Jump to content

Talk:Bitcoin

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jmatxx (talk | contribs) at 00:00, 12 November 2017. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Former good articleBitcoin was one of the Engineering and technology good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
July 14, 2010Articles for deletionDeleted
August 11, 2010Deletion reviewEndorsed
October 3, 2010Deletion reviewEndorsed
December 14, 2010Deletion reviewOverturned
January 26, 2015Good article nomineeNot listed
April 4, 2015Good article nomineeListed
July 26, 2015Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article

Template:Findnote

Bitcoin Cash treatment

This new bitcoin cash deserves some treatment on this page. Where to add it? I don't think "not to be confused with" at the top of the page is suitable.

Suggestions:

  • Add to scalaing section
  • Remove "not to be confused with" in header
  • Add to history section?

Comments? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 18:30, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think "Not to be confused with Bitcoin Cash." is good enough for now, WP:NOTNEWS and it's unclear what the situation will be in a week's time. Power~enwiki (talk) 18:39, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I was the one who added the hatnote. As Cash is a fork it literally shares all the history of Bitcoin up until that point, but the similar names mean that confusion may be present. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:45, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
All makes sense, thanks for the explanation. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:25, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It was removed by Ladislav Mecir with this edit. They gave the reason Remove the template, there are many other terms that are not listed here. -- Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:09, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
does the article mention cash anymore? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 16:21, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is mentioned twice. Once in the scalability section, and then once in the following history section. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:24, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think it makes sense to single out Bitcoin Cash at the start as something "confused with bitcoin":

  • As noted, Bitcoin Cash is mentioned and linked twice in the article: in the "History" section and in the "Scalability" section.
  • There are many other notions like Bitcoin Foundation, Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Core, Bitcoin Unlimited and Parity Bitcoin that are not treated in that way, why then it is necessary to single out Bitcoin Cash as "confusing"?
  • Per Fortune, bitcoin split into two derivative digital currencies, why single out just one of the derivatives as "confusing"? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 20:45, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I added a wikilink to Bitcoin Cash at the end of the intro. It is important enough to mention in the header. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:14, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bitcoin Gold edit war

I mentioned Bitcoin Gold under Decentralisation. Maybe there should be a general section about forks.111.193.164.123 (talk) 04:13, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm - it seems someone tries to start an edit war there. Is Bitcoin Gold such an emotional subject? I did mention (with reference) that there was some controversy around it. Just for the record, my text was:
A hard fork planned for 25 October 2017 is to create Bitcoin Gold[1], a coin that is designed to truly decentralise the coin mining process, which currently is mostly done by a few huge mining factories, mainly in China.[2] There is some controversy around this project.[3]
111.193.164.123 (talk) 04:19, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"someone tries to start an edit war there" - indeed, 111.193.164.123, specifically, it is you. I suggest you to read WP:BRD to find a suggestion how to proceed. Once your additions have been reverted, you are not supposed to readd the contents without a discussion at this page. My objections to your edits:
  • Your claim is not related to the subject of the Bitcoin#Decentralization section, in fact.
  • The source[1] does not look like an independent source and does not confirm the information is notable enough to be added to the article.
  • You are not in compliance with WP:NPOV (another suggested reading) when trying to synthesize the claim about chinese miners in relation to Bitcoin Gold citing the source,[2] where no reference to Bitcoin Gold can be found. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 05:51, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ a b https://news.bitcoin.com/another-bitcoin-fork-bitcoin-gold-project-plans-to-fork-bitcoin-next-month/
  2. ^ a b https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/why-the-biggest-bitcoin-mines-are-in-china
  3. ^ https://news.bitcoin.com/a-closer-look-at-the-suspicious-activity-involved-with-the-bitcoin-gold-fork/

Section on transactions (2.2) incomprehensible

After reading and re-reading the part on transactions, it's still very unclear what it should say:

"Transactions are defined using a Forth-like scripting language.[7]:ch. 5 A valid transaction must have one or more inputs.[34] Every input must be an unspent output of a previous transaction. The transaction must carry the digital signature of every input owner. The use of multiple inputs corresponds to the use of multiple coins in a cash transaction. A transaction can also have multiple outputs, allowing one to make multiple payments in one go. A transaction output can be specified as an arbitrary multiple of satoshi. As in a cash transaction, the sum of inputs (coins used to pay) can exceed the intended sum of payments. In such a case, an additional output is used, returning the change back to the payer.[34] Any input satoshis not accounted for in the transaction outputs become the transaction fee.[34]"

