Topic: Can the blockchain be frozen of miners stop validating transactions? (Read 1235 times)

Quote from: Possum577 on July 06, 2015, 12:22:53 AM

If 90% of miners stopped working (which is completely unrealistic) then I am many many more would start mining I'm sure.

I'll put 50 PC on the job right away. There are some issues with bitcoin but that there are not enough miners is not and will never be one of them.

There isn't much incentive into attracting people to mine if the difficulty remains the same and the profit would still be low. It can be a problem since the difficulty wouldn't be reasonable till a few difficulty adjustment later.

The fewers miners the better the chances to get alloted btcs for the rest, right?

So as (or if) miners get fewer, more and more people would start mining.

in other words, miners cannot be fewer, for every miners that leave the field another one will replace it, like it was said, bitcoin network is self-sustaining

this will work as long as the bitcoin price is good and there is enough demand, if the demand start decrease too much, than miner will diminish slowly until we have a problem regarding security and double spend, at that point i'm not sure if bitcoin can recover

fryarminer

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Reading all the news about Greece, thinking about how Bitcoin could be the alternative, got me thinking about whether the Bitcoin system could ever be frozen due to non-activity or a community consensus - could the blockchain be frozen?

If I understand correctly, miners validate transactions which then create the blockchain (or blockchain history, forgive me if I'm using the terminology incorrectly).

What if the miners decided to stop working? What if the community decided to stop validating transactions? Wouldn't that freeze the blockchain and thereby put a halt to bitcoin the currency?

If miners stop mining it would take forever for blocks to be mined by the hobby miners who would start mining.

But I got the impression you were asking what if the mining farms did not include transactions in the blocks they mine - that would be an interesting scenario.

We need to keep the blockchain decentralized as much as possible.

ranochigo

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Quote from: ransomer on July 10, 2015, 03:00:13 PM

Quote from: ranochigo on July 10, 2015, 10:59:23 AM

Quote from: ranochigo on July 10, 2015, 10:59:23 AM

If 90% of miners stopped working (which is completely unrealistic) then I am many many more would start mining I'm sure.

I'll put 50 PC on the job right away. There are some issues with bitcoin but that there are not enough miners is not and will never be one of them.

There isn't much incentive into attracting people to mine if the difficulty remains the same and the profit would still be low. It can be a problem since the difficulty wouldn't be reasonable till a few difficulty adjustment later.

The fewers miners the better the chances to get alloted btcs for the rest, right?

So as (or if) miners get fewer, more and more people would start mining.

The chances wouldn't change right away as the difficulty would still be the same. Your machine must be able to solve a block and the hash of block header must be equal to or lower than the target to be accepted. The amount of BTC you get depends on the amount of BTC you solve. Even if the entire network stops mining and you starts mining, you won't receive anything till you solve a block.

ransomer

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If 90% of miners stopped working (which is completely unrealistic) then I am many many more would start mining I'm sure.

I'll put 50 PC on the job right away. There are some issues with bitcoin but that there are not enough miners is not and will never be one of them.

There isn't much incentive into attracting people to mine if the difficulty remains the same and the profit would still be low. It can be a problem since the difficulty wouldn't be reasonable till a few difficulty adjustment later.

The fewers miners the better the chances to get alloted btcs for the rest, right?

So as (or if) miners get fewer, more and more people would start mining.

ranochigo

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Quote from: Possum577 on July 06, 2015, 12:22:53 AM

If 90% of miners stopped working (which is completely unrealistic) then I am many many more would start mining I'm sure.

I'll put 50 PC on the job right away. There are some issues with bitcoin but that there are not enough miners is not and will never be one of them.

There isn't much incentive into attracting people to mine if the difficulty remains the same and the profit would still be low. It can be a problem since the difficulty wouldn't be reasonable till a few difficulty adjustment later.

ransomer

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If 90% of miners stopped working (which is completely unrealistic) then I am many many more would start mining I'm sure.

I'll put 50 PC on the job right away. There are some issues with bitcoin but that there are not enough miners is not and will never be one of them.

Herbert2020

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Reading all the news about Greece, thinking about how Bitcoin could be the alternative, got me thinking about whether the Bitcoin system could ever be frozen due to non-activity or a community consensus - could the blockchain be frozen?

If I understand correctly, miners validate transactions which then create the blockchain (or blockchain history, forgive me if I'm using the terminology incorrectly).

