials, legislators, economists, etc. who must now engage in the processes specified by these laws. ;-) Znmeb (talk) 17:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Bitcoin is not legal tender but it's definitely not illegal. Its existence doesn't violate any intrinsic human rights; quite the opposite it represents the ultimate freedom of humans to trade voluntarily and privately. Legal tender only means that a government recognizes a form of money as official. Just because gold is not legal tender does not make it illegal, and the same applies to Bitcoins. The only relevant mention of legality in the article should be governments ignorant enough to declare Bitcoins illegal. Malamute (talk) 21:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Terminology: generating, blocks, batches

The three key terms "generating node", "block" and "batch" are not properly explained in the article.

The section Bitcoin#Block-chain_and_confirmations defines a block as a file containing a list of recent transactions. It refers to generating nodes without explaining the term. Are these the nodes that generate bitcoins as explained in the later section Bitcoin#Generating_bitcoins?

That section talks about generating nodes as well as block-generating nodes, without explaining the difference, if any. The section further talks about batches of bitcoins produced by generating nodes, suggesting that "generating nodes" are "nodes-that-generate-batches-of-bitcons". Later in that section it talks about candidate blocks and says "one block gets generated every ten minutes", suggesting that a batch and a block is somehow the same thing. Is that true?

Finally, in Bitcoin#Transaction_fees, we learn that nodes "include transactions in the blocks they generate", apparently using the word "block" in the sense of "file-containing-list-of-transactions" and the word "generate" in the sense of "producing-files-containing-lists-of-transactions".

It would help a lot if this terminological confusion could be cleaned up. Thanks, AxelBoldt (talk) 14:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I've eliminated the word "batch" from the article— it's not a word used (commonly?) in bitcoin terminology. Nodes (optionally) generate blocks, an event that happens at random with a rate proportional to how hard nodes are working at it and a protocol controlled difficulty level. Blocks form an ordered consensus list of transactions for the purpose of guarding against double-spending: transactions exist and are visible before they're placed in the chain of blocks, but if two transactions spend the same coin then only one will ever make it into the official chain of blocks, and the other transaction and any transaction which depended on it will (eventually) be rejected by all participants. This is fundamentally the purpose blocks serve. The rules of the system allow the creator of the block to insert an additional transaction to pay themselves up to a protocol specified amount (currently 50 BTC), effectively generating new bitcoins out of thin air— but this is basically a side effect of the block generating process though an important one since it's the origin of all the bitcoin. I hope its more clear in the article now. --Gmaxwell (talk) 23:35, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I marked the word infinitesimal as being contradictory, since that would imply that generating a block is infinitely unlikely to happen. Such an event would never occur, but generating a block I understand happens about once every ten minutes. 88.195.165.87 (talk) 23:05, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Your eventual change to 'very low' is fine. The number is a rational (~1/2436822202603624 right now) which tends to 1:2^256 (which may reasonably be argued to be uncomputable directly) as the overall computational rate of the system increases in order to keep the expectation to one in ten minutes. Thanks for the correction. --Gmaxwell (talk) 02:28, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed silver chart

That image has no place whatsoever in an article about bitcoins. It is completely irrelevant to bitcoin. It was obviously added by someone who doesn't like the labelling of the bitcoin bubble as a "bubble" and wants to say "see, other commodities rise and fall in price too!" Three problems: (1) Wikipedia is not a soapbox: you can't use this article to say "bitcoins r gud and u r dum". (2) The silver chart didn't have the same axes or scaling as the buttcoin one, so it's not a valid comparison. (3) The whole article is about bitcoin as a "currency", so why compare it to a commodity? Oh that's right, because bitcoin zealots pick and choose "currency" or "commodity" depending on which one casts bitcoin in a more favourable light. Simon-in-sagamihara (talk) 09:32, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I fully agree with the silver removal, without a reliable search the similarity is original research— yes, the lines were both squiggly but without careful analysis that similarity might just be superficial. I had attempted to remove it before but managed to revert myself by editing in the tab. I don't agree with your (3) though— by bulk most of the article is about bitcoin as a technology— which is as it should be because most of the monetary crap is pure speculation and hard to describe factually or neutrally. Fwiw, the interchangeable use of currency and commodity is well supported by our own currency article, but I think the convention is fairly strong that currency also means official and that commodity is more technically correct though I'm not sure how it should be handled in the article because the relevant sources go both ways. --Gmaxwell (talk) 09:40, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

So Bitcoin is basically World of Warcraft without the graphics and gameplay?

