- Explicitly describe what BIPs are before we start dropping references
to them.
- Mention that addresses don't encode a message, so using a unique
address that the receiver has privately associated with a spender is
the only guaranteed way to identify payments from that spender.
- Correct how many blocks need to elapse before an output can be spent
by an input with a relative lock time.
- Many other small edits.
- Mention the reason for the long validation time is the verification of
transactions. We previously implied it was download time, but some
people have really fast internet.
- Better describe bitcoind cookie authentication and provide an example
to make it even more clear.
- Add a link to bitcoin-s
- Make the long sidebar on collision attacks even longer by descripting
a pre-image attack in addition to the previous descriptions of second
pre-image and collision. That way we don't conflate pre-image and
second pre-image.
- Remove redundant tip box about an oddity in language about compressed
and uncompressed private keys.
- Link to information about vanity address "mining" (brute forcing)
Bitcoin Core works fine as a wallet (and I personally use it). Although
it doesn't implement BIP39, it does implement BIP32 and many other
standards, including some significant improvements over other wallets
(such as descriptors and HWI support ). It's also the easiest way to
take advantage of the additional verification and privacy advantages of
running a full node.
- Move "don't need to rely on third parties" to the top of the list
- Add the privacy benefit of a full node
- Clarify that running a full node only makes the network more robust if
you use it to verify your own wallet transactions
- Update resource requirements to their 2023 figures (and mention that
they may increase in the future).
- Be more precise about the minimal data a node needs, e.g. disk space
requirements with pruning enabled and bandwidth in blocks-only mode.
- Mention bandwidth alternatives, like Blockstream Satellite
- Drop text about running on a VPS, since that's not useful to the
network and not sure for anyone using a wallet.
- Add just a few words so users know what the "d" in bitcoind and the
"Unix" in build-unix.md stand for.
- Since the last update to this text, there are instructions for many
more platforms available, so rewrite final sentence to alert users to
them.
- Previous text said Bitcoin (Core) was "completed" before the Nakamoto
paper was written, but Nakamoto sent unfinished code to Hal Finney and
others after the paper was published but prior to the public software
release, suggesting Bitcoin wasn't completed at that time. This also
ignores the two updates (at least) which Nakamoto made to the Bitcoin
paper after the network was started. It also seems much more likely
to me that parts of the code and the paper were written in tandem.
Update text to say "mostly completed" and "published".
- Drop word "authoritative" from the description of Bitcoin Core as a
reference implementation. There's no authority here.
- Change problematic "full network node" language; see edits to previous
chapters.
The commit ab5ae32bae is the last commit
for the second edition, so all changes since then are dropped except for
several commits for the third edition authored by Andreas Antonopoulos.
No attempt is made to remove CC-BY-SA or other licensed content present
in the already-published first or second editions.
This revert may itself be reverted for versions of the book published
under CC-BY-SA.
- Update link to new libbitcoin repo
- https for bcoin
- Remove Bits of Proof, whose site was purchased
- Update the link to the fork of pybitcointools that was maintained by the community after Vitalik ended support
