If 50%+ of miners decide to do something, and they have the programming ability, they can make bitcoin into whatever they want.
Yes, they can create an altcoin!
And the 50%- rest of the miners will be the remaining miners of the Bitcoin network.
Topic: Can miners "freeze" bitcoin addresses? (Read 1789 times)
Yes, they can create an altcoin!
And the 50%- rest of the miners will be the remaining miners of the Bitcoin network.
this will never happen! no one will benefit from it.
besides a criminal, if criminals had the possibility to controls the network and "freezing address", they would certainly do it, besides they will do a double spend too
Is it technically possible for miners to "freeze" certain bitcoin addresses by rejecting all transactions to/from a list of addresses?
A miner/pool can choose to include or reject any transactions for the block they are mining. If this miner/pool solved the block and it ended up on the main chain, this miner/pool has deprived the "frozen" address of a new transaction for 1 block. Because the transaction is still in the transaction memory pool, other miners/pools could include that transaction in the block they are mining.
To effectively "freeze" an address, most pools and miners would need to collude together (51% of network hashrate) to mine blocks fast enough, one top of another, to orphan any block mined by non-colluding miners/pools.
this will never happen! no one will benefit from it.
Its possible.
Won't happen.
Won't happen.
With Bitcoin is "Its possible and CAN happen", with Monero it is impossible.
Monero... its a bigger joke Mooncoin.
In your scenario, the txs may be put in a block, but the block will be rejected by other miners and orphaned.
Also it's not their choice to make a block orphan.
It is not their choice to make a block orphan, but it is their choice to mine on the parent block rather than on a block that contains one or more transactions they object to.
If you have 50%+ of the mining power refusing transactions from some set *AND* refusing to use blocks that have transactions from that set as blocks to mine the next link in the chain from, then the chain not containing those transactions grows faster than any chain that contains those transactions. Hence orphan blocks/chains.
If everyone else decides to screw you, they will.
so 50 550 miners screw you ... well, you have a bad day, my friend, that it's sure.
go and buy a lottery ticket in the same day ... 
THIS RIGHT HERE is why if call yourself a Bitcoiner and you are not mining YOU ARE LYING TO YOURSELF. It's like trying to guard a vault with a toy gun..
I assume that you are a miner, then.
THIS RIGHT HERE is why if call yourself a Bitcoiner and you are not mining YOU ARE LYING TO YOURSELF. It's like trying to guard a vault with a toy gun..
It's not about percentage. It's about excluding tx's from "all" tx pools. That's the only way.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
In your scenario, the txs may be put in a block, but the block will be rejected by other miners and orphaned.
Also it's not their choice to make a block orphan.
They certainly can reject it. If they don't consider the block to be valid because it contains an invalid transaction (the blacklisted one), they continue the chain from a different block and that one is orphaned.
That is not correct. Miners don't have to continue from the first block that is propagated. Each miner is free to choose which block to continue from. The choice is not dictated by any authority or any rule, but a miner is motivated to conform to the consensus. In your scenario, the mining consensus is that certain addresses are blacklisted. If anyone propagates an invalid (according to the consensus) block, it is rejected by miners that follow the consensus and it will never be part of the longest chain.
It's not about percentage. It's about excluding tx's from "all" tx pools. That's the only way.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
In your scenario, the txs may be put in a block, but the block will be rejected by other miners and orphaned.
Also it's not their choice to make a block orphan.
They certainly can reject it. If they don't consider the block to be valid because it contains an invalid transaction (the blacklisted one), they continue the chain from a different block and that one is orphaned.
they can't.
even when P2Pool work for found 1 block every 2-3 days ... the 300 miners process the valid Tx ...
so, when all the miner won't want do the job ... other pool do the job with 1 block found and 2-3 days of waiting time for the adress.
even in P2P file sharing, you can't stop a file to spread ... and it's a less hard network than bitcoin.
honest member always win against scammers on the long term.
---
P2Pool = 2PH/s
whole Bitcoin network = 337PH/s
P2Pool members = 300 miners
whole Bitcoin miners members = 50 550 miners.
so, try to ban ... try ...
even when P2Pool work for found 1 block every 2-3 days ... the 300 miners process the valid Tx ...
so, when all the miner won't want do the job ... other pool do the job with 1 block found and 2-3 days of waiting time for the adress.
even in P2P file sharing, you can't stop a file to spread ... and it's a less hard network than bitcoin.
honest member always win against scammers on the long term.
---
P2Pool = 2PH/s
whole Bitcoin network = 337PH/s
P2Pool members = 300 miners
whole Bitcoin miners members = 50 550 miners.
so, try to ban ... try ...
What you wrote doesn't make sense.
P2Pool = 2PH/s - Decentralized
whole Bitcoin network = 337PH/s - everyone else
So how is your coins protected?
And where is the honesty in that?
If everyone else decides to screw you, they will.