I wish I could offer suggestions for improvement, but as a layman in this field, I'm not the right person to do that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thiemehennis (talk • contribs) 12:44, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a section that covers more non-traditional firms evolving into the space? There is a lot of activity surrounding the ICO's and specifically, 10 legal firms joined up in the last few months, Aug 2017. This is probably on the wrong talk space, but may should be on numerous. Forgive me if offended.

https://entethalliance.org/


--Wikipietime (talk) 14:21, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ponzi Scheme Content

There were a couple of reverts (specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bitcoin&oldid=797124270) relating to moving some ponzi scheme content to the history page. I support and agree with @Ladislav Mecir:'s delete to move off the page to reduce the article length. My logic is that the content does not really have widespread coverage to generate sufficient notability on this type of page that has huge coverage and thus generates a lot of content vying for coverage. Its like if the consul of estonia said Madonna was a bad singer, it also wouldn't end up staying on the Madonna page. @Aoidh: and @AHMED SHETA: and feel free to comment.

Sources:

This whole section is really left with one notable person calling it a Ponzi. A very weak section indeed. Maybe a feeble attempt at some sort of NPOV, like a critism section, but it is a week section indeed and deserves to be blanked.

Those are my thoughts... Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:35, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • I completely agree that the content should revert to the status quo. However, that status quo was to have this content on this article, per the previous RfC as you are aware. You've been attempting to whitewash this article for a few years now, with this content in particular a constant fixation. Despite several RfCs to remove it, not one consensus has been to remove it. Hiding it neatly into a subarticle seems to be the next best thing, however you've presented no cause for it; it's a very small couple of sentences, so size isn't an issue. - Aoidh (talk) 19:58, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • See WP:RS and the previous RfCs on the topic. Being a blog is not the same as being a blog on a reliable site. The reason the sources have been so paired down is because Ladislav has been pairing down the sources for a few years now. The sources, paired with the length of the content, are in keeping with WP:DUE and the previous RfCs on the content. They should not be blanked, especially if you don't know whether or not something is an RS. - Aoidh (talk) 19:54, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I never saw the RFC on this, but I have only been editing this article a year or more. Please post the old RFC here. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 17:25, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
One RfC is Talk:Bitcoin/Archive 27#RfC: Should the "Ponzi scheme dispute" section be deleted?. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 00:06, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4881554/Jamie-Dimon-Bitcoin-fraud-blow-up.html 109.156.38.168 (talk) 03:30, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I added some more content to the section, two good recent news events with notable people calling it a fraud, worthy to add it to the section. I am not taking a position on the deleting of the sub-page or adding it, just adding some content, as the section is sparse. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 23:58, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your addition, but the goal of moving the information to the subpage is to shorten the main page to readable length. You should read on that in the WP:MOS. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:19, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am aware of the efforts on this article to reign in the size. What happended to the ponzi sub-article. Has it been deleted? Do you think there is a enough content now to warrant a sub-article, or shall we just leave it and wait for some more ponzi conent to come into the news, then move it after? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:34, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Jtbobwaysf. As far as I am aware, there never was a "Ponzi" subarticle. The economic details were moved to the Economics of bitcoin article. The subarticle is in no way "obscure", as Aoidh misleadingly claims. Specifically, there is an Economics of bitcoin#Ponzi scheme concerns section where I put your newest additions as well. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 23:09, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Ladislav Mecir: I support moving most of the content to the sub-page to reduce article size. I added a link in the section to the sub-article. Guess just need to discuss what should remain on the main page (I think limit to two sentences), maybe one about some people making ponzi claims, and a second sentence disputing it (essentially there is lack of consensus if bitcoin is a ponzi or not). Then readers can go the sub-page if they care to read more. Maybe like this: "Various individuals such Eric Posner, Jamie Dimon, and Howard Marks (investor) have called bitcoin a ponzi scheme. Organizations such as the World Bank and the Federal Council (Switzerland) have disagreed, stating bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme." Anyhow, just wanted to give a sample text to create a discussion, open to suggestions. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 00:34, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the oversimplification. I think that it makes sense to move the whole section, and that is what I did. I can start a new RfC to find out whether there is a consensus on that. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:31, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the section (greatly reduced) should remain for WP:NPOV, and we can move most (nearly all) of the content and leave a summary which is standard procedure for other sections. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:30, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Ladislav Mecir: Do you have another suggested summary? If you are opposed to the summary in general, then we should delete the main page link I added (as the page is simply linking to duplicate content). There is already opposition above to section blanking this off to a sub-page. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:50, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Opposition that bases its opinion on the false claim that the Economics of bitcoin subarticle is "obscure" does not mean a consensus on the move to subarticle cannot be achieved. Also, if you check the subarticle, you will find out that other sections were moved too. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 05:37, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well there is no consenus as of now. I only see you wanting to move it. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 20:41, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Casing?

