Xueba's Sea of ​​Stars

Chapter 183 Old Classmates

Entering the P2P network, in order to protect your bitcoins from being taken away by others at will, you must need a password.

And Bitcoin's password is powerful.

Everyone will first have a randomly generated number, this number is between 0-2 to the 256th power, and the number of occurrences may be more than the number of atoms in the entire universe, so it is impossible for top hackers to decipher it , extremely high security.

Then came a 58-ary algorithm called base58.

What is 58 base, for example, binary is 0 and 1, decimal is 0 to 9, and hexadecimal is based on the addition of six letters AF to decimal.

The 58 base system contains numbers, lowercase English letters and uppercase English letters.

Using this algorithm to turn the random number mentioned before into a string looks similar to those "mysterious codes", but it is much more complicated.

The resulting string is your private key, which is your "account password"

Now that you have a password, you must have an account. On the basis of the private key, a public key is calculated through an elliptic curve ECPOINT algorithm. This is your account.

Finally, based on the public key, an algorithm is used to calculate a relatively short string as your address, and you can start the transaction.

If you need to collect money, tell the address to the other party. If you want to pay, you need to tell others your public key and address. The function of the public key is to check whether the address is yours.

It is impossible to deduce the private key from the public key, the number is too large.

"The safer the transaction method, the more complicated it is." After listening to the core mechanism of Bitcoin, Wu Bin said with emotion, and then asked: "Then how to solve the problem of inflation?"

"Simple." Li Yan snapped his fingers, "The number of bitcoins is limited, and this mechanism that controls the speed and quantity of its issuance is called mining."

"A specific algorithm?" Wu Bin asked.

"Well, almost, since there are a lot of transactions, someone has to sort out the ledger. In Bitcoin, this ledger is called a blockchain, and each block corresponds to a bill. Any transaction information and transfer records are recorded here. in the blockchain."

"Every time point, the Bitcoin system will generate a random code on the system node. All computers in the Internet can look for this code. Whoever finds this code will generate a block and then get a Bitcoin. , This process is what people often call mining.”

Speaking of this, Li Yan tapped the graphics card configuration on Wu Bin's computer screen and said, "And this algorithm is where the graphics card is used."

"Compare the version number of this block, the hash value of the previous block, the transaction address, the update time and the current difficulty with a random number X to perform the sha256 function operation, and the Sha256 function can encrypt any string to obtain A 64-bit hexadecimal number."

"If the final number is less than the given target value, it is a success and a bitcoin will be rewarded."

"Oh, by the way, this mined bitcoin is not the same '1' as you heard that one can be sold for thousands of dollars. This bitcoin is based on the current data structure and is divided into 8 Small digits."

"So it's 0.00000001?" Wu Bin thought for a while and said.

Li Yan nodded: "Yes, it is estimated that by 2140, 2100 million bitcoins will be issued, veritable gold mountains, gold mountains that everyone can dig." After speaking, Li Yan suddenly shook his head: "It's a pity, this was originally It’s an interesting math problem, but it’s been monopolized by the mining farm now, and the ‘decentralization’, ‘everyone is equal’ and ‘computing democracy’ imagined by the founder have all become bubbles.”

After recalling, Wu Bin uninstalled Bitcoin Miner silently. Originally, he was thinking about whether he could develop a better algorithm to calculate the result faster.

However, in the end, he discovered that the so-called mining algorithm, which sounds extremely complicated, is actually just guessing numbers, fixed and simple, and there is nothing that can be improved.

There is only one way to get in this so-called "mining" game, and that is to find the hardware that executes the algorithm the most times per unit time. In addition, it is also very difficult to cheat in this seemingly fair game. Simply, whoever has the most hardware like this has the best chance of winning the game first.

When Bitcoin was first born, everyone could indeed use the CPU of a home computer to mine.

It's a pity that as long as it is a beneficial thing, someone must come up with cheating.

In 2010, a hardware engineer discovered that there was a specific computing component in the GPU chip produced by AMD, which could speed up the key step of guessing numbers.

Therefore, the "GPU mining machine" assembled by multiple GPUs quickly eliminated ordinary computer mining machines. This is why graphics cards were different from other computer hardware in those years. The price often rose instead of falling, and it was always out of stock.

Later, even more terrifying FPGA mining machines appeared, which further eliminated unnecessary image computing hardware units in the GPU, so that the "mining" efficiency was greatly improved again.

Finally, the mine with 20000 "mining machines" joined the "game", announcing the complete end of the era of individual players.

"Sigh~ Sure enough, we have to seize the opportunity for everything. When everyone knows, we can't beat those rich and powerful brothers."

Seeing the successful uninstallation of Bitcoin Miner, Wu Bin sighed and continued to write his code silently.

During the rest of the winter vacation, Wu Bin would often take a few books and go to the park to sit with the cats for an afternoon. Sometimes when Fang Qing came, the two of them would just nod and smile at each other, and then he would read books, and she would draw cats. ...also draw people.

During the Chinese New Year, under the organization of Gu Fan, the study group established by Class Three centered on Wu Bin will go to the teachers' homes to pay New Year's greetings.

At the bus station on Shangbei Road, Gu Fan, who was wearing a ski jacket, saw Wu Bin who was standing next to the station reading a book from a distance, shook his head, sighed, "It hasn't changed", and ran over.

"Happy New Year, Xuewu Wu."

Gu Fan, who slapped Wu Bin hard from behind, said hello.

Wu Bin, who was staggered after being photographed, did not fight back. He stood firm and shook his head, looked at Gu Fan and said, "Childish."

This made Gu Fan, who had already thought about how to defend against Wu Bin's counterattack, a little embarrassed. It felt as if Wu Bin had become a mature college student, while he was still a high school kid.

And just when Gu Fan was embarrassed and didn't know how to answer the next sentence, the book in Wu Bin's hand hit him on the head.

"Happy New Year, scumbag Gu."

"Pfft, that's fine, pretend to be deep with me, right?" Gu Fan, who reacted instantly, locked Wu Bin's neck.

While the two were fighting, another familiar voice came into their ears.

"You are all college students, can you stop being so embarrassing on the street?"

The two turned their heads and saw that it was Xu Hao, and beside him was a girl they were also very familiar with.

PS: It's not cool... The company has asked for a month's leave. There are a lot of things to deal with in the past few days. I really don't have time. Now it's all done, and the stable update will resume.

PS2: In fact, there are many interesting sayings about Bitcoin mines. If there are still students who are interested, I will find an opportunity to write about it later.

(End of this chapter)