Piotr Piasecki
More from this author
Tau-Chain – a programmer’s perspective
Living in the Bitcoin land, you never know what you might come across next. It could be as benign as someone issuing a currency backed by pre-1965 silver US dimes, as geeky as someone creating a blockchain to mine for prime numbers, or it could be as convoluted as BitShares with the many iterations it had over the years (as someone put it - "BitSharesX - An Alt Coin That Is Impossible To Understand"). Over the last few months, I've been seeing a lot of spam about Tau-Chain, along with its many extravagant claims, and figured it might be interesting to try to understand it.
Bitcoin rivals
While Bitcoin might not compete against Gold or USD, it can still catch the attention of some [gold bugs](http://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-catches-on-with-gold-bugs-1463959897), [internet sellers](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3dsyj6/the_backpage_effect), or [the unbankables](http://tpbit.blogspot.ca/2014/10/for-unbankables.html). Bitcoin might be too small to compete in the primary markets of companies like PayPal or Western Union, but it seems to be catching up in the more fringe markets.
Bitcoin moderation – three years in review
In the past few months the moderation of /r/Bitcoin has become a contentious issue. Ever since the ban on discussion of alt-clients like BitcoinXT, the community seems to have fractured into a few camps, sometimes vilifying one another. I was asked to clarify where I stand on this and a few other issues, so I might as well roll a few /r/Bitcoin-related topics into a blog post for future reference.
Alternative means of settling with bitcoin
Bitcoin has recently experienced another "stress test," in form of a lot of transaction spam. Along with the continuous debate on whether or not to increase the Bitcoin block size, a lot of people have started looking at the potential outcomes of the situation.
Positive and negative proofs in blockchain audits
As the old logical fallacy goes -[ you can't prove a negative](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Negative_proof), and[ absence of evidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance#Absence_of_evidence) is not[ evidence of absence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence). While for a long time this might've been true in various financial audits - you could only prove that some invoice existed, not that there were no invoices you missed.
21 Bitcoin Computer – the Macintosh of Bitcoin
It looks like the 21 Bitcoin Computer began shipping recently, for us$400 apiece. We also got a few extra bits of information from the 21.co website, about some features of the machine and the ecosystem in general.
Bitcoin technology can be used to reimplement and possibly improve upon the banking system
There are many practical applications of blockchain technology for banks and other financial institutions. Failing to embrace the new technology[ might make the old network obsolete](http://tpbit.blogspot.ca/2014/12/crypto-success-vs-bitcoin-success.html).