What if the miners decided to stop working? What if the community decided to stop validating transactions? Wouldn't that freeze the blockchain and thereby put a halt to bitcoin the currency?

well, as long as there are people who are using bitcoin, and it has any kind of value, there will be some miners who will mine bitcoin.
the only scenario is if the price was to fall down so low under $50 then maybe enough people will leave it that it breaks apart.

turvarya

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Quote from: medUSA on July 07, 2015, 04:59:28 AM

Quote from: S4VV4S on July 07, 2015, 04:41:39 AM

Yeah, sorry, I don't think I was clear about what I wrote.
What I meant is that there is a limit on how much the difficulty can go up or down on each difficulty retarget
So, it can't drop/rise more than a certain number each time.

My bad, I should have been more clear about what I wrote.

You are clear, I understood you perfectly. I have known that difficultly do cannot drop "too much" but I couldn't find a definite answer what is "too much". I have an impression that it's 80% (drop by 80%, so 20% of original difficulty). Any coders can confirm that?

Look here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty
and here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Target

There should be the answer in there.

@Topic
I think, in Bitcoin we see the advantage in a global market. With miners all around the world, there isn't a way to stop them all.
Also keep in mind, the difference between pool and miners. Sure, you can take down a pool, but that just means miners are going to another one.
So, how much miners can be shut down in one sweep? Even if it is 50%(which I doubt, that it is possible), that would just mean, confirmation time doubles from avg. 10 minutes to avg 20 minutes till the next adjustment. Big deal Roll Eyes

medUSA

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Quote from: S4VV4S on July 07, 2015, 04:41:39 AM

Yeah, sorry, I don't think I was clear about what I wrote.
What I meant is that there is a limit on how much the difficulty can go up or down on each difficulty retarget
So, it can't drop/rise more than a certain number each time.

My bad, I should have been more clear about what I wrote.

You are clear, I understood you perfectly. I have known that difficultly do cannot drop "too much" but I couldn't find a definite answer what is "too much". I have an impression that it's 80% (drop by 80%, so 20% of original difficulty). Any coders can confirm that?

S4VV4S

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Quote from: tertius993 on July 06, 2015, 12:20:53 PM

Quote from: S4VV4S on July 06, 2015, 08:11:29 AM

Quote from: S4VV4S on July 06, 2015, 08:11:29 AM

i read somewhere that if all or so many of the miners turn off their mining equipment and stop mining, then the difficulty would decrease drastically.
so i think blockchain can not be frozen! as long as at least one person is mining bitcoin. and since the difficulty would be so low by then, solo mining would be doable.

well yes but not immediately, it need two week for that, mainwhile other miners will jon the party, because of the poissible profit

so in the end the diff will never decrease, and that's the reason why POW is great, because as long as there is profit to be made there will be always miners that will join the network it's a self sustaining thing

Difficulty adjusts every 2016 block, not two weeks. Even when new miners join the mining, if remaining hashing power is let's say 10% of hashing power before, blocks would take an average of 100 minutes. If my calculations are correct, will take around 4 months to the next difficulty adjustment. After the adjustment, difficulty will drop very low, so blocktimes are back to average of 10 minutes.

Actually, AFAIK, the difficulty will go down up to a point (and to gradually get to the point of a block found on 10 minute average).
Basically there is a limit on how much the difficulty can go up or down.

There are any number of altcoins you can look at to see what happens when the difficulty gets high and the miners move away ... the blockchain starts to crawl and it takes weeks or months to get to the next difficulty adjustment. Especially those that simply copied the BTC model of adjusting every 2016 blocks.

So, yes the difficulty will adjust ... eventually.

Yeah, sorry, I don't think I was clear about what I wrote.
What I meant is that there is a limit on how much the difficulty can go up or down on each difficulty retarget
So, it can't drop/rise more than a certain number each time.

My bad, I should have been more clear about what I wrote.

countryfree

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Miners aren't like workers in a factory. A strike can easily stop a factory, but miners all over the world. In the US, Russia and China, and I know some of them are isolated. There's no organization on top of all of miners to unite them. There could be a tsunami on the American West coast, meaning that all miners in California will disappear, but those in China will keep on going.

melody82

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So it takes a HUGE investment of capital to make a mining farm. As long as the miners are making money, they will continue to mine. It is a simple as that. I think that the chances of anyone turning off their miners is pretty close to zero (not counting hobby miners of course). It is just business. if someday mining becomes unprofitable, then there might be something to sorry about. But even then the network would adjust: some miners would use their capital elsewhere, while the remaining ones would have more of the pie to themselves. I think it will always balance out that way.

