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Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

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Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#11

Post by indolering »

replies_to_all wrote: post #10
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you know this, but NP-hardness results only matter for worst-case instances. Even if Bitcoin's algorithm is roughly close to optimal on real-world instances, it doesn't mean somebody won't be able to generate a series of transactions that cause the algorithm to exhibit worst-case behaviour. Also, the NP-hardness results would apply even if the Bitcoin algorithm is updated.

Nullc is CTO of a company trying to take control over Bitcoin development by pushing an update they call "SegWitness". Nullc's gamble is that if they can get their code into Bitcoin their company, Blockstream, will be able to sell their "expertise". Honestly, at this point, they are just a marketing company with a single product they are desperate to push at any cost. If nullc does not seem to "understand" something,…

Can we please leave the cryptocurrency drama out of this? Every time a cryptocurrency post is submitted to HN the discussions get overtaken by political bickering.

Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#12

Post by null0pointer »

indolering wrote: post #11
replies_to_all wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nullc is CTO of a company trying to take control over Bitcoin development by pushing an update they call "SegWitness". Nullc's gamble is that if they can get their code into Bitcoin their company, Blockstream, will be able to sell their "expertise". Honestly, at this point, they are just a marketing company with a single product they are desperate to push at any cost. If nullc does not seem to "understand" something,…

Can we please leave the cryptocurrency drama out of this? Every time a cryptocurrency post is submitted to HN the discussions get overtaken by political bickering.

I'd love for there to be pure technical discussion however the development of most of the major cryptos boil down to political bickering at this point. What a sorry state of affairs :(

Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#13

Post by nullc »

indolering wrote: post #11
replies_to_all wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nullc is CTO of a company trying to take control over Bitcoin development by pushing an update they call "SegWitness". Nullc's gamble is that if they can get their code into Bitcoin their company, Blockstream, will be able to sell their "expertise". Honestly, at this point, they are just a marketing company with a single product they are desperate to push at any cost. If nullc does not seem to "understand" something,…

Can we please leave the cryptocurrency drama out of this? Every time a cryptocurrency post is submitted to HN the discussions get overtaken by political bickering.

The more pseudonymous shill hate-posts that get made the faster the jerks funding people to attack like this run out of funds. I celebrate everyone one of them.

(If anyone with an identity and reputation thinks the grandparent posters comment has any merit at all, I'd be happy to talk it through with you and I'm confident that you'll be satisfied that they're talking nonsense. --- the harassing posts stalking me all over the internet is more then a little tiring)

Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#14

Post by nullc »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #8
nullc wrote: post #6

> The current default Bitcoin implementation makes no effort to solve or even really approximately this problem I think this was somewhat out of date even when it was written. :( When I've sampled it before the solver in Bitcoin reliably produces results which are very close to the best results that an external MILP solver produces... and since a year and a half ago it even considers dependencies in that analysis. Th…

I'm sure you know this, but NP-hardness results only matter for worst-case instances. Even if Bitcoin's algorithm is roughly close to optimal on real-world instances, it doesn't mean somebody won't be able to generate a series of transactions that cause the algorithm to exhibit worst-case behaviour. Also, the NP-hardness results would apply even if the Bitcoin algorithm is updated.

Oh sure, I wasn't intending to comment on the NP-hardness but only on the accuracy of the approximation in practice.

There is a lovely paper disproving the all-public-information efficient market hypothesis, assuming computationally bound actors by showing how to embed market inefficiency into a set of trades that can only be removed by solving a NP-hard problem. :)

Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#15

Post by indolering »

null0pointer wrote: post #12
indolering wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please leave the cryptocurrency drama out of this? Every time a cryptocurrency post is submitted to HN the discussions get overtaken by political bickering.

I'd love for there to be pure technical discussion however the development of most of the major cryptos boil down to political bickering at this point. What a sorry state of affairs :(

There is nothing technical about that comment, s/he doesn't even preface it with a discussion as to what SegWit has to do with this post.

Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#16

Post by nullc »

replies_to_all wrote: post #9

> That isn't true except on weekends, at least not for the last two years... there is usually a pretty healthy backlog available... Are you insane, Sir? Right now (Thursday) people are waiting 6+ hours for a TX and are forced to use TX accelerators just to get a TX through [1]. Average cost per TX is over $2.00 right now [2], BECAUSE of the backlog. Nullc, you are a jackass with a financial incentive to see Bitcoin f…

> Average cost per TX is over $2.00 right now [2]

Thanks for demonstrating that you're probably not even a Bitcoin user at all. (The median transaction size is 226 bytes, -- and so you're using a figure per kB-- so equal to 4.5 txn.)

(doubly ironic to see you complain about segwit in one breath and transaction fees in the next)

> people are waiting 6+ hours for a TX and are forced

You can choose how long you'd like to wait in exchange for more or less fees-- this how the system works, no one is forced to do anything.

> with a financial incentive to see Bitcoin fail

I have large incentives to see Bitcoin be successful-- but can you articulate any way that I can profit from failure?

I'm here writing to you with a well known identity, upfront about what I work on and what I think is important. If you're angry that other people won't rewrite Bitcoin's rules to suit whatever agenda you have-- that sounds like a personal problem. It certainly isn't my problem.

Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#17

Post by just_one_time_ »

indolering wrote: post #11
replies_to_all wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nullc is CTO of a company trying to take control over Bitcoin development by pushing an update they call "SegWitness". Nullc's gamble is that if they can get their code into Bitcoin their company, Blockstream, will be able to sell their "expertise". Honestly, at this point, they are just a marketing company with a single product they are desperate to push at any cost. If nullc does not seem to "understand" something,…

Can we please leave the cryptocurrency drama out of this? Every time a cryptocurrency post is submitted to HN the discussions get overtaken by political bickering.

Its not bickering, user nullc is actively trying to take over an open source project with his private VC backed company. This should be interesting and important for the HN community.

Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#18

Post by midmagico »

replies_to_all wrote: post #10
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you know this, but NP-hardness results only matter for worst-case instances. Even if Bitcoin's algorithm is roughly close to optimal on real-world instances, it doesn't mean somebody won't be able to generate a series of transactions that cause the algorithm to exhibit worst-case behaviour. Also, the NP-hardness results would apply even if the Bitcoin algorithm is updated.

Nullc is CTO of a company trying to take control over Bitcoin development by pushing an update they call "SegWitness". Nullc's gamble is that if they can get their code into Bitcoin their company, Blockstream, will be able to sell their "expertise". Honestly, at this point, they are just a marketing company with a single product they are desperate to push at any cost. If nullc does not seem to "understand" something,…

You're using too many commas.

Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#19

Post by Dylan16807 »

replies_to_all wrote: post #9

> That isn't true except on weekends, at least not for the last two years... there is usually a pretty healthy backlog available... Are you insane, Sir? Right now (Thursday) people are waiting 6+ hours for a TX and are forced to use TX accelerators just to get a TX through [1]. Average cost per TX is over $2.00 right now [2], BECAUSE of the backlog. Nullc, you are a jackass with a financial incentive to see Bitcoin f…

The hell are you talking about? He says there's a backlog, you say there's a backlog, where's the disagreement other than your unrelated anger toward him?

Re: Bitcoin Mining is NP-hard (2014)

#20

Post by dang »

replies_to_all wrote: post #9

> That isn't true except on weekends, at least not for the last two years... there is usually a pretty healthy backlog available... Are you insane, Sir? Right now (Thursday) people are waiting 6+ hours for a TX and are forced to use TX accelerators just to get a TX through [1]. Average cost per TX is over $2.00 right now [2], BECAUSE of the backlog. Nullc, you are a jackass with a financial incentive to see Bitcoin f…

We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines. Doing this will eventually get your main account banned as well, so please stop.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14162653 and marked it off-topic.

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