Why is "Bitcoin" lowercase? Because there are two or three versions/forks? Thanks. Michael Ten (talk) 21:45, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest reading the article. The Terminology section must answer your question. Retimuko (talk) 22:09, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A proposal to remove unexplained jargon

This update justified as "grammar" replaces the wording:

On 1 August 2017 bitcoin split into two derivative digital currencies, the classic bitcoin (BTC) and the Bitcoin Cash (BCH).[1]

directly supported by the cited source, by the formulation:

On 1 August 2017 bitcoin split into two derivative digital currencies, the classic bitcoin (BTC) and a hard fork, Bitcoin Cash (BCH).[1]

This is not a grammar correction, in fact, and it just unnecessarily introduces new jargon to the sentence. I propose to revert the edit to WP:STATUSQUO, effectively removing the unexplained and unnecessary jargon. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 11:13, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer the newer version with the jargon. I think we could wikilink to Fork (software development). There is so much coverage of hard forks on this page, Ethereum, etc that soon enough we need to explain what a hard fork is Jtbobwaysf (talk) 09:10, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I also prefer the jargon but agree that we should probably explain hard fork properly somewhere. Erik.Bjareholt (talk) 14:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with referring to Fork (software development) when referring to a blockchain fork, which is not the same. Also, in software development, there is no notion of a "hard fork". Ladislav Mecir (talk) 15:50, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This page Bitcoin_scalability_problem#Forks has a discussion of hard and soft forks. We can wikilink to that . Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:22, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Having checked the source[1], I also found that it used the term hard fork, but not in the sense the changed formulation does. The hard fork term in the source was used to refer to the split into two separate chains, the sense you can also find in Investopedia[2], and that in the cited source the hard fork term did not refer to any particular subchain that resulted from the split. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:59, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am ok with using the investopedia source, but I know that @David Gerard: didn't like hte investopedia source say it was user generated content. David, another discussion of how to cover the split between a cyrptocoin. Any comments? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 07:40, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Firstly, my contribution does not mean that I want to use the Investopedia source in this case. I just pointed out that the changed formulation misrepresents the source.[1] As such, the change is not WP:NPOV. Also, if you look at the recent attempts at editing the sentence, there were even greater mistreatments of sources without respecting the fact that the wording is being discussed here.
  • Secondly, the reliability of Investopedia as a source has been discussed at the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard with the result that it is acceptable as a WP:IRS. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:33, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To achieve a consensus, I propose a new wording. I suppose this wording to both reflect the available sources, and to explain the Bitcoin Cash hard fork notion:

On 1 August 2017 bitcoin split into two derivative digital currencies, the classic bitcoin (BTC) and the Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The split is called a Bitcoin Cash hard fork.[1]

Ladislav Mecir (talk) 05:43, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Smith, Jake (11 August 2017). "The Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork Will Show Us Which Coin Is Best". Fortune. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  2. ^ Hayes, Adam (21 March 2017). "Can Bitcoin Hard Fork?". Investopedia. Retrieved 8 June 2017.

