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What Early Mining Patterns Tell Us About The Motives Of Bitcoin’s Inventor

Patoshi Bitcoin Mining

The debate about Bitcoin’s inventor, known as Satoshi Nakamoto but otherwise shrouded in mystery, has raged for years. As Bitcoin continues to rise in value, this unknown inventor is presumed to have become a very rich individual indeed. When Satoshi invented Bitcoin, was he driven to profit, mining and hoarding early Bitcoin aiming to accumulate great wealth?

In 2013 first Sergio Demian Lerner presented his research on the early mining patterns Satoshi is presumed to have taken, it revealed around 1 million BTC (now worth around $10bn) hoarded by the creator. For many who see Bitcoin as an anti-establishment currency with an equalizing power, to attribute such vast wealth to Bitcoin’s creator is anathema, undermining the main narrative around Bitcoin and Nakamoto’s original motives. If Nakamoto is as driven by capitalist economics as the nearest banker, is Bitcoin fundamentally different from traditional currencies after all?

Nakamoto’s defenders argued that these 1 million missing Bitcoin were simply forgotten by early miners, and the inventor himself had no such hoard. Indeed, even researching these Bitcoin was taboo. Yet Lerner was unsatisfied with this answer. That’s why he has spent the last seven years unravelling the mining techniques used to unearth these early Bitcoin. What these techniques reveal is that Satoshi (if that is who mined them, Lerner refers to this individual as “Patoshi” to emphasize that we can’t truly know) seems to have been protecting the security of the network rather than pursuing profit after all. The reputation of Bitcoin, and its mysterious inventor, remains intact.

Early Mining Techniques

In order to learn more about the missing Bitcoin – and the individual who mined them – Lerner decided to remine the first 18,000 Bitcoin blocks to see what it revealed. He assumed that these blocks would have been mined with software that was similar, if not identical, to that which came with the first Bitcoin release. This public code was how early miners set about Bitcoins first blocks. The “Patoshi” pattern of how these Bitcoin were mined could ultimately reveal something about the motives of Bitcoin’s inventor, assuming Nakamoto and Patoshi are one and the same.

Through remining these early blocks, Lerner came to a startling discovery. Patoshi’s software was in fact nothing like the software being used by other early Bitcoin miners. Was this Nakamoto giving himself a leg up in the early gold rush of Bitcoin mining? The difference in the mining patterns of the public software and Patoshi’s processes became the keystone of Lerner’s research. Two theories stood out. Firstly, that Patoshi was using an early version of today’s pooled mining processes by combining multiple CPUs. The second theory – seemingly borne out in Lerner’s research – is that Patoshi was multi-threading.

Patoshi’s Multi-Threading

Multi-threading is a hashing technique using intensive computer processing to sweep for multiple nonces (the cryptographic element that Bitcoin miners are searching for) at once, rather than on an individual basis. By rescanning the early blocks, Lerner was able to assess which nonces Patoshi discovered, thus revealing the patterns by which Bitcoin’s inventor was mining blocks. Ultimately, Lerner has demonstrated that Patoshi/Nakamoto was generally finding higher-value nonces thanks to the multi-threading technique, and not because they had superior processing power, but because they had a better process for using their CPU.

Ideology Before Profit

Lerner’s meticulous analysis of the early mining patterns attributed to Bitcoin’s founder reveal that each time Patoshi mined a new block, his miner was turned off for a short interval. If Nakamoto was driven by profit, this is contradictory behaviour as it gives the rest of the community an opportunity to unearth new blocks. Lerner posits that Nakamoto wanted to see fair competition amongst early miners, and distribute Bitcoin equally at the start of the network.

At the same time, Patoshi’s multi-threading would have allowed them to uncover new blocks when they were not being mined by other early users, thus enabling the network to continue ticking over. These patterns have led Lerner to argue forcefully that the security of the network – and not profit – was Nakamoto’s motivation for their early mining patterns.

Still Unknown

It remains an assumption that Patoshi and Nakamoto are one and the same, and the identity of this individual is still unknown. But Lerner’s research strongly indicates that profit was not an early motivator of the Patoshi pattern.


Kristin Herman is a tech enthusiast and a project manager at
Essayroo.com and Boomessays.com online writing services. When she takes a break from the screen she likes to curl up with a good book, albeit one about cryptotrends and digital landscapes!

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The 7 Best Bitcoin Youtube Video

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Who Uses Bitcoin Infographic

Infographic: Who Uses Bitcoin?

