OFAC-Sanctioned Transactions Being Censored - page 8.

Lucius

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Quote from: stompix on November 23, 2023, 11:53:36 AM

Quote from: Lucius on November 23, 2023, 11:20:50 AM

Although this is bad news, MARA AND F2Pool currently have about a 15% share of all mined blocks.

But there is also Foundry with 27% and that one is a closed pool with only big guys in the US mining, mainly companies listed on the stock exchange, and those will need just a hint or an email from the ones overseeing these and they will start censoring too, the percentage of those transactions is so small it won't even make a tiny dent in their revenue.
What I'm grabbing my popcorn for is the moment they stop with the backlisting and start with the reverse thing, whitelisted addresses only in their blocks, so unless you do KYC with every single one of them wit all your addresses you might have to think of solo mining . And it's going to happen, I'm 99% sure they are already thinking of it but are just testing the waters for a while with smaller measure for a while, then, some will have a shock realizing how little decentralization we have in this aspect.

Those who want to centralize Bitcoin will always look for a way to do it in some way, and it is obvious that large mining pools will be their main target through which they will be able to control transactions to some extent. What is definitely worrying is that more than 50% of all these mining pools are located in the US and China, and both countries actually have the same goal, only with the difference that the Chinese authorities do it without asking anyone for their opinion, while the authorities in the US still have to be much more careful if they don't want someone to accuse them of using communist methods.

We definitely need more decentralization when it comes to mining, but unfortunately it's just a good deal for most (right now), and if a better opportunity came along, they'd all dump Bitcoin overnight. Most miners do it only for profit, not because they support Bitcoin as a decentralized currency.

DooMAD

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Quote from: alani123 on November 24, 2023, 03:11:10 AM

He went on to post that Bitcoin should be censorship resistant on the protocol level instead on relying on incentives by miners. Huh

Ummm, excuse me, what the fuck? Are we supposed to believe he genuinely believes this for Bitcoin? So he would not censor BTC transactions only if his hand was forced to? Ok... Still good enough reason to abandon this pool.

Likely just an attempt to save face. He clearly realises he fucked up.

All due concerns aside, though, I'm proud of the community for their vigilance. Full praise for how they picked up on this right away and acted so swiftly and decisively in their condemnation of this act.

alani123

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It's funny, P2POOL's admin seems to be very eccentric.

He was essentially forced to disable the OFAC compliancy filtering after his shenanigans went viral and miners would likely start fleeing the pool. This tweet is now deleted.

He went on to post that Bitcoin should be censorship resistant on the protocol level instead on relying on incentives by miners. Huh

Ummm, excuse me, what the fuck? Are we supposed to believe he genuinely believes this for Bitcoin? So he would not censor BTC transactions only if his hand was forced to? Ok... Still good enough reason to abandon this pool.

Z-tight

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Quote from: HmmMAA on November 24, 2023, 12:47:50 AM

Well , seems that people will start to understand that "not your keys , not your coins" is just a myth

Not your keys, not your coins isn't a myth, if you don't control the keys to your funds, then they are probably not yours, and the service that controls it can do what they want with your funds. This case is more about censorship and BTC's nature as being censorship resistant, and for this to escalate into major problem, then most mining pools will have to encourage censorship, put their resources together, and if they have 51% of the hashrate, then they can 'control' the network.

Quote from: HmmMAA on November 24, 2023, 12:47:50 AM

I think we are near to the point where "honest nodes" will start rejecting blocks mined by "dishonest nodes" . There is a war incoming , and maxis haven't realise that yet . Their myths are falling one after the other apart .

Nodes reject blocks and tx's that do not follow the rules of the network and as such are invalid, that is what they have been doing since the inception of the network. There is no rule that forbids miners from 'selecting' the tx's they can add into a block, but it goes against the principles and ethics of the network as being censorship resistant.

HmmMAA

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Well , seems that people will start to understand that "not your keys , not your coins" is just a myth . I think we are near to the point where "honest nodes" will start rejecting blocks mined by "dishonest nodes" . There is a war incoming , and maxis haven't realise that yet . Their myths are falling one after the other apart .

