Topic: Satoshi proposed a gentlemans agreement to postpone GPU mining (2009) - page 2. (Read 7748 times)

No, what you call "security" is a subjective appreciation of the hashrate, compared to a perceived "necessary minimal hashrate" that is by no means "required".

lol

This is true now. The current causality is:

Inflation schedule set in stone -> Total revenue to be made from mining -> Network hashrate in equilibrium

But in the future, when inflation is negligible and we only have tx fees, it will look more like

Security is required -> Protocol rules make transactions scarce -> Fees are paid for txs -> Total revenue to be made from mining -> Network hashrate in equilibrium

So the need for security will, by one mechanism or another, affect the network energy usage.


Security means: Honest network hashrate is greater than the hashrate an attacker is expected to be able to muster.

If more people use Bitcoin, the economic impact of Bitcoin is greater, more can be gained by attacking it, an attacker could spend more resources in order to attack it, more hashrate is needed to be secure.

Your first problem is use of the term "require."
We do not "require" the current hashrate to secure the network.  The hashrate is  a byproduct of miners wishing to get bitcoins.  The hashrate is not determined by some Socialist central planning committee.  It is determined by people wishing to profit.  If the net income of increasing the hashrate is positive, *the hashrate will increase, regardless of security needs*.  Talking about "required" hashrate is as meaningful as talking about "required poop rate" -- it's not required, but it inevitably happens, regardless.  Best accommodate for it


No.  See the poop analogy above.


If the moon was made of cream cheese, moon cream cheese mines would be practical.  It's not, so they aren't.


See cream cheese mine analogy.


I'm glad for your revelation.

Well, you said:


To which I replied:


I'm glad you agree that bitcoin miners are using less energy:

But I'm interested as to why you believe the rest of your quote to be true; do you think that we require more hashing power to secure the network simply because there may be more people using bitcoin than we have now, and if so why?

Satoshi and many others believe that full nodes and miners would be a small proportion of the bitcoin network, with most most users running just SPV nodes, the "everybody can mine" was simply the best way that could be thought of to bootstrap the network and distribute the coins (semi) fairly. Do you think that this model of bitcoin requires more (hashing) power than we have now, rapidly approaching 1PH/s, in order to stay secure?

I think that if a billion people downloaded multibit tomorrow and started using bitcoin the network would remain functional, and would not require much more (electrical) power to function (yes blocks might fill up etc etc but I am counting those effects as irrelevant to this conversation).

I still feel confident in my (nearly arbitrary) gut feeling, that a bitcoin network with 'more than 7 billion people' could be mined using less energy than it takes right now to run all the world's banks.

And no, I don't live in a cave.

And yes, I do see now why your ignore button is glowing bright orange...

No.  What are we comparing?
All of the banks in the world serve more than seven billion people.  Unless you live in a cave, they serve you too, even though you probably also use bitcoins.
The bitcoin network serves a ridiculously small number of people -- it's current *market cap* is less than 1.5 billion.
Comparing "all of the world's banks" to bitcoin makes as much sense as comparing the combined jet fleet of the world to your neighbor's Vespa -- Sure, the jet fleet uses more fuel than the Vespa, but they happen to serve moar people.

I'm happy to enlighten & inform.

So do you think all the miners in the world are currently using more energy to regulate and secure the bitcoin network, than all the banks in the world are using to regulate and secure their financial system?

Lol, if traditional banks burned as much power as bitcoin miners (who will continue mining until energy cost=bitcoin value), they'd have to plug into the nearest sun, conventional power grid would be just piss in the ocean

Something you're overlooking is the more hashing power the network has the more expensive and difficult it will be to attack the network. It's not wasted money and electricity. You might as well count the number of light bulbs per bank, multiply their power usage, and say that traditional banking hurts the environment. That's not even counting the massive server farms that handle current electronic transactions in the traditional money infrastructure.

Just to get a piece of the bitcoin pie I had to get a 30 GH/s bitcoin miner. I waited for nearly a year to receive it 10 months.

I looked at the thing as an investment against my bank. My bank gave me 1 cent a month. bitcoin is almost sure to be more profitable. I really don't like the amount of ASICS that are being deployed. I really doubt anyone will keep mining when there is another drop in the bitcoin reward.

To tie such amounts of money in mining equipment is ridiculous.

Let's think of the amount of damage is being done in the name of Bitcoin to make all these cheap factory made chips.
The amount of electricity being wasted to keep the network hashing at an insane pace.

If only we weren't so damn greedy. And as I'm talking I'm using 120 watts 24/7 just to mine. I'm legitimately hurting the environment in which we all live in. And what for? A tiny little return on investment.


Then again I can buy myself a Bitcoin miner shirt from BitPride and pat myself on the back.
When does bitcoin miner turn to bitcoin traitor. I don't know. We (the miners) have essentially blocked 99% of humanity from having the ability to mine bitcoin.

Of course there is LTC and other cryptos but those pale in comparison compared to bitcoin and the mere fact that there are other crypto-currencies doesn't mean we should just demolish bitcoin to go to another currency.

i guess the pioneers of btc were genuinely gentleman, but after them i'm seeing more greed than good intentions

 "gentleman" in satoshi's meaning equals people concerned about btc ecosystem.

a healty decentralization could be acheived if all the community subscribed a tacit gentleman's agreement refusing to mine with asics



looking at the present situation, people acted like "gentleman" ?
sorry for being too cynical

there could be a significant amount of individuals lead by blind hope, but ther's a break point for all
even if one believe strongly in a future appreciation of btc, present high losses of fiat at least will push him to consider other strategies than mining, i.e. trading

however the recent bfl monarch sold out is giving you reason

let's see what happens when the difficulty will be unsostainable even for the strongest asic (it's not far to see imao)

Right, according to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/History Mtgox started on July 2010, half a year later.

This particular quote was from a month before the first automated exchange opened (Bitcoin Market). MtGox came several months later IIRC.

Even the power cost will not matter.

Folks are pre-ordering ASIC miners today and justifying it with the tired old mantra that if you buy your ASIC miner with fiat currency then you can never say that it will be a loss making venture because the future value of Bitcoins is unknown. When they get to the point at which the electricity cost outweighs the mining income, they will just tell you that they are paying for the electricity with fiat so the same logic will apply. You cannot argue with those people, you can only pity them.

Don't forget that bitcoin miners are being pre-ordered -- the actual value [at the time the rig starts mining] of bitcoin and difficulty don't matter*.  What matters is the expected value of bitcoin and the expected difficulty at the time the pre-order is placed -- often a year in advance.
*only electricity cost surpassing the worth of mined bitcoins breaks this.

I'm sorry. I beg to differ. I may not be a gentleman but I *try* to be a gentleman with anyone I'm dealing with whether it's in the BTC world or not.

This culture is so nascent, that there's still room for civility to take root - at least among well intentioned miners & speculators - while taking calculated risks.

could you elaborate your answer?

my assumption is simple, constant price drop imply that asic companies costumers will abstain to buy new miners; even if they believe a future price rise, they can't afford to mine at loss for longer periods; asic companies accordingly will have to limitate the production and then we could see a difficulty drop.

I still don't think a price drop would have much of an effect on anything.

no place for gentleman in btc world, unfortunately


the only thing that will stop the asic race is the worst: a constant hard drop of btc value