Who uses Bitcoin infographic HolyTransaction

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5 reasons you should be bullish on bitcoin holytransaction

Infographic: 5 reasons you should be bullish on Bitcoin!

5 to be bullish on Bitcoin infographic HolyTransaction

 

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Cryptocoins for good: Cryptocurrencies Empowering Citizens Against Oppressive Governments

How cryptocurrencies can change the balance of power between dictators and citizens

For many years currency exchange control has been a distinctive feature of dictatorships, from
the “control by the ruble” of the Soviet Gosbank, to the dual currency
system in Cuba, China’s overvaluation of the Yuan, or the exchange
controls in countries like Venezuela and Iran, regimes of all types have
relied on these kind of controls to rein, or at least try to rein,
capital flights, inevitable when -sooner or later- markets try to
correct the excesses committed by money-hungry “revolutions”.
The Gosbank controlled the currency markets using what it came to be known as the “control by the ruble”
Sadly,
citizens are usually the most affected by such currency controls: as a
pseudo-monopoly is established, a black-market is instantly created and
exchange rates climb inexorably, specially in left-leaning regimes where
the government aims for greater control of all aspects of the economy,
affecting the efficiency of the production system and pushing the
trade-balance the wrong way, increasing in consequence the amount of
foreign currency required to cover internal demand. In short, more
expensive currency is required to buy each time more stuff, the result?
Rampant inflation and even more poverty.
Basic
Marxist theory says that the structure of society must be based in
keeping people in poverty, ruled by an upper class with certain rules,
norms and such in order so they can keep people like that. This
old-proven-wrong-policy is still used by many governments today, in
February 2014, for example, some education minister of a Latin American
country said that the government “wasn’t going to take people out of
poverty so they can become political opponents”. This proves that
currency controls are not a consequence of failed economic policies, but
tools for the governments to exert repressing power over its citizens.
Now,
what would happen to oppressive regimes if they were to lose control of
the currency exchange, so the people is free to manage their wealth
beyond the power of government currency controls? Currency
decentralization is not new, 20th century economist and Nobel Prize
Winner, Friedrich August Von Hayek (F.A. Hayek), theorized extensively
on this subject, and though polemic, his writings provided an important
part of the theoretical framework for modern economics, specially in
areas such as theory of money and economic fluctuations.In his book Theory of Liberty he wrote:

“The
experience of the last fifty years has taught most people the
importance of a stable monetary system. Compared with the preceding
century, this period has been one of great monetary disturbances.
Governments have assumed a much more active part in controlling money,
and this has been as much a cause as a consequence of instability. It is
only natural, therefore, that some people should feel it would be
better if governments were deprived of their control over monetary
policy. Why, it is sometimes asked, should we not rely on the
spontaneous forces of the market to supply whatever is needed for a
satisfactory medium of exchange as we do in most other respects?

It
is important to be clear at the outset that this is not only
politically impracticable today but would probably be undesirable if it
were possible. Perhaps, if governments had never interfered, a kind of
monetary arrangement might have evolved which would not have required
deliberate control; in particular, if men had not come extensively to
use credit instruments as money or close substitutes for money, we might
have been able to rely on a self-regulating mechanism. This choice,
however, is now closed to us. We know of no substantially different
alternatives to the credit institutions on which the organization of
modern business has come largely to rely; and historical developments
have created conditions in which the existence of these institutions
makes necessary some degree of deliberate control of the interacting
money and credit systems (my emphasis). Moreover, other circumstances
which we certainly could not hope to change by merely altering our
monetary arrangements make it, for the time being, inevitable that this
control should be largely exercised by governments”

