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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

#351

Post by jcranmer »

danans wrote: post #325
jcranmer wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done this before. No, I'm not going to share my sources because a) I haven't saved the exact ones I found before and b) whatever I include, you're always going to criticize me for not including yet more calculations in my side of the ledger. But the answer is going to come out the same anyways: Bitcoin uses orders of magnitude energy more than traditional currency. Take a simple thought experiment. Someone makes…

> The loan shark driving to bust someone's kneecaps for not paying back loans on time would still be doing exactly the same thing. Tangential thought... I might be mistaken, but how can one even collect on defaulted debt denominated in BTC? I thought that the BTC owner still has to transfer BTC themselves, since only they would know the private keys. Wouldn't the collector literally have to physically threaten the in…

> Wouldn't the collector literally have to physically threaten the individual to transfer the BTC back, since it's not like they can get a court to order the bank to do it.

What makes you think the court can't order the bank to do it? The court can order you to give some assets up, and if you refuse, they can order your employer to deposit wages directly into creditor's accounts, or the creditor can seize other assets for nonpayment. (For example, some creditors managed to temporarily have an Argentinian Navy ship seized after their default.)

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

#352

Post by openfuture »

jude- wrote: post #332
openfuture wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's an interesting angle. I believe the problem in the first place is forcing the network to come to global consensus. In my project the idea is to form "lazy consensus" (i.e. just enough consensus for everyone to have a consistent outlook on the world). Datalisp is a data interchange format rather than a cryptocurrency though.. so it behaves a bit different.

"Just enough consensus" in BFT settings is necessarily 2/3 vote from all votes on agreement. That's a tall order.

Why is that necessary?

Edit: To be a bit less standoffish and make my position clear.

You only need to form a consensus with the part of the network you are aware of. Datalisp leans into the properties of propagator networks (fully CP systems) to avoid needing to synchronize everyone eagerly.

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

#353

Post by meowkit »

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #326
New_California wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is very practical for me. I use it primarily to protect my savings, but also to send anonymous donations to causes I support.

>I use it primarily to protect my savings You must be living under a rock then, because bitcoin just had a sizable correction last night. Sounds too volitile to protect any savings. >also to send anonymous donations to causes I support. Nope. The ledger is public and your transactions can be seen on it basically forever and, with some sleuthing of the ledger by interested parties, you could be deanonymized.

> You must be living under a rock then, because bitcoin just had a sizable correction last night. Sounds too volitile to protect any savings.

If you invested less than a month ago, you are down. If you invested any other time in the last 10 years than you are up. You might be the one under a rock.

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

#354

Post by openfuture »

mratsim wrote: post #268
openfuture wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slashing doesn't solve anything, I don't think you've studied how the attack would work. Proof of work that doesn't solve second order byzantine fault tolerance cannot account for externalities and suffers from the issues you mention. I agree that neither "solution" is all that great, my project is neither proof of work nor proof of stake.

> I don't think you've studied how the attack would work. It's my day job to implement proof-of-stake https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2/pull/865

How is that pull request relevant to our chat here?

By the way I don't think it's a good argument to say that your job depends on proof of stake being secure and therefore it must be secure (or "therefore you would know if it wasn't").

The coordinated bribery attack can be done by having people stake on a different chain until a majority is reached and then softfork and slash the minority.

If you don't believe the attack will work why not collect the bribe (since the defecting can be done anonymously / out of band) and if you believe it will work then you'd rather be on the winning side.

^ This is a rough sketch of the argument. As I said, it's hard to implement since you need an oracle to decide whether to pay the bribe, so it can only be done if you have second order byzantine fault tolerance and a few constructs. I believe we will see such attacks in this decade though (but ofc it only works if the PoS network is actually decentralized and it will keep working until the network becomes centralized).

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

#355

Post by semicolon_storm »

jude- wrote: post #336
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

A friendly reminder that PoW runs just fine on 100% renewables. It's the job of regulators to make sure all PoW runs this way. Just like it's the job of regulators to mandate renewable energy for literally all other industries.

I thought one of the touted benefits of bitcoin (and other DeFi) is the resistance to regulations?

Sort of seems counterproductive to say that regulation will fix the issues with the currency that's supposed to resist regulation.

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

#356

Post by jude- »

semicolon_storm wrote: post #355
jude- wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friendly reminder that PoW runs just fine on 100% renewables. It's the job of regulators to make sure all PoW runs this way. Just like it's the job of regulators to mandate renewable energy for literally all other industries.

I thought one of the touted benefits of bitcoin (and other DeFi) is the resistance to regulations? Sort of seems counterproductive to say that regulation will fix the issues with the currency that's supposed to resist regulation.

Nonsense. PoW exists in the real world and had negative externalities. Of course it's subject to regulation.

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

#357

Post by jude- »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #346
jude- wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friendly reminder that PoW runs just fine on 100% renewables. It's the job of regulators to make sure all PoW runs this way. Just like it's the job of regulators to mandate renewable energy for literally all other industries.

Why 100% renewables? Biofuel is renewable but also emits lots of carbon and air pollution. Nuclear is not considered renewable but is low carbon and clean air. Seems like the the term allows undue wiggle room. Might want to require that it be generated with energy that emits less than 50 gCO2-eq/kWh on a lifecycle basis or something more specific.

Please don't be daft. You know what I meant.

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

#358

Post by jude- »

openfuture wrote: post #352
jude- wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just enough consensus" in BFT settings is necessarily 2/3 vote from all votes on agreement. That's a tall order.

Why is that necessary? Edit: To be a bit less standoffish and make my position clear. You only need to form a consensus with the part of the network you are aware of. Datalisp leans into the properties of propagator networks (fully CP systems) to avoid needing to synchronize everyone eagerly.

Try googling "Byzantine Fault Tolerance" and read the original papers by Leslie Lamport. 2/3 is required to ensure liveness.

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

#359

Post by acidburnNSA »

jude- wrote: post #357
acidburnNSA wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why 100% renewables? Biofuel is renewable but also emits lots of carbon and air pollution. Nuclear is not considered renewable but is low carbon and clean air. Seems like the the term allows undue wiggle room. Might want to require that it be generated with energy that emits less than 50 gCO2-eq/kWh on a lifecycle basis or something more specific.

Please don't be daft. You know what I meant.

Didn't mean to be daft. It's a word with lots wrapped up in it. 100% clean is a better term IMHO.

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

#360

Post by ffggvv »

jude- wrote: post #336
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

A friendly reminder that PoW runs just fine on 100% renewables. It's the job of regulators to make sure all PoW runs this way. Just like it's the job of regulators to mandate renewable energy for literally all other industries.

how would they do that practically? would require a huge surveillance state with constant monitoring to make sure you’re not mining on non allowed power
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