Topic: Satoshi proposed a gentlemans agreement to postpone GPU mining (2009) (Read 7751 times)

its the ipod era not the wild west lets move on..

its the excavator era not the pickaxe era lets move on..

its 2013 not 2009. lets move on..

mining is not a noob career anymore, its a career for those with experience and financial backing. if you want something that is minable with CPU start churning out prime coins. if you want something that is minable with GPU start churning out litecoins.

don't think that crying that you personally cant mine bitcoin with a CPU, means the world has to sit on their hands purely for your benefit.

thats like saying everyone in the world should equally work for minimum wage, purely because you don't want to step up to the mark and invest in your future.

if you cant afford to mine bitcoins. then earn them the way everyday people earn fiat. sell products, sell services, get employed where the salery is bitcoin. become a consultant/teacher, do meet-ups, open a cafe, clothes shop, anything. the world is your oyster, just don't ask other people to hold back.

The system could act as a miner registration. Of course, how do you ensure and *trust* that 1 person has only registered once? How can that system be distributed and enforced? It's a mystery to me, maybe the answer is you can't...

That system would indeed lower the hashrate, which as I see it and as Satoshi remarked is a good thing, leveling the playing field, etc.

And the total hash-rate would be significantly lower than it is today, which would be a negative implication for sure, although I suppose on the flip-side, it would be harder for an individual to perform a 51% attack, that is, without the use of a botnet (which would then be able to much more eaily perfomr one than it could now).

I think on balance, the system we have now is the better and more secure one.

It's impossible. There's no way to identify a person in a decentralized digital system, not on the spot and definitely not in historic records.

If it was possible, there would be no need for hash-based mining at all, we'd just give each person an equal share of the generated coins and synchronization power.

I proposed an idea earlier related to this.

While Satoshi suggests a gentlemans agreement, I suggest a programmed system which ensures all those interested in mining can mine *up to* a specific hashrate and no more.

This would enable everyone a fair share of the mining pie, while also enforcing security in that no one would be allowed to do a 51% attack as they are only allowed a fixed hashrate for mining.

Let me be clear, I am not sure how this system would actually be created and maintained and there are surely issues with it. However I'd be willing to bet that we could band together and figure something out if we all were to work together on it.

That is very interesting.  I never actually thought about it before.  It's a very Utopian theory on mining, and sharing the wealth.  But he's right, of course.  He was a smart guy, whoever he was.

If everybody on the network had 10M/h each vs if everybody on the network had 100T/h each, or even if everybody had 1h/s.  Everyone would receive exactly the same number of coins in any of those scenarios.

It's only because of greed, and people wanting to get more than their share, that there exists huge gpu farms, and asic's and such.  But if everybody agreed to just use the cpu in their pc, and there were no asic's or gpu's at all.  Then difficulty would be many orders of magnitude smaller than it is now, and most people receive exactly the same amount of coins that they get today.  But WITHOUT having to spend $1000's on dedicated mining hardware, and without wasting tons of electricity and killing the environment.


So maybe all the cpu-only mined coins are more correct than I initially gave them credit for...  They are much more in line with Satoshi's original philosophy.  But they now suffer from the problem of cloud-based virtual farms taking over...

Philosophically and technologically this is a very interesting topic. Of course OP is right, miners would get the same amount of BTC mining with their old GPUs as they would get if everyone switches to asics.

I think it comes down to a very easy concept:

If everyone would share with each other there would be more for everybody because no more resourced would be wasted by fighting for them.

This is the positive aspect of OPs idea, but theres a negative one aswell. Since the miners function as the networks security system by weaving the new transactions securely into the blockchain a gentlemans agreement would severely impact the security of bitcoin. Anyone could launch a 51% attack very easily.

So thats a very slick thing about the bitcoin system: The network integrity is being protected by peoples greed. Since every miner wants a bigger part of the pie an arms race takes place, serving the security and integrity of the network.