Governments
have assumed a much more active part in controlling money, and this has
been as much a cause as a consequence of instability
F.A. Hayek
But,
what if it was no longer inevitable? During the 20th century creating
and managing currencies was only possible for governments, so it was in
essence exclusively a political matter, but technology is changing that,
money issuing is not only government turf anymore, they now must
compete with cryptocurrencies. In governments with an effective rule of
law, this can be fair competition, for example, currencies can be
somehow regulated -as the IRS recently did in the US- and a legal
framework can be established so everyone can play by the rules. But,
there are many countries where the line between state and nation is
blurred, these countries may also take two additional paths, they can
prevent financial institutions or businesses from transact with
cryptocurrencies (e.g. Colombia and China) or they can declare an
outright ban (as it is rumored about China every single day). In both
scenarios cryptocoins could have a very important role, in the former
-while remaining legal- they can create a new channel for the flow of
foreign currencies, in the latter they can work as a relief valve, as an
alternative for the black market. In any case, by increasing the supply
of foreign currency, these coins can effectively push prices down, with
all the benefits that comes with it.
For
once, the development model that could arise from an efficient
cryptocoins market presents a development plan that is not based on
plain charity, in giving away something with the hope that the recipient
will make a good use of it and luckily return it back in future
productivity. People cannot only mine their own coins but they can rest
assure that the value of such money will be subject to fair rules of
supply and demand, not to devaluation-based political planning; and most
important, they may not be held hostage in poverty by exchange
controls, giving back to them a little of that sovereignty that
dictators keep claiming or themselves.

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How a 15-Year-old’s $1,000 Bitcoin investment led to startup success

finman, entreprenuer
Erik Finman
(CoinDesk) A well-timed investment of $1,000 in bitcoin has earned a 15-year-old
Idaho entrepreneur more than $100,000 and allowed him to found his own
education startup.
Erik Finman took $1,000 he received as a gift
from his grandmother and invested it in bitcoin back in 2012, according
to a report by Mashable. After holding his BTC for one year, Finman sold his bitcoins for $100,000.
Finman ultimately decided to reinvest his earnings into Botangle.com,
an online video tutoring service that “allows students and tutors
access to a diverse array of resources that just do not exist in a
normal classroom setting”, according to its official website.
Notably, Finman pays his employees in bitcoin. He told Mashable that he enjoys “sharing the wealth of bitcoin”, saying:

“I have no doubt it will be huger [sic] than anyone can imagine right now. Bitcoin is like the Internet in the ’90s.”

Early bitcoin supporter

During a question-and-answer session that he took part in last month on the Entrepreneur subreddit, Finman explained how he first came to learn about bitcoin, writing:

“I
owe a lot to my older brother. He told me about bitcoins and help[ed]
me get set up with 0.2 bitcoins that he gave me. And my grandmother just
out of the blue gave me a $1,000 check for Easter.”

He
continued by saying that he accrued more bitcoins “so I can trump my
brother in how many bitcoins he had”, adding that he first learned about
bitcoin in 2010.
Luckily for Finman, he sold his stash of bitcoins when the price hovered around $1,200 per bitcoin.
Though
entrepreneurs may not be able to replicate Finman’s success, they can
learn from those who have entered the industry through more conventional
in-roads. For more on how today’s bitcoin startups are making gains
despite the tribulations of an emerging market, read our most recent report.

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First Bitcoin hearings at the Italian Parliament tomorrow

Tomorrow, in the Aldo Moro meeting room of the Italian Parliament there will be a consultation on the open source Bitcoin protocol. The technical aspects will be introduced by:
  • Sebastiano Scrofina – CEO and Co-Founder at Dropis
  • Guido Baroncini Turricchia – CoinCapital’s Partner
  • Francesco Vatalaro – Università Di Tor Vergata
  • Massimo Bernaschi – CNR
  • Ferdinando Ametrano – Banca IMI – Università Bicocca
  • Roberto Tudini – Studio Tudini&Tudini
In the second part there will be a round table that will allow for the comparison of ideas and the points of view of different stakeholder. The event is organized by the On. Quintarelli and CoinCapital, bringing the Bitcoin inside the walls of the Italian Parliament allowing to highlight the risks and the opportunities.
Offering to the parliament a first overview and a neutral basis to start an aware and balanced discussion.

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Why Bitcoin is important for the world: Bitcoin can stop governments from murdering people

(CoinTelegraph) Bitcoin evangelist, libertarian and millionaire Roger Ver thinks that
Bitcoin’s limited growth can stop governments from raging wars across
the world. 
Ver gave a speech at Coin Congress in
Singapore back in May entitled “Why Bitcoin is Important for the World.”
It was a sort of quick introduction into the world of Bitcoin, until
Ver used the last few minutes in his speech to “rant about what has
[him] most excited about how Bitcoin is going to change the world for
the better.” 
Ver, who runs what was one of the first mainstream sites to take bitcoin payments, MemoryDealers, said that fiat currency was to blame for Governments’ (like his own United States) penchant for raging wars overseas. 
Ver
said that “Not only do they control [fiat], they can print as much of
it as they want at any time. . . I see the United States Government
printing money like crazy and then they use that money to buy all sorts
of tanks and bombs and airplanes and murder people all over the world. .
. all that is being paid for by printing money.” 
“With
Bitcoin,” Ver continued “because there is a limited supply, that sort
of thing can’t happen.” Ver hopes that Bitcoin’s inability to be printed
at will, will prevent governments from using printed money to fund
warfare. 
Ver sees a world that uses Bitcoin as one that is “much safer” for every individual on the planet. 
Bitcoin’s
possible effect on world peace is something we won’t know until if and
when it obtains true widespread adoption. But it is true that Bitcoin
can’t be printed out of thin air due to a limited supply. If a
government used it as legal tender then they would have to find a
different way to fund any war.

