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Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

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Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#161

Post by knocte »

sktrdie wrote: post #158

All this "unconsensus" is weird to me given that PoW was created to fix just that. I don't understand how can any other group of people decide what should happen other than the miners. After all, anybody can be a miner. Anything other than that just doesn't make it decentralized anymore. If you trust the developers, exchanges or even users to make decisions, then why not just make a BitcoinSQL where the servers are c…

> anybody can be a miner

That is false, nowadays.

> Let's not forget that anybody can be a miner!

Even if you repeat a lie a thousand times, it's not going to become true :) Bitcoin's mining algorithm is so simple that mining industry has specialized too much, and now the best technology for it is ASICs. You cannot mine (or rather, it's nowhere near profitable) if you don't have access to this kind of hardware.

And of course, claiming that anybody can have access to this hardware is very very debatable. The best indicator of how this is not accessible by everybody is how centralized this industry is nowadays (just look at the correlation between ASIC manufacturers and owners of mining pools).

Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#162

Post by sktrdie »

knocte wrote: post #161
sktrdie wrote: post #158

All this "unconsensus" is weird to me given that PoW was created to fix just that. I don't understand how can any other group of people decide what should happen other than the miners. After all, anybody can be a miner. Anything other than that just doesn't make it decentralized anymore. If you trust the developers, exchanges or even users to make decisions, then why not just make a BitcoinSQL where the servers are c…

> anybody can be a miner That is false, nowadays. > Let's not forget that anybody can be a miner! Even if you repeat a lie a thousand times, it's not going to become true :) Bitcoin's mining algorithm is so simple that mining industry has specialized too much, and now the best technology for it is ASICs. You cannot mine (or rather, it's nowhere near profitable) if you don't have access to this kind of hardware. And o…

Why is it false? I didn't say "mining is profitable". I just said anybody can do it, and that's the key. Just like anybody can seed torrents without any incentive, or just like Tor nodes exist without any incentive.

Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#163

Post by simias »

iopq wrote: post #157
simias wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that only increasing block size forever (or simply removing the size limit) doesn't seem reasonable in the long run, are we sure that segwit and the off-chain scaling solutions proposed today will really solve the long-term scaling issues of BTC? All the practical "here's how lightning's going to work" papers I've read so far leave me very skeptical. Here's an example: http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/…

the incentive is that after you lock $50 in Bitcoins you get to spend $50 eventually for the same transaction fee so if the transaction fee is $0.50, you get to transact at 1% cost if you paid $0.50 for each coffee it would be 10%

Seems like a good deal for the coffee shop (you don't have to pay for the Visa fee and you get some free customer retention on top of it all) but as a customer what do I gain from that, practically speaking? The only thing I can think of is low fees if I'm traveling abroad. But if the fees are really very low then your incentive becomes void, I won't bother putting $50 in the coffee shop if it only saves me $0.001 in fees.

Can you really imagine how this would work IRL?

"-Here you go sir, that'll be $32 please."

"-OK, I'm paying it Bitcoins... Oh, you don't have an open channel, I'm going to create one... Mmh, but how much to I put in? Let's say $100, I'll probably buy here again next week. But will that be enough? What if my total is just above that next time? I'll have to pay the fee twice. I guess I'll just make sure not to go over $100."

"-We also accept cash, Visa and MasterCard sir."

Again, maybe it can work, it just feels so "theoretical" so far, I haven't seen anybody paint a convincing picture of a what a "Bitcoin as Visa replacement" world would look like concretely.

Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#164

Post by knocte »

sktrdie wrote: post #162
knocte wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anybody can be a miner That is false, nowadays. > Let's not forget that anybody can be a miner! Even if you repeat a lie a thousand times, it's not going to become true :) Bitcoin's mining algorithm is so simple that mining industry has specialized too much, and now the best technology for it is ASICs. You cannot mine (or rather, it's nowhere near profitable) if you don't have access to this kind of hardware. And o…

Why is it false? I didn't say "mining is profitable". I just said anybody can do it, and that's the key. Just like anybody can seed torrents without any incentive, or just like Tor nodes exist without any incentive.

Expanded a bit my answer.

IMVHO, ASIC hardware provides such a huge efficiency boost that even if everybody in this planet ran a mining raspberry pi, the ASIC manufacturers would maybe still own more than 51% of the hashrate.

Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#165

Post by zero_iq »

jpatokal wrote: post #20

Well, that's a remarkably uninformative announcement. Here's an attempt at a neutral tl;dr from a Bitcoin amateur. Bitcoin is currently suffering from significant scaling problems, which lead to high transaction fees. Numerous proposals to fix the scaling issue have been proposed, the two main camps being "increase the block size" and "muddle through by discarding less useful data" (aka Segregated Witness/SegWit). Ho…

I am rather stunned that the entire global bitcoin network, with its colossal combined computing power, and staggering electricity consumption, is only capable of sustaining 7 tps.

