Topic: Preventing Asic mining [fork] after next halving would solve a lot of problems. (Read 3566 times)

That's ok, I'll buy them at 6 cents per THs and counter your attack.

After I buy a 51% of switched off miners for 5 cents per THs I wouldn't support network. I will attack it!  No doubt!

Likewise, if one assumed that the miners did shut down their hardware because even the ongoing costs were too high and dumped it at a loss, you (or someone else) might be able to purchase the miner at 5 cents on the dollar and for you a purchase at  that price would be profitable and the miner would be back supporting the network.

I don't know what he's talking about either, but I can think of scenarios where Bitcoin's security is compromised. Imagine a rapid price drop to $10 right now -say, as rapid as the rise from $10 a while ago, nothing more spectacular than that. All of a sudden, practically all mining operations cease because they're no longer profitable. But then there's tons of mining equipment left to perform attacks by mining for short periods of time.

I don't know what he's talking about either, but I can think of scenarios where Bitcoin's security is compromised. Imagine a rapid price drop to $10 right now -say, as rapid as the rise from $10 a while ago, nothing more spectacular than that. All of a sudden, practically all mining operations cease because they're no longer profitable. But then there's tons of mining equipment left to perform attacks by mining for short periods of time.

Similar to how one moment in the future people will stop posting half-informed hand-waving to this forum?

You can keep asserting things like this-- but you've given no justification. There is no mechanism by which the security is expected to "rapidly fall to zero" known to me.

But one moment in future it will rapidly fall to zero.

True.  And right now, it is still growing.  Therefore, right now, the longer that attacker waits the more expensive that attack is going to be.

Offer profits to secure the network.

As long as a significant percentage of the world population is greedy, bitcoin works.

So, we can return to this conversation in a year and see if you were right?

As for me: it was a very interesting experiment.
It proved once again that people think only about profits and can forget about everything else.

I think that we will see the results of this not in decades, but in months or even weeks.

It's an interesting experiment, isn't it?  I can't wait to see how it plays out.  I tend to believe that the market forces and incentives are such that it will always be more profitable to participate than to attack.  I guess all we can do is wait a few decades and see.

There are only 2 companies producing high-end GPUs (AMD, Nvidia) and only 2 companies producing high-end CPUs (Intel, AMD) in large volume. In theory, if cryptocurrency gains worldwide adoption, the potential for mining to become dominated by a single manufacturer is far larger with CPU or GPU mining than it is with ASIC mining.

The reason AMD didn't corner the mining market back when GPU mining was all the rage is that it simply wasn't worth the effort back then. Who knows what the future would've brought in an ASIC-less world?

It is not a proof. Thousands of years people were told that an Earth is based on a tortoise.

This is true only while the difficulty is growing.

The flaw is in decentralization itself. Once the cost becomes too high for supporting it for "good" user. And cheap enough for an attacker.

And it is the same flaw in PoS/PoW/Proof-of-anything

Seems to be working fine for bitcoin for 6 years now. Bitcoin has survived many attempted attacks.

The longer that attacker waits, the more expensive that attack is going to be.

Perhaps, perhpas not.  Either way, it doesn't have anything to do with the flaws in POS.

Ok, that really explains why all these PoW altcoins being 51% attacked to death,

and all these PoS altcoin never attacked.

Because PoW has a laughable and failed security model.

It's just a matter of time Bitcoin will be attacked by a well funded and determined attacker.

PoW security is a joke.

The security model provided by POW is that it is more profitable to use your mining power to support the network than it is to use the mining power to attack the network.

Correct.  No mining, no POW expenses.

But as soon as you try to mine (for a 51% attack), expenses are involved.  The security model provided by POW is that it is more profitable to use your mining power to support the network than it is to use the mining power to attack the network.

I haven't been a miner. (OK, I switched on setgenerate option once or twice for an hour just for fun on my PC)
I am not a miner.
I will not mine. No expenses

No, you can't mine at zero cost (electricity??). The W stands for work work costs

Proof-of-work has the same flaw:
Some time miners are forced to switch off their asic-devices.
Because they are unprofitable.
After that PoW loses the security because it can be possible to buy switched-off hardware for zero price, switch it on for an hour and gain 51%
Sorry.

PoW concept itself is a doomed concept.

The only way to avoid this expense, is to fade out PoW mining altogether, and change to a PoS system.

Which comes with its own set of problems and is not ready to be a real replacement for PoW as it is implemented now in several coins. Until PoS is improved, a PoW/S combination that lowers the mining expense while keeping a similar level of security would be beneficial though.