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Which celebrities are getting into Bitcoin?

(TheCoinFront) Here in the Bitcoin world, we’ve built up our own celebrities. Figures like Andreas Antonopolous, Erik Voorhees, Stefan Molyneux, Brock Pierce, Charlie Shrem, and Gavin Andressen should, for better or worse, be familiar names to all Bitcoin aficionados.
But
there are many celebrities in the outside world as well who have begun
embracing Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Here are just a few of them:

Ashton Kutcher

Kutcher may be best known for playing
simple-minded characters like Kelso from That 70’s Show or Jesse from
Dude Where’s My Car, but in reality he’s anything but.Through his fund, A-Grade Investments, he’s invested in companies like
BitPay, which allows merchants to accept Bitcoin payments. He’s also
invested in Skype, Airbnb, and Foursquare, among others.

Snoop Dogg

Snoop Dogg is an active internet user, with a
presence on Twitter with tens of thousands of tweets, and a Reddit
account with hundreds of thousands of karma points. In fact, on Reddit
he has even been made the moderator of the subreddit /r/trees, devoted
to, what else, pot.Last December, Snoop posted a tweet saying his new album
would be “available in bitcoin and delivered in a drone”. Coinbase
noticed the tweet and responded that “we could make the Bitcoin part a
reality for you.” While Snoop said he wanted “to make it happen,” it
never materialized.

Richard Sherman

Sherman, the cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks
football team, has an online store on his website. At the beginning of
January, he posted the following on his Facebook page:”For all you techies out there, I’m now accepting Bitcoins at my online
store http://store.richardsherman25.com. I hear it’s the currency of the
future.”

Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel might not be a celebrity in the same light as the above people, but he’s a major player in the world nonetheless.The cofounder of Paypal has been a believer in the decentralization of
money for much longer than Bitcoin has been around, and has openly
admitted he thinks Bitcoin has the power to change the world.

Richard Branson

The well-known billionaire head of Virgin Inc
began accepting Bitcoin as payment for his Virgin Galactic service, a
space tourism company.He has also invested a significant amount of his personal wealth in
Bitcoin, which makes him one of the more high profile Bitcoin holders.

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Remittance Relief: Bitcoin can act as more than just a payment transfer system.

“[Bitcoin] produces a market that’s international, that everyone has access to, regardless of race, religion, creed…” – Amir Taaki

(BitcoinMagazine) There is a lot of talk recently of the power Bitcoin has in changing
the remittance market.  A remittance is a transfer of wealth from one
person to another, mostly amongst the world’s poor. Zach Ramsay of
Canadian-based CoinCulture calls remittances “peer2peer for the poor2poor.” It’s an astute observation.

