Re:A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail
by tlrobinson on Wednesday November 27, 2013 @08:36PM
(#6812523)
"my ability to spend bitcoins "held" in my address is contingent on my having additional information at the time that I post the transaction."
Fortunately software excels at automating tasks like this.
You already need software to scan the entire blockchain to determine address balances, is it really that hard for it to keep track of non-trivial unspent transactions separately?
Re:A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail
by andrewla on Thursday November 28, 2013 @04:32PM
(#6816577)
Yes, software can automate the task of redemption for specific types of transactions. But not being able to answer the question "how many bitcoins are at this address" seems to be very problematic.
Instead, you'll have a ton of publisher clearing house style "you just received a million bitcoins" notifications, once they enable more of the language in the client. It just seems confusing and unnecessary.
Re:A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail
by dwaltrip on Wednesday November 27, 2013 @06:39PM
(#6812019)
Can't one just simply check the nature of the transaction to see if it has any conditionals? It isn't hard to imagine those features being added to blockchain related web services, such as blockchain.info.
In fact, I would argue that the script functionality is a huge flaw in bitcoin, probably the largest flaw. The existence of a scripting language within the transaction log makes it much more difficult to analyze whether I hold bitcoins or not -- my ability to spend bitcoins "held" in my address is contingent on my having additional information at the time that I post the transaction.
Having a generic proof-of-work-chain-based cumulative notary service might be valuable in and of itself. But bitcoin's value as "money" is independent of that functionality, and in the long run, the complexity of that scripting language and the difficulty of answering the question "have I been paid" will become problematic.