BTC endgame = Mega Miner controlling everything, BTC is not "trustless" - page 4.

jbreher

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lose: unfind ... loose: untight

Quote from: iluvpie60 on June 26, 2014, 08:10:01 AM

"If Ghash.io has 55% for a day and they voluntarily turn it down to 38%, could they turn it on again to 55%?"

Answer Choice:

A: Yes
B: No

A. Yes.

Now here's one for you.

"If Ghash.io has 55% for a day, and many of their former hashers decide consequently to mine at a different pool, bringing the pool's capability down to 38%, could Ghash.io merely raise it again to 55%?"

Answer Choice:

A: Yes
B: No

Absent any evidence determining which of these two scenarios is in play, or what the mix between them may be, all your left with is conjecture. Negative conjecture is nothing but FUD.

Of course, if you are in possession of actual evidence, I'm pretty sure that I am not the only one that would be interested in hearing it.

rapsaodan84

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One question to Bitcoin and pool experts: is it possible to recognize a block was mined by a P2Pool rather than a centralized pool?

I really want it to be. It'd be possible to give some incentives to that kind of pools, by making some changes in the core of the bitcoin protocol.

kendog77

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Quote from: cbeast on June 26, 2014, 09:28:19 AM

Quote from: crunchynut on June 26, 2014, 09:10:38 AM

it doesn't matter that ghash.io as a company has no benefit from and therefore no interest in a 51% attack. behind the company are people and you trust these strangers that they care about ghash.io's and bitcoin's future. it only needs one pissed ghash.io employee and bitcoin has a serious problem.

compare it to absolute poker's and ultimate bet's super user scandal back in 2007. the companies had no interest in cheating their customers. a few people inside the company had an interest and didn't care at all what their behaviour would mean for the companies or online poker.

Are you saying people don't play online poker anymore? Sure, MtGox cheated customers, but all it did was make other exchanges more responsible. If a pool cheated customers, people wouldn't use that pool anymore. The pool operators better watch their employees just like poker companies watch theirs. Of course there are other cryptographic solutions as well. They will sort out this issue eventually.

Your average miner is not too bright. GHash.IO was already caught cheating (see the thread below), but they are still the largest BTC mining pool by far. If miners has any common sense, they would not support a pool that was already caught red handed cheating.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ghashio-and-double-spending-against-betcoin-dice-327767

kendog77

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Quote from: crunchynut on June 26, 2014, 09:10:38 AM

it doesn't matter that ghash.io as a company has no benefit from and therefore no interest in a 51% attack. behind the company are people and you trust these strangers that they care about ghash.io's and bitcoin's future. it only needs one pissed ghash.io employee and bitcoin has a serious problem.

compare it to absolute poker's and ultimate bet's super user scandal back in 2007. the companies had no interest in cheating their customers. a few people inside the company had an interest and didn't care at all what their behaviour would mean for the companies or online poker.

Also, in case folks were not aware, there are hackers out there that like to break shit and cause as much chaos as they can. They could do some serious damage to Bitcoin if they gained control of GHash.IO.

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

Quote from: Velkro on June 26, 2014, 09:29:08 AM

Mega miner coming around 2050, my bet. It will happen, matters when

I'm picturing Spaceballs sucking all the bitcoins off the planet.

Velkro

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Mega miner coming around 2050, my bet. It will happen, matters when

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

Quote from: crunchynut on June 26, 2014, 09:10:38 AM

it doesn't matter that ghash.io as a company has no benefit from and therefore no interest in a 51% attack. behind the company are people and you trust these strangers that they care about ghash.io's and bitcoin's future. it only needs one pissed ghash.io employee and bitcoin has a serious problem.

compare it to absolute poker's and ultimate bet's super user scandal back in 2007. the companies had no interest in cheating their customers. a few people inside the company had an interest and didn't care at all what their behaviour would mean for the companies or online poker.