Quote from: yumei on October 05, 2014, 10:22:04 PM
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ASIC is not the problem, GPU mining would have ended up exactly the same given enough time. Mega GPU mining farms will inevitable rise.

PoW concept itself is a doomed concept.

This is exactly what I am not thinking! Just imagine GPU mining farms, even if their are farms, you can let your servers or home computer mine while using them for something else as well. You can buy GPU hardware anywhere and there is no risk that nvidia mine thereself, there is no monopol. I bet we didn´t have the low prices we have right now with GPU mining only.

You don't get it, the specific algorithm of PoW mining doesn't matter at all, there will always be an expense associated with it, and it can not cheap in order to secure the network. It doesn't matter whether it's ASIC mining or GPU mining, hundreds of millions of dollars must be spent on PoW mining every year, in order to secure the network. We would have the exact same low price right now, if we were GPU mining, the expense does not change.

The only way to avoid this expense, is to fade out PoW mining altogether, and change to a PoS system.

The only way to avoid this expense, is to fade out PoW mining altogether, and change to a PoS system.

This is exactly what I am not thinking! Just imagine GPU mining farms, even if their are farms, you can let your servers or home computer mine while using them for something else as well. You can buy GPU hardware anywhere and there is no risk that nvidia mine thereself, there is no monopol. I bet we didn´t have the low prices we have right now with GPU mining only.

Quote from: yumei on October 05, 2014, 10:30:49 PM
Isn´t it theoretically possible to build a algorithm which makes actual asic miners worthless.

No.

An ASIC is just a computer. It's more specialized than a general-purpose computer, but in the end it's still just a computer.

Any algorithm that can be implemented in a general purpose computer can be implemented in an ASIC, there's nothing "magical" going on.

A relatively simple algorithm, like SHA-256, can be implemented in a general-purpose computer, or in an ASIC, with relatively little cost. This makes mining relatively accessible (though not necessarily profitable) to everyone.

A more complicated algorithm would take more effort to implement in a general-purpose computer, and likewise more effort to implement in an ASIC. In the beginning, this makes mining more accessible to those with general-purpose computers. If there's enough demand (if the coin in question becomes popular enough), then eventually the algorithm will be implemented in an ASIC, but due to it's complexity it will be accessible to fewer people.

In other words, the more complex the coin, the larger the start-up costs, and the less accessible mining becomes. This is exactly the opposite of what I assume is your goal.Quote from: yumei on October 05, 2014, 10:30:49 PM
Isn´t it theoretically possible to build a algorithm which makes actual asic miners worthless.

No.

An ASIC is just a computer. It's more specialized than a general-purpose computer, but in the end it's still just a computer.

Any algorithm that can be implemented in a general purpose computer can be implemented in an ASIC, there's nothing "magical" going on.

A relatively simple algorithm, like SHA-256, can be implemented in a general-purpose computer, or in an ASIC, with relatively little cost. This makes mining relatively accessible (though not necessarily profitable) to everyone.

A more complicated algorithm would take more effort to implement in a general-purpose computer, and likewise more effort to implement in an ASIC. In the beginning, this makes mining more accessible to those with general-purpose computers. If there's enough demand (if the coin in question becomes popular enough), then eventually the algorithm will be implemented in an ASIC, but due to it's complexity it will be accessible to fewer people.

In other words, the more complex the coin, the larger the start-up costs, and the less accessible mining becomes. This is exactly the opposite of what I assume is your goal.

Quote from: yumei on October 05, 2014, 02:37:33 PM
Satoshi for sure never planned asic mining. 99% of the bitcoin community would benefit when asic mining is prohibited.

Quote from: satoshi on July 29, 2010, 02:00:38 AM
The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale.  That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server.  The design supports letting users just be users.  The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be.  Those few nodes will be big server farms.  The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate.

While not explicitly stating asics, he did describe very well the move to large farms doing all the mining, and asics are just a natural evolution all of us anticipated.

ASIC is not the problem, GPU mining would have ended up exactly the same given enough time. Mega GPU mining farms will inevitable rise.

Satoshi for sure never planned asic mining. 99% of the bitcoin community would benefit when asic mining is prohibited.

The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale.  That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server.  The design supports letting users just be users.  The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be.  Those few nodes will be big server farms.  The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate.

