Re:Bitcoin is Unsustainable?
by iopq on Tuesday June 30, 2015 @02:49AM
(#9803391)
Bitcoin is a distributed ledger of all transactions.
Alice mines 100 BTC. That "mining" transaction is recorded on the ledger and distributed to all the other miners and they accept it because it has the correct math behind it. Bob wants to buy 100 BTC because he wants to deposit to an online poker site and the regulations don't allow him to deposit using a credit card. He goes to Alice in person and gives Alice USD and Alice transfers Bob 100 BTC.
Carol mines the block that contains the transaction. Carol gets some BTC for mining and also verifies that the transaction from Alice to Bob is legitimate because it was signed by Alice. Therefore, since Carol mined a legitimate block it's accepted by all the miners. Now all miners agree that Bob has 100 BTC.
The answer for all of this is math. Cryptography proves that these things happened.
Alice mines 100 BTC. That "mining" transaction is recorded on the ledger and distributed to all the other miners and they accept it because it has the correct math behind it. Bob wants to buy 100 BTC because he wants to deposit to an online poker site and the regulations don't allow him to deposit using a credit card. He goes to Alice in person and gives Alice USD and Alice transfers Bob 100 BTC.
Carol mines the block that contains the transaction. Carol gets some BTC for mining and also verifies that the transaction from Alice to Bob is legitimate because it was signed by Alice. Therefore, since Carol mined a legitimate block it's accepted by all the miners. Now all miners agree that Bob has 100 BTC.
The answer for all of this is math. Cryptography proves that these things happened.