Long Live Proof-of-Work, Long Live Mining - "there is no meaningful alternative" - page 6.

Fernandez

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Quote from: cbeast on November 24, 2014, 02:18:06 AM

Governments or any DOS army can attack a pool, but 2 more will take its place. There are many small pools ready, willing, and able to scale.

Government won't attack directly, they will blackmail a couple and then attack Bitcoin. As the Ghash incident showed, miners are slow to react and don't care about the health of the network, otherwise by now they would've diversified.

cryptogeeknext

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Bitcoin trolls back

Quote from: kokojie on November 23, 2014, 10:59:13 PM

Quote from: Eisenhower34 on November 21, 2014, 10:08:21 AM

Quote from: devphp on November 21, 2014, 07:56:03 AM

This competition between cryptos and different Proof-of-... is exactly the game of skills, only the fittest will survive.

But it makes sense to review all options available on the market if you're an investor and a user.

If you're a miner, you have no choice but promote PoW to make your living.

I disagree. People who purchased miners are essentially investing in bitcoin via their miner. Additionally most miners have a short useful life span so anyone who has invested in a miner could simply decide to cease upgrading their mining farm if they decided to stop believing in PoW in favor of something else.

Wrong, people who purchase miners are essentially investing in the hardware, which they could potentially use to extract value out of a PoW system, it might be Bitcoin, OR something else, maybe Peercoin for example. Miners only care about what's most profitable to mine at the moment, vast majority of miners have ZERO loyalty to any specific coin, this is a very clearly observed phenomenon in the scrypt mining scene. The biggest pools are the auto-switch pools.

You are still caught in your investment/returns/profit loop.
Mining is a control game, profitwise it's about breaking-even, though you do get a monetary reward for getting ahead of the competition. Asicminer did.

The mining battle arena has a little secret - its floor is made out of a sinking sand, so those wannabe kings need to keep running in order to stand still, while those who want to challenge them come refreshed from the solid ground.

cryptogeeknext

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Bitcoin trolls back

Quote from: Fernandez on November 24, 2014, 01:54:33 AM

Quote from: cryptogeeknext on November 20, 2014, 07:44:31 AM

As I understand, with DPOS the established group of stakeholders with majority vote would be able to maintain total control over the network indefinitely at no cost. It doesn't matter much if control is exerted directly or via delegates, more steps only clutter the mechanics of control and contribute to confusion.

Its better to have those who have stakes in the system to look after its good, rather than in PoW where the actual holders are out of luck. they have to rely on some cartels to take the right decision.

The worst part with PoW is that they sold the crypto space as decentralized, while its anything but that. The government can simply take 2-3 pools and destroy everything. Such kind of attacks is possible in PoS by blackmailing big exchanges, but its still difficult than PoW, as for the established coins exchanges don't have more than 4-5% at the most.

No, if you are busy fighting for control in order to break-even profitwise, you don't have all the time and resources needed to conquer the world. The beauty of PoW control model is in its temporal diversity (temporal means along the time axis).

You might have your winner at any given point in time, but they are soon replaced by competition. Remember Deepbit? Where is Deepbit now? Remember Btcguild? Where is Btcguild now? The same goes for Asicminer, Ghash and any other.

I would rather have kings fight each other on the open stage, while people stay relatively free, than the other way around, unless you are Sunny King, of course Grin

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

Quote from: Fernandez on November 24, 2014, 01:54:33 AM

Quote from: cryptogeeknext on November 20, 2014, 07:44:31 AM

As I understand, with DPOS the established group of stakeholders with majority vote would be able to maintain total control over the network indefinitely at no cost. It doesn't matter much if control is exerted directly or via delegates, more steps only clutter the mechanics of control and contribute to confusion.

Its better to have those who have stakes in the system to look after its good, rather than in PoW where the actual holders are out of luck. they have to rely on some cartels to take the right decision.

