<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">I found this article particularly helpful early on:<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><a href="http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoins-hard-way-using-raw-bitcoin.html" class="">http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoins-hard-way-using-raw-bitcoin.html</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Mar 8, 2017, at 1:34 AM, Joe Armstrong <<a href="mailto:erlang@gmail.com" class="">erlang@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">To answer my own question(s)<br class=""><br class="">I found this <a href="https://bitslog.wordpress.com/" class="">https://bitslog.wordpress.com/</a><br class="">which has the answer to many of these questions - the forensic<br class="">analysis of the first few thousand bitcoins makes a very interesting<br class="">read<br class=""><br class="">/Joe<br class=""><br class="">On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 8:13 AM, Joe Armstrong <<a href="mailto:erlang@gmail.com" class="">erlang@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">Thanks Steve,<br class=""><br class="">The code looks great - nicely written :-)<br class=""><br class="">Next step - download the first 20 blocks and *completely* understand them.<br class=""><br class="">BTW - I have a few really stupid questions:<br class=""><br class="">I guess these have been answered before and elsewhere,<br class="">so I'm just like hints as to where to find the answers.<br class=""><br class="">- How did Satoshi Nakamoto (SN) publish/spread the first bitcoins?<br class="">- Does a bitcoin user have to download the entire bitcoin chain to do anything?<br class="">- How much data does an owner of a bitcoin need to store locally<br class=""> (just their Private key and the hash of the bitcoin???)<br class="">- How did SN spend the first bitcoins (did he just give them away)<br class="">- How much is the residual value of SN's coins<br class="">- How does bitcoin scale into the future - can we make cutoff points<br class=""> and assume we don't need to go back to the genesis block - ie<br class=""> assume the genesis block is number 1,000,000 and not bother to go back<br class=""> further<br class=""><br class="">Cheers<br class=""><br class="">/Joe<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 1:51 AM, Steve Davis<br class=""><<a href="mailto:steven.charles.davis@gmail.com" class="">steven.charles.davis@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">Hi Joe,<br class=""><br class="">You might find this repo helpful:<br class=""><br class=""><a href="https://github.com/solarbit/pool/tree/master/lib" class="">https://github.com/solarbit/pool/tree/master/lib</a><br class=""><br class="">In particular, downloading and parsing old blocks in this:<br class=""><br class="">https://github.com/solarbit/pool/blob/master/lib/solarbit/src/sbt_btc_srv.erl<br class=""><br class="">I have more code related, so if there were something particular missing, let<br class="">me know and I’d be happy to share.<br class=""><br class="">BR,<br class="">/sd<br class=""></blockquote></blockquote></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>