Bitcoin Marketcap
$1.86T
Gold Marketcap
$16.15T
BTC Settlement Volume (24hr)
$12.90B
BTC Inflation Rate (next 1yr)
1.17%
CASEBITCOIN making the case for bitcoin every day
Bitcoin Marketcap
$1.86T
Gold Marketcap
$16.15T
BTC Settlement Volume (24hr)
$12.90B
BTC Inflation Rate (next 1yr)
1.17%
CASEBITCOIN making the case for bitcoin every day
15 Aug 2004 | | Price when published: (n/a)
Hal Finney's RPOW system is an interesting pre-cursor to bitcoin. It solved the double-spending problem by using servers with hardware that cryptographically verifies the code that's running (allowing anyone to verify that the server is doing what it says it's doing). This prevents tampering with coins, thus, in theory, allowing users to "trust" the server.
This was a noteworthy advance in the ~25yr search for viable decentralized money, but still did not solve the issue of fairly creating and distributing the initial supply of coins. That would have to wait until Satoshi Nakamoto (note that Mr. Finney is an often-cited "satoshi candidate") put all the pieces together in the bitcoin whitepaper 4 years later.
Normally POW tokens can't be reused because that would allow them to be double-spent. But RPOW allows for a limited form of reuse: sequential reuse. This lets a POW token be used once, then exchanged for a new one, which can again be used once, then once more exchanged, etc. This approach makes POW tokens more practical for many purposes and allows the effective cost of a POW token to be raised while still allowing systems to use them effectively.
This is useful functionality, but the unique feature of the RPOW system is its approach to security. RPOW is the first public implementation of a server designed to allow users throughout the world to verify its correctness and integrity in real time.
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