Topic: Proof of work debate? Threatened 51% attack due to fork debate (Read 2570 times)

You had a mistake in your concept of propagation through the network. You are thinking a decentralized network is a fully connected mesh topology.

You don't need that much larger blocks to cause an amplification of propagation delay to the smallest miners in order to destroy decentralization and take 51% control. Also it only requires a very small advantage in relative orphan rate in order to slowly accumulate more hashrate than the opposition, so don't require the 100GB blocks you are computing.


Yes in that case they don't need huge blocks to destroy decentralization because it is already destroyed. In that case, they need to be able increase blocks to whatever they think is the level of transaction fees that maximizes their revenue (volume x transaction fees).

In either case, I am showing that big blocks are a cartelization paradigm. I am being thorough. Please don't fault me for being thorough, just because the network is already centralized.

OP should rename this thread:

Do I trust my bitcoin miners at all. Or what security we have from PoW ?


We've learned that only PoW is really safe <-> expensive. If you want different things / less safe  -> go altcoin .

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-scaling-voorhees-says-algo-change-absurd-and-reckless


 

By far the simplest thing to do would be to implement Proof of Stake.  No more miners.  Bitcoin's holders certifying their transactions by themselves.  If there's something able to "save bitcoin", it would be a passage to Proof of Stake.  It has problems too, but at the moment, less than Proof of Work.  Proof of work was good to distribute coins.  But bitcoin is sufficiently distributed right now, and proof of work is not distributing it any more, and is the MOST HORRIBLE WAY thinkable to cryptographically secure a ledger.  Proof of work is OK to burn seigniorage.  To waste "unfair gains".  

To switch to Proof of stake, there ONLY needs to be written the code.  It is secure from the start, because only stake holders can cryptographically SIGN blocks.  No "attackers" can do anything.  Much, much, much less insecure than PoW.  So just any dev team could write the code to have a PoS bitcoin fork.  No need for miners of the new kind.  No fall of bitcoin security.  PoS is intrinsically secure and nodes take back the power they left to miners in PoW.

But it will not happen.  Because in order to do so, you have to LAUNCH AN ALT COIN.  And the bitcoin brand name is the only thing that gives bitcoin value.  So if "switching to an alt coin" was what bitcoin users need to do, THEY ALREADY CAN DO SO, alt coins exist.

Bitcoin users stick to bitcoin because it is called bitcoin, and that's it.  If it is not called bitcoin, they won't value it.  Making a proof of stake fork of bitcoin,  OR JUST ANY OTHER FORK that doesn't TAKE AWAY the current miners from bitcoin, is NOT GOING TO WORK, simply because as long as a majority of the current miners is going to CONTINUE MINING the way they do, THAT will be bitcoin, and THAT is what bitcoiners will value.

Because if they didn't, they would have switched to an altcoin already.  They didn't (yet).

TL;DR: there's no point in inventing a new altcoin to save bitcoin.  As long as a majority of the current miners continue to make bitcoin's chain like they do now, that's bitcoin.  In as much as bitcoiners want to stay with the brand of bitcoin, they will stick to that.  And in as much as they wanted to switch to an altcoin, they can already, more than choice enough.

Take back control from ASIC miners
Destroy BTC Security During Switch, leaving it at the Mercy of Botnets (Causing a Market crash)

Become the new miners, with their regular CPUs
Destroy BTC Security During Switch, leaving it at the Mercy of Botnets (Causing a Market crash)

Activate Segwit
Giving Future Control of BTC directly to Blockstream/Bankers/LN Permanently


 


FYI:
#1 reason not to Switch BTC's PoW is because you Segwit Paid Shills want everyone too. 

If any of you can explain why 95% of users of Bitcoin would not (given enough time) accept a fork where they can:

• Take back control from ASIC miners
• Become the new miners, with their regular CPUs
• Activate Segwit

....then I'd be interested to hear it. Keep it short gentlemen, it's almost as if you believe writing dozens of paragraphs saying "it's not gonna happen... it's not gonna happen... it's not gonna happen... it's not gonna happen..." is a substitute for an actual reason Who are you trying to convince, us, or yourselves

this new algo, have the potential to be anti-asic, in the sense that the cost of asic would be too high to develop one tooe arly with current bitcoin value, therefore could put a layer for gpu mining again and a better distribution

unless chinese have already plenty of gpu to mine this with, they will probably be left behind here, not to mention that resetting the network is dangerous, for 51% anyway....

None of all this is going to happen.  Miners want small blocks and a fighting fee market.  The cartel you are talking about with large blocks only sets in with such incredibly large blocks, that they are out of the question in the next few years ; if you want a mining cartel, the telephone between mining pool bosses is a much more useful device than multi-GB blocks that saturate small miner's network links and most of the user nodes.

Bitcoin is already centralized, or on the brink of being cartel-centralized.  Come on.  5 guys have more than 50% of hash rate under their control.  10 guys, more than 75%.  The only thing that keeps bitcoin still "decentralized" over these guys, is their mutual understanding that they shouldn't show public agreement ; and maybe their egos.  This is why they fight or mimick to fight.