It should be stated that this wealth transfer – remittance market – is cited as vital, critical, and an economic lifeline for
those receiving the money.  The demand does not just exist, it is
desperately needed. Currently, remittances account for the second
largest amount of wealth transfer from the ‘West’ to the underdeveloped
world, second to International Aid.
I don’t want to go into the background and frustration with the
current remittance system. It will surely take up pages and pages and
come out in the form of an anti-banking and anti-Western-imposed
“development” rant.  The fact of the matter is: fees that are applied to
money that cannot be made in x country, that then needs to be made in y country and sent back to x country for x population to survive should be lower.  And now, with bitcoin, they are.  Moving forward is all that matters now.
It is said that remittance fees are as high as they are because of
compliance and regulation requirements. Perhaps we can also attribute
some costs to the high risk involved in operating in sub-Saharan
countries.  However, the sheer fact of the matter is the current monopoly and lack of competition in the market for cross-border payments is also a reason for the high fees.
The highest costs occur when transferring money to and between sub-Saharan African countries.  Let’s take the East African nation of Uganda as an example. Fees on money transfers into Uganda range from 10% to as high as 40%.
How does Bitcoin fit in here? Well, for those who are not up-to-speed
on the technology, Bitcoin enables instant transfer of monetary value
over the internet in any amount, to anyone, anywhere in the world, at
any time.  This peer-to-peer transfer of wealth saves time and money;
MoneyGram and Western Union take on average 2 days to get money to the
receiver and require a high percentage of that money as payment for this
service.
Ronald, a student in Kampala, Uganda, is a great example
of the opportunity bitcoin presents in changing the expensive and truly
outdated remittance market.  Ronald receives money from his U.S.-based
family to live on while he studies.  One day, his U.-S.-based family
decides to experiment with bitcoin.  His family types out instructions
to Ronald via a Facebook message and Ronald follows them, downloading
the required software to accept the bitcoin transfer, and the money
arrives in his bitcoin account (a “wallet.”)
Now, Ronald must find a buyer for his bitcoin.  He goes into
Kampala’s city centre and meets with a buyer, who gives him Ugandan
Shillings in return for the bitcoin.  The process is quicker than
Western Union and MoneyGram, and costs significantly less (the mining
fee paid by his family back home.) It works! Watch the video here.
Bankers and Western Union/MoneyGram dislike this reality. Bitcoin is
competition.  It pushes them out of their cozy position, causing them to
rethink their entire existence as a business.  But it is a reality.
Bitcoin is working.  Perhaps the demand isn’t fully there yet across
all countries.  But it will be.  And it will replace these archaic money
transfer businesses and processes.
andreas
Antonopoulos telling it like it is.
The reality is that, despite us constantly using the continent in
reference to the underdeveloped world, Africa is very advanced when it
comes to transferring money online.  Fellow Bitcoin Magazine
contributor, Brian Cohen,
says,  “more people have access to mobile phones than working toilets.”
Parts of the continent simply skipped past the rest of the world and
went straight to using their phonesfor low-cost banking. Over 1/3 of
Kenyans can now buy and sell virtual currencies by using a bitcoin
wallet called Kipochi within their robust money transfer system, M-Pesa. To date,approximately 14.5 million Kenyans and 5 million Tanzanians have signed up for the service. #SorrynotsorryCGAP

 

Bitcoin can act as more than just a payment transfer system.  It can
also hold value.  Uganda “loves to take money from the poor.”  The
country’s current inflation rate is 6-7%; if Ronald’s money isn’t used
or put to work in a vehicle that earns as much as that, his money is
disappearing.  Furthermore, if Ronald allows his money to sit in a basic
bank account, it will be “gone in 5 months” due to the high fees
associated with banking.  Bitcoin can be used as a store of value.
However, it must be noted that it could also potentially lose money for
Ronald… but it’s not guaranteed to lose money and there are no fees
associated with holding it.

 

Furthermore, bitcoin also acts as a way for families to send small
amounts of money to each other.  Never before in the history of the
world have we been able to send tiny amounts of money to each other over
the internet! Now, Ronald’s family can send him $10 dollars if they
want.  Or money for a meal.  It really is incredible.
A lot of our energy is also going to the talk of the need for regulation with bitcoin businesses.  Andrew Brown of Earthport notes
that, after regulation and compliance costs are implemented on the
bitcoin platform, no “apparent advantage [for bitcoin] will be left.”
The goal here is not to make Bit-Western Unions, where the
cost-savings of the technology cannot be realized. The goal here is to
empower and educate people so they can help themselves and each other.
With Ronald’s example, we can see that this is already happening.
We have all the tools at our disposal. People can educate themselves
anywhere and at any time using the Internet.  The world is shifting into
enlightenment and we are finally evolving out of these old institutions
and laggy systems.  The key to this shift is empowering individuals via
access to information and technology.  We will create and sustain this
shift by keeping power diffused and decentralized. The answer is not to
build remittance businesses on top of bitcoin, but, if anything, to
build information businesses that can explain and teach people all
around the world on exactly how to tap into this technology and use it
for their benefit.
M-Pesa started out of modest beginnings, and now Kenya operates at a
more sophisticated level of money transfer than countries like Canada
and the United States. Perhaps it’s time for us to catch up and join
East Africa and learn from some of the trails they are blazing with this
technology.
Not so dark a continent after all, eh?
Image from Nolte Lourens @ shutterstock

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