Bitcoin Block #210 000 mined - reward halving • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Block #210 000 mined - reward halving

#111

Post by scotty79 » Thu, Nov 29, 2012, 5:44 AM UTC

pserwylo wrote: post #101

finnw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I expect the difficulty to halve. Why would it? Those who have invested in dedicated mining hardware aren't going to switch it off just because the reward has halved. At least not until mining fails to pay for the electricity that goes into it (but I don't expect that will ever happen.)

This is what I don't understand about bitcoin. With my extremely small amount of knowledge about it, I thought the idea was to make it so that the rewards for mining were aligned closely with the price of electricity. But is this the price of electricity in the USA? What about hiring people to do mining in countries with cheaper electricity? What about if some miners had a solar panel on the roof? Although, as I writ…

I think US has incredibly cheap electricity.

Re: Bitcoin Block #210 000 mined - reward halving

#112

Post by win_ini » Thu, Nov 29, 2012, 5:46 AM UTC

duiker101 wrote: post #29

kylec wrote: post #23

The fireworks and sound were extremely annoying. I'm not used to web pages making noise on my iPhone and was unprepared for it.

Nobody is, that's why it's usually pissing everyone. A "Party" button might have done a better job.

Oh, you mean like this?

http://www.plasma2002.com/epb/

Re: Bitcoin Block #210 000 mined - reward halving

#113

Post by kristianp » Thu, Nov 29, 2012, 7:02 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #63

Is it time to haunt eBay for cheap video cards unloaded by miners who no longer find mining worthwhile?

More like FPGAs and ASICs.

Re: Bitcoin Block #210 000 mined - reward halving

#114

Post by celticninja » Thu, Nov 29, 2012, 11:42 AM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #48

motters wrote: post #25

Bitcoin is looking increasingly less practical. The size of the block chain is becoming massive. Recently I tried downloading the official client, and after 2.8GB of downloading with the progress bar only about half way through I gave up. If Bitcoin becomes more popular in future the block chain really isn't going to scale well, and that's going to result in a more centralized system in which there are fewer block ch…

Several gigs may be prohibitive for an end user, but not for anyone who wants to set up a server. How many people run their own email servers any more? Spam control and all the security and other BS is a giant PITA. That doesn't mean, however, that there isn't still Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo. Email is not centralized. Though, I see that this is a bit different. If I had 1000 bitcoins I wouldn't want to put it on any s…

exactly, if you are dealing with under 100 BTC then a webwallet will work sufficiently well for keeping your money in, however those with larger balances are more likely to not mind needing to download the entrie blockchain.

I will say that I recently wiped by HDD and re-installed everything incuding the bitcoin-qt client and it probably took me around 24 hours to download the entire blockchain, probably just shy of 210000 blocks. The first 50-70% of data took very little time at all, the last 50-30% took the lions share of the 24 hours.

Re: Bitcoin Block #210 000 mined - reward halving

#115

Post by alexmat » Thu, Nov 29, 2012, 10:02 PM UTC

graue wrote: post #106

alexmat wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Transactions are signed locally: Your private keys are not shared with the server. You do not have to trust the server with your money. * Freedom and Privacy: The server does not store user accounts. You are not tied to a particular server, and the server does not need to know you. * No scripts: Electrum does not download any script. A compromised server cannot send you arbitrary code and steal your bitcoins. * No…

Elsewhere on that wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Thin_Client_Security#Server-Trust... “All thin clients listed below currently connect to a single server, and are vulnerable to an attack similar to a double-spend. The attack can be run by that single server - the server can just lie to them that they received a Bitcoin transaction, and they, assuming the server does not lie, perform some service, transfer funds or…

This is a pretty unlikely scenario for a typical use case. The attacker would have to own the electrum server that the victim is connecting to, and orchestrate a fake transaction. Even then, if the person double checks the transaction via a third party like blockchain.info, they would see it's fake.