It's not about percentage. It's about excluding tx's from "all" tx pools. That's the only way.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
In your scenario, the txs may be put in a block, but the block will be rejected by other miners and orphaned.
Also it's not their choice to make a block orphan.
They certainly can reject it. If they don't consider the block to be valid because it contains an invalid transaction (the blacklisted one), they continue the chain from a different block and that one is orphaned.
they can't.
even when P2Pool work for found 1 block every 2-3 days ... the 300 miners process the valid Tx ...
so, when all the miner won't want do the job ... other pool do the job with 1 block found and 2-3 days of waiting time for the adress.
even in P2P file sharing, you can't stop a file to spread ... and it's a less hard network than bitcoin.
honest member always win against scammers on the long term.
---
P2Pool = 2PH/s
whole Bitcoin network = 337PH/s
P2Pool members = 300 miners
whole Bitcoin miners members = 50 550 miners.
so, try to ban ... try ...
even when P2Pool work for found 1 block every 2-3 days ... the 300 miners process the valid Tx ...
so, when all the miner won't want do the job ... other pool do the job with 1 block found and 2-3 days of waiting time for the adress.
even in P2P file sharing, you can't stop a file to spread ... and it's a less hard network than bitcoin.
honest member always win against scammers on the long term.
---
P2Pool = 2PH/s
whole Bitcoin network = 337PH/s
P2Pool members = 300 miners
whole Bitcoin miners members = 50 550 miners.
so, try to ban ... try ...
If 50%+ of miners decide to do something, and they have the programming ability, they can make bitcoin into whatever they want.
They can certainly try, but miners are at the whim of market forces (just like the rest of the world).
Everyone holding bitcoins before the miners "do something" can sell these new "whatever the miners want" forked coins and buy actual bitcoins with the proceeds. The smart kids will mine the valuable coin while the we-are-trying-to-push-rules-on-you crowd will be stuck with a bunch of worthless tokens.
Miners only make money because people value the properties of the current block chain and are willing to exchange other things of value for the bitcoins which exist because of that block chain. I keep hearing long-time bitcoiners talking about the power miners have when it's obvious that the economic majority has all the power.
If no one will trade other objects of value for whatever it is the miners are selling, I can promise you that the miners won't be selling it for long. Miners have no power.
TLDR: No.
How will they orphan it? if it's a block that has all requirements of network, miners can not reject it.
Also it's not their choice to make a block orphan.
Also it's not their choice to make a block orphan.
Dishonest miners may decide they do not like the transactions in the current chain X and focus their efforts on creating a fork Y, building upon the most recent block of which they approve. If majority hashrate decides to ignore the "always extend the longest chain" rule and work on chain Y then eventually chain Y will be longer than chain X. At this point, the honest miners will abandon chain X in favour of the longer chain Y.
Many people seem to be justifying the security of Bitcoin in this context by describing the attack as being uneconomic. I'm not so comfortable with this in light of OPs description that miners are not choosing to do this but being forced to do this. If existing industries are anything to go by we may even see the largest miners support (even write) the regulations when they feel Bitcoin is sufficiently well entrenched that the public discontent will be outweighed by the advantage of driving smaller miners out of business and lowering difficulty.
Instead, I propose a greater focus on Bitcoin's fungibility and privacy. If it is not possible to identify a "bad transaction" then it will not be possible to create a blacklist in the first place. Were blockchain addresses and transactions to be well divorced from wallets and real-world transactions then miners would have little choice but to function as dumb pipes, using only overt transaction properties such as size and fee to determine block admission.
Should this privacy arms race be won, mining blacklists would be as nonsensical as Tor-relay censorship.
Doing something like that would destablize the system and make what the miners are doing relatively pointless anyway...
Is it technically possible for miners to "freeze" certain bitcoin addresses by rejecting all transactions to/from a list of addresses? For example if all (or 50%+) miners agree or are forced to by some new regulation to block any transaction from an address that is known to contain stolen funds. If this is possible, then it would open up for all types of regulations forcing miners to become gatekeepers and blocking "bad" transactions.
In short, yes, they can.
Will they?
Not unless they got a gun to their head or some government imposed it claiming "terrorist attacks"
Apart from that, AFAIK the 50%+ attack will not serve the attacker to anything else other than double spends and preventing others from transacting.
But then again if the word gets out that there is a 50+ on one entity/group, changes will happen very soon as to get things back to normal.
It's not about percentage. It's about excluding tx's from "all" tx pools. That's the only way.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
In your scenario, the txs may be put in a block, but the block will be rejected by other miners and orphaned.
Also it's not their choice to make a block orphan.
It's not about percentage. It's about excluding tx's from "all" tx pools. That's the only way.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
Even if all of the miners exclude spesific address's tx's then those people can edit their mining pools & tx pools to accept only those tx's to create block. If they're lucky enough they'll create block and their tx's will be on the chain.
In your scenario, the txs may be put in a block, but the block will be rejected by other miners and orphaned.
Jump to: