Entries tagged with this topic. Spans across types and sources — explore connections between people, events, and themes.
11 entries
The whitepaper's title names a payment system; section 6's gold is an issuance analogy. Satoshi designed one thing — hard issuance, cash use — whose scarcity later tilted it toward digital gold.
Weighing the 'Blockstream controls Bitcoin' charge against the documentary record: where it comes from, and how each link in the chain holds up.
Cross-cutting reading of Bitcoin's 2015–2017 block-size war by phase, faction, and turning point: Bitcoin XT, BIP148 UASF, the New York Agreement, Bitcoin Cash, SegWit2x cancellation.
Where Bitcoin's current reality has drifted from Satoshi's design intent: four axes — mining (one-CPU-one-vote to ASIC oligopoly), custody (own keys to exchange IOUs), governance, and scaling.
Why Bitcoin's 2015-2017 fork wars ran as identity contests, not OSS disputes: the post-2011 authority vacuum, the economic weight on rule choices, and the three layers that bound code to currency.
Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen released Bitcoin XT 0.11A, a Bitcoin Core fork implementing BIP 101 — 8 MB blocks doubling every two years. The launch opened the public phase of the block-size war.
Bitcoin Cash forked from Bitcoin at block 478558, mined by ViaBTC around 12:37 UTC. The 8 MB, no-SegWit chain became the first protocol fork to leave a lasting separate network.
Mike Belshe suspended the SegWit2x hard fork on the mailing list, about a week before the planned 2 MB activation at block 494784. The New York Agreement collapsed without a chain split.
Mike Hearn published The Resolution of the Bitcoin Experiment, declaring Bitcoin had failed due to governance breakdown and the block-size stalemate. He sold all his coins and left the project.
In a CoinGeek interview, Mike Hearn offers rare reflections on Satoshi's personality — observing he enjoyed experimenting but appeared to grow frustrated when evangelical personalities arrived.
Segregated Witness (SegWit) — Bitcoin's most significant protocol upgrade since creation. Separates signature from transaction data, fixing malleability, enabling Lightning, raising block capacity.