This looks like something from Tron, trippy. The height of the block is the amount of BTC, there are some huge (thousands of BTC) transactions happening.
On a semi related note, I built a 3D visualization (globe) to see where these blocks are geographically mined. https://coinminingstats.com/globe
Its a vue.js site that I host statically on Netlify, with django backend on heroku that pulls all the data. The trick to get things to load quickly is caching the data on https://www.keycdn.com/ (with the right headers you can set it up that the CDN queries the slow pages in the background and serves the cached ones meanwhile to keep things near real-time). I might do a writeup about that it took me a while to figure out.
I'm using https://threejs.org/ for the webgl stuff, the tricky part was figuring out how to map the coordinates to change the country highlighting. Ended up having to write a custom shader which was quite the learning curve :)
Saw this live in Miami at IOHK’s conference. They had a VR version setup for the public. A beautiful interactive tech art rendering that visualizes the “living creature” an active blockchain resembles.
Great illustration of disparity between transaction values. Massive majority of transactions are below 0.1 BTC. And then almost every block includes a transaction of a few thousand BTC. I'd love to see something like this for Visa network.
There are a lot of big bars in there, like 4000Btc transactions. Does anyone have a sense of whether those usually represent private buying/selling of coins, or are they exchanges like Coinbase cashing in/out, lightning network, etc? What's the story of these massive trades?
It tells me there are only 30.000 transactions? In the last block? Because that number seems very small compared to the hype that surrounds Bitcoin if that is "All Transactions of all time"
A typical block has on the order of 1000 transactions and they occur on average once every 10 minutes.
The 30k number that the website gives in the beginning is talking about the number of transactions that have not yet made it into a block but are currently being replicated among nodes in the network. Each transaction includes a bounty to be paid to the miner that includes it in a block. Most of these 30k pending transactions have a low fee and are usually ignored by most miners, but may eventually make it into one when an altruistic miner manages to mine a block, or when a greedy miner has no better options. If they don't make it into a block relatively soon, nodes will stop replicating them.
Okay, that makes waaay more sense. Thanks for explaining.
Do I understand correctly, though? If I want to send a small amount of bitcoin, with a minimal fee, there is a possibility that that transaction won't go through, because no miner picks it up?
That is correct, there is a maximum number of transactions that can occur on the main Bitcoin chain (it was ~7/second at the beginning, and I think it still is) so there is effectively an auction to get on the chain.
As ignaloidas explained in another comment though, this doesn't include the Lightning Network which is where most everyday transactions would occur.
>this doesn't include the Lightning Network which is where most everyday transactions would occur.
This is something I've never fully understood. Is the Lightning Network essentially a separate ledger of transactions that are "floating", if you will, off chain until (eventually) they get verified at some later time in a "final" state? What is the timing mechanism for when they get verified?
Alright, so there's always a way to get my transaction through, nice.
Would you have any resource that is worth checking out to learn more about blockchain? I don't care about market analysis, economy. I just want to understand the underlying technology to know what's happening there. Book would be fine too.
For some more modernish innovations in Blockchain tech in general, I would also recommend the Ethereum white paper: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper. Ethereum re-imagines the Bitcoin protocol with a turing complete virtual machine that runs on the chain itself.
The way to get a transaction through is to pay a fee to have it validated. The higher the fee, the more incentive for miners to add your transaction to their blocks since they will earn that fee if they can validate the block the fastest.
Right now, the fees are relatively low because miners are primarily living on the block rewards for validating transactions. As those block rewards decrease (halvenings), transaction fees will need to pick up the slack. Smaller miners may also leave the network as the competition picks up, which will lower the difficulty and increase the chances of validating the block the fastest (and thus getting paid the rewards/fees).
Halvenings means less inflation, so the theory/practice is that the price will also go up over time... thus the transaction fees will go up, but not substantially because the price is also going up. This will also incentivize outside transactions like lightning network.
Yes, that's correct. I have a small amount of BTC, and cashed one in yesterday, so had to send, which I've not done for a year or so. Had to select an appropriate fee, and was a little concerned when it didn't show up as confirmed in the next block, but then 20 minutes later was confirmed and all was well. Still, it's a fairly dicey moment when there's potentially £10k caught up in a transaction.... (I'm sure it's small beans to a lot of people, but that's the biggest single transaction I've ever done).
This doesn't represent Lightning network, which is used for smaller, quicker transactions later synced onto the main Bitcoin chain by transferring only the differences between the nodes to save on transaction fees.
