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Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

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Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#61

Post by [deleted] »

daveguy wrote: post #36
olalonde wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, that figure is way off. Marathon alone has a market cap over $4B and controls less than 5% of the total hash rate. Second, the system only seems vulnerable if you ignore economic incentives. A 51% attack isn't just technically difficult - it's economically irrational. Pulling it off would cost billions, and even then, there's no clear way to profit from it. The only scenario where it makes sense is a non-econo…

Why would someone want a random block chain company to own 5% of the possibility of destroying their holdings? What if the company gets co-opted by some nation state actor? Bitcoin really seems like a terrible place to keep wealth.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#62

Post by olalonde »

daveguy wrote: post #36
olalonde wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, that figure is way off. Marathon alone has a market cap over $4B and controls less than 5% of the total hash rate. Second, the system only seems vulnerable if you ignore economic incentives. A 51% attack isn't just technically difficult - it's economically irrational. Pulling it off would cost billions, and even then, there's no clear way to profit from it. The only scenario where it makes sense is a non-econo…

Why would someone want a random block chain company to own 5% of the possibility of destroying their holdings? What if the company gets co-opted by some nation state actor? Bitcoin really seems like a terrible place to keep wealth.

I'm not sure I follow your question. Who is the "someone" you're referring to? And what do you mean by "destroying their holdings"? Even in a 51% attack, an attacker can't alter wallet balances or arbitrarily erase funds.

Also, what alternative "place to keep wealth" is truly immune to a nation-state actor? Cryptocurrency is actually unique in that, with something like a brainwallet, seizure can be made practically impossible.

Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#63

Post by fiatjaf »

beeflet wrote: post #47
fiatjaf wrote: post #18

This big block propaganda piece fails to address the most obvious issue with their proposal: that increasing block sizes will just increase fees linearly. No one will pay more in fees per transaction because there will be a lot of space left in blocks, so people will keep paying $0.20 per transaction, which today gets us $400, so now we'll get $800? That if increasing the block size doesn't reduce the base $0.20 to s…

Yes, but there will be far greater total demand for transactions because the costs will no longer be prohibitive to certain types of commerce (which has network effects). Drivechain is an idiotic proposal to just give total control of the network to miners. Atomic swaps already enable the same thing, except without a wealth transfer to miners.

You have demonstrated you have no idea of what Drivechain is, you probably never spent the time to learn how it works, and yet you feel entitled to call it "idiotic".

I get it, it's fine to not want to learn things, but that comes with the burden of not being allowed to comment on it.

Apparently you have not carefully read my criticism of the big block proposal above. I've included some numbers. A proper response would have to address those. But thank you for trying.

Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#64

Post by zparky »

Tokumei-no-hito wrote: post #43
whattheheckheck wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like this? https://www.project2025.observer/

it would be great if each tracked event was linked to a section of the project 2025 language. as it stands, to someone unfamiliar, it is just a list of initiatives the trump admin has completed.

the 'view sources' dropdown on each initiative links to the page in the project 2025 pdf, is this what you'd want?

Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#65

Post by lagniappe »

beeflet wrote: post #37
lagniappe wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero does dynamic block size. It works fine. There is a penalty for large swings in size and that controls the fee which allows the fee to be appropriate during swells and luls in volume.

Something I would like to see from the cryptocurrency space is some way for the block size to fluctuate with daily and weekly transaction volume. For example, you would expect that the transaction volume would be greater when it is daytime on the east coast, so the blocksize should adapt to those temporal changes as well. If there is a certain latentcy/bandwidth/storage/decentralization tradeoff with block sizes, the…

>some way for the block size to fluctuate with daily and weekly transaction volume.

What you describe is what is done with countless blockchains already, including the example I gave. This is a solved problem.

Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#66

Post by [deleted] »

slwvx wrote: post #45
beeflet wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I would like to see from the cryptocurrency space is some way for the block size to fluctuate with daily and weekly transaction volume. For example, you would expect that the transaction volume would be greater when it is daytime on the east coast, so the blocksize should adapt to those temporal changes as well. If there is a certain latentcy/bandwidth/storage/decentralization tradeoff with block sizes, the…

Ethereum changes the cost to use the network based on recent block sizes, and allows the block size to go up during high demand. So it's cheaper to use the network when blocks are less full, and more expensive if blocks are mostly full. I'm behind on the current parameters, but they're essentially doing what you ask for: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1559

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#67

Post by Majromax »

cmcaleer wrote: post #27
Majromax wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can take short positions on bitcoin almost as easily as long positions. With enough leverage, a well-connected firm could probably make a low 11-digit bet fairly easily.

Counterparty risk asks whether you'll collect on that bet. Also, the firms who take the other side of that bet talk, and you aren't going to be able to get tens of billions of dollars of derivatives without people figuring out what you're doing and acting against you.

> Counterparty risk asks whether you'll collect on that bet.

You can make those bets on regulated exchanges, thanks to bitcoin-trust ETFs. IBIT is the largset of those, with $74bn assets under management, and it looks like options contracts are available. Correlated bets would also be easily available with companies like Microstrategy.

I think the biggest risk to such a move would be legal, since executing a demonstration 51% attack would plausibly result in a market manipulation investigation.

Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#68

Post by coolKid721 »

Tokumei-no-hito wrote: post #30
coolKid721 wrote: post #24

Lol total garbage people have been whining about the blocks regularly being EMPTY now, a huge % of transactions just occur off chain on exchanges/lightning/etc. There are no 100 dollar fees you can basically do everything for basically free. https://mempool.space/ look, you can see how many blocks aren't filled lol. This piece is literally just garbage. Big blockers are scam artists.

fair challenge to their proposed solution, but it doesn't negate the security premise does it? what do you think is a good alternative?

Nation states and large companies or individuals with significant stake in BTC running mining softwar thing seems obviously how it will inevitably end up. I don't really care what big blockers thing this isn't a "new thing" they've been running their mouths about this for a decade and every time they do something it ends up just being a way to push a scam where they control it and make money. Check the bcash/btc pair.

Profit driven mining companies are honestly kind of not a very good force and push for lots of weird scams to encourage mining like memecoins on BTC or "dog pictures", and also regularly mine just pump and dump alts (including the biggest BTC miners).

Mining should just be as distributed as possible and integrated into stranded power likely generating a small if any profit.

Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#69

Post by beeflet »

fiatjaf wrote: post #63
beeflet wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but there will be far greater total demand for transactions because the costs will no longer be prohibitive to certain types of commerce (which has network effects). Drivechain is an idiotic proposal to just give total control of the network to miners. Atomic swaps already enable the same thing, except without a wealth transfer to miners.

You have demonstrated you have no idea of what Drivechain is, you probably never spent the time to learn how it works, and yet you feel entitled to call it "idiotic". I get it, it's fine to not want to learn things, but that comes with the burden of not being allowed to comment on it. Apparently you have not carefully read my criticism of the big block proposal above. I've included some numbers. A proper response wou…

I have read about drivechain and all of sztorc's half-baked ideas extensively. Sidechains are inferior to altcoins in all respects.

The numbers you have included are just arbitrary prices you are guessing. The price of bitcoin fees is not totally elastic, because the demand for bitcoin transactions is based on network effects. So the total demand increases with the block size at a rate greater than the supply.

Re: Bitcoin's Security Budget Issue: Problems, Solutions and Myths Debunked

#70

Post by [deleted] »

derangedHorse wrote: post #56
beeflet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the lightning network, fees are distributed to rent-seeking intermediaries instead of miners, yet the network is still dependent on the security from the miners. The lightning network is parasitic to bitcoin. Blocks are empty because people decided that bitcoin was not a feasible means of transaction nearly a decade ago during the blocksize war.

If you think peers on the Lightning network are “rent-seeking” intermediaries then you don’t understand what Lightning is. Peers allow us to circumvent the need for every counterparty to make a channel with one another and allow us to maintain privacy via onion routing. There’s no rent seeking here. Nodes pay fees to one another because these benefits come at the cost of liquidity for participating routing nodes.

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