The level of inefficiency here is mind-boggling. Surely this must be one of the least efficient, least environmentally-friendly computing ventures ever?

Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#166

Post by joosters »

julian_1 wrote: post #75
zby wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably not possible to solve the scaling problems on-chain - a secure decentralized consensus on a global scale cannot be fast. Currently the bitcoin protocol processes about 7 transactions per second. Doubling the speed by doubling blocks will not make it much closer to the 50K transactions per second of a system like VISA. But it is probably possible to scale the transaction system off-chain - with https://…

A counter-argument is that the Lightening work is a proprietary development outside of bitcoin core (lead by Blockstream) and the work is even patent-encumbered. They state the ip is for defensive purposes only - however that is questionable given that anything they implement, automatically becomes prior-art. It is also contrary to the spirit and practice of the majority of crypto/alt projects. It is unreasonable to…

The 'lightning network' has been one of the promised solutions 'coming soon' for many years now. Except, no-one has solved all its problems yet. There remain difficult issues to do with routing of transactions, and some horrible money-losing behaviour if users don't stay online to protect their channels from being looted. On top of that, there's not enough space on the blockchain to allow everyone to open & close a payment channel anyway.

Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#167

Post by lawn »

knocte wrote: post #161
sktrdie wrote: post #158

All this "unconsensus" is weird to me given that PoW was created to fix just that. I don't understand how can any other group of people decide what should happen other than the miners. After all, anybody can be a miner. Anything other than that just doesn't make it decentralized anymore. If you trust the developers, exchanges or even users to make decisions, then why not just make a BitcoinSQL where the servers are c…

> anybody can be a miner That is false, nowadays. > Let's not forget that anybody can be a miner! Even if you repeat a lie a thousand times, it's not going to become true :) Bitcoin's mining algorithm is so simple that mining industry has specialized too much, and now the best technology for it is ASICs. You cannot mine (or rather, it's nowhere near profitable) if you don't have access to this kind of hardware. And o…

> And of course, claiming that anybody can have access to this hardware is very very debatable. The best indicator of how this is not accessible by everybody is how centralized this industry is nowadays (just look at the correlation between ASIC manufacturers and owners of mining pools).

Even if you repeat a lie a thousand times, it's not going to become true :)

https://coin.dance/blocks

Where is the centralization?

Also, the issue isn't as much ASICs as it is the free electricity in China.

Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#168

Post by jsn »

BenoitP wrote: post #144

To me, hashing power is not the process by which the outcome will be decided. IMHO, the percentage of technical signalling will not even matter that much. Two chains will get created quite quickly. And some BTC holders will try to take advantage of the situation. Since transactions can get replayed on the other chain (and copying them from one chain to the other brings a stability advantage) the technical way things…

Why do you think that being the exchange used for cashing out is a bad position to be for an exchange? My understanding is, exchanges earn money on commissions, so the more volume they get, the better, and cashing out sure is some volume. Those speculators who buy BTC on the wrong chain -- sure, they will take a hit on that. But the exchange itself will still get their commission just fine. Am I missing something here?

Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#169

Post by jancsika »

I haven't kept up with Bitcoin tech for awhile. Hopefully the following questions are relevant here:

1. What percentage of Bitcoin's PoW belongs to Bitmain?

2. Are the drivers for Bitmain's hardware free-as-in-freedom?

3. Is mining hardware in the same class as Bitmain's manufactured anywhere in the world other than China?

Edit: Bonus question: If all cutting edge hardware tends to be developed and manufactured in one particular spot in one particular nation state, and if Bitcoin mining efficiency now depends mainly upon the manufacture of newer, more powerful hardware, does that change any of the implicit assumptions made in the Bitcoin whitepaper? (Esp. considering that same nation state has put a hard speed limit on all data moving in/out its borders.)

Re: Bitcoin – Potential Network Disruption on July 31st

#170

Post by joosters »

rothbardrand wrote: post #111
rnhmjoj wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the cost? It was 36MB originally and it has been reduced to 1MB as a temporary measure to limit spam.

The cost is that larger blocks have difficulty crossing the great firewall of china and mining is already centralized there. I have seen this myself with a production blockchain and blocks that were less than 1mb. Increasing the size increases this effect and gives Chinese miners and artificial advantage. Plus there's no congestion on the network right now. There's not a scaling problem. It was spam. Further, segwit…

'The great firewall of china' isn't someone manually inspecting every byte that enters and leaves china, it can manage more than a 1mb transaction just fine. And, even if the delays were more than minuscule, how does it favour one side over the other? Both sides have the same delay.

Plus there's no congestion on the network right now. There's not a scaling problem. It was spam.

Woohoo! No need for anyone to do anything then. Remind me again why everyone is trying to scale bitcoin?

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