I think you are over-exaggerating the impact of this vulnerability given the safeguards available to mitigate the attack, such as running your own electrum server or cross checking transactions with a third party.

Re: Bitcoin Block #210 000 mined - reward halving

#116

Post by graue » Thu, Nov 29, 2012, 10:18 PM UTC

alexmat wrote: post #115

graue wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elsewhere on that wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Thin_Client_Security#Server-Trust... “All thin clients listed below currently connect to a single server, and are vulnerable to an attack similar to a double-spend. The attack can be run by that single server - the server can just lie to them that they received a Bitcoin transaction, and they, assuming the server does not lie, perform some service, transfer funds or…

This is a pretty unlikely scenario for a typical use case. The attacker would have to own the electrum server that the victim is connecting to, and orchestrate a fake transaction. Even then, if the person double checks the transaction via a third party like blockchain.info, they would see it's fake. I think you are over-exaggerating the impact of this vulnerability given the safeguards available to mitigate the attac…

I guess it depends on the technical savvy of the user and whether “running your own electrum server or cross checking transactions with a third party” is really going to happen.

The project website doesn't advise taking these measures, nor disclose the possibility of this scenario. That's what bugs me the most here.

If their intended user is a knowledgeable Bitcoin hobbyist, who knows how the currency works inside and out, maybe it isn't a big deal, but just speaking personally as a Bitcoin newbie, the lack of disclosure/accountability suggested I stay away.

Re: Bitcoin Block #210 000 mined - reward halving

#117

Post by alexmat » Fri, Nov 30, 2012, 3:19 AM UTC

graue wrote: post #116

alexmat wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty unlikely scenario for a typical use case. The attacker would have to own the electrum server that the victim is connecting to, and orchestrate a fake transaction. Even then, if the person double checks the transaction via a third party like blockchain.info, they would see it's fake. I think you are over-exaggerating the impact of this vulnerability given the safeguards available to mitigate the attac…

I guess it depends on the technical savvy of the user and whether “running your own electrum server or cross checking transactions with a third party” is really going to happen. The project website doesn't advise taking these measures, nor disclose the possibility of this scenario. That's what bugs me the most here. If their intended user is a knowledgeable Bitcoin hobbyist, who knows how the currency works inside an…

That's sounds like a very prudent decision to me. I fully agree that this issue should be clarified on the site. I will add it to my community service todo list to email the developer to try and help resolve the issue.

The project is still in its early stages of development, but is already very useful to bitcoin-tech savvy users. The ability to install it on my Android phone and other devices while running my own transaction server is a big plus for me currently.

Re: Bitcoin Block #210 000 mined - reward halving

#118

Post by TomatoTomato » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 8:56 PM UTC

lucaspiller wrote: post #108

TomatoTomato wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://bitcoinx.com/profit/ Settings: Profitability decline = 1, Hardware Cost = 0, Time Frame (months) = .033333 (1 day), Electricity Cost = $0.15 Profit: -0.56 USD/day For this example (1200MH @ 750W) you need electricity to be My rig (2x7970) does about (1400MH @ 650W) and electricity @ $0.16 is my break even point (Profit: 0.01 USD/day)

Why do you put a hardware cost of 0? If you put the true cost, let's assume $1000, it'll take you 273 years to make your money back. I assume the value of the currency will increase, but still... am I missing something as it seems a pretty flawed way to make money.

I put no hardware cost because I'm looking at the instantaneous profit function (or close using a 24 hour window) for hardware owned prior to the reward reduction. The comment was referencing whether or not it is still profitable to mine given a certain electric rate. Also understand that some people will continue to mine even at a slight loss during the winter for free heat, while others will sell their hardware and put the money to better use.

So, if you want to amortize the loss of hardware value over 24 hours be my guest. If you want to purchase hardware to (profitably) bitcoin mine, then (as you clearly recognize) you need to get the new specialty hardware not an off the shelf video card.