Poker Player

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Quote from: stompix on November 23, 2023, 11:53:36 AM

What I'm grabbing my popcorn for is the moment they stop with the backlisting and start with the reverse thing, whitelisted addresses only in their blocks, so unless you do KYC with every single one of them wit all your addresses you might have to think of solo mining Grin

. And it's going to happen, I'm 99% sure they are already thinking of it but are just testing the waters for a while with smaller measure for a while, then, some will have a shock realizing how little decentralization we have in this aspect.

I see that this comment has been overlooked because no one has said anything about it. In my case I hope you are wrong, what I am afraid of is that it sounds quite plausible to me. I have long said that governments when they realized they couldn't stop Bitcoin focused on trying to control it and this would be an ultimate form of control. It goes along the lines of the legislations in progress to treat Bitcoin transactions as if they were banking transactions, so yes, unfortunately I see your vision possible, although I hope it doesn't end up being realized.

titular

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"Stop using proprietary software."

Quote from: so98nn on November 23, 2023, 01:03:26 PM

Also, how are they able to censor it? What is the technology that they are implying here that is calling them to do so? Until now I thought we were on a public ledger meaning anything that is sent or received can be seen on the chain if we know the BTC address. From where is the topic of censorship stated or was it included in the white paper already? I would say I am still #weakintechnicals

If you give the article a read, you will see they explain it in pretty decent detail.

Bitcoin miners have a significant influence on which transactions get included in a block when they successfully mine one. While Bitcoin is designed to be a decentralized and censorship-resistant system, miners, especially those in mining pools, have some degree of discretion in selecting transactions for inclusion.

Miners choose which transactions to include in a block based on various factors. These factors commonly include the transaction fee attached to the transaction, the size of the transaction in terms of block space, the priority of the transaction, and network latency.

Based off what the writer says, these factors aren't always intentional or malicious. But in certain cases, there has been evidence showing that certain pools (F2Pool) may be censoring intentionally.

titular

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"Stop using proprietary software."

Quote from: NotATether on November 23, 2023, 10:47:16 AM

*Also, fuck F2Pool. I could at least understand why a wallet would do it, but for a bitcoin miner to violate the decentralization of the network they directly profit from is a mortal sin.

This is what I struggled with the most..the fact that one of the largest pools is openly violating one of the core principles of the network is just shocking.

I really want to understand their motivation for censoring the transactions in the first place. Would they even face any legal issues if they simply included the transaction? How does F2Pool benefit from the censorship? Political ass-kissing?

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Quote from: Z-tight on November 23, 2023, 03:06:59 PM

That's a '51% attack' isn't it, could it be that easy for the BTC network to move from censorship resistant to censorship, because that's what it means if what you said above happens. I don't know the total hashrate controlled by censoring mining pools, but i think individual miners would withdraw from censoring mining pools if it ever gets to this point, that would surely reduce the hashrate they control.

Yes that’s purely a 51% attack (something we thought could take ages or high computational power to make it happen ). The two mining pools which are been linked to be censoring transactions is the F2Pool (11.6%) and Mara (3.8%) with both having a combined hash rate of 15%, so just as you said if the individual miners actually leave either of the pools and join the other pools that do not censor transactions then it will weaken thr hashrate of the pools and could take them out of the market. But the question remains will they leave and join others? Then the concern again is what if the government is able to get other big pools like Foundry ( which is US based mining pool ) and Antpool into their side, then the whole decentralization advantage that bitcoin possess will be gone. Something we have all thought will never happen, but due to maybe greed of some pools it almost right before us

alani123

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on November 23, 2023, 02:43:45 PM

Quote from: Yamane_Keto on November 23, 2023, 02:27:30 PM

If there remains one mining pool that does not adhere to these legislation and can be managed in countries that have a political stance towards the United States, then all the other mining pools will be forced to build on top of that block

No, it doesn't. If censoring mining pools have 51% of the hashrate, then they can permanently exclude any transaction they wish. If a normal mining pool mines a block which includes a "blacklisted" transaction, then the censoring mining pools with a majority of the hashrate can simply ignore that block and re-org it out with 100% certainty.