The worst part with PoW is that they sold the crypto space as decentralized, while its anything but that. The government can simply take 2-3 pools and destroy everything. Such kind of attacks is possible in PoS by blackmailing big exchanges, but its still difficult than PoW, as for the established coins exchanges don't have more than 4-5% at the most.

Bitcoin holders are not at the whim of anyone except unregulated markets. Miners work at the pleasure of their customers, not the other way around. Bitcoin is the highest valued not because of government mandate, but because customers value it. Miners are free to mine other cryptocurrencies, but the most competitive miners mine Bitcoin.

Governments or any DOS army can attack a pool, but 2 more will take its place. There are many small pools ready, willing, and able to scale.

Fernandez

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Quote from: turvarya on November 21, 2014, 02:37:40 AM

Quote from: Fernandez on November 18, 2014, 01:41:26 AM

Mining promotes centralization and single point of failure. Right now all the government has to do is to blackmail or hack and take control of two pools and Bitcoin can be destroyed.

Supporters of mining now are mainly those who have already invested in it and have to rely on having this continue to not get broke.

You obviously don't know much about mining. The hashing power is not on the pools. If a pool acts bad, people just go to another one. Losing a pool wouldn't change much. That's far away from "Bitcoin can be destroyed"
Some people on this forum even state, that this would be good, since people would change to p2p pool and the whole centralization problem, would be solved.

I do, I used to mine. The miners are just looking for a paycheck and don't care. Thats what happens when the miners and shareholders are separated. The miners don't have much interest in the long term health, just short term profits.

Fernandez

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Quote from: cryptogeeknext on November 20, 2014, 07:44:31 AM

As I understand, with DPOS the established group of stakeholders with majority vote would be able to maintain total control over the network indefinitely at no cost. It doesn't matter much if control is exerted directly or via delegates, more steps only clutter the mechanics of control and contribute to confusion.

Its better to have those who have stakes in the system to look after its good, rather than in PoW where the actual holders are out of luck. they have to rely on some cartels to take the right decision.

The worst part with PoW is that they sold the crypto space as decentralized, while its anything but that. The government can simply take 2-3 pools and destroy everything. Such kind of attacks is possible in PoS by blackmailing big exchanges, but its still difficult than PoW, as for the established coins exchanges don't have more than 4-5% at the most.

Argwai96

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Thug for life!

Quote from: kokojie on November 23, 2014, 10:59:13 PM

Quote from: Eisenhower34 on November 21, 2014, 10:08:21 AM

Quote from: devphp on November 21, 2014, 07:56:03 AM

This competition between cryptos and different Proof-of-... is exactly the game of skills, only the fittest will survive.

But it makes sense to review all options available on the market if you're an investor and a user.

If you're a miner, you have no choice but promote PoW to make your living.

I disagree. People who purchased miners are essentially investing in bitcoin via their miner. Additionally most miners have a short useful life span so anyone who has invested in a miner could simply decide to cease upgrading their mining farm if they decided to stop believing in PoW in favor of something else.

Wrong, people who purchase miners are essentially investing in the hardware, which they could potentially use to extract value out of a PoW system, it might be Bitcoin, OR something else, maybe Peercoin for example. Miners only care about what's most profitable to mine at the moment, vast majority of miners have ZERO loyalty to any specific coin, this is a very clearly observed phenomenon in the scrypt mining scene. The biggest pools are the auto-switch pools.

If the miner is a SHA-256 ASIC then it is all but certain to be mining bitcoin (it could also be merged mining other coins as well). While you are correct about people switching scrypt based coins is accurate, the same is not true for SHA coins because bitcoin is going to be the most profitable coin to mine. Also the service the miners are providing is securing the network

kokojie

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Quote from: Eisenhower34 on November 21, 2014, 10:08:21 AM

Quote from: devphp on November 21, 2014, 07:56:03 AM

This competition between cryptos and different Proof-of-... is exactly the game of skills, only the fittest will survive.

But it makes sense to review all options available on the market if you're an investor and a user.