Is there a chance to bring back mining to the normal user now?
(Yes, very generic question, hope to have several points of view on that topic)

DannyHamilton has gone above and beyond the call of duty for a number of years now, providing detailed, thoughtful, consistently correct advice on this forum. He has a wide understanding of Bitcoin's operation and explains things in great detail, often even to users who are clearly unwilling to invest a fraction of the time reading his posts that he spends writing them. There is an overwhelming amount of repetitive and ill-advised material on this board and it handling it would be far more hopeless without him.

It is easy to become frustrated in such a situation, and also difficult to communicate tone through a text-based medium, so I hope you will give him the benefit of the doubt in future. And do not call him ignorant. That is not only untrue, but uncivil conduct. This sort of behaviour is why more knowledgable people won't take the time to participate on this board, and is detrimental to everyone.

Isn´t it theoretically possible to build a algorithm which makes actual asic miners worthless.

ASIC is not the problem, GPU mining would have ended up exactly the same given enough time. Mega GPU mining farms will inevitable rise.

PoW concept itself is a doomed concept.

DannyHamilton has gone above and beyond the call of duty for a number of years now, providing detailed, thoughtful, consistently correct advice on this forum. He has a wide understanding of Bitcoin's operation and explains things in great detail, often even to users who are clearly unwilling to invest a fraction of the time reading his posts that he spends writing them.

PoW concept itself is a doomed concept.

Preventing Asic mining after next halving would solve a lot of problems.

Actually we are in a phase of centralising the bitcoin network, from individuals to companies belonging big asic farms.

Satoshi for sure never planned asic mining. 99% of the bitcoin community would benefit when asic mining is prohibited.

Without asic mining we would never have such a bump and dump scenario we have actually. Big asic farm holder selling their bitcoins to be able to pay the electrician and to cut out competition due low efficiency of mining.

Seems like they have at least the same understanding about the words I was using before and not like the ignorant guy DannyHamilton.

I'm doing the best to answer your questions, correct your mistakes, and point out that your trolling FUD is rather ridiculous.  The crap you are spewing here has been stated and debunked hundreds of times on this forum

However, ASIC’s bring with them a risk of manufacturer centralization, such as what we
saw with Bitcoin in the early days of ASIC mining. Market forces eventually broke this
monopoly
8
, and one thing which sped up the process is that Bitcoin uses the
SHA2
hash-
ing algorithm, which was designed for easy development of dedicated hardware. Therefore,
relatively little startup capital is needed to develop Bitcoin ASIC’s

Bitcoins are not designed for being mined from a small group of investors having the money and the power producing and generating the mayor part of bitcoins.

Well like I said i am not technic affine,

but honestly I think I understand more about economics then you.

If this is true then POW in this initial form is the problem.

mo·nop·o·lize  (m-np-lz)
tr.v. mo·nop·o·lized, mo·nop·o·liz·ing, mo·nop·o·liz·es
1. To acquire or maintain a monopoly of.
2. To dominate by excluding others: monopolized the conversation.

Why you are insulting me, you seems like having no clue about economics but acting like you know.

Quote from: yumei on Today at 03:39:07 PM
This is not capitalism, this is monopolism. You have some companys create new asic hardware, this companys mine thereself or sell their main parts to just 4-5 big companys.

There are only 2 companies producing high-end GPUs (AMD, Nvidia) and only 2 companies producing high-end CPUs (Intel, AMD) in large volume. In theory, if cryptocurrency gains worldwide adoption, the potential for mining to become dominated by a single manufacturer is far larger with CPU or GPU mining than it is with ASIC mining.

The reason AMD didn't corner the mining market back when GPU mining was all the rage is that it simply wasn't worth the effort back then. Who knows what the future would've brought in an ASIC-less world?

Quote from: yumei on Today at 03:39:07 PM
Actually there are less miners then we had 1 year before. I don´t have exact stats but I am guessing that 4-5 big asic farming companys control the market while one year ago it was spread into 1000 of miners. This is centralization for me.

Then perhaps you need to purchase a dictionary.

Quote
    1. (transitive, intransitive) To combine into a single unit; to group together or join.
    2. To make stronger or more solid.

There are two definitions listed here.  You are looking at the wrong one.  I am using the word "consolidate" for it's first meaning: "To combine into a single unit; to group together or join."

Quote from: yumei on Today at 03:39:07 PM
Quote
Quote
Quote from: yumei on Today at 02:37:33 PM
99% of the bitcoin community would benefit when asic mining is prohibited.