While in our established centralized currency system the greed and willingness to get an advantage over others drives things like insider trading, chargeback fraud and credit card theft, in Bitcoin these emotions are funneled into the security and integrity of the system.

So I think this is a genius concept on Nakamotos part, turning the egoism and greed of the peoples to the publics advantage instead of their disadvantage. This might just be a monetary system that works right.

The users are paying the bills. If miners don't want to mine the fork the users find valuable, the users can find other miners. If the users don't value the fork the miners are mining, the miners are screwed (unless they switch to the valuable fork).

The most plausible attack scenario is by an attacker who wishes to damage or destroy Bitcoin. "You're going to hurt confidence in the network" isn't a complicating factor, it's the whole point of the attack.

But whatever the motivation of the attacker, I'm not analyzing here the timeline of the attack and how much the attacker gains at any point in time, and how it changes due to changes in the network. I'm abstracting it all away and referring to it, as a whole, as "what the attacker has to gain by performing the attack". It's either more than what the attack will cost or not, even if we (or even the attacker) don't know exactly which.

I don't want Bitcoin to fail. There is a real problem which could cause it to fail; so I will pursue it until a satisfactory resolution is found, even if I have to deal with uncertainty.

Here you go:

I am somebody so if nobody knows, I don't know either.

If we need to figure it out, it means I don't know what it is.

Well, last time I checked it's the miners that were hashing, and therefore making the rules.
Of course without users the whole thing is pointless, but without the miners have fun forking anything.



That's exactly where you're oversimplifying, because it isn't. If you 51% attack bitcoin, chances are you're going to hurt confidence in the network and therefore the value, thereby changing your expected gain. You're forgetting an important unknown in this equation.

So basically you're chasing a moving target, one for which it's also extremely hard to know whether you're even close to it.



I never said it should be low. I didn't reply either, I pointed out that even though the question might have a theoretical answer it's not in our reach and therefore not very interesting to pursue any further. Of course, the more hashrate the best, there simply is no way to accurately declare the network to be "secure", or "insecure" without resorting to wild guesses and approximations that make the whole exercise pointless.



That's not what I said, as a general thing I try to refrain from using "we should" or "we shouldn't" when it comes to Bitcoin.



Good. So we're on the same page, forgive me but I'm not the kind to dig through histories and I didn't happen to encounter this particular string of words in your previous posts in this thread.

Miners don't make the rules, users (the economic majority) do. That's another misconception.

You seem to be confused.

If X is the network honest hashrate, it will be attacked if the cost for an attacker to obtain X hashrate is less than what he can gain by attacking.

"What he can gain" is fixed. The lower X is, the more likely this condition is to hold and for the network to be attacked. If X is too low we have a problem.

I have defined what "really needed hashrate" means, an argument for the needed hashrate being low is not really a reply.

So because we can't know something with 100% certainty we're supposed to just bury our heads in the sand and not try to analyze, estimate and improve the system?

I am a Bitcoin user, promoter, investor, miner and researcher. I am part of the market. Me analyzing the system and trying to come up with solutions is the market adapting. The market doesn't work by everyone closing their eyes and waiting to see what other people will do.

I said multiple times that I don't know what will happen, so this comment marks the point the debate has degraded so much that I don't have much interest in continuing with it.

If I count correctly there has only been one hardfork and it was merely a bugfix.

You're oversimplifying by forgetting the fact that someone with such hashpower has an incentive not to mess with Bitcoin.
But basically that's my point, there might be such a value (setting aside the added incentives), but it still makes no sense to talk about the network being "secure" or "insecure" since, as you said yourself, you have no idea and no way to know about the threshold.

I don't know, and the "lengthy" discussions are here to prove that a consensus is far from reached.

Why would 3tx/s not be enough with most transactions being off-chain transactions and the chain only used for settlements between account hubs ?
I mean, if you're a miner you'd be tempted to use your voting power to not make too easy to get into a block.

