18
votes
When, if ever, will "peak bitcoin" occur?
At the beginning of Bitcoin, every newly mined block (about every 10 minutes) creates 50 bitcoins. This is called the block subsidy. About every 4 years, this number cuts in half. Therefore, the peak ...
- 566
18
votes
When, if ever, will "peak bitcoin" occur?
According to comments by the project's founder, Bitcoin's issuance rate was indeed inspired by that of precious metals. However, it is implemented algorithmically, of course, which artificially limits ...
- 69.8k
13
votes
Accepted
Why is there a 5 days gap between genesis and block 1?
While the Genesis block is timestamped 3rd of January, the hash of the Genesis block is astonishingly low. It has been theorized that Satoshi set himself a more challenging target for the Genesis ...
- 69.8k
11
votes
Accepted
What is the "1 RETURN" bug?
Have a look at the early sources here: http://www.bitcointrading.com/forum/bitcoin-clients/original-bitcoin-source-code-archives/
there is a small piece of code in script.cpp:
case OP_RETURN:
...
- 6,724
10
votes
Accepted
How did pay-to-pubkey hash come about? What is its history?
Pay to Public Key Hash has existed for the entirety of Bitcoin's life. P2PKH addresses have existed since the earliest release of Bitcoin. Creating P2PKH addresses and sending to P2PKH addresses was ...
- 66.4k
9
votes
Where can I access the original, Satoshi written Bitcoin code?
This page contains files for the first three available Bitcoin codebases written by Satoshi Nakamoto.
http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/code/
- 91
9
votes
Accepted
Where did the idea of blockchain come from? Git was already using it since 2005
According to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies (BaCT), the Princeton Bitcoin textbook, the block chain dates back to a "paper by Haber and Stornetta in 1991. Their proposal was a method for ...
- 69.8k
7
votes
Accepted
Why does Satoshi's public key have the uid "BuZz Spacedout"
This is what I see for a search on pgp.mit.eud, which points to this key:
That is a surprising result. If we download the key purported to be Nakamoto's from Bitcoin.org, we get the following ...
- 11.6k
7
votes
Accepted
What is the significance of Bitcoin Pizza Day, and when is it celebrated?
Bitcoin Pizza Day is celebrated on May 22nd. On this day in 2010, a BitcoinTalk member bought pizza in exchange for 10,000 BTC. This represents more or less the first known transaction using bitcoins ...
- 86
7
votes
Accepted
How was the dust limit of 546 satoshis was chosen? Why not 550 satoshis?
The dust limit is not actually fixed, technically - it varies based on the type of output. 546 satoshis is simply the most commonly known one, for a p2pkh output. Being the longest-lived output type, ...
- 16.8k
7
votes
Accepted
Was it always required for the Coinbase transaction to be the first transaction in a block?
This is not true. Code and code comments in v0.1.5 (the oldest tagged version in git) enforce that there always is a coinbase transaction and that it must always be the first. There cannot be a ...
- 66.4k
7
votes
Was the addition of OP_NOP codes in Bitcoin 0.3.6 a hard or soft fork?
When the script interpreter encounters an unknown opcode (the default: case inside the switch statement), it returns false. That aborts verification and considers the transaction to be invalid. This ...
- 95.9k
7
votes
Accepted
How could Bitcoin developers handle and resolve severe software vulnerability without drawing public attention?
How can a severe security bug be fixed in a new version without the public becoming aware of the fix, preventing anyone from exploiting the bug?
It is extremely difficult for the reasons you point ...
- 13.8k
6
votes
Accepted
When was the paper of bitcoin announced?
According to the mailing list archives, the mailing list received Satoshi's email at Fri Oct 31 14:10:00 EDT 2008. However the mailing list is moderated so perhaps the email was not received by ...
- 66.4k
6
votes
Where can I access the original, Satoshi written Bitcoin code?
Here is the first version uploaded to sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/code/1/tree//trunk/
- 61
6
votes
Accepted
What was the first altcoin?
