
The Noteblock – Roses will wither, but the Blockchain is forever - zaptheimpaler
http://www.thenoteblock.com/
======
DanAndersen
I wonder what happens when someone adds copyright-infringing material into the
blockchain. Seems like governments would be all too ready to consider all
Bitcoin users to be pirates, and they tend to be less understanding of the
concept of something being unremovable from the Internet.

~~~
sida
Umm, good point. I don't have an answer for that. But considering it will cost
you about 60c to store a 100 byte payload, I am not sure what copyright
infringment material you can put in there. Probably none.

So for now, I will say I don't feel like this is of a concern

~~~
sspiff
Many illegal numbers can be stored for a trivial amount of money.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number)

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schmichael
Isn't this just needless blockchain spam? Seems like the blockchain is getting
huge enough without spammy messaging transactions like these.

~~~
sida
Well, This was inspired by the upcoming v0.9 release which makes OP_RETURN
(allows you to create immediately prunable output to attach message bytes) a
standard transaction output in Bitcoin. And when does get released we will
move to use OP_RETURN instead of creating messaging outputs.

So back to your question, do I think this is spammy? No, because this project
will never generate enough transactions to matter in the slightest bit to the
size of the blockchain. However, I feel the project is important to
demonstrate a point which is this:

Bitcoin as a programmable currency protocol has enormous potentials beyond
just sending transactions. And OP_RETURN (when it does become standard) has
important implications for smart contracts, using Bitcoin transactions to
prove / transfer ownership. The objective of this project is to raise
awareness in that area. And make developers realise the potential in a fun way
on Valentine's Day.

At most, I would say using hash160 output to attach messages is not an elegant
way to do this compares when OP_RETURN does become standard. But I believe
this awareness that we generate is far more important to Bitcoin development.

~~~
schmichael
It seems dangerous to encourage people to use the Bitcoin blockchain for
messaging at all as even if this implementation has little traffic, future
work may only encourage more messaging.

It seems if people want to use blockchain technology for messaging, they
should create a _new_ blockchain and not clutter Bitcoin's.

This chart is scary enough without throwing new use cases into the blockchain
(e.g. messaging) that have nothing to do with Bitcoin transactions:
[https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-
size?timespan=all](https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=all)

~~~
sida
I must say I disagree with you although I do see your point.

I don't believe that people will use the Blockchain for messaging. It will
cost you 60c per message. I certainly wouldn't use it for messaging.

I think the implication is being able to use OP_RETURN (which btw does not add
to the size of the blockchain because it is immediately provably prunable) and
people will be able to attach payload onto a transaction. This will be
important for this currency to be far more powerful beyond just sending money
around.

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chrisBob
As I understand it there is no fee for a 1BTC transfer. Is there anything
stopping me from sending 1BTC back and forth between two wallets, as a means
of recording permanent messages?

~~~
sida
This is actually not possible with this particular system right now. Because
you will need to send to particular outputs for messaging.

But if you do it with OP_RETURN then yes, you should be able to do that.

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deft
Neat site! The dialog box stays open after clicking "How it Works" though.
Thought I'd let you know (assuming you're the creator of this) Firefox 24.3.0
on Linux x86

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TrainedMonkey
I like how they judge contributions by amount of money people send. Growth
hacking right thing.

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jonpaul
Looks cool! How are you actually embedding messages into the blockchain?

~~~
sida
hey, that's a good question. Each standard Bitcoin address is a derivation of
the 20 bytes `hash160`. This allows us to embed an arbitrary 20 bytes message
in each output. When you put together a message, we build and propagation a
transaction where your message is matched by the hash160s of the outputs.

You can see more here: [http://www.thenoteblock.com/how-it-
works](http://www.thenoteblock.com/how-it-works)

~~~
hendzen
Please don't do this, as it pollutes the UTXO set and makes it more expensive
to run a full node, which reduces decentralization. Please use an OP_RETURN,
provably unspendable output if you want to embed data in the blockchain. As a
bonus, you can embed 80 bytes, rather than 20.

~~~
locksley
Not all miners are relaying OP_RETURN transactions. The plan is the use
OP_RETURN once v0.9 is released.

We were hoping it would've been released before 14th Feb, however that's not
the case.

~~~
hendzen
BTCGuild now mines OP_RETURN - so there's nothing preventing you from using
it.

EDIT: As does eligus (they have always accepted nonstandard transactions).

~~~
sida
We were aware that some miners did mine OP_RETURN.

We do have plans to move this. We previously decided against because we felt
it might take too long for the transaction to get confirmed and wanted to at
least wait til there is at least 50% pool market share that mines OP_RETURN.

On second thought, we might move to OP_RETURN in the next week, I will certain
evaluate this a bit more tonight.

The backup plan is still to move to OP_RETURN once v0.9 is adopted or more
miners start accepting OP_RETURN

~~~
jnbiche
Please move to OP_RETURN ASAP. Right now, you're making money off the storage
of 1000s of people like me running bitcoind, with no ability to remove your
messages.

If people are really wanting something to be stored forever, is an extra hour
or two really going to matter? BTCGuild is accepting OP_RETURN, along with
several small outfits like Eligius, so it won't take days on end to confirm.

~~~
sida
\-- you're making money off the storage of 1000s of people like me running
bitcoind

Not making any money actually. Project is open sourced too

\-- OP_RETURN

Will probably move on the weekend.

