Mh, we really don't know if there is already a botnet out in the wild mining XMR coins. We know for sure, however, that there is a positive likelihood for the event that a botnet will enter the mining market, just because one can make little/big money with selling XMR coins. (IMO, botnet miners are likely to drive the price down by immediately selling their mined coins; but that is another point to be discussed.) Nevertheless, botnets are unlikely to overcome FPGAs and ASICs, once those enter the game, right?! That's why I'm mostly concerned about FPGA (and later ASIC) miners entering the field.
Did anyone use FPGAs for Bitcoin mining activities back in the good old BTC days? Would you agree that FPGAs could become a threat to today's Monero miners - worse then botnets (thinking of mining power percentages and cheaply mined coins)?
Topic: rpietila Altcoin Observer - page 107. (Read 387493 times)
Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down. Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad. There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.
1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?
2. Not having a high cost structure would reduce, not increase the incentive to sell. The people who are most motivated to sell quickly are those with high operating costs (electricity, cloud mining, etc.). So this argument about botnet behavior is illogical in addition to unproven.
#1 Most botnets originate in broke, Eastern Euro areas where money now is more important to them than a speculative instrument in the future.
#2 If you receive something completely for free with no overhead, you personally value it less than if you had to actually work to obtain it.
1. I guess. But how long can they be broke if they're supposedly making so much money mining with no overhead?
2. It is work to run a botnet. I don't know the details of what tasks running a botnet entails but it has to be a naturally competitive market. If it is too easy then other people get into it and it becomes more work to successfully compete.
Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down. Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad. There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.
1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?
2. Not having a high cost structure would reduce, not increase the incentive to sell. The people who are most motivated to sell quickly are those with high operating costs (electricity, cloud mining, etc.). So this argument about botnet behavior is illogical in addition to unproven.
#1 Most botnets originate in broke, Eastern Euro areas where money now is more important to them than a speculative instrument in the future.
#2 If you receive something completely for free with no overhead, you personally value it less than if you had to actually work to obtain it.
Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down. Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad. There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.
1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?
2. Not having a high cost structure would reduce, not increase the incentive to sell. The people who are most motivated to sell quickly are those with high operating costs (electricity, cloud mining, etc.). So this argument about botnet behavior is illogical in addition to unproven.
LMAO, botnet argument against cryptonote right now are like the 'only used to buy drugs' for Bitcoin several years ago, clever tactic to dismiss the coin by proxy association, but it won't work.
Not even close. It's an obvious legit issue if it pushes "rational miners" out of the equation. People already mentioned it requiring 45+ months to break even GPU mining. If there's little or no incentive to be involved with a coin, distribution goes to crap, bad distribution then obviously leads to bad price. Everything has a feedback loop in these things.
See you just did it lol, lets all stop mining XMR because it may not be profitable for short-term dump.
Um, you realize that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE has to mine the coin right? No miners = no coin. Disincentivizing against miners is obviously a bad thing.
Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down. Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad. There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.
LMAO, botnet argument against cryptonote right now are like the 'only used to buy drugs' for Bitcoin several years ago, clever tactic to dismiss the coin by proxy association, but it won't work.
Not even close. It's an obvious legit issue if it pushes "rational miners" out of the equation. People already mentioned it requiring 45+ months to break even GPU mining. If there's little or no incentive to be involved with a coin, distribution goes to crap, bad distribution then obviously leads to bad price. Everything has a feedback loop in these things.
EDIT: One last point. Probably the best way to detect a mining botnet on your computer is to mine with it. If your hash rate drops then you know something is wrong, be it hardware failure, software failure, or a botnet. There is no way for a botnet owner to steal your hash rate without reducing your hash rate.
lol nice rationalization to mine on any and every computer you ever own or have access to
In case it was not clear I find botnets reprehensible and have nothing to do with them. That is independent of understanding the economics of it.
I was just referring to your EDIT, that I left in the above quote, not implying you condone botting or netting or anything
Oh okay. Somewhere in the comments from the cryptonote folks, they describe their "one cpu, one vote" concept as including a (distant) vision that every computer, cell phone, etc. will be mining all the time. This makes the sort of botnets that exist today impossible. It also makes 51% attacks much harder since there is no idle capacity to use. For example, in this model Amazon's cloud nodes would just mine for Amazon when no one else is renting them. It also implies a change in the design of CPUs away from power scaling and efficiency at idle to efficiency at full load.