Litecoin was not the first altcoin. It actually uses ideas for altcoins that precede it but had died before it was created. This is mentioned in its announcement thread on bitcointalk.. The very first ...
- 66.4k
6
votes
What was the longest held UTXO ever spent?
As of June 19 2019, using the following query:
bitcoin-indexer=> select reverse_bytes(output_tx.hash_id || output_tx.hash_rest),
output.tx_idx,
output_tx.current_height,
input_tx.current_height,...
- 281
6
votes
Accepted
When did the main Bitcoin client become known as Bitcoin Core? When/Why/How did this happen?
The renaming was merged in December 2013 with prior discussion on this GitHub issue. The general motivation was to distinguish between one particular implementation of the Bitcoin protocol (many refer ...
- 13.8k
6
votes
Accepted
Where can I find the technical discussion between Satoshi and other contributors in the sourceforge website?
Try https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org
I believe this group has attempted to consolidate all known messages written by Satoshi Nakamoto on their site.
- 4,912
5
votes
Satoshi's final statement
Ultimate necro, but it was Mike Hearn. You can find multiple emails between Satoshi Nakamoto and himself from back then at his site here: http://plan99.net/%7Emike/
The specific quote you've found is ...
5
votes
Accepted
"Sipa" definition? (old terminology, circa 2011-12)
Sipa is the alias of Pieter Wuille, a Bitcoin Core developer. It just happens that he had a feature branch for the rpc command importprivkey, and people just referred to it as the "sipa" format. It's ...
- 15.3k
5
votes
How was the dust limit of 546 satoshis was chosen? Why not 550 satoshis?
Bitcoin core sets the dust limit to a value where spending an output would exceed 1/3 of its value. This calculation is based on the node's setting for the minimum relay transaction fee (see option -...
- 443
5
votes
Accepted
When did Satoshi Nakamoto release Bitcoin v.0.1 to the public? 08 Jan 09 or 09 Jan 09?
It depends on how you define release.
Satoshi sent the email to the Cryptography mailing list on Jan 8 2009 UTC. However because the Cryptography mailing list is moderated, that email did not reach ...
- 66.4k
5
votes
Who first started to name 'blockchain technology' as 'blockchain'
The first use of the phrase "block chain" was by Hal Finney in his response to Satoshi's email with the whitepaper. Over time, the two words have been combined into the single word "...
- 66.4k
5
votes
What was the bug for the Bitcoin value overflow in 2010?
Your first source is wrong.
The block in question contained three transactions: the first is a coinbase transaction, the second is the one that did the overflow. The third is unknown, and not relevant....
- 66.4k
5
votes
Accepted
When was first bitcoin transaction with fees?
The first block with transactions that paid fees was block 2817, the second was 12 983. To answer your question, I used blockchair.com’s block overview, sorted the blocks by ascending height and ...
- 69.8k
4
votes
How did pay-to-pubkey hash come about? What is its history?
The earliest client by satoshi had both.
P2PK was default for mining and payments received using the interactive IP-to-IP payment protocol; P2PKH was intended for use in non-interactive payments.
...
- 616
4
votes
Do I spare 80Gb to only keep the blockchain and do I need it to be always present?
There are different ways of interacting with Bitcoin. If you just want to make an occasional payment, and don't want to handle large sums, you'll probably be happy to run a Thin Client on your ...
- 69.8k
4
votes
Where can I find a full list of all Bitcoin mining hardware ever used?
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison and https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Non-specialized_hardware_comparison are the canonical lists. I'm not sure that will be useful to you; there's ...
- 29.1k
4
votes
Why does Wikipedia's Bitcoin entry imply Satoshi's whitepaper is from May 2009?
That is clearly incorrect. His whitepaper was released on October 31st, 2008 via the metzdowd mailing list
Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper
Satoshi Nakamoto satoshi at vistomail.com
Fri Oct 31 14:10:...
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