Are you saying people don't play online poker anymore? Sure, MtGox cheated customers, but all it did was make other exchanges more responsible. If a pool cheated customers, people wouldn't use that pool anymore. The pool operators better watch their employees just like poker companies watch theirs. Of course there are other cryptographic solutions as well. They will sort out this issue eventually.

crunchynut

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it doesn't matter that ghash.io as a company has no benefit from and therefore no interest in a 51% attack. behind the company are people and you trust these strangers that they care about ghash.io's and bitcoin's future. it only needs one pissed ghash.io employee and bitcoin has a serious problem.

compare it to absolute poker's and ultimate bet's super user scandal back in 2007. the companies had no interest in cheating their customers. a few people inside the company had an interest and didn't care at all what their behaviour would mean for the companies or online poker.

kendog77

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Activity: 742

Merit: 500

Quote from: cbeast on June 26, 2014, 08:34:15 AM

Quote from: kendog77 on June 26, 2014, 08:21:39 AM

The OP has a legitimate point that BTC is supposed to be trustless, so large mining pools pose a major problem for bitcoin. I should not have to trust that GHash.IO will not double spend and damage the network in a "trustless" system.

It is trustless. In a fiat system there is financial incentive to cheat the system. That's why they attempt to regulate it. Bitcoin has no incentive to cheat. Creating even one false block will be the death of the mining pool. Even if they get away with several blocks by being very lucky, it will spook people away from trusting pools in the first place.

I completely disagree. Any system where I have to trust a single human being (or even a couple that could collude together) that administer pools with over 50% of the network hash rate to not cheat is definitely not trustless.

iluvpie60

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Quote from: cbeast on June 26, 2014, 08:34:15 AM

Quote from: kendog77 on June 26, 2014, 08:21:39 AM

The OP has a legitimate point that BTC is supposed to be trustless, so large mining pools pose a major problem for bitcoin. I should not have to trust that GHash.IO will not double spend and damage the network in a "trustless" system.

It is trustless. In a fiat system there is financial incentive to cheat the system. That's why they attempt to regulate it. Bitcoin has no incentive to cheat. Creating even one false block will be the death of the mining pool. Even if they get away with several blocks by being very lucky, it will spook people away from trusting pools in the first place.

I do like the fact that BTC attempts to have a way of dealing with "rogues". my worry is that it will not be enough in the end. Is there a reason it has to be 50%? Why not make the threshold 70% to be able to double spend?

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

Quote from: kendog77 on June 26, 2014, 08:21:39 AM

The OP has a legitimate point that BTC is supposed to be trustless, so large mining pools pose a major problem for bitcoin. I should not have to trust that GHash.IO will not double spend and damage the network in a "trustless" system.

It is trustless. In a fiat system there is financial incentive to cheat the system. That's why they attempt to regulate it. Bitcoin has no incentive to cheat. Creating even one false block will be the death of the mining pool. Even if they get away with several blocks by being very lucky, it will spook people away from trusting pools in the first place.

kendog77

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Activity: 742

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Quote from: iluvpie60 on June 26, 2014, 08:18:22 AM

Quote from: cinnamon_carter on June 26, 2014, 06:53:12 AM

it is quite possible

right now any one pool is not a threat but think long term 5, 10 , 20 years from now,

if bitcoins destiny is to become a medium of trust for the entire world to base itself upon the ground work will be laid now for what is to come

i recall other large operations (the guild) getting close to 50% and volunteering to back off, not this time

I guess my question is why it has to be set as the majority >= 50%?

In other types of determining a majority, some things are done at a 2/3 majority. Is there a real reason we need to have it at 50%? What is stopping a change to make it say 80%?

You make a good point of one pool isn't that bad right now because there still are some other big pools who can take over. I just feel like it is really odd that it isn't change to a higher % right now so we can avoid any further issues. once Ghash.io gets up to 70% things could get pretty ugly and they might not accept the change once they get too big.