Of course this is not happening in full form any time soon. We may move in that direction though.
EDIT: One last point. Probably the best way to detect a mining botnet on your computer is to mine with it. If your hash rate drops then you know something is wrong, be it hardware failure, software failure, or a botnet. There is no way for a botnet owner to steal your hash rate without reducing your hash rate.
lol nice rationalization to mine on any and every computer you ever own or have access to
In case it was not clear I find botnets reprehensible and have nothing to do with them. That is independent of understanding the economics of it.
I was just referring to your EDIT, that I left in the above quote, not implying you condone botting or netting or anything
Botnet wranglers have an advantage over "normal" miners, and if they're not a dominant fraction of the mining that's happening, they should be able to mine with a comfortable profit while everyone else's net profit is driven to (close to) zero.
As I've said before, from the point of view of the coin network, botnets are just another form of mining rig. Assuming what you wrote above is true (though it is harder to understand the botnet owner's cost structure as you point out), this is not very different from someone mining with a 0.5 W/GH ASIC while someone else are still mining with older 1 W/GH ASIC. Obviously the guy with the 0.5 W/H has a higher profit margin, and the guy with the worst efficiency is barely breaking even.
It is most certainly different to the computer owner, but I've also said before that botnet mining is very likely less socially harmful than other uses of botnets (spam, DDOS, etc.) because the costs are borne by the computer owner who is in the best position to either prevent it or address it.
EDIT: One last point. Probably the best way to detect a mining botnet on your computer is to mine with it. If your hash rate drops then you know something is wrong, be it hardware failure, software failure, or a botnet. There is no way for a botnet owner to steal your hash rate without reducing your hash rate.
lol nice rationalization to mine on any and every computer you ever own or have access to
In case it was not clear I find botnets reprehensible and have nothing to do with them. That is independent of understanding the economics of it.
Botnet wranglers have an advantage over "normal" miners, and if they're not a dominant fraction of the mining that's happening, they should be able to mine with a comfortable profit while everyone else's net profit is driven to (close to) zero.
As I've said before, from the point of view of the coin network, botnets are just another form of mining rig. Assuming what you wrote above is true (though it is harder to understand the botnet owner's cost structure as you point out), this is not very different from someone mining with a 0.5 W/GH ASIC while someone else are still mining with older 1 W/GH ASIC. Obviously the guy with the 0.5 W/H has a higher profit margin, and the guy with the worst efficiency is barely breaking even.
It is most certainly different to the computer owner, but I've also said before that botnet mining is very likely less socially harmful than other uses of botnets (spam, DDOS, etc.) because the costs are borne by the computer owner who is in the best position to either prevent it or address it.
EDIT: One last point. Probably the best way to detect a mining botnet on your computer is to mine with it. If your hash rate drops then you know something is wrong, be it hardware failure, software failure, or a botnet. There is no way for a botnet owner to steal your hash rate without reducing your hash rate.
lol nice rationalization to mine on any and every computer you ever own or have access to
Botnet wranglers have an advantage over "normal" miners, and if they're not a dominant fraction of the mining that's happening, they should be able to mine with a comfortable profit while everyone else's net profit is driven to (close to) zero.
As I've said before, from the point of view of the coin network, botnets are just another form of mining rig. Assuming what you wrote above is true (though it is harder to understand the botnet owner's cost structure as you point out), this is not very different from someone mining with a 0.5 W/GH ASIC while someone else is still mining with older 1 W/GH ASICs. Obviously the guy with the 0.5 W/H has a higher profit margin, and the guy with the worst efficiency is barely breaking even.
It is most certainly different to the computer owner, but I've also said before that botnet mining is very likely less socially harmful than other uses of botnets (spam, DDOS, etc.) because the costs are borne by the computer owner who is in the best position to either prevent it or address it.
EDIT: One last point. Probably the best way to detect a mining botnet on your computer is to mine with it. If your hash rate drops then you know something is wrong, be it hardware failure, software failure, or a botnet. There is no way for a botnet owner to steal your hash rate without reducing your hash rate.
As a result, they asymmetrically benefit from CPU-only coins as a mechanism to monetize stolen computer access.
