Slashdot Mirror
Btcd - a Bitcoind Alternative Written In Go!
An anonymous reader writes "The folks at Conformal have announced btcd, an alternative full-node implementation to bitcoind, written in Go! They have released the first of their core packages, btcwire, available for download at GitHub. As a bitcoin user myself, I love the idea of a full alternative. It will only make bitcoin stronger and more independent. This will be great for the Go community, too!"
...in world full of banking problems, banking crises and eroding trust in fiduciary money. Way to go !
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
TFS mixes the two: written in Go! and great for the Go community
TFA says: it's Go not Go!
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
No need to use exclamation points, really !
How are people gonna short this?
"(Because it's based on the same premise - that it's only worth what people are willing to pay for it)."
Better than fiat currencies, because they're worth what people are willing to pay for them, then less, then a bit less and some more dilution and some more and more and more and more. Bitcoin has a finite limit on the number of coins and thus hits a limit making it better for trade.
And before anyone pipes and whines about deflationary currency, it's not deflationary. It's finite. Big difference.
A finite currency is only deflationary if the value it represents increases, so that each coin becomes more valuable. So the critics of Bitcoins by saying its deflationary, are really saying they expect the Bitcoin economy to grow in value!
Bitcoins have gone from worthless in 2010 to $120 a coin in 2013.
What have you bought over the last year? How has their price varied in dollars and in bitcoins? No currency's value is constant, but some are a lot more constant than others.
All they have released is a handler for the network protocol. This doesn't verify blocks, send transactions or anything else. Are the other parts closed source or do they just not exist?
Since 90% of people don't understand Bitcoin articles that don't explain anything more than this
will confuse people and add to their belief that Bitcoin is nothing more than a fiat currency.
GO. GO. GO. Go Where?
As Bitcoin alternatives go, I really liked the idea behind Namecoin. Not that it's likely to go anywhere, but it's something that puts some real backing, value, to the currency while simultaneously doing something to address the piss poor domain name allocation system that we have right now. Bitcoin is currently just floating on enthusiasm and greed, this would actually have some worth if people got behind it.
How about the Open-Dollar? Bitcoin is based on a scarcity paradigm much like Gold. The Open-Dollar is a full Virtual Fiat Currency where the you create money by issuing the notes yourself Open-Dollar
The value of bitcoin is tied to the disposable income of the people who live in that country.
If the dollar crashes, so will Bitcoin.
No sig today...
omg that's the stupidest thing I ever heard.
and to think that Go! was first.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Er, which country? You are aware that BTC is not a national currency, right?
My 6 year old loves to doodle with his crayons. Lately, I've been having him draw money. So far, the good ones are really rare. So I figure they are probably worth a substantial amount of money. I'm going to start releasing them as currency soon. I'm also working out a deal with Paypal to accept them.
Does no one see the problem with this?
Bitcoin appears to have value because bitcoins are scarce.
If everyone and their dog has there own bitcoin-style protocol with it's own coin pool, the scarcity is gone, and none of them are worth anything.
Of course, this was the reality all along, just it'll be obvious now. The bubble is about to pop. Prepare to short-sell some bitcoins.
using this software, I can set up my own BitPonzi<tm> money scheme.
i'll make squillions, sell it all to buy gold, and then go retire in some libertarian utopia like Somalia, where wealth rules and i can even own other people if i want without evil socialist rules against perfectly legitimate sales contracts.
Please: observe that "Go!" and "Go" are two quite different programming languages.
The client appears to be written in "Go" which is the language by google, but the headline would suggest "Go!" by McKabe & Clark.
I find the same ambiguity in the text... still, I am looking forward to the time we shall use the full unicode range in order to have
similar looking, yet entirely different, names. That shall be fun!
People saying something is a bad idea does not automatically make it a good idea, and your delusions aside, I think you know that.
With a mathematically fixed number of bitcoins, and no need for any central authority, Bitcoin is immune from a large number of the scams the world banking cartel use to maintain population control on the planet. Usury crime is much more difficult to wield as a means of control because everybody knows you can't create more bitcoins than are in existence once the mines are all dried up.
