Electronic money

[Jon Ribbens]

On Sun, Dec 07, 2014 at 02:56:30PM -0000, Charles Lindsey wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Dec 2014 10:45:43 -0000, Ben Laurie <ben at links.org> wrote:
> >On Sun Dec 07 2014 at 10:21:35 AM Charles Lindsey <chl at clerew.man.ac.uk>
> >wrote:
> >>AIUI, if you mine a bitcoin (and coincidentally someone else mines the
> >>same one), then the first to register it in the Ledger takes preference
> >>(AFAIK, the mineable bitcoins have no predefined order).
> >
> >Clearly you don't understand it: longest chain wins.
> 
> Maybe not, but then I suspect neither do you.
>
> >Also, what is this "the" Ledger you register first in?
> 
> The Ledger is officially known as the Block Chain. AIUI when you discover a
> new Bitcoin, you add it to the block chain (after which you can spend it,
> such transaction also being recorded in the chain). If somebody else
> discovers the same Bitcoin, it cannot be added to the chain, since it is
> already there.

I'm not sure you're getting the hang of this whole "decentralised" thing.