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Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

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Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#241

Post by NicoJuicy »

herbst wrote: post #199
numbers_guy wrote: post #174

According to the article the majority of hashing power is situated in China, so China does control Bitcoin after all. So people are gambling their life savings on a coin controlled by the CCP.

Kinda far stretched for a decentralized curreny to call it controlled by someone. Everbody of us can see themselfs that there hasnt been a 51% attack next to many reasons why we likely wont see one with BTC

He's talking about >51% is mined by chinese miners. It's not farfetched, because it's true.

There were already measures to prevent a 51% attack https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GHash.io

Just because it happened yet, doesn't mean it's not possible. They are currently earning plenty with it.

You're free to explain "next to many reasons", what those are...

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#242

Post by papito »

jabbany wrote: post #94
dehrmann wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking too small on the impact--China doesn't need to double spend bitcoins. What they could do is cause a loss of confidence in Bitcoin overnight and collapse the price.

How is that even remotely strategically good for China......? These miners are probably making USD or some other foreign fiat at the end of the day which adds to the supply of foreign reserves without needing to use trade... And if they're siphoning power to get around currency exchange limits moving wealth abroad then a traditional crackdown to confiscate their equipment would be much more effective (you can't exact…

Governments that are actually tech savvy will realize that the cons of an uncontrollable, non-taxable currency are absolutely epic.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#243

Post by rauljordan2020 »

mrfusion wrote: post #237
tarsinge wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum POS chain is live and the migration of the main chain is planned for the end of the year.

Where can I learn more about this assuming I have an 85-90 IQ?

https://decrypt.co/resources/what-is-ethereum-2-0

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#244

Post by Majromax »

betterunix2 wrote: post #239
cortic wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to turn electricity into money is not the problem, or if it is, then lump all of modern endeavors in capitalism alongside of Bitcoin. The problem is we (the world) are not effectively taxing carbon emissions. Right now it should be unprofitable to use coal or oil energy. If this was done right, Bitcoin would be a massive stimulus to renewables.

How is Bitcoin a boon to renewables? Bitcoin consumes energy, and that energy is not being used for other things. Taxing one form of energy will just mean everything that uses energy becomes more expensive; Bitcoin fees would rise or mining operations would simply move to places without the tax. The actual problem is that Bitcoin's incentive structure works against energy efficiency. Usually we would expect to see im…

> How is Bitcoin a boon to renewables? Bitcoin consumes energy, and that energy is not being used for other things.

The utopian view is that not all energy is currently being used for other things. On grids with heavy penetration of renewables, peak production can overwhelm demand, causing bulk power to become effectively free.

In a suitably regulated environment, bitcoin or an equivalent could act as a last-resort user of such power. Doing so would provide a baseline demand for excess generation, effectively subsidizing renewable buildout.

This effect becomes stronger with carbon taxes, which would make non-renewable power comparatively much more expensive and effectively reduce bitcoining-demand from such sources relative to renewables.

However, the non-utopian view is that this possible arbitrage is global, not local. Through bad regulation, corrupt governments, or outright theft, miners somewhere on the planet can access power even more cheaply than from the excess renewables contemplated above.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#245

Post by ravenstine »

oefrha wrote: post #72

A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828479

That may be true, but the toothpaste is out of the tube. If we can't abruptly stop the use of fossil fuels to stop climate change, I don't think any amount of pointing out how much energy BTC uses is going to change the fact that it's been well established.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#246

Post by koheripbal »

RobLach wrote: post #97
jabbany wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory yes, but in practice it's rather infeasible to do 51% attacks IRL --- the main constraint is the people not the math. A 51% attack mainly lets you double spend, so you have to: (1) get a lot of coins and spend them on something (2) start mining a fork where that spending didn't happen (but other real transactions continue to happen) --- your hash power will now need to be dedicated to this new fork at the e…

Why would they be "taken back"? If the the majority of the network agrees on the the new fork who is to say that isn't the de facto "real" fork?

He means that the real world assets you would buy with your double coins could be taken back. ...ie if you cashed them in for USD at an exchange.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#247

Post by ndr »

gruez wrote: post #40
mrits wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about that. Most miner operations in the US run only a fraction of the day to take advantage of electrical savings that a lot of operations in China wouldn't be doing. So if miners started returning higher yields we would output a larger hash rate. If we actually needed to protect against a 51% attack we could ramp up accordingly.

The difficulty adjustment only happens every 2016 blocks (~2 weeks), so the higher yields wouldn't happen unless they're down for an extended period of time.

How much longer than 2 weeks will it take given the sudden drop in miners?

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#248

Post by globular-toast »

betterunix2 wrote: post #233
globular-toast wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's necessary, but I think it's inevitable, especially in seasonal climates.

That's kind of like saying the wheel is not essential to civilization, but that it is "inevitable." An accounting system of some kind is necessary to organize the limited resources available to any civilization, and that is exactly what money is and how it emerged in early civilizations.

Well, for a start, there have been loads of civilisations that didn't have wheels. Don't make the mistake of thinking our current civilisation is the only one that can exist because it exists right now. Those other civilisations existed in their time too.

There is a big difference between necessary and inevitable. Crime is inevitable. Is it necessary? I believe a civilisation could exist if the people decided to outlaw money. There are so many other ways to allocate resources: bartering, contracts (which get you asynchronicity), centralised allocation (which can be at a national level, e.g. communism or a local level, like a feudal system), gift economies. All of these have existed and worked for a time.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#249

Post by zepto »

danShumway wrote: post #228
disruptalot wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reader will find dozens of suggestion in this thread about how coin X is more "efficient". Note that efficiency would mean producing the same properties but with less resources. Not merely using less resources. While experimentation is certainly desired, it's a fallacy that any coin has actually reproduced bitcoin in a more efficient way. To name a couple, - Bitcoin had what some call an "immaculate conception" w…

> have stood in the market for 10 years straight At which point, Bitcoin proponents will up the requirements again. This is an excuse people use to avoid talking about the fact that Bitcoin has spent the last 2-3 years consistently proving that it doesn't scale and that it is unusable as a currency. > had what some call an "immaculate conception" Or, it was a good first try that needs iteration now that we understand…

> The weird, religious loyalty people have to reinterpreting Bitcoin's flaws as strengths is setting the entire crypto ecosystem back.

I’d say it’s not weird or religious - it’s a predictable outcome of the incentive structure of then currency.

A key criteria for a better alternative is that it doesn’t incentivize hagiographic thinking.

Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China

#250

Post by jude- »

openfuture wrote: post #160
pmlnr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So point them out, please. One that is efficient on all levels.

First of all I want to preface my comment with the disclaimer that proof of stake is nonsense in many ways (vulnerable to coordinated bribery attacks - we don't know how to coordinate well enough to execute them yet but the math checks out, also plutocracy..) However it is a pretty expedient way to get something out the door fast (it's literally the simplest form of anti-sybil you can make and a cryptocurrency is ant…

The "stochastic probability stuff" falls apart once ISPs discover they can profitably influence the consensus outcome by messing with packet arrival times between nodes.
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