Well, they can. ~~OFAC compliant pools seem to control the vast majority of the hashrate right now~~^*. If they want, they could fork the network and maintain the longest chain even now. But will they?

They're already losing out on fee revenue by excluding otherwise perfectly valid transactions from their blocks just because of OFAC. Hard forking by completely ignoring perfectly valid blocks just because they include transactions by BTC addresses in the OFAC list would likely create a very big debate.

Core developers would have to decide which chain to support, big services would have to announce their recognition to what they see as the main BTC etc. It would be wild to see. Miners stand to lose a lot of revenue.
I think big pools will just chose to filter transactions without forking. This status quo maintains their revenue and they can also claim non-participation in BTC "money laundering".

* Please read the source article more carefully and get confused like I was.
The only pool we can say with some certainty that is currently filtering BTC transactions is F2POOL. The others mentioned are false positives. F2POOL control maybe 12% of the network hashrate at the moment. Together with MARA pool which in 2021 had openly stated to be mining OFAC compliant blocks, although we're not sure if they still do, would make up around 16% in bitcoin's hashrate.

Z-tight

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on November 23, 2023, 02:43:45 PM

No, it doesn't. If censoring mining pools have 51% of the hashrate, then they can permanently exclude any transaction they wish. If a normal mining pool mines a block which includes a "blacklisted" transaction, then the censoring mining pools with a majority of the hashrate can simply ignore that block and re-org it out with 100% certainty.

That's a '51% attack' isn't it, could it be that easy for the BTC network to move from censorship resistant to censorship, because that's what it means if what you said above happens. I don't know the total hashrate controlled by censoring mining pools, but i think individual miners would withdraw from censoring mining pools if it ever gets to this point, that would surely reduce the hashrate they control.

coolcoinz

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Ultimately it will come down to how different people understand the words freedom and decentralization. Did you notice how in his tweet he defends his freedom of choice, as the right to filter transactions and choose to exclude Xi and Putin. This means that if his pool ever has the majority of hash power, he'll be able to stop you and me from transacting because he's now the king of bitcoin. He'll say for instance that if people from Russia want to transact they have to pay a ransom of whatever billions of dollars or he'll keep blocking them because that's his right given by "freedom." If he doesn't want you to transact, you won't.

We don't need someone to tell us who can ad who cannot send their bitcoin through the network. I may not like Puting, but if he bought bitcoin, mined it, or received as a gift, he should be able to use it.
It's not up to us to decide whose coins get tainted and who gets to transact. I guess people will once again have to vote with their mining power and make sure pools run by self-proclaimed dictators never get enough power to threaten the network.

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: Yamane_Keto on November 23, 2023, 02:27:30 PM

If there remains one mining pool that does not adhere to these legislation and can be managed in countries that have a political stance towards the United States, then all the other mining pools will be forced to build on top of that block

No, it doesn't. If censoring mining pools have 51% of the hashrate, then they can permanently exclude any transaction they wish. If a normal mining pool mines a block which includes a "blacklisted" transaction, then the censoring mining pools with a majority of the hashrate can simply ignore that block and re-org it out with 100% certainty.

Yamane_Keto

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Is this the second mining pool or the third that add OFAC list filter? It is unfortunate that these pools respond to pressure from the United States, but this will not change the nature of the decentralization of the network. If there remains one mining pool that does not adhere to these legislation and can be managed in countries that have a political stance towards the United States, then all the other mining pools will be forced to build on top of that block, but this means that transactions transmitted from addresses in OFAC blacklist will take longer on average than all transactions from other addresses.

alani123

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Quote from: so98nn on November 23, 2023, 01:03:26 PM

Also, how are they able to censor it? What is the technology that they are implying here that is calling them to do so? Until now I thought we were on a public ledger meaning anything that is sent or received can be seen on the chain if we know the BTC address. From where is the topic of censorship stated or was it included in the white paper already? I would say I am still #weakintechnicals

Miners host their own full nodes and chose which transactions to include or exclude from the blocks they mine based on their own arbitrary criteria. This time around certain miners chose to exclude certain transactions because they're associated with addresses on the OFAC list.