In WOW you grind mobs to get gold which you can trade for dollars. In Bitcoin MMO you grind hashes to get bitcoins which you can trade for dollars.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. It looks like bitcoins are basically WOW gold except they can't be used to buy computer hats and swords for your avatar. Is this correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.227.254.193 (talk) 06:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

If you want a simplified answer to your question, I'd suggest using the Bitcoin forums for a response. How does this question relate to helping write or create this article? --Robert Horning (talk) 14:06, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

It would probably help if the forums were up, but I digress. 68.227.254.193's lack of understanding speaks to the overcomplexity of this article. It's a cry for help. I've intended to do some pruning and consolidating for a little while now. I'll get to it eventually, unless someone beats me. KLP (talk) 15:42, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's an article in The Atlantic which might help.[7]. --John Nagle (talk) 15:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Theft/Fraud

There's a story here about $500k worth of BTC being stolen, I won't add it in as it's very possibly a troll but if there's any more reliable coverage of this angle it should definitely go in the concerns section. -- Yablochko (talk) 22:35, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Aha, I now see there was a section on it and it has been removed. I would advocate reinstating it. -- Yablochko (talk) 22:37, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

To reinstate it would need reliable sourcing. The removal was referenced to the forum post you show, that is fundamentally an unreliable source. The other source was a blog, where the author isn't a recognised expert on the subject and was full of weasel words about as to if it's true or not and as to if it's true or not the "stolen coins" were passed on. It to fails to meet the required standards for sourcing. It'd probably also fail WP:NOTNEWS --82.7.44.178 (talk) 18:20, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Bubble? Ponzi scheme?

Here's the price graph for the last 90 days.[8]. That just screams "Ponzi scheme". The Wall Street Journal raised that question on June 2. [9] --John Nagle (talk) 16:29, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Bitcoin does not pay interest on deposits and therefore does not meet the definition of a Ponzi scheme. 76.169.229.2 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:09, 16 June 2011 (UTC).

First of all: We need to add that wall street journal article as a reference. It solves the problem of only being able to cite forum posts about these allegations. Secondly, bitcoins DO pay an interest on your deposit. The price graph clearly show that the value of your deposit would have increased over time just like for a succesfull speculation in stocks, which ponzi schemes may camouflage as. It has been argued (in forum posts who's links we repeatdly add and remove ;-) that this is a development engineered into bitcoins because it follows from the diminishing supply of new bitcoins over time. In effect economic deflation. EverGreg (talk) 12:33, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Making extensive use of today's market figures

The article had some over-reliance on up-to-the-minute market figures that I removed. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a Bloomberg Business News wire service. It's absurd that, here I was reading an encyclopedia article, and I was being exposed to facts, figures, and charts that were generated earlier in that same day, but that are already substantially wrong. --Cyde Weys 03:12, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

There are articles like "First Bitcoin Depression Hits"[10], so sources are starting to appear. The charts are showing a classic speculative bubble pattern - run-up for no external reason, followed by a crash. During June 2011, the price started around 10, ran up to around 30, dropped to around 11 yesterday, and today is showing big intra-day volatility. It's too soon to say how this will unwind. Let's revisit this in a week. --John Nagle (talk) 15:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

NPR now has a story: "Bitcoin goes haywire".[11]. Huge volatility today. The different Bitcoin to USD exchanges are showing 25% differences between them, and the Bitcoin-OTC market has far lower prices than the exchanges. By next week, we'll need a paragraph on this. --John Nagle (talk) 21:37, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Next week will be interesting. We just had a double top.[12]. Give the major media a week to catch up and we'll have some good sources. --John Nagle (talk) 15:30, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Removal of citations

In several revisions (e.g. [13]) perfectly reasonable citations to the official Bitcoin project documentation have been removed and replaced with citation needed notice. Please note that the bitcoin software is an open source project and that the formal documentation by its developers is often placed on the project's website, wiki, and forum and aren't inappropriate references for simple factual pieces of information.