This only applies if mining is clearly more profitable than any other activity.
Well - I'll stand by my phrasing while agreeing with your higher level point.
Botnet wranglers have an advantage over "normal" miners, and if they're not a dominant fraction of the mining that's happening, they should be able to mine with a comfortable profit while everyone else's net profit is driven to (close to) zero.
But absolutely: Botnets face the same decision of what to do with their resources, and they'll only mine if there is not some other more profitable activity that doesn't require the CPUs and/or that the mining activity does not so increase their chance of detection that it's a net loss compared to more profitable activities such as spam, keylogging, etc. I suspect that in practice, the latter is the real limiter, since many of these activities do not consume massive amounts of CPU and could in theory be performed concurrently. Slow, hot computers make people think "eek, virus!" which is close enough to the mark.
Mobile processors are extremely optimised for electricity consumption. I don't know how many watts would 8 hours of night mining consume
Standard phone chargers are 1 A at 5 V or 5W, so running flat out for 8 hours is 40 WH = 0.040 kwh. At 15c/kwh that is 6/10 of one penny. So the "risk" here is really negligible. The key is to make it easy enough for people to do, so they don't need a reason to do it, they need a reason to not do it, and there really isn't one.
And while low in power, these CPUs are very efficient in terms of compute power per watt.
A billion of those is 5 GW. Even at 25% duty cycle that is over 1 GW. At 1 W/GH total bitcoin mining (120 PH) is currently around 120 MW = 0.120 GW.
Cell phone CPU mining could be very significant if it became popular on a large scale.
Not every lottery is for millions. People spend a lot of money on daily drawings for smaller amounts, scratch off tickets with $500-$10000 max prizes, etc. Go into a casino and most slot machines don't have million dollar payoffs (thousands are common) and you see lots and lots of people playing them.
You know I started my life here at bct in the gambling section.
Intermittent reinforcement. That is the key to scratch offs and slot machines. It is the small random winnings (while they are actually losing) that keep them coming back or staying for the possible bigger payment. I knew somebody who said they found a good slot machine. They said "I put 3 coins in and it gives 2 back". I said, no it took one, to which they replied, oh.
So either it is the promise of a very big payout with proof thereof or constant random reinforcement with the promise of something bigger. It seems to me that mining with your CPU gives neither.
Set up mining rigs in Vegas. 25 cents gets you 2kWh and a certain number of hashes. Keep popping quarters 'til you get a block. When you win, nothing comes out, cause it's virtual. But the txid comes up on the display. Ding ding ding ding.
From that perspective, it seems relevant to ask which coin offers the largest "jackpot" (single-block reward), in USD, regardless of the odds. Set up mining rigs in Vegas. 25 cents gets you 2kWh and a certain number of hashes. Keep popping quarters 'til you get a block. When you win, nothing comes out, cause it's virtual.
Would be nice to have a paper wallet popping out...
Set up mining rigs in Vegas. 25 cents gets you 2kWh and a certain number of hashes. Keep popping quarters 'til you get a block. When you win, nothing comes out, cause it's virtual. But the txid comes up on the display. Ding ding ding ding.
Not every lottery is for millions. People spend a lot of money on daily drawings for smaller amounts, scratch off tickets with $500-$10000 max prizes, etc. Go into a casino and most slot machines don't have million dollar payoffs (thousands are common) and you see lots and lots of people playing them.
For a one dollar lottery ticket I have a very small probability of winning millions. What is the upside of mining with my CPU and would that be enough to entice people?
You've said it: a small probability. Have you ever personally met anyone who won a lottery? I'm almost certain you haven't, but nevertheless you go to that corner shop every week and buy the new one.
Mobile processors are extremely optimised for electricity consumption. I don't know how many watts would 8 hours of night mining consume, but it will probably be a small amount. Are you willing to risk it for a chance to find a block? If you play a lottery one can safely assume you would. Provided ofc it's extremely convenient to you just like going to that store is, just start it once and forget it, checking for results now and then. Once an average Joe takes a second look at that app on his phone he may find that option to send some funds to others may be as interesting as mining.
For a one dollar lottery ticket I have a very small probability of winning millions. What is the upside of mining with my CPU and would that be enough to entice people?
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