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: so98nn on November 23, 2023, 01:03:26 PM

How is it possible that they can hide the transaction or not show it on a chain? Or does this post mean that a specific pool did not pick it but was processed via another pool?

They simply choose not to include the transaction in any of their blocks, so it remains unconfirmed until another non-censoring pool (hopefully) includes it in one of their blocks.

Quote from: so98nn on November 23, 2023, 01:03:26 PM

What is the technology that they are implying here that is calling them to do so?

The US government publish a list of addresses they want to censor. The mining pool refuses to include any transaction with pays bitcoin to or from any of these address.

DooMAD

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Quote from: stompix on November 23, 2023, 11:53:36 AM

Quote from: Lucius on November 23, 2023, 11:20:50 AM

Although this is bad news, MARA AND F2Pool currently have about a 15% share of all mined blocks.

But there is also Foundry with 27% and that one is a closed pool with only big guys in the US mining, mainly companies listed on the stock exchange

Yeah, as soon as I saw the list of ViaBTC, Foundry USA, and F2Pool and the topic heading regarding censoring transactions, I naturally jumped to the conclusion that Foundry was likely to be the guilty party. Simply because "America doing insular America-type-stuff" seemed to make sense to me. Really surprised (and disappointed) to see it's actually F2Pool. It seems they're now an insult to their own legacy. What a spectacular fall from grace.

Echoing calls for independent miners to consider migrating to other, more ethical, pools (profitability margins permitting).

so98nn

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I don't know what you guys are thinking but as a general user of Bitcoin, I am shocked that this can be done. How is it possible that they can hide the transaction or not show it on a chain? Or does this post mean that a specific pool did not pick it but was processed via another pool? I am just trying to understand the significance here. Anything that is broadcasted on the blockchain has to get included in a block so that it can be confirmed and then the whole process completes with a seed. Right?

Quote from: alani123 on November 23, 2023, 12:52:11 PM

I've gotta say, this is kinda worrying. Miners go against their interest in receiving fees from transactions by censoring certain transactions.
Maybe it was to be expected that a few pools would start doing this, but finding out that most of the big pools have started doing this around the same time? That's even more worrying.

I'm starting a thread to showcase which pools are NOT censoring transactions anymore. Feel free to drop by:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/list-bitcoin-mining-pools-that-dont-enforce-transaction-censorship-5475228

Also, how are they able to censor it? What is the technology that they are implying here that is calling them to do so? Until now I thought we were on a public ledger meaning anything that is sent or received can be seen on the chain if we know the BTC address. From where is the topic of censorship stated or was it included in the white paper already? I would say I am still #weakintechnicals

alani123

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I've gotta say, this is kinda worrying. Miners go against their interest in receiving fees from transactions by censoring certain transactions.
Maybe it was to be expected that a few pools would start doing this, but finding out that most of the big pools have started doing this around the same time? That's even more worrying.

I'm starting a thread to showcase which pools are NOT censoring transactions anymore. Feel free to drop by:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/list-bitcoin-mining-pools-that-dont-enforce-transaction-censorship-5475228

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: Don Pedro Dinero on November 23, 2023, 10:38:33 AM

As long as there are no pools that mimic this, as long as there is a large majority that resists, bitcoin transactions will remain uncensorable, because transactions that a censor miner decides not to mine will end up being mined by others.

There is a significant difference between "uncensorable" and "not currently being censored". One of the main tenets of bitcoin is that it is supposed to be uncensorable. If 51% of the hashrate goes the same way as F2Pool and refuses to mine any transactions the US government tells them not to, then that is very much not "uncensorable". That is the death of bitcoin as at that point only government approved transactions are allowed to be mined.

This is the ultimate result of people not caring about their privacy, of most addresses on the network being linked to someone's KYC, of everyone using centralized exchanges and giving them all the control, and of people believing that blockchain analysis is anything other than complete bullshit. People like me have gone on and on about privacy, about censorship resistance, about self custody, about not using centralized exchanges for years, but the fact is that most people in this space care more about fiat profits than they care about what bitcoin was designed to be. This is the result. A government permissioned network.

Topic: OFAC-Sanctioned Transactions Being Censored - page 8. (Read 2162 times)