Is bitcoin really decentralized if mining and nodes are centralized?
No. True decentralization requires proof of person. Proof of work, stake, capacity, etc. all make it possible for a single person to buy their way into higher voting power.
Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
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Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
#72A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1]
Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Literally Germany's coal is specifically because its their own coal, a natural resource within their own borders they control. For national security, they maintain a coal capacity. Germany's coal burning is national security, nothing to do with environmentalists.
National Security. Really?! So you use up a limited resource during peace times to have less of it during war times? Is that your logic?
What kind of sovereignty do you have if a powerful neighbour can put your people to freeze in the winter by cutting your energy supplies, forcing you to accept their conditions? National security is more than weapons.
Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
there's a limit to how far it can roll back the network, it probably wouldn't be able to roll back more than a few days..
"Rolling back" the network means successfully creating a new longest chain that forks off of an arbitrary old block. The further back in time you to "rollback" to, the less probable it is for the 51% to successfully mine all those needed blocks to get up to par with the existing longest chain. Realistically speaking, this sort of attack is highly improbable.
Indeed. See the "bitcoin snack machine" for some hard numbers: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=423.0
> The network nodes only accept the first version of a transaction they receive to incorporate into the block they're trying to generate. When you broadcast a transaction, if someone else broadcasts a double-spend at the same time, it's a race to propagate to the most nodes first. If one has a slight head start, it'll geometrically spread through the network faster and get most of the nodes.
> A rough back-of-the-envelope example:
1 0
4 1
16 4
64 16
80% 20%
I'm not sure anyone has put the infrastructure into place, though.
Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
#75> Significantly, the Xinjiang and Sichuan regions of China combined account for more than 50 percent of the overall Bitcoin mining hash rate I don't get it, doesn't this effectively mean China can force a 51% attack by just strongarming the pools that operate there?
I like how the replies are either yes or “yes, but ”
Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
#76Is bitcoin really decentralized if mining and nodes are centralized?
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Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
#77> Significantly, the Xinjiang and Sichuan regions of China combined account for more than 50 percent of the overall Bitcoin mining hash rate I don't get it, doesn't this effectively mean China can force a 51% attack by just strongarming the pools that operate there?
In theory yes, but in practice it's rather infeasible to do 51% attacks IRL --- the main constraint is the people not the math. A 51% attack mainly lets you double spend, so you have to: (1) get a lot of coins and spend them on something (2) start mining a fork where that spending didn't happen (but other real transactions continue to happen) --- your hash power will now need to be dedicated to this new fork at the e…
What if this drop in hash is to use on the 2nd chain?
Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re getting downvotes, but I think (correct me if I’m wrong) you meant something like the hash difficulty will adjust down if this is an extended downtime. So we would have fewer miners, easier hash difficulty and the same block rate. This would indeed be better for the environment, at least for the short term. This and the reduction in centralization could be argued as being “good” for Bitcoin.
I actually meant it as a joke. Because according to Bitcoin enthusiasts, any news is actually good for Bitcoin.
The downvotes are actually good for your karma
Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
#79A good reminder that Bitcoin runs on cheap renewables is BS. See also miners buying gas power plants in New York.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828479
sure if you're suddenly not counting China's hydropower as renewables suddenly.
Re: Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the network is still operating despite government intervention? If the government sent Men With Guns to SWIFT headquarters then it will be actually down.
Men With Guns control land, Men With Guns control power. Men With Guns is not Bitcoin. Men With Guns is govt. Bitcoin is a fiat leech with no real power.
Actually, it’s people with computers and internet...