You can speak like you know the future as much as you want, I won't join you.
What happens next isn't our call, it's the miners call.

The day it's harder to get all the pool operators on #bitcoin-dev at the same time you might see that pulling a hardfork might be much harder than what you think.

Lrn to manners, plox.

Hardfork, of course.

Bitcoin is whatever people say it is. Bitcoin has had hard forks but we still call it Bitcoin. And Bitcoin clearly will have more hard forks in the future.


Really needed hashrate = The hashrate below which Bitcoin will be a victim of a >50% attack. We don't know what it is, but it still exists.


Currently there is a limit of 1MB per block. Do you think this will remain forever?
If so, good luck using your outdated version of Bitcoin that cannot scale above 3 transactions per second. (You can use off-chain payments and whatnot but 3 tx/s is still not enough).

If not, then a hardfork will be needed, refuting your "Anything with a hardfork is not Bitcoin!" attitude, but more importantly - what will it be replaced by?
If nothing at all, good luck using your outdated version of Bitcoin that will have nobody hashing for it and be a constant target for hashrate attacks.
If it will be replaced by something... Then that "something" is exactly what we need to figure out.

There is no "really needed" hashrate threshold that you can compare a subjective appreciation to. The question is flawed in itself.


That's your opinion. Mine is that miners will decide what is theirs to decide. If a group of "core developers" or the "foundation" wishes to hardfork its their problem.


There have been quite lengthy discussions about the existence of god too.


As in "magically"? or by a hardfork? The context in which you're answering the question isn't Bitcoin anymore, it's a fork of Bitcoin.

Crumbs, you are quite simply an imbecile, why are you talking about poop, cream cheese and crackers?

You tried to posit that in order to accomodate more users (up to a level matching the banks' current level) would require more (electical) power usage than the banks:

Then you regress on this assertion, by agreeing that the hashrate is not "required", and so that in order to accomodate more users, theoretically, might not even require any more hashrate than we have now, although we both know that practically it will.

Then you agree with me.

Then you talk about cheese and the moon, and then again. I think you have made a total of about 3 analogies in this thread now, of which all three were completely nonsensical and not appropriate for (well, anything) the topic at hand.

I can't believe I even replied to your ramblings. Your ignore light is about to be lit up a little bit brighter  

@Meni Rosenfeld: Thanks.

The possible gap between perceived and real need doesn't contradict what I said.

No. Without massive protocol changes, the market does not have the tools to adapt to this situation. There have been lengthy discussions about this.

Nobody knows exactly how this will happen. But one possibility is that a limit will be placed on the total value that can be transacted per block, and if the resulting network hashrate is perceived to be too low, the limit will be tightened.

Thanks.  If we could only tie in JC into this

Sure :
 - the switch to tx-fees-only happens
 - nothing extremely special happens
 - the market adapts, eventually
 - the network is responsive and secure

The end.

I (honestly) don't understand how the transition from mining-for-bitcoins to mining-for-tx_fees will play out.  Sorta' filed it away under "not the time to think about it, will cross that bridge when we get to it."  Can anyone walk me through a scenario which results in a responsive & secure network?  

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

Oh - my bad. Alright, people could've sent money to a just-established trading card exchange for BTC. 

ETA: Guess I did say easy, not confidence-inspiring.

Not true.
In these immemorial times mtgox was still unctional, at some point accepted paypal, and credit cards through liqpay.

Yeah that's true I suppose.

I'm sure I often hear people spouting things like "Satoshi never envisioned GPU or pooled mining", so I just found it kinda interesting that it was proposed to him this long ago, and he answered as if he had always known it was coming, but was trying to stay quiet about it for as long as possible....

This was before it was relatively easy to simply purchase coins, so new users, unless they begged or used a faucet, were practically required to mine BTC to use it. Making BTC more difficult to mine would've limited adoption.

Ask people to be nice to each other.
Jesus tried that already.

Just a general FYI I suppose, I found it interesting...