tertius993

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Quote from: Possum577 on July 06, 2015, 12:22:53 AM

i read somewhere that if all or so many of the miners turn off their mining equipment and stop mining, then the difficulty would decrease drastically.
so i think blockchain can not be frozen! as long as at least one person is mining bitcoin. and since the difficulty would be so low by then, solo mining would be doable.

well yes but not immediately, it need two week for that, mainwhile other miners will jon the party, because of the poissible profit

so in the end the diff will never decrease, and that's the reason why POW is great, because as long as there is profit to be made there will be always miners that will join the network it's a self sustaining thing

Difficulty adjusts every 2016 block, not two weeks. Even when new miners join the mining, if remaining hashing power is let's say 10% of hashing power before, blocks would take an average of 100 minutes. If my calculations are correct, will take around 4 months to the next difficulty adjustment. After the adjustment, difficulty will drop very low, so blocktimes are back to average of 10 minutes.

Actually, AFAIK, the difficulty will go down up to a point (and to gradually get to the point of a block found on 10 minute average).
Basically there is a limit on how much the difficulty can go up or down.

There are any number of altcoins you can look at to see what happens when the difficulty gets high and the miners move away ... the blockchain starts to crawl and it takes weeks or months to get to the next difficulty adjustment. Especially those that simply copied the BTC model of adjusting every 2016 blocks.

So, yes the difficulty will adjust ... eventually.

franky1

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Reading all the news about Greece, thinking about how Bitcoin could be the alternative, got me thinking about whether the Bitcoin system could ever be frozen due to non-activity or a community consensus - could the blockchain be frozen?

If I understand correctly, miners validate transactions which then create the blockchain (or blockchain history, forgive me if I'm using the terminology incorrectly).

What if the miners decided to stop working? What if the community decided to stop validating transactions? Wouldn't that freeze the blockchain and thereby put a halt to bitcoin the currency?

if the top 5 mining pools stopped. then someone else will take the opportunity.. most probably 10000's of hobby miners..

because the code it not stored centrally even if some dumb mining pool owners demanded some code update which would blocked mining, and end their income..... smart people wont update to this dumb code and continue mining.. leaving the pools playing around with a useless fork, while mining continues on the non-updated code

S4VV4S

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i read somewhere that if all or so many of the miners turn off their mining equipment and stop mining, then the difficulty would decrease drastically.
so i think blockchain can not be frozen! as long as at least one person is mining bitcoin. and since the difficulty would be so low by then, solo mining would be doable.

well yes but not immediately, it need two week for that, mainwhile other miners will jon the party, because of the poissible profit

so in the end the diff will never decrease, and that's the reason why POW is great, because as long as there is profit to be made there will be always miners that will join the network it's a self sustaining thing

Difficulty adjusts every 2016 block, not two weeks. Even when new miners join the mining, if remaining hashing power is let's say 10% of hashing power before, blocks would take an average of 100 minutes. If my calculations are correct, will take around 4 months to the next difficulty adjustment. After the adjustment, difficulty will drop very low, so blocktimes are back to average of 10 minutes.

Actually, AFAIK, the difficulty will go down up to a point (and to gradually get to the point of a block found on 10 minute average).
Basically there is a limit on how much the difficulty can go up or down.

AtheistAKASaneBrain

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It's a self regulated system so if said miner group stops doing their job someone else would do it as they would realize it's profitable for them to do so due the difficulty drop.

Amph

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i read somewhere that if all or so many of the miners turn off their mining equipment and stop mining, then the difficulty would decrease drastically.
so i think blockchain can not be frozen! as long as at least one person is mining bitcoin. and since the difficulty would be so low by then, solo mining would be doable.

well yes but not immediately, it need two week for that, mainwhile other miners will jon the party, because of the poissible profit

so in the end the diff will never decrease, and that's the reason why POW is great, because as long as there is profit to be made there will be always miners that will join the network it's a self sustaining thing

Difficulty adjusts every 2016 block, not two weeks. Even when new miners join the mining, if remaining hashing power is let's say 10% of hashing power before, blocks would take an average of 100 minutes. If my calculations are correct, will take around 4 months to the next difficulty adjustment. After the adjustment, difficulty will drop very low, so blocktimes are back to average of 10 minutes.

i know this, it goes without saying that i was talking about two weeks as average like it is 10 minutes as average, the fact that some times will be 100 min or days does not mean much, you need to calculate the average, and that's it

BTCjust

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bitcoin, as a spare wheel. but always time, if the old car break down, people would buy a new car rather change a spare wheel...

medUSA

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