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How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

How the Bitcoin protocol actually works
Many thousands of articles have been written purporting to explain Bitcoin, the online, peer-to-peer currency. Most of those articles give a hand-wavy account of the underlying cryptographic protocol, omitting many details. Even those articles which delve deeper often gloss over crucial points. My aim in this post is to explain the major ideas behind the Bitcoin protocol in a clear, easily comprehensible way. We’ll start from first principles, build up to a broad theoretical understanding of how the protocol works, and then dig down into the nitty-gritty, examining the raw data in a Bitcoin transaction. Understanding the protocol in this detailed way is hard work. I’ll describe Bitcoin scripting and concepts such as smart contracts in future posts. It may seem surprising that Bitcoin’s basis is cryptography. My strategy in the post is to build Bitcoin up in stages. This strategy is slower than if I explained the entire Bitcoin protocol in one shot. First steps: a signed letter of intent

Mt.Gox - Bitcoin Exchange Predictions For 2014--The Sinocism China Newsletter 01.05.14 | The Sinocism China Newsletter I am taking the plunge with some predictions for 2014. My 2013 predictions, made December 2012 in The New York Times, probably rate a B or so. 1. 2014 is the Year of the Horse but it will also likely become known as the Year of the Grind as Beijing works through its many political, economic, environmental and social challenges; 2. Xi Jinping will continue to consolidate power. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. What I will add for 2014 is that there will be increasing recognition that Beijing has a well-crafted strategy, not ad-hoc and uncoordinated actions, that it believes will demonize and isolate Japan in the region and force the US to choose between supporting an increasingly unpopular regional partner or applying pressure on Japan such that other countries will see the US as an unreliable ally. Of course any unforeseen, exogenous events could render some or all of these non-operative… Sign up for the free weekly newsletter. This week’s interesting readings: Related: 如何看待地方债务被允许“借新还旧”? ‘Dr.

Un experto te explica todo lo que hay que saber sobre BitCoins Franco Amati, de la Fundación Bitcoin Argentina, nos revela las cuestiones más importantes de esta moneda: cómo se consiguen, qué hardware es necesario, dónde se compran/venden y mucho más. La fiebre por las BitCoins no se detiene. Cada vez más servicios online las ofrecen como medio de pago y existe toda una comunidad de personas que compra y vende esta criptomoneda. La comunidad argentina de BitCoins es la más importante de la región, por eso entrevistamos a Franco Amati, de la Fundación Bitcoin Argentina, para que revele todo lo que hay que conocer acerca de esta moneda digital. ¿Cómo se adquieren las bitcoins? Puede ser brindando un servicio o vendiendo un producto a cambio de aceptar el pago con bitcoins, comprándolos en efectivo o con transferencia bancaria entre personas (conectabitcoin.com,latincoin.com, localbitcoins.com), o mediante los denominados “exchanges” (bitstamp.com, mtgox.com,btc-e.com). ¿Qué hardware se requiere para minar? ¿Qué software es necesario para minar?

Bitcoin Mining Hardware - ASIC Bitcoin Miner - Butterfly Labs Home | Brazilian Bubble How to Buy Bitcoins When the Growth Model Changes, Abandon the Correlations Chiwoong Lee at Goldman Sachs has a new report out (“China vs. 1970s Japan”, September 25, 2012) in which he predicts that China’s long-term growth rate will drop to 7.5-8.5%. I disagree very strongly with his forecast, of course, and expect China’s growth rate over the next decade to average less than half that number, but the point of bringing up his report is not to disagree with the details of his analysis. I want instead to use his report to illustrate what I believe is a much more fundamental problem with these kinds of research pieces on China. The mistake I will argue he is making is one that is fairly common. This is pretty much the standard analysis provided by the IMF, the World Bank, and both academic and sell-side research, but, as I will argue, this methodology implicitly assumes no real change in the underlying development model – no phase shift, to use a more fashionable term. Lee arrives at his 7.5-8.5% range by comparing China today with Japan in the early 1970s. Why?

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Are Chinese companies sitting on the next debt crisis? Nothing gets reads like a shadow banking story. Articles on China's local government debt pull page views too, conjuring images of small-town officials erecting enormous stadiums or skyscrapers on the edges of corn fields. Often left out of the country's overall debt picture is that which has been accrued in the corporate sector – simply not as tantalizing. But corporate debt could be one of the biggest risks lurking in China's financial sector. “That's something the market doesn't pay too much attention to … Usually the top two things that people will highlight is local debt and shadow banking,” Zhu Haibin, chief China economist at JPMorgan, said at a talk last week in Shanghai. “But we label corporate debt as the No. 1 concern.” By JPMorgan's count, debt in China's corporate sector stands around 105% of GDP, up from 90% four years ago and far higher than both its advanced and emerging market peers. China's GDP growth is on a slow downward trend.

George Magnus | George Magnus – Economist and Author

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