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How a Bitcoin Transaction Actually Works
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Nielsen has written a detailed article describing the nuts and bolts of a Bitcoin transaction. He builds the concepts from the ground up, starting with a basic, no-frills digital currency. He then examines it for flaws and tweaks the currency to patch up areas where we run into technical or security problems. Eventually, he ends up with Bitcoin, and explains how a transaction works. It's an interesting, technical read; much more in-depth than any explanation I've heard. Here's a brief snippet from a walkthrough of the transaction data: 'One thing to note about the input is that there's nothing explicitly specifying how many bitcoins from the previous transaction should be spent in this transaction. In fact, all the bitcoins from the n=0th output of the previous transaction are spent. So, for example, if the n=0th output of the earlier transaction was 2 bitcoins, then 2 bitcoins will be spent in this transaction. This seems like an inconvenient restriction – like trying to buy bread with a 20 dollar note, and not being able to break the note down. The solution, of course, is to have a mechanism for providing change. This can be done using transactions with multiple inputs and outputs...'"
Bitcoin is going through another period of heavy fluctuation: it fell from a high of around $1,200 per bitcoin to roughly half that, and as of this writing trades around $760 per bitcoin.
That is only the case because congress has put ridiculously onerous pension funding requirements on the USPS. They have to fund pensions for people they haven't even hired yet. It is ridiculous how badly congress has fucked over the USPS - not only did they force them to prefund pensions, but then congress went and raided those pensions as if they were part of the US general fund. If congress had not done all that shit, the USPS would be deep in the black today.
http://postalemployeenetwork.com/news/2011/08/the-big-lie-about-postal-bankruptcy/
I know a lot about Bitcoin. "Mining" and "Verifying transactions" are the same thing.
We need the latter even when there will be "no" new coins minted (tiny block reward). The miners (= the ones who verify the transactions) will still get the transaction fees.
it's in my head
Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? I think that might be the big one. Remember he/they own almost 3/4's of all the bitcoins mined
There are over 12 million Bitcoins in circulation. The estimates I have found for Nakamoto indicate about 1 million Bitcoins., though others have come up with as much as 1.5 million. Either way, that's obviously far from three quarters.
As for your first question, an interesting recent theory is Nick Szabo.