If you're a miner, you have no choice but promote PoW to make your living.

I disagree. People who purchased miners are essentially investing in bitcoin via their miner. Additionally most miners have a short useful life span so anyone who has invested in a miner could simply decide to cease upgrading their mining farm if they decided to stop believing in PoW in favor of something else.

Wrong, people who purchase miners are essentially investing in the hardware, which they could potentially use to extract value out of a PoW system, it might be Bitcoin, OR something else, maybe Peercoin for example. Miners only care about what's most profitable to mine at the moment, vast majority of miners have ZERO loyalty to any specific coin, this is a very clearly observed phenomenon in the scrypt mining scene. The biggest pools are the auto-switch pools.

kokojie

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Quote from: Flashman on November 22, 2014, 02:42:09 PM

Quote from: cryptogeeknext on November 22, 2014, 04:36:40 AM

With PoW only those who explicitly fight for control (miners) get a share of it.
If control is given out for free to all the people who didn't ask for it, they will sell it for profit thus empowering tricksters and charlatans.

True.

Why should early adopters relinquish control to Johnny come latelies??? They've had the vision, foresight and iron hard determination to bring it this far, so why let some ADD instant gratification whiner waltz in and reap the rewards when i) they did not assume the huge risks to get it this far and ii) they might waltz off next week for the next new shiny fad. iii) they can damn well roll up their sleeves and fight for position if they really want to, may take a couple of years and resources and risk, but guess what, that's what everyone else put in.

It might be elitist, but elitism builds awesome shit, communism builds Trabants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant

Things that are hard to come by, retain and gain value, things that are easy to get, become "as common as dirt", in massive quantities, certain types of dirt may have value, but unless it came from the moon, a handful of it will remain perennially worthless.

That's not a problem with PoS, that's a problem with your imagined distribution scheme. Distribution doesn't have to be all at the start, nor does it have to be free.

jonald_fyookball

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Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political

Quote from: scarsbergholden on November 23, 2014, 06:39:17 PM

Quote from: Baghead on November 23, 2014, 06:22:34 AM

I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable Cool

I don't understand why you would say the amount of energy "spent" is unsustainable.

The price of the energy used for PoW is purchased at market prices, and in theory the miners will only buy additional hardware if the NPV value of such hardware is positive.

It is all but certain that the difficulty of bitcoin will almost always follow the price of both bitcoin and electricity (and potentially interest rates)

as transaction fees displace subsidies, transaction voulme will become increasingly important instead of price with relation to difficulty.

scarsbergholden

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Quote from: Baghead on November 23, 2014, 06:22:34 AM

I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable Cool

I don't understand why you would say the amount of energy "spent" is unsustainable.

The price of the energy used for PoW is purchased at market prices, and in theory the miners will only buy additional hardware if the NPV value of such hardware is positive.

It is all but certain that the difficulty of bitcoin will almost always follow the price of both bitcoin and electricity (and potentially interest rates)

jonald_fyookball

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Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political

Quote from: Baghead on November 23, 2014, 06:22:34 AM

I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable Cool

The arms race ends when the market is saturated. but obviously the market is still growing.
all this is free market dynamics. I really don't get why the skeptics are so concerned. If it is not sustainable then it will atrophy of its own accord at some point.

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

Quote from: Baghead on November 23, 2014, 06:22:34 AM

I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable Cool

The 1970s called. They want their solar panels back for Earth Day.

Baghead

full member

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I understand for obvious reasons you want to continue the arms race for hash power and total power over the market but this is soon to be old news as you know deep down, you just need to come to terms with it.
All the energy used and money spent on that is almost funny! When does it end??
Probably when people wake up to the small little fact it's not sustainable Cool

devphp

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Merit: 260

Quote from: jonald_fyookball on November 22, 2014, 08:31:00 PM

Quote from: devphp on November 21, 2014, 07:45:17 AM

See, I don't think PoS is the final step. I only consider it more advanced than PoW. Something better than PoS is possible, I don't doubt it. But PoW miners are dead set that PoW is the blessing and use exactly the same arguments against anything else that bankers use against Bitcoin. This is so funny and hypocritical at the same time.

