Feasibility of limiting the computational power of each node

NotATether

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Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 06:28:53 AM

If you add a computational power limit to each node in the Bitcoin base code, is this limit easy to crack? What I mean by cracking is not to increase the computational power by increasing the number of nodes, but can the set computational power be exceeded on a single node?

You can't do such a thing in software. You need either a hardware device to block additional power going to an ASIC (as nobody mines with CPUs anymore), or else you'd need to enforce this with a government policy that prevents mining farms from using power over X petahashes/second.

thecodebear

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Quote from: yingyush55 on April 02, 2023, 06:29:27 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 06:28:53 AM

If you add a computational power limit to each node in the Bitcoin base code, is this limit easy to crack? What I mean by cracking is not to increase the computational power by increasing the number of nodes, but can the set computational power be exceeded on a single node?

while it is possible to crack a computational power limit that is added to the bitcoin base code, the difficulty of doing so would depend on several factors. if the limit is properly designed and enforced, it should be difficult for the attackers to exceed the limit without being detected. However, it is still important for developers to carefully consider the potential risks and vulnerabilities of any changes to the bitcoin codebase.

If we can solve the energy consumption problem and fairness issue between users of Bitcoin, all efforts will be worthwhile.

There isn't actually an energy consumption problem with Bitcoin though. Bitcoin's PoW is VERY VERY good for the world. If society embraces it it can help stop enormous amounts of waste in the electrical grid and help move humanity to renewables. The only thing bad about the energy consumption is the optics: it sounds bad and the media reports about it being bad and so everyone thinks its bad and nobody bothers to learn about why its not bad and why its actually really good.

ABCbits

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Quote from: yingyush55 on April 02, 2023, 06:13:10 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

--snip--

If we use face recognition technology on this basis so that everyone can only generate a unique account, will it be fairer, safer, and more energy efficient than current Bitcoin.

This sounds rude, but you clearly lack knowledge about technical aspect of Bitcoin.
1. Bitcoin doesn't have account.
2. How does this technology prevent usage of stock image (e.g. Shutterstock), stolen image (e.g. from Facebook profile page) or AI generated example (e.g. https://thispersondoesnotexist.xyz/)?
3. How do you implement your idea on decentralized manner?

I strongly recommend you take some time to learn some technical aspect of Bitcoin from https://learnmeabitcoin.com/ and https://github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook.

DaveF

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The OP is confusing nodes with miners. But in the end it still does not matter. Unless you want to go full KYC for everyone mining you will never have proof of who owns or runs what.

Could be I am just seeing it more, could also be that there is something else going on, but there seem to be more and more people popping up who want to turn BTC into some really different coin [proof of IP and proof of domain were just discussed]. Either they don't fundamentally understand what BTC is / how it works and why it was setup that way or it's an organized campaign against BTC.

That or I guess it's just a bunch people who want some of the free magical internet money.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 02, 2023, 06:29:27 AM

If we can solve the energy consumption problem and fairness issue between users of Bitcoin, all efforts will be worthwhile.

There is no energy consumption problem. See: https://bitcoincleanup.com/

Why should it be fair, if I want to spend time and money to mine why should you get free / cheap coins? That was never the way BTC was supposed to be.
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

-Dave

yingyush55

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 06:28:53 AM

If you add a computational power limit to each node in the Bitcoin base code, is this limit easy to crack? What I mean by cracking is not to increase the computational power by increasing the number of nodes, but can the set computational power be exceeded on a single node?

while it is possible to crack a computational power limit that is added to the bitcoin base code, the difficulty of doing so would depend on several factors. if the limit is properly designed and enforced, it should be difficult for the attackers to exceed the limit without being detected. However, it is still important for developers to carefully consider the potential risks and vulnerabilities of any changes to the bitcoin codebase.

If we can solve the energy consumption problem and fairness issue between users of Bitcoin, all efforts will be worthwhile.

sha420hashcollision

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Quote from: yingyush55 on April 02, 2023, 06:13:10 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 01:19:05 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

--snip--

Mining pools are a large node.

I disagree. I expect pools have few nodes across different region for various reasons such as ensuring faster block propagation.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 01:19:05 PM

Will such centralized computing power affect the security of Bitcoin?

