6 ms·

This is a nice case study in the power balance within a cryptocoin ecosystem. 1. Developers 2. Miners 3. Users 4. Hardware manufactures Also funny to

This is a nice case study in the power balance within a cryptocoin ecosystem. 1. Developers 2. Miners 3. Users 4. Hardware manufactures Also funny to hear ASIC hardware targeting BTC only becomes a fresh news story now that a single hardware manufacture has a monopoly on optimization to exploit the algo via a patent. ASIC optimizations against BTC were an early complaint, and that's a major reason for LiteCoin and other cryptocoin designs attempt to solve in various ways. Even if the developers choose not to address this exploit, the users and miners could just jump ship to any of the other more advanced cyptocoin designs.

vkou 9y ago
> Even if the developers choose not to address this exploit, the users and miners could just jump ship to any of the other more advanced cyptocoin designs. Yes, just like Americans will jump ship to the SUDO-Dollar, because its printing presses have a technically better implementation then the US-Dollar. People who own billions in US-Dollars are probably chomping at the bit to transact in a technically better currency. :) They most certainly could, but unless their investment in BTC will become worthless tomorrow, they most probably won't.
- nosuchthing 9y ago
  Your analogy is a complete false equivalence. Different cryptocoin designs have very significant differences in feature sets and algorithms. There is much more difference than name, or "printing press implementation(..?)"
mrb 9y ago
Bitmain has no "asicboost monopoly". 3 (or 4) different entities each have their own patents on the exact same optimization: https://plus.google.com/+MarcBevand/posts/Egm8LGZxdSk https://plus.google.com/+MarcBevand/posts/Egm8LGZxdSk
Torgo 9y ago
It became a news story because certain miners (allegely) run by ASIC companies were blocking segwit[1], and it turns out it's because fixing the transaction malleability[2] bug in Bitcoin breaks ASICBOOST[3]. ASICBOOST adds nothing of value to the network, it is not an "optimization" in the sense that it makes it cheaper to bundle transactions, which is beneficial to both the miner and the network. in its most naive use it creates garbage blocks to siphon rewards. So basically, the reason some people are mad is, a thing that fixes a longtime problem in bitcoin that has been preventing taking advantage of some of the more advanced features of bitcoin, is being blocked because it breaks some crooks' unfair advantage. caveat: IANABE (I am not a bitcoin expert) 1. dramatic change to bitcoin network, doesn't matter what it is for this argument except it includes also bundles some fixes to the network so it will work. 2. bug in bitcoin transaction specification, transactions transmitted to the network are hashed for identification, but not all data in the transaction is hashed and some people found ways to forge fake duplicate transactions with the same hash but differing on other critical (unhashed portion) information, to steal money and make certain advanced features of bitcoin worthless. 3. custom hardware "mines" bitcoins by doing transactions, ASICs have been made that do this faster, therefore they get more rewards, and raise barrier of entry to mining. "fair" enhancements do more verification faster, you get the reward. ASICBOOST just exploits the algorithm to get more reward without making the network better. And it doesn't work when a (2) is fixed.

vkou 9y ago

> Even if the developers choose not to address this exploit, the users and miners could just jump ship to any of the other more advanced cyptocoin designs. Yes, just like Americans will jump ship to the SUDO-Dollar, because its printing presses have a technically better implementation then the US-Dollar. People who own billions in US-Dollars are probably chomping at the bit to transact in a technically better currency. :) They most certainly could, but unless their investment in BTC will become worthless tomorrow, they most probably won't.

nosuchthing 9y ago
Your analogy is a complete false equivalence. Different cryptocoin designs have very significant differences in feature sets and algorithms. There is much more difference than name, or "printing press implementation(..?)"

mrb 9y ago

Bitmain has no "asicboost monopoly". 3 (or 4) different entities each have their own patents on the exact same optimization: https://plus.google.com/+MarcBevand/posts/Egm8LGZxdSk https://plus.google.com/+MarcBevand/posts/Egm8LGZxdSk

Torgo 9y ago

It became a news story because certain miners (allegely) run by ASIC companies were blocking segwit[1], and it turns out it's because fixing the transaction malleability[2] bug in Bitcoin breaks ASICBOOST[3]. ASICBOOST adds nothing of value to the network, it is not an "optimization" in the sense that it makes it cheaper to bundle transactions, which is beneficial to both the miner and the network. in its most naive use it creates garbage blocks to siphon rewards. So basically, the reason some people are mad is, a thing that fixes a longtime problem in bitcoin that has been preventing taking advantage of some of the more advanced features of bitcoin, is being blocked because it breaks some crooks' unfair advantage. caveat: IANABE (I am not a bitcoin expert) 1. dramatic change to bitcoin network, doesn't matter what it is for this argument except it includes also bundles some fixes to the network so it will work. 2. bug in bitcoin transaction specification, transactions transmitted to the network are hashed for identification, but not all data in the transaction is hashed and some people found ways to forge fake duplicate transactions with the same hash but differing on other critical (unhashed portion) information, to steal money and make certain advanced features of bitcoin worthless. 3. custom hardware "mines" bitcoins by doing transactions, ASICs have been made that do this faster, therefore they get more rewards, and raise barrier of entry to mining. "fair" enhancements do more verification faster, you get the reward. ASICBOOST just exploits the algorithm to get more reward without making the network better. And it doesn't work when a (2) is fixed.