I'm not sure how you think you are going to "prohibit" the creation and use of Application Specific Integrated Circuits, but I suspect that any method you think should be used either wouldn't work or would simply result in a less secure network.

You could enable only script mining like litecoins, I am not affine with the developing structure behing that, but there are altcoins where you can´t asic mine.

You are mistaken.  There are scrypt mining ASICs for litecoins.  The main reason that other altcoins don't yet have ASIC is that there isn't enough value in those scamcoins and crapcoins to make it worth the effort for someone to design an ASIC chip for them.

Quote from: yumei on Today at 03:39:07 PM
Quote
Quote
Big asic farm holder selling their bitcoins to be able to pay the electrician and to cut out competition due low efficiency of mining.

Yes, that is how capitalism and incentive works.  So long as there is a profit to be earned, there is an incentive to increase the amount of mining.  Mining will consolidate with those that have access to the cheapest resources since they can maintain a profit while all others are pushed out of the market.

This is not capitalism, this is monopolism. You have some companys create new asic hardware, this companys mine thereself or sell their main parts to just 4-5 big companys.

Again I think you need a dictionary.  I don't think you know what the word monopoly means.

This is not capitalism, this is monopolism. You have some companys create new asic hardware, this companys mine thereself or sell their main parts to just 4-5 big companys.

Actually there are less miners then we had 1 year before. I don´t have exact stats but I am guessing that 4-5 big asic farming companys control the market while one year ago it was spread into 1000 of miners. This is centralization for me.

-snip-
You could enable only script mining like litecoins, I am not affine with the developing structure behing that, but there are altcoins where you can´t asic mine.

-snip-
This kind of dumping we have right now would never happend without asic mining, because without asic mining there were 1000 of miners sharing their mining earnings. Actually there are only some big farms who mine the mayor part of bitcoins and control the market. They can move the markets dramaticly.

-snip-
This is not capitalism, this is monopolism. You have some companys create new asic hardware, this companys mine thereself or sell their main parts to just 4-5 big companys.

Actually there are less miners then we had 1 year before. I don´t have exact stats but I am guessing that 4-5 big asic farming companys control the market while one year ago it was spread into 1000 of miners. This is centralization for me.

So when 4-5 big mining farms control the full hashing power this is for you consolidation. Consolidation means to do something solid or firm; solidify; strengthen: , this is the wikipedia translation of this word.

You could enable only script mining like litecoins, I am not affine with the developing structure behing that, but there are altcoins where you can´t asic mine.

This kind of dumping we have right now would never happend without asic mining, because without asic mining there were 1000 of miners sharing their mining earnings. Actually there are only some big farms who mine the mayor part of bitcoins and control the market. They can move the markets dramaticly.

This is not capitalism, this is monopolism. You have some companys create new asic hardware, this companys mine thereself or sell their main parts to just 4-5 big companys.

Quote from: yumei on Today at 02:37:33 PM
Actually we are in a phase of centralising the bitcoin network, from individuals to companies belonging big asic farms.

I don't think I'd call that "centralizing".  Perhaps you mean to say "consolidating"?

Quote from: yumei on Today at 02:37:33 PM
Satoshi for sure never planned asic mining.

He certainly planned for consolidation of full nodes, and for the vast majority of users to run SPV clients.

Quote from: yumei on Today at 02:37:33 PM
99% of the bitcoin community would benefit when asic mining is prohibited.

I'm not sure how you think you are going to "prohibit" the creation and use of Application Specific Integrated Circuits, but I suspect that any method you think should be used either wouldn't work or would simply result in a less secure network.

Without asic mining we would never have such a bump and dump scenario we have actually.

I don't think you know what the phrase pump and dump means.  Perhaps you should take some time and do a little bit of learning before you try to make accusations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump

Big asic farm holder selling their bitcoins to be able to pay the electrician and to cut out competition due low efficiency of mining.

Yes, that is how capitalism and incentive works.  So long as there is a profit to be earned, there is an incentive to increase the amount of mining.  Mining will consolidate with those that have access to the cheapest resources since they can maintain a profit while all others are pushed out of the market.

Preventing Asic mining after next halving would solve a lot of problems.

Actually we are in a phase of centralising the bitcoin network, from individuals to companies belonging big asic farms.

Satoshi for sure never planned asic mining.

99% of the bitcoin community would benefit when asic mining is prohibited.

Without asic mining we would never have such a bump and dump scenario we have actually.

Big asic farm holder selling their bitcoins to be able to pay the electrician and to cut out competition due low efficiency of mining.