There are some concern about centralization of mining hashrate. But almost all them are not economically feasible.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 01:19:05 PM

Can several large mining pools jointly launch 51% computing power attacks

It's theoretically possible. But their pool would be abandoned by miners and face possibility of legal sue due after attempting 51% attack.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 04:34:51 PM

Quote from: garlonicon on April 01, 2023, 02:56:57 PM

Quote

Limiting computational power can also filter non mining nodes. Is there a problem?

Yes, because then only miners will be able to verify data. If you ban all nodes that are not mining, then you will have only miners in the network, and then the whole P2P concept is gone, because all other users will then be entirely banned, and would need to connect to the network by using some miner as a proxy.

Suppose I created a fake coin using Bitcoin running code, but I added two restrictions to this fake coin. Each user can only have one account, and the computing power of each account is limited to 100M. This fake coin has 1000 users. If someone tries to attack with 1T computing power, is the network still safe?

Bitcoin network would be safe / not affected since your modification break isn't compatible with current Bitcoin protocol/consensus. Other node would just put you into ban.

If we use face recognition technology on this basis so that everyone can only generate a unique account, will it be fairer, safer, and more energy efficient than current Bitcoin.

You have the freedom to believe that and implement that but I will not help you. To me it sounds baseless and uninformed about tons of things. Just being honest.

yingyush55

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 01:19:05 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

--snip--

Mining pools are a large node.

I disagree. I expect pools have few nodes across different region for various reasons such as ensuring faster block propagation.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 01:19:05 PM

Will such centralized computing power affect the security of Bitcoin?

There are some concern about centralization of mining hashrate. But almost all them are not economically feasible.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 01:19:05 PM

Can several large mining pools jointly launch 51% computing power attacks

It's theoretically possible. But their pool would be abandoned by miners and face possibility of legal sue due after attempting 51% attack.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 04:34:51 PM

Quote from: garlonicon on April 01, 2023, 02:56:57 PM

Quote

Limiting computational power can also filter non mining nodes. Is there a problem?

Yes, because then only miners will be able to verify data. If you ban all nodes that are not mining, then you will have only miners in the network, and then the whole P2P concept is gone, because all other users will then be entirely banned, and would need to connect to the network by using some miner as a proxy.

Suppose I created a fake coin using Bitcoin running code, but I added two restrictions to this fake coin. Each user can only have one account, and the computing power of each account is limited to 100M. This fake coin has 1000 users. If someone tries to attack with 1T computing power, is the network still safe?

Bitcoin network would be safe / not affected since your modification break isn't compatible with current Bitcoin protocol/consensus. Other node would just put you into ban.

If we use face recognition technology on this basis so that everyone can only generate a unique account, will it be fairer, safer, and more energy efficient than current Bitcoin.

sha420hashcollision

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 01:19:05 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

--snip--

Mining pools are a large node.

I disagree. I expect pools have few nodes across different region for various reasons such as ensuring faster block propagation.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 01:19:05 PM

Will such centralized computing power affect the security of Bitcoin?

There are some concern about centralization of mining hashrate. But almost all them are not economically feasible.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 01:19:05 PM

Can several large mining pools jointly launch 51% computing power attacks

It's theoretically possible. But their pool would be abandoned by miners and face possibility of legal sue due after attempting 51% attack.

Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 04:34:51 PM

Quote from: garlonicon on April 01, 2023, 02:56:57 PM

Quote

Limiting computational power can also filter non mining nodes. Is there a problem?

Yes, because then only miners will be able to verify data. If you ban all nodes that are not mining, then you will have only miners in the network, and then the whole P2P concept is gone, because all other users will then be entirely banned, and would need to connect to the network by using some miner as a proxy.

Suppose I created a fake coin using Bitcoin running code, but I added two restrictions to this fake coin. Each user can only have one account, and the computing power of each account is limited to 100M. This fake coin has 1000 users. If someone tries to attack with 1T computing power, is the network still safe?

Bitcoin network would be safe / not affected since your modification break isn't compatible with current Bitcoin protocol/consensus. Other node would just put you into ban.

If we limit the number of registered users, will this system be fairer and more energy efficient than the current Bitcoin system.

No it would make it more centralized and less valuable.

yingyush55

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Quote from: garlonicon on April 01, 2023, 02:56:57 PM

Quote

Limiting computational power can also filter non mining nodes. Is there a problem?

Yes, because then only miners will be able to verify data. If you ban all nodes that are not mining, then you will have only miners in the network, and then the whole P2P concept is gone, because all other users will then be entirely banned, and would need to connect to the network by using some miner as a proxy.