What arguments would those be?

Anything to protect their vested interests even though the old technology and/or rules clearly don't cut it any more.

jonald_fyookball

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Core dev leaves me neg feedback #abuse #political

Quote from: devphp on November 21, 2014, 07:45:17 AM

See, I don't think PoS is the final step. I only consider it more advanced than PoW. Something better than PoS is possible, I don't doubt it. But PoW miners are dead set that PoW is the blessing and use exactly the same arguments against anything else that bankers use against Bitcoin. This is so funny and hypocritical at the same time.

What arguments would those be? The article in the OP has some very good logical arguments IMO, such as the following:

Quote

WORKING ON WHAT?

What will these individuals spend their X dollars on, to produce the block? Maybe they’ll be generating lots of addresses, or using computing power to examine many alternate block histories (under proof-of-stake (PoS), both of these use CPU power to increase the likelihood of generating coins).

The true answer: Who cares?! Whatever is done will consume (“waste”) $X of economic activity. We have merely transformed the PoW algorithm into something less straightforward and less cumulative.

Just because PoS routes around the issue of ASICs doesn't mean it is more advanced, nor does it mean it is viable.

cryptogeeknext

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Bitcoin trolls back

So to sum it up:

PoW - control is a fierce competition, only the fittest get to the top

PoS - illusion of control can be bought, the actual control is not for sale

PoI - everyone has control, the future is undetermined

I think we need a proof-of-education, then PoI might have a chance to become a place of peaceful co-existence without wasting too much energy. If no one builds cages while they are free, then no one will ever get into one.

Flashman

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Hodl!

Quote from: cryptogeeknext on November 22, 2014, 04:36:40 AM

With PoW only those who explicitly fight for control (miners) get a share of it.
If control is given out for free to all the people who didn't ask for it, they will sell it for profit thus empowering tricksters and charlatans.

True.

Why should early adopters relinquish control to Johnny come latelies??? They've had the vision, foresight and iron hard determination to bring it this far, so why let some ADD instant gratification whiner waltz in and reap the rewards when i) they did not assume the huge risks to get it this far and ii) they might waltz off next week for the next new shiny fad. iii) they can damn well roll up their sleeves and fight for position if they really want to, may take a couple of years and resources and risk, but guess what, that's what everyone else put in.

It might be elitist, but elitism builds awesome shit, communism builds Trabants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant

Things that are hard to come by, retain and gain value, things that are easy to get, become "as common as dirt", in massive quantities, certain types of dirt may have value, but unless it came from the moon, a handful of it will remain perennially worthless.

cryptogeeknext

member

Activity: 70

Merit: 10

Bitcoin trolls back

Quote from: cbeast on November 21, 2014, 07:34:06 PM

A commodity money is worth what it costs to make. A $20 gold piece has $20 worth of gold in it, less fees. As Bitcoin expansion decreases volatility (as it already has) it will become the value of the cost to make it, less fees. Mining for money has a tradition that goes back thousands of years.

I agree with that.
The PoW mechanism is simple and robust, it's hard to hide some tricks there.
Everyone can understand it.

With PoW only those who explicitly fight for control (miners) get a share of it.
If control is given out for free to all the people who didn't ask for it, they will sell it for profit thus empowering tricksters and charlatans.

You won't easily let go of something that you needed to fight for.
And even if you don't fight for freedom, you might stick to those who do and support them.

cbeast

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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.

A commodity money is worth what it costs to make. A $20 gold piece has $20 worth of gold in it, less fees. As Bitcoin expansion decreases volatility (as it already has) it will become the value of the cost to make it, less fees. Mining for money has a tradition that goes back thousands of years.

Topic: Long Live Proof-of-Work, Long Live Mining - "there is no meaningful alternative" - page 6. (Read 15726 times)