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Re: Citation of your b-money page


From: Satoshi Nakamoto
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 11:17 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Citation of your b-money page

I wanted to let you know, I just released the full implementation of the
paper I sent you a few months ago, Bitcoin v0.1.  Details, download and
screenshots are at www.bitcoin.org

I think it achieves nearly all the goals you set out to solve in your
b-money paper.

The system is entirely decentralized, without any server or trusted
parties.  The network infrastructure can support a full range of escrow
transactions and contracts, but for now the focus is on the basics of
money and transactions.

There was a discussion of the design on the Cryptography mailing list.
Hal Finney gave a good high-level overview:
| One thing I might mention is that in many ways bitcoin is two independent
| ideas: a way of solving the kinds of problems James lists here, of
| creating a globally consistent but decentralized database; and then using
| it for a system similar to Wei Dai's b-money (which is referenced in the
| paper) but transaction/coin based rather than account based. Solving the
| global, massively decentralized database problem is arguably the harder
| part, as James emphasizes. The use of proof-of-work as a tool for this
| purpose is a novel idea well worth further review IMO.

Satoshi