Suppose I created a fake coin using Bitcoin running code, but I added two restrictions to this fake coin. Each user can only have one account, and the computing power of each account is limited to 100M. This fake coin has 1000 users. If someone tries to attack with 1T computing power, is the network still safe?

garlonicon

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Quote

Limiting computational power can also filter non mining nodes. Is there a problem?

Yes, because then only miners will be able to verify data. If you ban all nodes that are not mining, then you will have only miners in the network, and then the whole P2P concept is gone, because all other users will then be entirely banned, and would need to connect to the network by using some miner as a proxy.

sha420hashcollision

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Quote from: garlonicon on April 01, 2023, 02:07:51 PM

Quote

this would involve verifying a LOT of shares

Note that shares are artificial concept, present in mining pools. In the Bitcoin network, you have valid blocks, or invalid blocks. Any block that does not meet the target is considered invalid, even if all included transactions are valid. Miners are rewarded only by mining pools for those invalid blocks, because they meet some lower difficulty, set by that mining pool.

I am aware of this, the purpose of recording shares (accepted / valid shares to be more specific) would only serve to have a recorded proof of a miner's hash rate. These shares proofs would only be used if they discover a block, and could then be used to prove that up until the block was hit, they solved a certain amount of valid hashes per unit. Its also a work in progress theory and not implemented anywhere yet as I have said.

yingyush55

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Quote from: garlonicon on April 01, 2023, 02:07:51 PM

Quote

this would involve verifying a LOT of shares

Note that shares are artificial concept, present in mining pools. In the Bitcoin network, you have valid blocks, or invalid blocks. Any block that does not meet the target is considered invalid, even if all included transactions are valid. Miners are rewarded only by mining pools for those invalid blocks, because they meet some lower difficulty, set by that mining pool.

Quote

a desire for everyone to have equal power, unlike the power currently owned by wealthy people

Note that there are also non-mining nodes, and using Proof of Work to filter connections will eliminate them. The question is: do you want to also eliminate for example block explorers, if their operators will not start mining?

"I don't understand English. I communicate with you using a translator. I'm a bit confused about what you said later. Perhaps you should use a simpler and more straightforward expression.". Limiting computational power can also filter non mining nodes. Is there a problem?

garlonicon

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Quote

this would involve verifying a LOT of shares

Note that shares are artificial concept, present in mining pools. In the Bitcoin network, you have valid blocks, or invalid blocks. Any block that does not meet the target is considered invalid, even if all included transactions are valid. Miners are rewarded only by mining pools for those invalid blocks, because they meet some lower difficulty, set by that mining pool.

Quote

a desire for everyone to have equal power, unlike the power currently owned by wealthy people

Note that there are also non-mining nodes, and using Proof of Work to filter connections will eliminate them. The question is: do you want to also eliminate for example block explorers, if their operators will not start mining?

sha420hashcollision

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Quote from: yingyush55 on April 01, 2023, 02:04:57 PM

Quote from: sha420hashcollision on April 01, 2023, 01:36:28 PM

You can only create a consensus flag that would verify a proof that the work was only so difficult, this would involve verifying a LOT of shares so it is not extremely likely to be implemented naively if at all.

"If a consensus flag is created to limit computational power, can users bypass or crack computational power constraints?"

Yea they can bypass the computational power but if they submit a share that represents they did this and the consensus flag was checking for it actively, the network would reject such a share. No such implementation exists yet in practice.

yingyush55

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Quote from: sha420hashcollision on April 01, 2023, 01:36:28 PM

You can only create a consensus flag that would verify a proof that the work was only so difficult, this would involve verifying a LOT of shares so it is not extremely likely to be implemented naively if at all.

"If a consensus flag is created to limit computational power, can users bypass or crack computational power constraints?"

yingyush55

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Quote from: garlonicon on April 01, 2023, 01:35:39 PM

Quote

If you can limit the number of registered nodes per person, do you think such a system will become very fair?

No, it will increase pooled mining. Currently, you can mine coins without running a full node. If you restrict the number of nodes, then there will be even less miners with their own node. You will only harm people that run nodes without mining, which is probably not what you want.

Quote

The Pow mechanism is very complete and mature, but its node power is concentrated in the hands of wealthy people.