It's more honest to say "intended to be used for". The LN has been promised as the solution to Bitcoin's scaling woes for years, but somehow never seems to catch on.
The Lightning Network actually has seen parabolic growth since it started in Q1 2018 -- with roughly 40,000 payment channels opened and ~1000 BTC total capacity.
The closest "normal" thing to Bitcoin is commodities, since it's a non-performing asset. It's also deflationary since its total supply is fixed (somewhat like gold, of which not much more can be mined at reasonable prices). But it does not behave like any other commodity - it's much more volatile. It may start to calm down at some point.
Most valuations make sense as they are tied to the intrinsic value of things. A potatoe will feed you for a while. The value can vary - a potatoe farmer won't be hungry, so the value is to learn a living, a hungry person will value a potatoe very high. The price at each step in the chain between the farmer and the hungry person is determined by a lot of factors - distance and the scarcity vs. need at each point. Same as real estate - the market value will vary, but is cornered by the fact that each piece of land only exists once.
With Bitcoins the value is only set by an artificial demand. There is nothing left over, if demand stops. You can't eat a Bitcoin. There is no limitation on creating new cryptocurrencies. It is like the million dollar homepage. It was once valued with a million dollars but I doubt, anyone would pay any significant amount for those pixels now. Why? Well, yes, there is only one million dollar homepage, but if there was any demand, you could create a similar page for a few dollars of effort.
You can't eat a dollar too. Intrinsic value of a dollar is smaller than a piece of paper, as it's not even that good for taking notes. It's valuation is the same: based on artificial demand.
The point of the dollar is, that it is backed by the United States of America. By the government the Federal Reserver Bank as the front line of setting and defending the value of the dollar. And by the whole US industry, which is trading their goods in dollars. That is the reason why modern currencies are generally valued vs. the gross domestic product of countries.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Federal Reserve hasn't been really backing the dollar. The gold is there, sure, but it isn't connected in any way with the value of dollar. The Federal Reserve surely doesn't have enough goods to back all of the dollars in circulation. The fact that US industry is trading by dollars doesn't change the matter. There are quite a few businesses that trade by bitcoin.
The dollar has not been backed by gold for a long time. It is backed by the Federal Reserve bank by the political power of the US and of course by the GDP of the US. Like with gold prices, there is quite some flexibility in the value of a currency, but that flexibility is contained in certain intervals because of the influence and the acting of the Federal Reserve bank. As long as the US doesn't default, the dollar has a value.
I get your point and generally agree fiat is not backed by much more tangible than BTC’s math. To be fair, plenty of people trade US dollars for US political power. Lobbying, 500k speaking fees, PACs, Charity “Foundations”. You and I can’t trade in those markets because we don’t have enough dollars (or have too many scruples)
It is backed by the GDP as you can buy goods sold by US producers with dollars. Be it iPhones, beef, corn, cars, airplanes.
And you would quickly notice the US power when you tried to print your own dollars for example.
Valuations are not tied to intrinsic value... whatever that means.
“Value” is measured by what someone paid. Nothing more, nothing less. If I buy an apple from you for $5, that means both of us valued the apple at $5. The end.
To understand how meaningless the notion of intrinsic value is, ask yourself what the intrinsic value of water is? Drinking it? Bathing with it? Swimming in it? Cooking with it? Watering a garden with it? Washing a car with it?
Different people value water for different uses at different times for different amounts... there is no dollar value intrinsic to the water itself.
Value certainly isn't something you can objetively tie to a fixed number. But water is a good example. It definitely has a value and this value nicely shows the basic mechanisms of economy. First of all, water supply differs strongly by region. Lots of water around the great lakes, little in Arizona. Ocean water is plentifull, but of little value due to the salt, which can be removed only very expensively. So the value of water depends on the distance from the next large water source. This is the reason, Arizona isn't the largest farm state - there is enough sun, but not enough cheap water.
Water for washing your car or watering your garden is relatively cheap, drinking water is not. Because for drinking water you need to get a cleaner source or spending effort to clean it. In many regions, tap water is perfect drinking water (and usually relatively expensive) in other regions not. Bottled water is yet more expensive because of the effort of bottling and transporting the bottled water. Of course you have effects like expensive French bottled water in the US, but that nonwithstanding bottled water is more expensive than tap water which is more expensive than river water.
We are conflating different terms. You're saying "value" but meaning something different than the market value of something. Value is a measure. It's quantitative not qualitative.
