The Bitcoin White Paper: 9. Combining and Splitting Value… “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Satoshi Nakamoto October 31, 2008” Bitcoin can be combined and split up. The smallest unit is a “Satoshi” aka “sat” and there are 100 million sats in a Bitcoin. If needed, Bitcoin can be updated to go into even smaller … Read more
The Bitcoin White Paper: 8. Simplified Payment Verification… “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Satoshi Nakamoto October 31, 2008” The Bitcoin White Paper continues to section 8. What is the simplest way to securely verify a payment? Read below to find how Bitcoin does it. “8. Simplified Payment Verification It is possible to verify payments … Read more
The Bitcoin White Paper: 7. Reclaiming Disk Space… “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Satoshi Nakamoto October 31, 2008” Satoshi moves onto to keeping Bitcoin efficient. Keeping a running ledger of all the transactions on everyone’s node can seem scary. How do we keep things under control so the average user can run a Bitcoin … Read more
The Bitcoin White Paper: 6. Incentive… “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Satoshi Nakamoto October 31, 2008” Satoshi continues the Bitcoin White Paper with a section called Incentive. Incentives are crucial to the success of any new system. Why should anyone take part in the Bitcoin network? Why should anyone take the time and CPU … Read more
The Bitcoin White Paper: 5. Network… “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Satoshi Nakamoto October 31, 2008” Satoshi goes into detail about what the Bitcoin Network is. “5. Network The steps to run the network are as follows: New transactions are broadcast to all nodes. Each node collects new transactions into a block. Each node … Read more
The Bitcoin White Paper: 4. Proof-of-Work… “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Satoshi Nakamoto October 31, 2008” Now Satoshi tackles the problem of how to make bitcoin hard to produce. It can’t be like digital dollars that the Federal Reserve can create out of thin air. “4. Proof-of-Work To implement a distributed timestamp server on … Read more
The Bitcoin White Paper: 3. Timestamp Server… “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Satoshi Nakamoto October 31, 2008” How do you measure time in the Bitcoin Network? How do you ensure the ledger of transactions goes from older to newer? You use a timestamp server. “3. Timestamp Server The solution we propose begins with a … Read more
The Bitcoin White Paper: 2. Transactions… “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Satoshi Nakamoto October 31, 2008” Onto the second section of the Bitcoin White Paper. Satoshi details what goes into a Bitcoin transaction. “2. Transactions We define an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Each owner transfers the coin to the next … Read more
The Bitcoin White Paper: 1. Introduction… “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Satoshi Nakamoto October 31, 2008” The next part of the Bitcoin White Paper is an introduction from Satoshi. “1. Introduction Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While … Read more
The Bitcoin White Paper: the Abstract… Here’s a look at the founding document of Bitcoin broken up into each of its parts. It is called “The Bitcoin White Paper”. It starts with the title, the author, and a date. Then there’s the first paragraph called the Abstract which summarizes the entire white paper. I’ll break … Read more