Bitcoin is "invention" and "civilization"

There is no doubt that Bitcoin is a great invention of mankind, and such an invention can be compared with a steam engine. However, unlike steam engines, Bitcoin relies more on human cooperation to operate freely. People are still the mainstay of this transformation. That is to say, people are not weakened by the emergence of bitcoin - the most unstable element (such as the industrial era, the machine replaces people). In a sense, if the steam engine is more of a power substitute, it is a great invention; and bitcoin is more of an institutional optimization, a great civilization evolution.

The contribution of Bitcoin to human civilization is reflected in the breakthrough solution to the "double spend" problem. "Double spend" is the core problem of encrypting digital currency. The so-called "double spend", the popular analogy is "piracy" - you can copy a number of copies of your data, music, video and other data files to anyone. For Bitcoin, if "piracy" exists, you can spend the same amount of money several times.

Bitcoin solves the "double spend" problem through multiple mechanisms such as global ledger and miner verification.

The blockchain is actually a global book. The existence of this book shows the fact that how much money is in one of your accounts, and everyone on Earth knows that you can't spend money that doesn't belong to you. You sign the private key to prove that a certain amount of money is yours.

Miner verification, including two parts, the first part is to verify that you are spending your money; the second part is the miner who gets the bookkeeping right, record your expenses to the blockchain - this global book, let Everyone can check, so you can't spend the second time.

Verification is a veritable invention. Signature data and script execution form the core of the verification mechanism. "Lock-unlock" is an algorithmic expression of "income-expenditure". The private key is signed to unlock the function, which proves that the money is my income, I can spend it on it, who pays it, who will provide a new lock, and so on.

Of course, you can continue to spend money that has already been spent. Perhaps, your second cost is recorded in the blockchain earlier than the first cost, so that the first cost cannot be verified and it is impossible to record it in the blockchain. The way to solve this problem is time. If you are a seller, even if the buyer has found payment and has been recorded in the blockchain. You'd better wait another 60 minutes, because the Bitcoin blockchain will generate a block every 10 minutes, and after 60 minutes there will be 6 blocks. If you find that your payment still exists in the blockchain. You can safely ship the goods. Of course, this is an inconvenience, and some cryptocurrency wallets have developed multi-signature payments, through the wallet as a third-party guarantee - this money will not be spent a second time - to ensure that users will receive every wallet paid A sum of money.

Or, you can use your miner to record the money you spend again. This involves blockchain attacks. When you find that the X+1 block has successfully recorded your first cost. You are so mourning that you want to spend this money again. Of course you know that other miners will no longer record your spending again on the blockchain. So you do the miners yourself, mine yourself, and regenerate the X+1 block. At this time, you are competing with all the miners on the whole network, and the chances of success are very small, unless you have 51% of the total network. However, if you have such a computing power, you are not bothered to do this kind of "stealing the dog and touching the dog", because relying on such powerful computing power, you can get more bitcoin in a brighter way. If you insist on a mining attack, once successful, everyone will lose trust in Bitcoin, and the collapse of the network may become a reality in an instant. At that time, you will also suffer losses. Obviously, this is a game without a winner.

Reason has become the last line of defense for human greed. From a realistic point of view, such a line of defense is still strong, and there have been no reports of mining attacks on Bitcoin.

Maybe you have already discovered. Bitcoin, the contribution to the progress of human civilization is not achieved through moral advocacy and legal regulation. Bitcoin, calmly face the "double spend", using mathematical methods, technical means to solve it. Of course, such a plan may not be perfect, but at least it tells us a possibility: social civilization can be promoted through invention, and the effect is not bad. Perhaps, civilization and invention are in common and mutually reinforcing.