That's great!
The downside I see is that an alternative system implemented by governments would lead to a means of completely controlling everybody. I see Bitcoin potentially being used as a market softener, getting people excited about the idea so that they accept a single planetary currency controlled digitally, completely traceable and able to be turned on or off depending on an individual's compliance with the authoritarian regime.
I also think it's highly unlikely that one mysterious Japanese genius created Bitcoin. I think it might have been a consortium with a hidden agenda.
Maybe that agenda was a good one; kill the banks. Maybe it wasn't. Time will tell.
Go and Go! are very different language, which one was it programmed in?
GO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(programming_language)
GO!: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go!_(programming_language)
Yes, yes, you've told us that the bar and the floor is now vertical and we're all horizontal.
No, we're not "attacking" your new and better coordinate system, we just find it silly and funny (and hope nobody lets you drive).
They chose a bad, confusing name: btcd. It is only nmemonic for the thing for which they want to provide an alternative. Some people will wonder "Is it Bitcoin or not?"
Why not choose "Gocoin" or something more distinct?
Your post is extremely interesting, but the mandatory conclusion I make from it is the exact opposite of yours. If the original code is so full of idiosyncracies and gotchas then it's an extreme liability to everyone who values Bitcoin, and quite likely contains backdoors or deliberate weaknesses that are hidden by the obscurity.
There can be no more important task for the Bitcoin community I think than to specify all elements of the static protocol and dynamic behavior of all parts, and reimplement them in other languages, especially safe languages.
Go is certainly a good candidate for this large body of work, safe, clean, and fast.
As a bitcoin user myself, I love the idea of a full alternative. It will only make bitcoin less likely to be adopted by sensible people and more handwavey if anyone asks inconvenient, non-utopian questions.
FTFY.
Its a market like auction houses or friendship networks: there basically isnt no reason fro a #2 or #3. Bitcoin may not be the winner due to it flaws, mainly speed.
You can't pay your taxes in bitcons.
You can pay your taxes in bitcoins in Aynrandistan. Come, free yourself and join our enlightened society! Offer for M^H Billionaires only
Actually, that's not entirely accurate. There's no need to pay you taxes in bitcoin because Aynrandistan has no taxes. Instead, you spend the equivalent (or more) fortifying your compound so the starving masses don't slaughter you in your bed and take all your stuff.
"first they ignore you"
"then they attack you"
Sounds like the start of a seven step program to get a cult into the mainstream.
Prices in chickens do not make drastic jumps, except in a few rare cases of dysfunctional economies (ie, Zimbabwe). Chickens in euros or dollars have relatively slow changes in prices over time and those changes are usually related to supply and demand and not fiscal policies.
Bitcoin is a political movement by amateur economists, or a piece of performance art, or both. Not sure which. Everything about it seems designed to be a parody of currency and fiscal policy.
Bitcoin is NOT immune to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump
Unless https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry#Adverse_selection is implemented in Bitcoin protocol, I'd not invest my time/money in it.
Casteism
I have several problems with it, and have made many negative posts about it, but at this point I consider it an interesting early experiment with digital currency, one that will be the seed for something better down the line.
It would be more of an experiment if the experimenters were disinterested observers. Instead the early adopters and creators stand to make a whole lot of money from this if they can convince people to legitimize the system. We get upset when drug researchers turn out to have financial stakes in their products, and the same should apply to economic "researchers".
It would be more of an experiment if the experimenters were disinterested observers. Instead the early adopters and creators stand to make a whole lot of money from this if they can convince people to legitimize the system.
To play devil's advocate, from their point of view it was a legitimate effort to put forward a new system, one that at least on some level is working. As for the windfall the creators and early adopters would get (assuming they kept their bitcoins), that's no different than any innovators typically get. A good example would be one of the credit card networks like Visa.
From my point of view, the problems are too big for me to take it seriously, and like you I'm bothered by the huge head start the early adopters have gained. However, if something better comes along and actually replaces Bitcoin, having learned some lessons and copied some ideas, then Bitcoin deserves a lot of credit for blazing a trail.