Topic: Proof of work debate? Threatened 51% attack due to fork debate - page 3. (Read 2570 times)

It's well known that Bitcoin PoW can be pooled.


And the solution to pooling is tree-based blockchains instead of linear based blockchains. This is about buying time to implement that solution, not solving it altogether.

You miss the point if you think changing the proof of work will fix the problem. The problem is not what the proof of work algorithm is, the problem is simply that work can be pooled. Anything can be made into an ASIC given enough financial incentive, and any type of work can be pooled. What really is needed is to make it impossible to pool work. Find a solution for that and you have progress.

Well, there's quadrillions of SHA256 hashes already protecting Bitcoin's holders, that's one reason.

The altcoins *doing that already* don't have the breadth and depth of developer talent that Bitcoin has. 2 major developers at Bitcoin Core (Peter Todd and Luke Dashjr) have already expressed support for a PoW change, when you look at the present situation it's not a case of if, but when a BU hardfork happens. More Bitcoin devs will follow their lead.

The other reason I've already stated; miners have started to try to push the users around. Segwit ready nodes are the majority of the Bitcoin network, have been for several weeks and it continues to rise.

Monero will be fully mined in 2018, then having a forever reducing inflation in money supply called the tail of emission. At the moment, it makes little economic sense to invest in the design and manufacture of specialised silicon for Monero. Bitcoin on the other hand will not be fully mined until around 2140, so the economic sense of producing specialised silicon exists.

This.

Every single PoW algorithm has a threshold over which special hardware becomes beneficial.  Economies of scale.  SHA-256 was a particularly poor choice in that respect.  Scrypt didn't hold out much longer.   Cryptonote is holding out, but also has a threshold.  Hell, if you can do it with a computer, made of silicon, of course you can do it with special-purpose silicon !

However, the economies of scale to work out the chip, make prototypes, and put it on a board are such that only from a certain level of performance-over-CPU this becomes interesting.  So on chains that will not go to the moon, CPU/GPU mining may hold out with a sufficiently sophisticated hash function.  From the moment you hope to go to very high prices, and hence, very high block rewards, this investment will always become useful.

Point is, however, why try to get consensus over that with bitcoin ?  If you want that, there are several alt coins *doing that already*. 

You would have to modify bitcoin so profoundly that it is easier just to switch to another crypto that is already up and running than to find any form of consensus over such a profound modification.   In fact, you can do it on your own, and publish a hard fork for bitcoin using such a function.  But your alt coin will not take off.  Better buy an existing one in the market.

That's my point, it won't be now, as millions of Bitcoin users would mine instead of only Satoshi, Hal and Ray Dillinger (as it was in 2009).


And mining was still less centralised when pools first came about than it is today. Besides, using tree-chains instead of linear chains could solve that problem, either for a p2pool share-chain or for the actual blockchain itself. This is about cutting out the cancer, not the full course of chemo, which comes later.


The current miners are only protecting themselves.

Out. They will be gone.

Thomas Jefferson just rolled over in his grave.

Fact is the Miners will not agree with segwit because it is designed to bankrupt them by moving almost all transactions offline.
This will bankrupt the miners and put them out of business.

This new PoW proposal, at least is admitting their goal is to put the ASICS guys out of work.
You can bet any hard fork with a new PoW is going to have Segwit already activated so LN can be used immediately.
(Funny Core is not afraid of this Hard Fork.)  

Blockstream/segwit/LN supporters are dirty as can be, but at least they are consistently dirty.  

Funny thing is , you also are putting the less than 30% mining pools that supported segwit out of business.
They have no choice now but to join BTU, or be discarded with the other asics miners by your new PoW Algo.

Nice.



 

FYI:
CB , you just done a better job at convincing the ASICS miners to Join BTU than anyone before you.  

Early bitcoin usage was a small user base oligarchy.


Difficulty will increase, and people will still point their miners at mining pools.