I love that mining pool that dedicated 75% of its hash rate to BU, when BU said that they would fork at 75% hash rate.  Giving 75% to BU is the perfect move to do if you want status quo.  BU rises, you lower ; BU lowers, you rise. 

Miners want status quo.  All of them.  So they mimick divergence in opinion, which makes you believe bitcoin is still decentralized over 10 guys that can't agree.

Incorrect.

If we refuse to buy BTU tokens which appear in their blocks, then their mining power is useless if they can't sell their mined tokens. We the token holders can choose to honor 1MB limit protocol.

However, given many users can't get their transactions into 1MB, I would say BTU might win. But I have no confidence in BTU's technical competence, thus I may not want their tokens.

The miners can split between those who honor only 1MB blocks and those who honor larger blocks. Thus the coinbase minted in the BTU protocol are not spendable (do not exist) on the BTC protocol blockchain.

But there is an issue of difficulty attacks:


BTU appears to be ready to actually attack we the token holders. Fucking amazing. Very careless. Happy I hedged by selling some BTC.

I figured that is why they won't prioritize malleability fix and why they need unlimited block sizes. But unlimited block sizes is a power vacuum that awards a mining cartel.

Also changing the PoW algorithm means someone might secretly have an ASIC advantage already, or someone might get one before everyone else and use it to attack the network.

I don't think the token holders will agree to a PoW algorithm change. Core will be defeating themselves.

Thus we have a standoff. Neither side can compromise because there is no compromise that works for both sides. Core wants massive scaling but with centralized LN hubs for their bankster friends. BTU wants limited scaling at what ever their mining cartel can handle on chain. Neither are decentralized.

It is a clusterfuck. I bought ETH. LTC and XMR are other options.

Do it! You'll have fun with being broken by Ethereum-Miners, China government supercomputers, NSA supercomputers, Botnets. If you want a way for Bitcoin to fall in the hands of government, then a PoW change is a nice idea.

I told you already: because ANY hard fork that is not 95% consensus will make 2 coins, of which the one "leaving" is the alt coin, and because the large majority of miners wants to keep 1MB blocks and transaction scarcity, because the fees are needed to pay for the PoW in the future.

Miners have to follow the market in a hard fork, at least, if the PoW algorithm is the same so that they have the right hardware.  But for that to happen, a hard fork is needed first.  Now, the thing going for bitcoin is its brand name, so nobody is going to fork off without being able to get the brand name ; and miners are not going to help him.  For the current miners, status quo is best, so they will keep with status quo and keep the brand name as long as they can.  Any forking, with alternative mining, with PoS or whatever, will be an alt coin without the reassuring security and continuity of what the current miners are continuing to make.  Most users will keep using the old system, and the "real" bitcoin.  

So it is essentially impossible to hardfork and get the bitcoin brand name without the current miners.  Yes, you can create your alt coin and see what it does in the market.  For a PoS fork, you ONLY have to write new code.  For an alternative PoW fork, you have to have sufficient PoW in the new algorithm available to garantee the security of your altcoin if it pretends to be a bitcoin fork, which is near to impossible.

This is why it won't happen, until bitcoin's brand name is essentially eroded.  However, when that is the case, why forking, and not using another crypto that has the features you want all together ?  

This could be just another cathastrophic annoucement made for creating panic among users but with no real background. And the result could be like with ETF, so nothing worth mentioning.
I simply don't think miners would go for it and waist their time.

I don't think it's that simple, this may cause irreparable damage to bitcoin, plus who will trust the chain that is not backed by millions of dollars in hardware and development?

if PoW changes.. then it is just backdating security of bitcoin temporarily and in a few months the pools will be back where they are at the top but this time with a new asic/machine to make block creation more efficient than 'solo mining'.

EG if it went to a 1node 1 vote.. pools will simply make an asic/machine that acts like several clustered nodes syndicated together.

end result is just a couple months of drama until things are in the same position as now.

edit: (couple seconds running scenarios in my head)
infact less than a couple months. because the time it would take to get majority node acceptance of a new mining algo/difficulty/hashing rule..
pools would have the time to design the efficient solution to be ontop right when it activates.. thus solving nothing

So no reasoning against what I'm propounding, and refusing to explain what reasoning lies behind saying "because" over and over again?

......except "people didn't want x, therefore people will never choose y"? Curious arguing, gentlemen

Carlton is loony.  Not sure why he thinks something 10x as radical would get consensus when the community couldn't even agree on a 2mb block. lolz.

Don't need or want to.  I have already expressed that it is my opinion.  My opinion it just that and it does not matter one bit.  If any of this shit happens I will be wrong and you can come back and gloat all you want.  Later dude.

Burt, you keep saying "it'll never happen". Explain why, instead of repeating-repeating-repeating like a brainwashing propagandist