I am more concerned, however, by the removal of citations related to bitcoin-promotional and bitcoin-deregatory comments. With citation these comments are simple statements of fact which we can reference and which readers can assess the validity of the statements. Without the citation these comments are a violation of NPOV. If the source was inappropriate for whatever reason, it is inappropriate to simply remove the citation, instead, remove the entire comment. --Gmaxwell (talk) 07:38, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

If it helps you can use John Levine's blog entry as a reference in a future "criticism" section (like me he is certainly aware of the Hashcash roots in the BitCoins scheme): http://jl.ly/Money/bitcoin.html –89.204.153.161 (talk) 11:11, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Do be aware of WP:RS, esp. WP:SPS. Wikis and fora are not generally considered reliable. The project's web site is only reliable for non-contraversial claims about the bitcoin itself, and not for statements about how widely used bitcoins are, or how safe they are, or where they can be used. For those kinds of statements we need reliable secondary sources. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:51, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

But isn't that just what the template is good for? To give the reader a warning that the content is not 'proven factual'? And at the same time giving the writer the opportunity to fix things? (OldCar (talk) 17:19, 17 June 2011 (UTC))

I am proposing the removal of citation of 'Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' and replace it by . Although it might have been referenced a lot (by the media), the current citation qualifies as WP:SPS. I won't immediately remove it, as it is so prominently in the article, but await some comments. (OldCar (talk) 18:42, 17 June 2011 (UTC))

I think that is a bit excessive. – Kaihsu (talk) 19:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Kaihsu. It is the founding paper of bitcoin, which makes it extremely relevant. That doesn't mean it should be blindly accepted, but, for example, when there is reasonable doubt about some contents of the paper, it can be tagged with and at the same time leave the citation. The article text can also be written in a way as to cast doubt in the validity of citations, when necessary. I really don't see the point of removing the link. Not to mention is does not seem to violate Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources (except maybe n. 5 "the article is not based primarily on such sources.", but that is usually only relevant when there is a risk of deletion). -David N.

I tend to agree about that one source, but I cannot help but note that many of the references in the article are simply not what policy requires as reliable sources. OldCar, the CN template is not a warning to readers, but rather an aid to editors to identify which statements appear to be inadequately sourced. If we doubt the accuracy of a statement, we use {{Dubious}} or {{fact}}, see template:cn for usages. You might also peruse Template_talk:Citation_needed/Archive_10#Wording_changes, as that was a discussion about it's usage, and you can get a good feel for how various editors approach use of CN. Now, the topic is getting coverage in mainstream press, so we should begin to migrate to those sources. I recognize that FOSS project can be a challenge to source properly, but we should not give in to the urge to document every little thing about Bitcoin--we're an encyclopedia, and not a substitute for the software's documentation. --Nuujinn (talk) 22:03, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I can't help it that the Bitcoin community decided to make this paper, that is of quesionable origin and (partially very) questionable content, so 'extremely relevant'. I'm just saying the paper has not been properly published (at least not according to the current Cn) and therefore e.g. never had a proper peer review. --(OldCar (talk) 21:07, 18 June 2011 (UTC))

Yes, we are limited in terms of what we can source to it. but it is a primary source and we can use it as such if we are careful. What we should continue doing is pull in material from 2ndary sources and improve the article's text. Much of the detail is not really necessary. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Legality section

I've removed a section entitle legality [14]

This is mostly unsupported by the sources, the parts which are are not about legality of bitcoin.

e.g.

• article said : "US Senators have issued talks ... on possible regulation regarding BitCoin"

source says : two use senators have written to JD and DEA about closing down a recipient of bitcoin selling drugs.

The two of course are completely different.

• article said : "further underlining the tenuous legality of Bitcoin and its supporters."

sources say : nothing

That's just editorialising, failing WP:NOR and WP:NPOV

• article said : "...could be considered aiding and abetting a fugitive..."

sources say : nothing at all about legal status of those making donations, merely that donations have been made...

Complete WP:OR - not what the sources say but the legal inference from a wikipedia editor.

--82.7.44.178 (talk) 07:20, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

• For the first part of the above I note the section Bitcoin#Conversion_to_and_from_real_currency contains a better link about that part of the subject so that maybe verifiable, as to if it warrants duplicate coverage in both sections is a different question. --82.7.44.178 (talk) 08:24, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

taxing bitcoins

I wonder if anyone has discussed about how to tax the bitcoin economy? If so, we can add it to this article. Similar discussions has taken place about LETS. – Kaihsu (talk) 19:54, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