When someone says "this thing is valued at $5" it means someone traded or is willing to trade $5 for that thing. It doesn't have anything to do with what you can use that thing for.
Yes, water is "valuable" as something to drink. That has little to do with what someone paid for some water.
You -- and lots of pesky Bitcoin speculators -- are missing the point. Bitcoin is currency. If it weren't for speculation, Bitcoin exchange rates with state-based currencies would be relatively stable. There's some deflation by design, but not enough to matter, unless you hoard.
Exchange rate volatility is problematic. My solution is mainly to have more Bitcoin than I'd ever use, unless its value crashed. That works for me because I accumulated most of it years ago, and I'm too paranoid to cash out.
Otherwise, I'd need to distribute among multiple resources that were relatively stable, or didn't move together.
But not mainly in a speculative way. Fundamentally, there's no safe way to move enough to matter without raising flags. As in, "where did that money come from"? I really don't want to go there.
I don't care about the taxes so much. It's the linkage to my online personas that I care about. And I just don't want to deal with questions that might touch on them. Because I know a little about interrogation, and I know the risks of lying to investigators.
And the freakiest thing is that I have no idea what sorts of investigations some of my personas might be part of. I'm a decent guy, myself. And much of my Bitcoin came from writing, mostly for IVPN.
But I've also done some consulting with other anonymous cowards. I'm adamant about not wanting to know anything about what clients are doing. But I gotta wonder, sometimes.
So anyway, keeping online and meatspace finances totally separate is just part of my OPSEC.
I think you misunderstood me. I am making the point that Bitcoin has basically no value. Its only value comes from the fact that currently enough people think it has a value. Like the million dollar homepage. Once the novelty has worn off, it could drop to 0 value.
No currency "has value". For dollars, it's the US government.
Bitcoin has value for three main reasons: 1) it can be used to buy stuff online, and can be anonymized; 2) it's not controlled by governments; and 3) it's a popular speculative asset.
The first two aren't about novelty. Sure, if something else comes along that does those things better, people will shift. But none of the existing alternatives has managed that yet.
The third does have a huge novelty component. And personally, I wish that all the bloody speculators would just piss off. But whatever, I can live with them. And free money is cool too.
Yes, Bitcoin seems to be popular in the trade of illegal goods and for paying ransomware. Doesn't exactly explain why most other people invest so much into Bitcoin. And the security is very dubious, considering the track record of Bitcoin exchanges.
People have wanted an online cash equivalent for decades. It's a privacy thing. "Illegal" means whatever authoritarian jerks want it to, so we can ignore that.
Ransomware obviously uses Bitcoin because it's reliable, and can be anonymized. And people use Tor for child porn and "illegal" drugs because it's secure and ~anonymous. They're popular because they work. And in a way, they're canaries for decent privacy lovers.
Sorry, thats just a strawman. Bitcoin enables sending money over the internet off official channels. You are not going to pay for ransomware with your credit card.
How do you pay for ransomware with cash? Put it into an envelope and send it off to another continent to the address of the criminals? I explicitly talked about sending money over the internet.
you pay ransom with cash. because cash has certain properties. which bitcoin also has. which is why bitcoin is being used as digital cash. which in itself isn't a problem and if it is - you need to fight against cash, there's orders of magnitude more illegal stuff being paid for using cash than using bitcoin.
I was specifically talking about ransomware in all of my comments you answered to. You might disagree, but please don't put words into my mouth I didn't write.
Also, while ransom is paid in cash, these kind of crimes are not very common because the police can intercept at the cash exchange. It is really the ability to send money over the internet but off any official channels, which enables ransomware. Also, like with any other commerce, performing illegal purchases gets much easier with the internet, in this case facilitated by cryptocurrencies.
> You might disagree, but please don't put words into my mouth
i don't disagree, i'm trying to help you understand that what (allegedly) makes bitcoin popular for ransomware and illegal transactions is a set of properties that are also shared with cash.
either your argument is that those properties are evil and you're in favor of cashless society where big brother is always in control of all money flows - in which case that's the root of our disagreement and we can stop there.
or you value those properties but you're worried about all the illegal activities enabled by them, in which case bitcoin should be way down on the list of your concerns, top spot being held by the almighty USD.
And you still haven't explained how you would pay for ransomware over the internet via cash. We are talking here about the ransomers being in a different continent even.
And we have strict limits on cash to provide a stop of a complete abuse of it for criminal activities. Cash transactions over a certain limit have to be logged, there are physical controls at the borders as well as searches. So having a suitcase of cash cannot be concealed easily.
