Yes, I had an ulterior motive in starting this topic right this moment. See, I’m trying to close the inferential gap in explaining Bitcoin to the layperson, so I wrote up a blog post explaining the relevant cryptographic pre-requisites. (It’s based on discussions with an economist who plans to write about Bitcoin soon.)
I would appreciate any corrections. Also, this is another case of me claiming to be better at explaining stuff than most people, so see if I live up to the standard (preferably from those that don’t already understand this stuff). The economist I talked to found my explanation must more helpful than Wikipedia (and I, too, found the site’s explanations not very helpful in my self-education about cryptography).
(Edited to fix typo)
Edit2: Now my long-time frenemy and economist Bob Murphy links the post with approval, though yes, he doesn’t specify that it’s more of a “cover of the pre-requisites” than an explanation of Bitcoin itself.
I skimmed it and nothing jumped out at me. I understand public key crypto.
Your blog post made me think an explanation of bitcoin mining and transfer would occur. It never did. There was this:
What role do public key signatures play in Bitcoin? They are used to prove to the network that the owner of address A1 (A1 also functioning as a public key!) really did authorize the transfer of certain coins to the next address. Other nodes in the network, in turn, are able to easily verify that the owner of A1 signed off on the transfer by checking that the mathematical relationship I mentioned above holds among the A1 public key, the message indicating the transfer, and the signature on the transfer. And if this relationship doesn’t hold, the other nodes (per the Bitcoin protocol) ignore the purported transfer, acting like it didn’t exist, and refuse to tell other nodes about it.
… which isn’t a very complete. The only thing I learned (I know nothing about Bitcoin mining or transaction protocols) is that apparently lots of nodes end up knowing about every transaction (paying attention only to transactions moving a particular coin that are signed by its last known owner).
So, I gather your explanation of Bitcoin is yet to be written.
What Tim Tyler said. Remember, the layperson has a HUGE inferential gap between their knowledge and Bitcoin, and closing that gap requires solving the problem—itself very difficult for most—of explaining cryptography and what it can accomplish. Otherwise, people can’t grasp how the scarcity and security come about.
What Tim Tyler said. This wasn’t intended to explain Bitcoin itself (though it does cover some of that), but to close the part of the inferential distance that most people have to “walk” before they can begin to understand Bitcoin. Like I said in the post, simply understanding the cryptographic aspects is hard enough for most people, and it’s something they’ll need to understand first before they can understand how Bitcoin works and uses cryptography.
One must be careful not to overestimate what the layperson will immediately understand. On the Slate discussion of Bitcoin, for example, some commenters had trouble grasping the idea of sending money through their computer, saying things like, “what, do I put the coins in some slot”. It sounds like a stupid question, but it’s what a person is likely to say when they don’t understand how the scarcity arises and gets redistributed.
the jump in interest generally comes when you explain that there will only ever be 21 million. this seems to completely change the character of the conversation.
or did you mean explaining it to intelligent people? :p
the jump in interest generally comes when you explain that there will only ever be 21 million. this seems to completely change the character of the conversation.
Only 21 million bitcoins, but there is nothing preventing other “issuers” from copying the design of Bitcoin and creating “Cryptotokens”, and “Liberty Hashes,” “Stealth Gold,” “African Bitcoins,” etc.
That’s not a bad thing. Bitcoin is going to have to be majorly upgraded with a new blockchain when SHA-256 is broken, and money is not the only scarce things to be decentralizedly allocated—I previously commented on Namecoin.
Bad thing or good thing, it makes a huge difference to the expected long-term value of a bitcoin, which is of interest to anyone thinking of holding bitcoins.
Yes, I had an ulterior motive in starting this topic right this moment. See, I’m trying to close the inferential gap in explaining Bitcoin to the layperson, so I wrote up a blog post explaining the relevant cryptographic pre-requisites. (It’s based on discussions with an economist who plans to write about Bitcoin soon.)
I would appreciate any corrections. Also, this is another case of me claiming to be better at explaining stuff than most people, so see if I live up to the standard (preferably from those that don’t already understand this stuff). The economist I talked to found my explanation must more helpful than Wikipedia (and I, too, found the site’s explanations not very helpful in my self-education about cryptography).
(Edited to fix typo)
Edit2: Now my long-time frenemy and economist Bob Murphy links the post with approval, though yes, he doesn’t specify that it’s more of a “cover of the pre-requisites” than an explanation of Bitcoin itself.
re-requisites → pre- ?
I skimmed it and nothing jumped out at me. I understand public key crypto.
Your blog post made me think an explanation of bitcoin mining and transfer would occur. It never did. There was this:
… which isn’t a very complete. The only thing I learned (I know nothing about Bitcoin mining or transaction protocols) is that apparently lots of nodes end up knowing about every transaction (paying attention only to transactions moving a particular coin that are signed by its last known owner).
So, I gather your explanation of Bitcoin is yet to be written.
Silas did say this was:
It doesn’t have much about Bitcoin—and instead covers the basics of digital signatures and hash functions.
Update: I’ve attempted a more “big picture” summary of how Bitcoin works as a whole, rather than just the prerequisites.
I’m interested in hearing comments about clarity or accuracy.
It’s new info for me, so I can only hope it’s accurate.
It’s a good explanation. I’d know where to mount further details if I wanted to find them.
Thanks, glad it provides some of the clarity you were looking for.
What Tim Tyler said. Remember, the layperson has a HUGE inferential gap between their knowledge and Bitcoin, and closing that gap requires solving the problem—itself very difficult for most—of explaining cryptography and what it can accomplish. Otherwise, people can’t grasp how the scarcity and security come about.
What Tim Tyler said. This wasn’t intended to explain Bitcoin itself (though it does cover some of that), but to close the part of the inferential distance that most people have to “walk” before they can begin to understand Bitcoin. Like I said in the post, simply understanding the cryptographic aspects is hard enough for most people, and it’s something they’ll need to understand first before they can understand how Bitcoin works and uses cryptography.
One must be careful not to overestimate what the layperson will immediately understand. On the Slate discussion of Bitcoin, for example, some commenters had trouble grasping the idea of sending money through their computer, saying things like, “what, do I put the coins in some slot”. It sounds like a stupid question, but it’s what a person is likely to say when they don’t understand how the scarcity arises and gets redistributed.
the jump in interest generally comes when you explain that there will only ever be 21 million. this seems to completely change the character of the conversation.
or did you mean explaining it to intelligent people? :p
Only 21 million bitcoins, but there is nothing preventing other “issuers” from copying the design of Bitcoin and creating “Cryptotokens”, and “Liberty Hashes,” “Stealth Gold,” “African Bitcoins,” etc.
Cryptokens, surely?
That’s not a bad thing. Bitcoin is going to have to be majorly upgraded with a new blockchain when SHA-256 is broken, and money is not the only scarce things to be decentralizedly allocated—I previously commented on Namecoin.
Bad thing or good thing, it makes a huge difference to the expected long-term value of a bitcoin, which is of interest to anyone thinking of holding bitcoins.
Not insurmountable but it is the chicken and egg problem. Bitcoins are the most secure by virtue of having the most hashing power.