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The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

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Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#351

Post by lawrenceyan »

BaronSamedi wrote: post #332
lawrenceyan wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all say that they'll never roll back or retroactively make any changes. But inevitably, they always do. I thought Ethereum might have been different, but of course I had to be disappointed. The problem with blockchains is that they still fundamentally fail to solve the problem of mob rule, though, I suppose you could argue that's one thing you'll never fully get rid while the human element is still involved. Rob…

I think concentration of power is a bigger problem than "mob rule". If certain people or groups are able to acquire the majority of the power in the system, then the egalitarian ideals of decentralization are lost. You have just traded one power (e.g. banks) for another (e.g. the big miners).

Definitely true. Both sides of the coin are bad.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#352

Post by snowwrestler »

cortesoft wrote: post #340
snowwrestler wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to put your faith in something. I suppose it's not surprising that people with strong affinities for computing systems would rather put their trust in a computing system than a government of people. They understand computing, and so they feel more confident they can understand and mitigate its risks. They might not feel that way about the solvency of the Federal Reserve, or the fiscal health of the U.S. fede…

The entire point of the article is that it might FEEL like you are putting faith in a computing system when you use bitcoin, but really you are still putting your faith in a group of people. It doesn't matter how well you understand the mechanics of how bitcoin works, what really matters is the mechanics of how the people involved with bitcoin works, and that is the same as people everywhere. You just can't escape hu…

I agree, and I think the article is essentially right. But again, not everyone is going to see it that way, depending on their inclination.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#353

Post by rlpb »

wildbunny wrote: post #59
DINKDINK wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>miners control bitcoin Incorrect, I can sign or construct any type of cryptographic payment I wish. Miners trade their Proof of work to prevent double spends in exchange for coinbase (currency issuance) that the market values. If miners chose to mine on a chain that no one wants, no one will trade for their coinbase. The game theory nuance is, how do you organize an economy around changes to blockchain consensus? Th…

If miners chose to mine on a chain that no-one wants, then everybody has to grudgingly go along with it, or cease to transact. The longest chain is always the most valuable.

> The longest chain is always the most valuable.

Only the longest chain that users consider legitimate. If users reach consensus on using rules that have lower transaction costs, it won't matter how long miners mine their higher transaction cost chain.

The big question is: can users achieve such consensus politically, or in practice do the miners lead the users because they need less organization to do so?

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#354

Post by DINKDINK »

KirinDave wrote: post #211
DINKDINK wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a sufficiently large ec2 buy can rapidly fragment the Bitcoin consensus You grossly underestimate the hashing capacity of the bitcoin network. The hashing capacity, at time of posting, is approximately 5,000,000,000 Gigahashes/second[1]. Spot measurement of the hashing capacity of an EC2 instance is 0.4 Gigahashes/second[2]. You would need 12 BILLION EC2 instances to 51% attack the bitcoin network.[3] Using EC2 to a…

I'm happy to be wrong, but I feel like I don't have to overcome the entire network's hashing, I need to overcome several individual instances. If I could isolate and attack individual members of the cluster quickly, I could begin to leverage their role in the cluster as they join, convinced that a single block must be true. I don't need to overcome the network, I need to invite the network to have arguments with itse…

>If I could isolate and attack individual members of the cluster quickly, I could begin to leverage their role in the cluster as they join, convinced that a single block must be true.

To do this you would need to have the equivalent hashing power of the network. Peers expect an nominally equivalent amount of Proof of Work for the difficulty adjustment. You would also need to guarantee that the peer connects to _no other_ peers

Your thinking is good adversarial thinking but it's already covered in the protocol.

Re: The blockchain paradox: Why DLTs may do little to transform the economy

#355

Post by codeisawesome »

Slartie wrote: post #238
codeisawesome wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the OP, the author says there are "approximately 5,000 computers" in the bitcoin network. I'm curious if you believe this is right too? Those are some powerful computers... (yes, "duh" indeed, I'm still awed).

That could very well be true. All mining for BTC is done via ASICs now, specialized silicon that just hashes crazy fast, but can't even get a TCP connection up and running. For networking, a bunch of ASIC chips is typically connected to some embedded computer, and even that usually isn't a direct peer on the Bitcoin network, but only connected to a mining pool server with hundreds of other such ASIC controllers. And…

Those are interesting facts I never thought about! Thanks for the detailed explanation.
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