Re:Bitcoin's Academic Pedigree
by imnotatwork on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @03:49PM
(#15135349)
The total is much more than the sum of the parts in this case. You get whole new dynamics that were unpredictable from the single parts.
Like saying that the first calculator was not a new kind of machine because valves existed and people made calculations before.
Prior to Bitcoin, there was NO distributed algorithm capable of maintaining an agreed-upon blockchain of transactions in perpetuity, in a manner resistant to attack by fraudulent nodes. Such an algorithm didn't exist prior to Bitcoin.
I think mayank wanted you to say "Bitcoin's peer-to-peer protocol, on the other hand, is a new distributed algorithm"
I can get on board with that :)
1. Peer-to-peer algorithms: BitTorrent would like a word with you.
2. Distributed consensus: Paxos would like a word with you.
3. Proof of work: hashcash would like a word with you.
That said, I find the Bitcoin paper to be a delightful synthesis of a bunch of well known ideas.