Perhaps you should consider another proof-of-whatever consensus, as spilling the blood of block builders who confirm your transactions in the ledger because you can't force an unwanted software change on them is like cutting your nose off to spite your face. Or perhaps consider making changes to the software design that they are happy to accept. One mans tyrant is another mans protector of freedom.

That's right, but with how well known Bitcoin is known now compared to 2009, a temporary period of decentralised mining will exist.


Could that last long enough before 3D printing of ASIC chips is possible? Maybe not, but I doubt it would take one more PoW change until we got to that point, and then the game changes completely.


To paraphrase:

"The tree of decentralised cryptocurrency must occasionally be watered with the blood of ASIC mining tyrants"

The only thing a POW change will achieve is a temporary reset to a level playing field.
People start building their own mining farms.
Normal users will have little chance of solving a block on their own, so they join a mining pool.
The economics of low electricity cost and real estate space gives some farms an advantage.
It becomes economically viable to design a specialised computer to be more efficient at the task at hand.
A new mining oligarchy forms as a result.

You could make the argument that's exactly what's happening.


But what difference does the name of the currency make if Bitcoin Core devs accept that changing the PoW is the only way to get rid of miners behaving badly? Who will patch Bitcoin Core when Bitcoin "Respawn" is the only codebase with active developers?


Don't forget: the return of CPU mining would be a healthy return to a fully decentralised Bitcoin network.

what the hell is up with this new fascination to "change bitcoin"?!!!

ever since this stupid block size debate has started, i keep seeing everyone trying to add lots of changes to bitcoin and change what has been working so far and is still working perfectly and will continue to work!
started with classic which was shitloads of change and then xt and then BU and segwit!
and now this!!!

if you are so unhappy then start a new altcoin and apply the changes, whatever they are in that altcoin and leave bitcoin alone.
this is what litecoin and half the rest of them did and are still doing.

It makes no difference, the ASIC miners should have seen this coming.

If they don't do what the majority of users want, and choose a foolish hard fork instead, then that's just a risk of the business they're in. I won't be crying for them, the miners have behaved like a cartel.

And if Bitfury really wanted to be responsible to the Bitcoin network, they could have sold chips or miners to the public, which they only ever did with their early 55nm mining ASIC chips. They have themselves to blame, their strategy could have been much better.

And segwit supporting BitFury won't be too happy either.

it does kinda make sense if a faork could cause the value to die very quickly, and miners want to preserve their profit, if they can't they will do their last move

while i agree that this is the usaul FUD, it might hold some true in it

that's awful, pc bot net would simply ruin the minign experience more than any asic, with random dude running aws instances and mining everything

better to do it gpu only not cpu, but this is like saying fuck off to million of dollars invested in mining by chinese, i don't think they will ever agree

It will be CBANKS altcoin - just do it mate and post in the alt section!

Too simplistic gentlemen


And it's being discussed here:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-bitcoin-pow-upgrade-initiative-1833391


I am strongly in favour of switching the PoW hashing algorithm to Keccak, CuckooCycle, Equihash, or whatever has the best balance of proven hash algorithm & difficulty  to develop an ASIC. And I think it should be done before any BU hardfork, any miners unhappy with that should've thought realistically that this day would come.


ASICs begone. The CPU mining revolution will be beautiful, Satoshi warned against the development of sole-purpose SHA256 hashing ASIC processors, and today we can see why.



All Bitcoiners will mine BTC with their regular PC again. Let's do it.

well if BU or any other different thing forks with a small portion of the hashrate and separates itself from the network that way, yes that 51% is something to worry about and they would deserve to be under attack if they do that.

but if it forks with majority, which is what i understand the aim is, there will be no 51% attack because the remaining hashrate that is not accepting BU or any other proposal is not going to be big enough.

Yeah, 51% attacking costs much energy, power and time, it is not worth to try this non-sense on impair bitcoin. Future fork will be a long fight, not easy to make the consensus on SW or BU.