Topic: decentralization solutions (Read 1115 times)

@DieJohnny


Your discussion does closely describe P2pool, which is at this time the only decentralized mining pool. Each node in the P2pool network operate independent from next maintaining a common chain of data called the Sharechain. The Sharecahin operates similar to the Bitcoin Blockchain only faster and with a lower difficulty target. Miners connected to a P2pool node work on shares that include payouts to the previous share owners and itself. When the share is accepted by a P2Pool node it's then broadcast on it's own P2P network to all other nodes.  If a majority of other nodes accept the share, it becomes confirmed in the sharechain. If the share also meets the Bitcoin difficulty it is then broadcast to both P2Pool and Bitcoin network, and if confirmed by the Bitcoin network becomes a block, where payment of the last 8,640 shares in the sharechain (3 days) are directly paid from the block generation transaction.


Your understating could be mixed I think. The individual miners (client side) of a decentralized pool operate the same software as the miners on the centralized pools, typically cgminer or bgminer commonly found in most on-board ASIC controllers. But the pool software (server side) in many cases is different, offering different features and payout methods but normally complying with the stratum protocol for common communication with the mining software.


In the case of P2Pool being the pool software, it too has a few tricks. P2pool has improved propagation of found blocks via it's own P2P network giving the pool a very low orphan rate. P2pool will generate its own work if it knows that there is a new block found via it's on P2P network but not yet updated by the Bitcoin network.


Provided the hypothetical 1000 miners are each running their own Bitcoin software and P2Pool software then they each are voting for their respective preference but sharing rewards reducing variance. For example the P2Pool network contains some nodes operating Bitcoin Core and some with Bitcoin XT but each block found for the different versions represent independent votes towards the different direction they represent.

I think the block reward has to be changed to include some mechanics of PoS so that just because you have access to cheap power doesn't mean you're out of the game.

The difficulty is so high right now, only large farms can mine a block. With F2Pool and Antpool in China, more than 50% of the mining is taking place there due to cheap power and low equipment costs.

From what i read p2pool is pretty much exactly what I am referring to, however, i am not certain individual miners are running the most optimized mining software that competes with the large pools, using tricks like mining immediately on top of their new blocks et cetera.

I am also not sure how much p2pool support being independent as a miner. For example, can 1000 individual miners use p2pool and all use their own software, thus having 1000 votes for Bitcoin core rather than 1.....

My primary concern is we need more voters and more distribution than what we have today.

Yeah p2pool might be a solution to this problem, and I also wonder what the share of solo-miners is. How much are they 'contributing' to decentralization?
FWIW, more people should solo mine in my opinion.

Yes, but the miners are casting their vote by joining or leaving certain pools. So that means that if a pool does something their miners don't like, the miners leave and then that pool's vote is worth less since it produces less blocks. Either way every single individual miner gets his vote counted.

I am not getting your point OP...
Are you trying to say that you don't want to go through these pools and make it possible on your own to mine it with your "own group of miners" and share the coins equally or based on how much everyone contributed???

How do you identify miners? AIUI, a miner just needs to broadcast a solved block - that's it. You can't tell from block to block who solved it. Nor, if you insisted on miners identifying themselves, whether they are lying. Or am I misunderstanding your proposal?

if you think about it, cloud mining is helping decentralization, because it offer to everyone to have the same electricity as those big farm

so they are actually pro decentralization, well the roi is what it is, but it's deniable their proposal

The difference is that with today's pools you have one miner, the pool. That one pool owner is casting a vote for how the bitcoin protocol moves forward for thousands of contributors. In a model with individual miners everyone still votes. I am going to investigate p2pool maybe it is wHat I am referring to.

I am not an expert (and so my post and my thoughts cannot be taken as a professional ones) but I don't any difference between the two models. Or at least essentially. The new one proposed is another pool when has not an owner but many such and have no fee like the classic pool. All the other things are the same (at last essentially). If this can be called decentralization we can have the same result if can be created new pools which will steal miners to the others "old" pools using incentives or various bonuses. And we will be at the same situation.

you do realise there is a thing called "programming code" right?.. there is no need for a government or law.. when code can do it.. like my last post suggested


trying to change the method of mining can be manipulated by the miners themselves. after all look what happened with the GPU/asic race.. it meant to be independant mining but pools linked up multiple devices.. which will happen no matter what mining code you use to confirm transactions..
what needs to be done is to let the miners do what they do, but then on the receiver side WE decide to accept or reject that block if it appears they are getting too powerful. which mining pools wont have control of.

but thats all just idea's and theory. because as you say


changing anything purely so that the little guys can get rich is a non-ending cycle of greed.. and people should just find other ways to make money. the only reason for changing mining/block relaying is to avoid 51% attacks

I don't think there are any solutions on the table to decentralize mining.

Think about it, miners are needed to confirm transactions. The existing big miners have control of majority of the mining computing activity and also the transaction confirmation activity. There's zero incentive for those big miners, who are making money, to stop or reduce their work.

An obvious way to decentralize the mining effort would be for some governing body (let's call it a government) to right a law that bans or breaks up the big mining firms. This doesn't seem like a realistic option for bitcoin.

An alternative would be if there's some additional way for mining to be conducted, one that is brand new so it's an open field in terms of who's involved. This allows small miners to get in, but only until the mining operations get big enough to command the majority of the work (just as we see currently with traditional bitcoin mining.)

Here's the thing with mining, it's going to continue to get less and less profitable for them. There are easier ways for you to earn bitcoin than mining, so we need to recognize their role but not get pipe dreams about trying to mine some coin in our basement (unless of course you're willing to wait a year to mine one coin (after putting $1000 or so investment into equipment.)

mining is decentralised, what you are talking about is widening the distribution.

the simple tactic i can see is that when a miner relays a solved block, nodes can have a rule to ignore blocks from that same pool for atleast 3,6,10 blocks.. that way one miner cant gain more then 33%, 16.5% 10% of blocks.

but pools wont like that

What about p2pool?

What legit solutions are on the table to decentralize mining?

You join a pool because the probability of you personally solving a block is astronomically small? You trust a pool to give you a share because so many other people are trusting the same pool. The pool tracks your work and pays you accordingly.

Can we achieve the same result with tweaked model rather than current pools.

For example, a group miners individually using the best possible mining software, where everyone agrees to pay solved blocks to the group. Then we use smart contracts and proof of work mechanisms to enforce this relationship?

Is this possible? If not, what are the legit solutions to this decentralization problem?