Cryptography Mailing List

Bitcoin v0.1 released

Announcing the first release of Bitcoin, a new electronic cash

system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent double-spending.

It's completely decentralized with no server or central authority.



See bitcoin.org for screenshots.



Download link:

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/bitcoin/bitcoin-0.1.0.rar



Windows only for now. Open source C++ code is included.



- Unpack the files into a directory

- Run BITCOIN.EXE

- It automatically connects to other nodes



If you can keep a node running that accepts incoming connections,

you'll really be helping the network a lot. Port 8333 on your

firewall needs to be open to receive incoming connections.



The software is still alpha and experimental. There's no guarantee

the system's state won't have to be restarted at some point if it

becomes necessary, although I've done everything I can to build in

extensibility and versioning.



You can get coins by getting someone to send you some, or turn on

Options->Generate Coins to run a node and generate blocks. I made

the proof-of-work difficulty ridiculously easy to start with, so

for a little while in the beginning a typical PC will be able to

generate coins in just a few hours. It'll get a lot harder when

competition makes the automatic adjustment drive up the difficulty.

Generated coins must wait 120 blocks to mature before they can be

spent.



There are two ways to send money. If the recipient is online, you

can enter their IP address and it will connect, get a new public

key and send the transaction with comments. If the recipient is

not online, it is possible to send to their Bitcoin address, which

is a hash of their public key that they give you. They'll receive

the transaction the next time they connect and get the block it's

in. This method has the disadvantage that no comment information

is sent, and a bit of privacy may be lost if the address is used

multiple times, but it is a useful alternative if both users can't

be online at the same time or the recipient can't receive incoming

connections.



Total circulation will be 21,000,000 coins. It'll be distributed

to network nodes when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half

every 4 years.



first 4 years: 10,500,000 coins

next 4 years: 5,250,000 coins

next 4 years: 2,625,000 coins

next 4 years: 1,312,500 coins

etc...



When that runs out, the system can support transaction fees if

needed. It's based on open market competition, and there will

probably always be nodes willing to process transactions for free.



Satoshi Nakamoto





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