The reason 50% is important is because whoever controls over 50% of the network can solve blocks faster than the entire rest of the network combined, and work on their own version of the block chain privately while withholding it from the rest of the network. After they do a successful double spend, they can release their version of the blockchain, which will be accepted by the rest of the network because it is longer than the version the rest of the network was working on.

Technically, this attack can be pulled off with less than 50% of the network hash rate if the attacker hits a good luck streak.

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

In greed we trust. Who is foolish enough to kill the golden goose?

kendog77

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The OP has a legitimate point that BTC is supposed to be trustless, so large mining pools pose a major problem for bitcoin. I should not have to trust that GHash.IO will not double spend and damage the network in a "trustless" system.

Also, we have to worry about pool operators colluding with each other to attack the network. In a trustless system, I should not have to worry that the pool operator of GHash.IO may collude with the pool operator of Discus Fish to attack the network.

I would much rather see a system with many more small mining pools than the current behemoths like GHash.IO that control over 40% of the network.

iluvpie60

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Quote from: cinnamon_carter on June 26, 2014, 06:53:12 AM

it is quite possible

right now any one pool is not a threat but think long term 5, 10 , 20 years from now,

if bitcoins destiny is to become a medium of trust for the entire world to base itself upon the ground work will be laid now for what is to come

i recall other large operations (the guild) getting close to 50% and volunteering to back off, not this time

I guess my question is why it has to be set as the majority >= 50%?

In other types of determining a majority, some things are done at a 2/3 majority. Is there a real reason we need to have it at 50%? What is stopping a change to make it say 80%?

You make a good point of one pool isn't that bad right now because there still are some other big pools who can take over. I just feel like it is really odd that it isn't change to a higher % right now so we can avoid any further issues. once Ghash.io gets up to 70% things could get pretty ugly and they might not accept the change once they get too big.

iluvpie60

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Quote from: Lauda on June 26, 2014, 06:39:36 AM

OP stop trying to spread FUD. This was talked over multiple times.
It's a flaw in the protocol, but a problem caused by the miners themselves.

I love when people just say "stop saying something".

Nice counterpoint by saying "OP is wrong". lol so much smartnessssss

iluvpie60

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Quote from: jbreher on June 25, 2014, 09:23:58 PM

Quote from: iluvpie60 on June 25, 2014, 08:07:17 PM

Within the past 7 days they were over 51%. This daily chart is meaningless for your example of "trying to prove me wrong". They have been past 51% before as well. Do your homework mister, see my after class, D-.

You so cute. ::mwah::

Your statement was that they could amount a 51% attack at any time.

They do not currently have 51%. Ergo, they cannot currently mount a 51% attack. Therefore, they cannot mount a 51% attack at any time.

Sorry. You made a false statement. Happens to us all from time to time. Get over it.

So you are telling me in the span of one day when Ghash lowered themselves from the 55% they were at, and put themselves at about 38%, that they couldn't turn everything on again?

Jesus Christ you are a smart one. rofl...

I give you an F- now. If that is even possible. I mean honestly, try thinking in more than a few dimensions... Even logically to someone in like 5th grade you could have a word problem that says, "If Ghash.io has 55% for a day and they voluntarily turn it down to 38%, could they turn it on again to 55%?"

Answer Choice:

A: Yes
B: No

Jesus H man. Get ahold of your logic!

cinnamon_carter

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It's about time -- All merrit accepted !!!

it is quite possible

right now any one pool is not a threat but think long term 5, 10 , 20 years from now,

if bitcoins destiny is to become a medium of trust for the entire world to base itself upon the ground work will be laid now for what is to come

i recall other large operations (the guild) getting close to 50% and volunteering to back off, not this time

bitcoinforhelp

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Pure logic suggest that this is the case. In years to come, mega miner will control 99% mining power.

Lauda

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Terminated.

OP stop trying to spread FUD. This was talked over multiple times.
It's a flaw in the protocol, but a problem caused by the miners themselves.

Topic: BTC endgame = Mega Miner controlling everything, BTC is not "trustless" - page 4. (Read 5404 times)