Proposed edit to first half of design section

Currently a lot of the design section is useless. It just talks about random topics in bitcoin, like the blockchain and how transactions are encoded in Forth or a similar language without actually telling the reader how it works. So I have made some edits in my sandbox copy of the article to the design section only in order to unify the content. Any thoughts on this? Esquivalience (talk) 03:07, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Closed as "not introducing a violation of NPOV." Toddst1 (talk) 18:55, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While this edit is justified as "Articles are supposed to have an external links section", that is far from the truth as the Acra (fortress) featured article demonstrates. Bitcoin does not have any "official website", which might be a reasonable external link candidate. Currently, the only external link present in the section is a link to the bitcoin.org website. Per the article contents, there are other competing project sites. To be neutral, it would be necessary to either create a list of the competing sites (that is discouraged by WP:ELNO, however) or to not list bitcoin.org as the only site in the section. In such case, the section would be empty and could be removed, which would return the contents to the WP:STATUSQUO. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:02, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can you name such a site? There are no other sites that were registered by Satoshi himself, AFAIK. And no other open-source community run sites. As for WP:STATUSQUO, see the very first revision of this page: [1]. Why does Bitcoin Cash have an official website in its EL section, then? If there is any neutrality in doubt, it is yours. I see that you removed completely any mention of Segregated Witness from this page, despite it being covered extensively in the news. I also see that you put back an extensive list of forks under the Reference implementation section, despite it being more appropriate under governance. You also removed a link to the Bitcoin Core software from the External links. There are no competitors to that, because those forks are not bitcoin. Are you pushing some kind of anti-Core agenda. You aren’t part of this, are you: [2] 101.174.96.40 (talk) 06:54, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Can you name such a site?" - I do not need to, various project are cross linked in the article, so there is no need to use external links for that.
  • "And no other open-source community run sites." - WP:OR
  • "Why does Bitcoin Cash have an official website in its EL section, then?" - I do not know why, or why is that relevant to this discussion.
  • "I see that you removed completely any mention of Segregated Witness from this page" - If you mean my recent deletion of the challenged claim, you are welcome to add it back with a WP:IRS not failing to verify the claim. I do not understand how is that relevant for the present discussion.
  • "I also see that you put back an extensive list of forks under the Reference implementation section, despite it being more appropriate under governance." - that is easy: I reverted your deletion to keep WP:NPOV in the Bitcoin#Reference implementation section to not mention just one preferred implementation. Your edit deleted all the variants in there, also the ones that were (contrarily to your claim) not mentioned elsewhere. The Bitcoin#Governance content is also neutral now, not preferring any specific implementation. Also note that this is not relevant for the present discussion.
  • "You also removed a link to the Bitcoin Core software from the External links." - of course, Bitcoin Core is cross-linked from the article, which is a preferred method of linking in Wikipedia. I do not doubt that an interested reader can find more information at the specific article. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:17, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, i’m talking about the external link. Give me an example of such a site. 101.174.96.40 (talk) 09:16, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well? 101.174.96.40 (talk) 10:45, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Since you have still not responded, I will reiterate: you claim that including this non profit community run informational site is somehow “POV”. You base this on the claim that there are other competing sites. You have not given ONE example. Also, let me remind you that this domain was registered by Satoshi Nakamoto himself and the VERY FIRST revision of this page had a link to it. 101.174.96.40 (talk) 07:50, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I came here as an uninvolved editor after reading the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure. The assertion that including bitcoin.org as an external link violates NPOV is abjectly absurd. Toddst1 (talk) 00:40, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Toddst1, there should be a link to bitcoin.org and we dont need to link to reddit to keep NPOV. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 02:23, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

SegWit claim

With regards to SegWit, I have done so. Your basis for wanting the link removed is that there are competing sites. Name one, that is also community run and not for profit. 101.174.96.40 (talk) 08:36, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Your basis for wanting the link removed is that there are competing sites." - No. My reason for the removal was that the claim was unconfirmed. It remains unconfirmed, since the new source you use also does not confirm the claim. I challenged the claim, and will remove it if it remains unconfirmed. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:06, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bitcoin fees

The section on Bitcoin fees erroneously states that fees are optional: try finding an exchange that does not charge for buying or selling your Bitcoins. Does not exist. In fact, it is often stated that one of the main advantages of Bitcoins and crypto currencies in general is that there are no third parties (banks) involved and transactions are free. This is wrong: Using traditional money you may or may not pay a fee for bank transfers, but you pay no fee when using cash. Using Bitcoin, yes you can transact directly between 2 parties but you are still tied to an exchange to check, where you ALWAYS pay a fee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.56.227 (talk) 03:09, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, I cant imagine we could find an RS that is current which states fees are optional. Fees were designed into the system by satoshi to my recollection. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:11, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree - using exchange is optional. Sources also state that fees are optional. If you found a source that states that fees are not optional since, e.g. January 2017, mention it, please. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 04:36, 29 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unsustainable energy use

Mining bitcoin uses about 24 TWh during 2017 and is rapidly increasing. Single bitcoin transfer consumes approximately 200kWh. This indicates that it is unsustainable and causing significant environmental damage, especially CO2 emissions. This topic is increasingly in news, in technical bitcoin websites usually promoting it, and in investor sites. Solution to mining energy use has been known for years, but has not been implemented. I have not seen any proposal to reduce energy use of transfers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:20C0:5570:210D:47FB:B904:6866 (talk) 18:43, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

satoshis

The term "satoshis"is used twice, but never defined. Jmatxx (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Likewise, the term "network alert key" is not explained. Jmatxx (talk) 00:00, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Bitcoin&oldid=809868794"