Not really, because anyone can run a non-mining node. And it seems to be useful in some situations, for example here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/error-connectblock-too-many-sigops-invalidchainfound-invalid-block-5447129

Without full node running 24/7, getting block 00000000000000000002ec935e245f8ae70fc68cc828f05bf4cfa002668599e4 would be very hard, because block explorers won't show you that, so you won't see, why this block was not accepted.

In theory, nothing stops non-mining nodes from charging fees for their services. In practice, most of them are not rewarded in any way, the only reward is that the node owner can be 100% sure what is going on in the network, if that node is online 24/7.

Quote

Mining pools are a large node. Will such centralized computing power affect the security of Bitcoin?

Why you want to solve "large node" problem by limiting the number of nodes? You should do it in exactly opposite way: encourage people to run nodes, so there will be a lot of smaller ones.

Limiting the number of nodes owned by each person and limiting the upper limit of the computing power of each node is not a solution to the problem of large nodes, but rather a desire for everyone to have equal power, unlike the power currently owned by wealthy people

sha420hashcollision

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You can only create a consensus flag that would verify a proof that the work was only so difficult, this would involve verifying a LOT of shares so it is not extremely likely to be implemented naively if at all.

garlonicon

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Quote

If you can limit the number of registered nodes per person, do you think such a system will become very fair?

No, it will increase pooled mining. Currently, you can mine coins without running a full node. If you restrict the number of nodes, then there will be even less miners with their own node. You will only harm people that run nodes without mining, which is probably not what you want.

Quote

The Pow mechanism is very complete and mature, but its node power is concentrated in the hands of wealthy people.

Not really, because anyone can run a non-mining node. And it seems to be useful in some situations, for example here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/error-connectblock-too-many-sigops-invalidchainfound-invalid-block-5447129

Without full node running 24/7, getting block 00000000000000000002ec935e245f8ae70fc68cc828f05bf4cfa002668599e4 would be very hard, because block explorers won't show you that, so you won't see, why this block was not accepted.

In theory, nothing stops non-mining nodes from charging fees for their services. In practice, most of them are not rewarded in any way, the only reward is that the node owner can be 100% sure what is going on in the network, if that node is online 24/7.

Quote

Mining pools are a large node. Will such centralized computing power affect the security of Bitcoin?

Why you want to solve "large node" problem by limiting the number of nodes? You should do it in exactly opposite way: encourage people to run nodes, so there will be a lot of smaller ones.

yingyush55

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Assuming you're talking about computation power to perform Bitcoin mining, the answer is no. Few reasons why it's impossible,
1. Most miner these days don't run full node. They only connect to mining pool where the pool give them some computational task.
2. Since most miner connect to pool, that means most Bitcoin block is mined and broadcasted by few pools.
3. There's no way to check how many miners involved to mine a block without trusting the pool.

Mining pools are a large node. Will such centralized computing power affect the security of Bitcoin? Can several large mining pools jointly launch 51% computing power attacks

yingyush55

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Quote from: joniboini on April 01, 2023, 07:24:12 AM

So, for example, one computer can only output 1 GH/s mining hash rate, and if they want to increase it legally, they have to add more computers. Is this what you're trying to say?

If this is the case, I can see a lot of people using other clients or just straight up forking the network if they think it is worth the cost. Whether it is hackable or not is just speculative at this point since there is no code to scrutinize. Even if it is unhackable though, what I mentioned previously is still likely to happen. What is the purpose of this limitation btw? To prevent centralization or something else? I don't see how it works if the former is the purpose. CMIIW.

If you can limit the number of registered nodes per person, do you think such a system will become very fair? The Pow mechanism is very complete and mature, but its node power is concentrated in the hands of wealthy people.

joniboini

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So, for example, one computer can only output 1 GH/s mining hash rate, and if they want to increase it legally, they have to add more computers. Is this what you're trying to say?

If this is the case, I can see a lot of people using other clients or just straight up forking the network if they think it is worth the cost. Whether it is hackable or not is just speculative at this point since there is no code to scrutinize. Even if it is unhackable though, what I mentioned previously is still likely to happen. What is the purpose of this limitation btw? To prevent centralization or something else? I don't see how it works if the former is the purpose. CMIIW.

yingyush55

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If you add a computational power limit to each node in the Bitcoin base code, is this limit easy to crack? What I mean by cracking is not to increase the computational power by increasing the number of nodes, but can the set computational power be exceeded on a single node?

Topic: Feasibility of limiting the computational power of each node (Read 218 times)