Welcome to the new Bitcoin forum!
Welcome to the new Bitcoin forum!
The old forum can still be reached here: http://bitcoin.sourceforge.net/boards/index.php
I’ll repost some selected threads here and add updated answers to questions where I can.
I’ve been working on Bitcoin’s design since 2007. At some point I became convinced there was a way to do this without any trust required at all and couldn’t resist to keep thinking about it. Much more of the work was designing than coding.
Fortunately, so far all the issues raised have been things I previously considered and planned for.
Some key properties of Bitcoin:
- Coins are transferred via transactions, similar to sending an email. You type the recipient’s address, the amount, and press Send.
- The receiver of a payment can verify by checking the block chain.
- It’s P2P, no central authority. There’s nobody to target. Take it down? Like trying to take down a torrent.
- The total circulation will be 21,000,000 coins. They are distributed to network nodes when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half every 4 years.
- Most transactions will be free, but a small fee can be paid for priority processing.
Software and more info at: http://www.bitcoin.org