Yes, especially with local crime, there are cash transactions. That is regretteable, but cannot be avoided. The difference is, that physical cash servers a very important practical purpose: making legit payments easy. From using vending machines with coins to just paying for your groceries, you can do that easily with cash.
However Bitcoins don't seem to have a large practical values beyond the illegal actions. I am not aware of a large econommy based on Bitcoin transactions. It also can be shown that the pure time required to perform these transactions would be a hurdle. So most of Bitcoin is just speculation, the practical aspect largely based on the shady uses.
I'm not sure why you got into this argument about paying for ransomware unlocking with cash. I mean, one can mail cash, and I've done it many times. To buy Bitcoin, back in the day, and VPN subscriptions.
Anyway, ransomware operators request payment in Bitcoin because it's much less hassle than mailing cash. And there's much less risk of theft by dishonest postal workers.
But with thorough mixing and other good OPSEC, Bitcoin can be as anonymous as cash. So that helps protect ransomware operators from arrest. I think that we all agree on that.
However, you seem to see that as a negative for Bitcoin. That it can be used for such horrible things. But I see it as a stress test for using Bitcoin ~anonymously. If assholes infecting people with malware can use Bitcoin safely, that inplies that decent anonymous cowards like me can also safely use Bitcoin.
And if some of them get busted, there's the chance that investigative methods will be revealed, and so I can tweak my OPSEC to deal with them.
Another key benefit is evading all that bullshit about limiting cash transactions. It's not that I'm a criminal, it's just that I don't acknowledge government authority.
> And you still haven't explained how you would pay for ransomware over the internet via cash
you're not seeing the forest behind the trees. bitcoin like cash is permissionless, private and fungible (to some extent). these properties enable illegal activities both in cash and in bitcoin. with cash it happens in face to face exchanges, with bitcoin it happens over the network.
> we have strict limits on cash to provide a stop of a complete abuse of it for criminal activities
yeah, that's why there's definitely no illegal activities going on involving cash. /s
> Bitcoins don't seem to have a large practical values beyond the illegal actions
uninflatable, scarce commodity/currency and transaction platform that is impossible to censor. you sure have a high bar for something having "practical value"...
the largest practical value of bitcoin is that i have full ownership of my money, not some ephemeral record in some bank's database which can be destroyed/modified by bank's employees or devalued by monetary policy.
> I am not aware of a large econommy based on Bitcoin transactions.
that you're not aware of it could simply mean that you never looked for it.
you're not seeing the forest behind the trees. bitcoin like cash is permissionless, private and fungible (to some extent). these properties enable illegal activities both in cash and in bitcoin. with cash it happens in face to face exchanges, with bitcoin it happens over the network.
Well, and that was the difference I was pointing out to. Bitcoin allows unchecked transactions about the network, this is not possible with cash and international cash transfer is strictly regulated - and when done electronically, carefully watched. That is the significant difference.
yeah, that's why there's definitely no illegal activities going on involving cash. /s
no need for that snotty remark, I have written myself that there are criminal transactions with cash, but they are limited by physical proximity.
uninflatable, scarce commodity/currency and transaction platform that is impossible to censor. you sure have a high bar for something having "practical value"...
it is actually deflatory, which is a bad thing for a currency. This basically bans all commercial use.
the largest practical value of bitcoin is that i have full ownership of my money, not some ephemeral record in some bank's database which can be destroyed/modified by bank's employees or devalued by monetary policy.
Not only do Bitcoin exchanges have a horrible track record about keeping your coins secure, it is grotesque that you fear the monetary policy for your "moneys value", when Bitcoin can collapse to 0 any time enough people lose interest in it for speculation.
> Not only do Bitcoin exchanges have a horrible track record about keeping your coins secure ...
I've been using Bitcoin since it first went public. And I have never used an exchange. They want to know too much, for one thing, with all that KYC bullshit. And as you say, they can't be trusted.
But I have used less formal exhange services. And although I've been ripped off a few times, it's worked well for the most part.
> ... it is grotesque that you fear the monetary policy for your "moneys value", when Bitcoin can collapse to 0 any time enough people lose interest in it for speculation.
You keep saying that, but the data doesn't support it. Just look at Bitcoin price history. I used a nine-month moving average for price. And plotted log price, to clearly show older prices.[0]
After the peak in early 2013, price bottomed at ~50% of peak, until the next peak. After the peak in late 2013, price bottomed at ~20% of peak, until the next peak. And the bottom was about twice the previous bottom. After the peak at the end of 2017, price bottomed at ~50% of peak, during early 2019. And the bottom was ~17 times the previous bottom.