In most articles about bitcoin, the only thing writers mention is something along the lines of "Bitcoin is hard or impossible to tax". But since it is undergoing massive media coverage, it probably is just a matter of time until the tax issue is properly discussed... In this register.co.uk article it says "New Scientist recently noted (login required) the likelihood that tax agencies will want to get a handle on it, quoting Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs as saying that turning Bitcoins into currency could make transactions taxable." (which is interesting... but the juicy part is behind a paywall...) and this bit: "If traced by the Australian Tax Office, Bitcoins would probably get the same treatment as “barter” exchanges, with tax assessed on the value of traded goods or services." ---- There is also this one at intltaxcounselors.com (I have no idea how reliable that is) which basically just says "So, back to my question are they taxable income? Only if they are property which is transferable into U.S. dollars. Time will tell." Apart from that I have not yet found anything... But certainly this is an interesting and relevant topic to be included in the article. --SF007 (talk) 22:39, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I have read LETS proponents opining that if the LETS economy is really valuable enough to the tax authorities, they can tax it in the LETS currency itself, but not in the legal tender. (Green Economics: Beyond Supply and Demand to Meeting People’s Needs, 1999, editor Molly Scott Cato, if I recall correctly.) I suppose a similar line of argument would apply also for bitcoin. – Kaihsu (talk) 12:15, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Conflict of interest in content choices

Seems suspiciously convenient that nobody involved with this article had a problem with it containing information about Bitcoins' value in USD until a couple of days after that value plummeted, and then all of a sudden it became inappropriate for the article to contain that information. Seems obvious that there's some people with money invested in the currency manipulating the article in their own interest. 58.84.237.200 (talk) 11:14, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

We assume good faith here, and the uptick in press coverage attracts attention. Given the variability in value, we should confine our statements to general ones (and, of course, statements must be reliably sourced.) --Nuujinn (talk) 11:18, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a good place for short-term recent charts, since they don't get updated. Price of petroleum has had a similar problem. I've put financial charts into other articles, like Peak oil, but on the scale of years, not days. Once we have an identified permanent event, that may be worth showing on a static chart. Give the financial press about a week to catch up and provide more coverage of the crash. We may have a "Bitcoin bubble and crash of 2011" section at some point. --John Nagle (talk) 15:51, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

The bottom just fell out of the Bitcoin market.[15]. Current Bitcoin price is US$0.0106. There are no buyers on line today, so the market crashed. This happens occasionally in a thinly traded market. See Liquidity. I expect press coverage of this event in a day or two. --John Nagle (talk) 17:54, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Another Concern: Malware

There are already some websites/blogs abusing their visitors for mining with Flash- or Java-based CPU-miners.

For example this one, http://radoff.com/blog/about/, embeds a java applet (by loading a javascript from http://www.bitcoinplus.com/js/miner.js) which generates 100% CPU load on every core of the visitor's machine. 92.76.152.192 (talk) 10:21, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Well spotted, I think they call it "covert mining". I will search some sources.--SF007 (talk) 17:21, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/bitcoin-botnet-mining Bulwersator (talk) 16:57, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Cite error

Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named mick; see Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text Bulwersator (talk) 16:54, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

External links

There is a dispute over 2 links which have been added and removed to the External links section. One of them is to a message board with a grand total of 147 messages. The other is to a message board with a grand total of 20 messages. (In comparison, the official message board for bitcoin has 200,000 or so messages) There is no reason to add these low quality links, so I've removed them. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 09:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Message boards with even one message can be of more value than message boards crowded with people that are all parrotting each other. The mentioned board is censored, so there's all the reason for other boards to be mentioned. I'd hoped you would have first discussed before removing. Added again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OldCar (talk • contribs) 11:41, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Agree with removing most message board links. There's now enough actual press coverage from reliable sources that we don't need them. --John Nagle (talk) 15:34, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Most message boards will fail WP:ELNO, the question isn't about "There's now enough actual press coverage from reliable sources..." if they aren't up to scratch they should never have been included in the first place. --82.7.44.178 (talk) 18:22, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Whether you personally like the official message board or not is irrelevant. Your comments about the board being censored and people parroting each other suggest that you have some axe to grind against the board, so probably you should not be involved in this issue. We don't want Wikipedia articles' external links sections filled with low quality links because of our editors personal issues. As everyone who has commented on this but you sees no value in these links, I've removed them again. --Xyzzyplugh (talk) 04:51, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

That the 'bitcoin.org' board is cencored is just a fact. The remark of people parroting each other was meant as a general remark, not specific to that board. (Censoring makes parrotting more likely I think.) I hope we don't have to start accusing each other of 'personal grudges' here in order to win a discussion. However, I'll not revert the change again, but wait and see if there's more support. (OldCar (talk) 08:17, 17 June 2011 (UTC))

What do you think about that board: http://forum.bitcoins-deutschland.de/ its usually a german bitcoin forum, but its the first multilingual forum, if you browse to http://forum.bitcoins-deutschland.de/en/ you will get all posts - no matter in which language written - translated into english, because bitcoins is an international currency this could be the future. -- 178.25.151.181 (talk) 22:30, 23 June 2011 (UTC)