[Robin Linus Realizes Satoshi's Unfinished Poker Vision, Bitcoin Poker Requires Over 56,000 Transaction Tree Nodes] Odaily Planet Daily News: Researcher Robin Linus has released the Bitcoin Poker protocol, expanding the unfinished poker interface left in Bitcoin's early code by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 into a functional solution. The protocol enables two players to play Texas Hold'em without a dealer, using Bitcoin's existing rules to handle gameplay and fund settlement. Bitcoin Poker generates card hands through secret information provided by both parties, producing only the 9 cards needed for each game. It ensures fair dealing through cryptographic commitments and zero-knowledge proofs. The protocol can check for duplicate cards, with the probability of a randomly generated game passing verification being approximately 48%, requiring an average of 2.08 attempts. The protocol pre-constructs a transaction tree for all possible game outcomes, with a reference configuration containing 56,132 logical nodes and approximately 8.4 MB of prepared data. Regular gameplay occurs off-chain, with transactions only used to resolve disputes in case of cooperation breakdown. If one party refuses to continue, a timeout mechanism can settle the committed pot after a specified delay and return the unused balance to the departing party, though it cannot force players to reveal their cards. This design does not require modifications to Bitcoin's consensus rules, supports only two participants, and still requires independent security audits. (Bitcoin.com News)