Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

thecoinsman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 105 posts

Re: Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

#51

Post by baddox »

thedaveoflife wrote: post #44
qnr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame Satoshi for choosing the unfortunate word "mining" as the name of the technical process that confirms bitcoin transactions. I feel it is responsible for a big part of the scammy reputation Bitcoin has today. If only it was called something like "transaction security auditing" or "ledger integrity verification" so that people would take it more seriously for what it really is.

I am not so sure that "transaction security auditing" would be accurate though. That makes it sound like this company is doing something altruistic. The truth is that this facility was created for one simple reason: to earn Bitcoin.

I would say it was created for the simple reason of maintaining the security of the blockchain. That's the fundamental idea of Bitcoin: the blockchain is protected in a decntralized manner due to proof of work. The reward is added to incentivize people to help maintain the security of the blockchain.

Re: Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

#52

Post by glomph »

joosters wrote: post #26
bdonlan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is that mining isn't just about reporting hash rates, it's a critical part of the Byzantine failure tolerant consensus algorithm that was bitcoin's key contribution. If miners had a lower duty cycle as you suggest, any dishonest miner could execute a majority attack with little resistance, absent some other kind of mitigation. While proofs of work are wasteful, the only alternative I know of is…

You could keep the blockchain and run with vastly reduced difficulty, but with one alteration: the next block needs to include a specific magic secret number. This magic key is unknowable in advance of a specific time, preventing workers from doing the hash work until the key is 'published'. This forces the miners to pause and not do any hashing for a set time. Now, this gets to the real issue: We need a source for t…

Wouldn't that mean you could only have new transactions when the next magic number comes out?

Re: Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

#53

Post by thedaveoflife »

smacktoward wrote: post #48
thedaveoflife wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say that mining gold/diamonds is also a colossal waste of time and energy?

Given the human misery that has always come hand in hand with diamond mining (see http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15842524/ns/world_news/t/diamonds-... , for instance), yeah, that one seems like a tragic waste. All that suffering, just so people far away can have something shiny.

I agree completely... but one man's waste of time is another man's productive enterprise.

Re: Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

#54

Post by TeMPOraL »

baddox wrote: post #51
thedaveoflife wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not so sure that "transaction security auditing" would be accurate though. That makes it sound like this company is doing something altruistic. The truth is that this facility was created for one simple reason: to earn Bitcoin.

I would say it was created for the simple reason of maintaining the security of the blockchain. That's the fundamental idea of Bitcoin: the blockchain is protected in a decntralized manner due to proof of work. The reward is added to incentivize people to help maintain the security of the blockchain.

So in other words, they're doing it for the reward, with a side effect of maintaining security of the blockchain. I doubt that they're doing it for an idea.

Re: Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

#56

Post by thedaveoflife »

baddox wrote: post #51
thedaveoflife wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not so sure that "transaction security auditing" would be accurate though. That makes it sound like this company is doing something altruistic. The truth is that this facility was created for one simple reason: to earn Bitcoin.

I would say it was created for the simple reason of maintaining the security of the blockchain. That's the fundamental idea of Bitcoin: the blockchain is protected in a decntralized manner due to proof of work. The reward is added to incentivize people to help maintain the security of the blockchain.

A fair point, but also misleading. That's like saying a HFT trader is hoping to provide market liquidity... Really they're trying to make money. The market liquidity (or in this case blockchain verification) is an indirect benefit.

Re: Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

#57

Post by thedaveoflife »

burgers wrote: post #10
mlevy wrote: post #2

I'm just curious if anyone has insight into how this is economical. Is it economical with current bitcoin prices, or only if prices go up?

To add to another reply, the big perk of bitcoin mining is that you can launder your money through the purchase of equipment, real estate and power directly into US Dollars. It's as that comment said, basically just a way to turn Renminbi into Dollars without the Chinese government knowing about it.

How long do you think the Chinese government will allow this subversion to continue? It seems like something they would aggressively shut down.

Re: Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

#58

Post by dllthomas »

thedaveoflife wrote: post #44
qnr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame Satoshi for choosing the unfortunate word "mining" as the name of the technical process that confirms bitcoin transactions. I feel it is responsible for a big part of the scammy reputation Bitcoin has today. If only it was called something like "transaction security auditing" or "ledger integrity verification" so that people would take it more seriously for what it really is.

I am not so sure that "transaction security auditing" would be accurate though. That makes it sound like this company is doing something altruistic. The truth is that this facility was created for one simple reason: to earn Bitcoin.

If I go out and hire (say) tptacek (and the rest of Matasano) to perform a software security audit, aren't they're doing it to earn dollars? When a corporate board hires external financial auditor to look over their records, same thing. I don't see where your inference of altruism comes in.

Re: Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

#59

Post by joosters »

glomph wrote: post #52
joosters wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could keep the blockchain and run with vastly reduced difficulty, but with one alteration: the next block needs to include a specific magic secret number. This magic key is unknowable in advance of a specific time, preventing workers from doing the hash work until the key is 'published'. This forces the miners to pause and not do any hashing for a set time. Now, this gets to the real issue: We need a source for t…

Wouldn't that mean you could only have new transactions when the next magic number comes out?

Currently, all bitcoin transactions have to wait until they get into the next mined block, which is about every 10 minutes (I think?)

Re: Inside One of the World's Largest Bitcoin Mines

#60

Post by baddox »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #54
baddox wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it was created for the simple reason of maintaining the security of the blockchain. That's the fundamental idea of Bitcoin: the blockchain is protected in a decntralized manner due to proof of work. The reward is added to incentivize people to help maintain the security of the blockchain.

So in other words, they're doing it for the reward, with a side effect of maintaining security of the blockchain. I doubt that they're doing it for an idea.

But why is that contradictory, or a problem at all? When I buy a sandwich, I do so primarily because I want the sandwich, but the reason the vendor makes and sells sandwiches isn't to satisfy me, but to make money. Both of us are "selfish" in a sense, but it's not contradictory and not a bad thing.
Post reply on HN