> that was the difference I was pointing out to. Bitcoin allows unchecked transactions about the network [...] That is the significant difference.
that is a very arbitrary difference for you to ignore that there are orders of magnitude more illegal transactions happening in cash than in cryptocurrencies. also "let's ban cryptocurrencies because bad people do bad things" is the same argument as "let's ban cryptography because bad people communicate about bad things".
> it is actually deflatory, which is a bad thing for a currency. This basically bans all commercial use.
gold is strictly speaking deflationary - there is limited amount of it to be mined and bar some large deposit discoveries, "emission rate" will be going down. what gold lacks to be succesfull in economic activities is convenience of not having to transport it around along with transactions, which is something bitcoin has.
deflationary nature argument is not very convincing to me, because there is a feedback loop between valuation and liquidity. the less liquidity there is in an assets - less valuable it becomes, incentivizing hoarders to keep spending.
> Not only do Bitcoin exchanges have a horrible track record about keeping your coins secure
oh boy.. you're arguing about something you haven't spent any significant time researching. it's rule #1 and rule #2 of cryptocurrencies - if you don't own the private key - it's not your crypto!
you've picked literally the worst strawman to attack here. horrible track record of exchanges is exactly the kind of issues of existing financial system that bitcoin prevents, just under magnifying glass:
- when you send crypto to the exchange you trade something you own for a record in a database, but bitcoin can solve that problem with payment channels and multisignature wallets - something you cannot do with traditional currencies without trusting some third party
- there is little to no transparency about actual holdings of cryptocurreny - again, bitcoin solves that problem because you can cryptographically prove how much you have access to with digital signatures, something you again cannot do with traditional currencies without trusting a third party
- exchange's assets can be seized by government where it resides - something that bitcoin solves by design - nobody can take your bitcoins without knowing your private key, again not possible with traditional currencies - also by design
> it is grotesque that you fear the monetary policy for your "moneys value", when Bitcoin can collapse to 0 any time enough people lose interest in it for speculation
guess what, USD can go to 0 for all the same reasons Bitcoin can, plus one more - printing trillions of it. can't print trillions of Bitcoin by design, which is exactly why i and plenty others value it.
Couldn't the same be said about the US dollar? In fact there's no limit on that one. With the fractional reserve banking in place as todays standard the Federal Reserve just print more notes when needed to bail the banks. The whole system is based on trust. Trust does not scale well.
There are no infinite buyers and sellers. With intrinsic value I meant that there is something tangible you need or want. And the local supply of that thing. Which is determined by the effort of providing a thing. That is why beef in a farm town is cheaper than hundreds or thousands of miles away, as the whole chain of transportation and reselling adds cost.
> With intrinsic value I meant that there is something tangible you need or want
the whole idea of "intrinsic value" is that it is not tied to "needs and wants", because "needs and wants" is just another way of saying "market" and on a market there is only speculative value.
"intrinsic value" as a concept is used to derive valuation of a company based on it's assets, liabilities, etc - fundamentals, as opposed to market capitalization. taking the concept of intrinsic value out this context is meaningless because nothing in the universe has intrinsic value.
I see that you have an issue with determination of value, because you are describing it on the way you value things only. After you solve problem with understanding that the value of everything is relative you give a chance to bitcoin too.
You are saying that there are no infinite buyers and sellers, you are right but there are no infinite bitcoins too.
You are taking an example of beef cause you thing it has intrinsic value but let me tell you that in some states in India if they find you eating beef, they will even punish you for that.
Everything's value is relative based on the usage, and usage creates demand.
As conclusion, if community of libertarian will grow, Bitcoin's value will rise because demand will rise, if not, it is likely to fail.
But nothing is black and white, people will take sides and we will always have haters and lovers. There will always be enough bitcoin to serve people they want to use and not enough for the value to become zero.
You've confused intrinsic value of X with the cost of building X. Let me illustrate with an example.
A 1000 tonnes mountain of cow poo has near zero intrinsic value (perhaps even negative because it's a biohazard; people and government(s) are gonna get pissed and tell you to clean it up). That does not mean it didn't cost anything to create it, it was probably somewhat expensive to set up.
All his effort and the site is completely unusable on mobile Safari and barely/confusingly usable on mobile Firefox - I gave up about 20 seconds into it.
what’s the point of all the nerdiness if it’s unusable.
