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Why is it false? I didn't say "mining is profitable". I just said anybody can do it, and that's the key. Just like anybody can seed torrents without any incenti

Why is it false? I didn't say "mining is profitable". I just said anybody can do it, and that's the key. Just like anybody can seed torrents without any incentive, or just like Tor nodes exist without any incentive.

knocte 9y ago
Expanded a bit my answer. IMVHO, ASIC hardware provides such a huge efficiency boost that even if everybody in this planet ran a mining raspberry pi, the ASIC manufacturers would maybe still own more than 51% of the hashrate.
- flashdance 9y ago
  Not maybe, definitely. A first-gen pi can mine at 200KH/s [1], and a 3rd gen pi is roughly 10x faster in cpu tests [2]. At 2 MH/s per pi, times 7 billion people, you get a paltry 14 petahashes/s. That's a hair over 0.2% of the network... You'd need three trillion raspberry pis to get half the network. Good luck with that! [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Non-specialized_hardware_comparison https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Non-specialized_hardware_comparis... [2] http://lifehacker.com/how-the-raspberry-pi-3-benchmarks-against-older-models-1762417275 http://lifehacker.com/how-the-raspberry-pi-3-benchmarks-agai...
  - knocte 9y ago
    Thanks so much for that analysis! My mind was not that irrational then when making that guess :)
upvotinglurker 9y ago
I think they mean it is true in the same sense that "anyone can be president of the US" is true, e.g. true in theory, but in practice, it requires significant wealth which most do not have. I would have worded it differently than calling it a "lie" though (since it technically isn't).
- knocte 9y ago
  But since "everyone being a miner" doesn't solve anything (even if everybody decides to donate their electricity without getting profits), since the ASIC manufacturers would still control the majority of the network, then any argument based on that analysis is moot already. (Yeah sorry I should not have said "lie" but just "infeasible" and "useless".)

knocte 9y ago

Expanded a bit my answer. IMVHO, ASIC hardware provides such a huge efficiency boost that even if everybody in this planet ran a mining raspberry pi, the ASIC manufacturers would maybe still own more than 51% of the hashrate.

flashdance 9y ago
Not maybe, definitely. A first-gen pi can mine at 200KH/s [1], and a 3rd gen pi is roughly 10x faster in cpu tests [2]. At 2 MH/s per pi, times 7 billion people, you get a paltry 14 petahashes/s. That's a hair over 0.2% of the network... You'd need three trillion raspberry pis to get half the network. Good luck with that! [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Non-specialized_hardware_comparison https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Non-specialized_hardware_comparis... [2] http://lifehacker.com/how-the-raspberry-pi-3-benchmarks-against-older-models-1762417275 http://lifehacker.com/how-the-raspberry-pi-3-benchmarks-agai...
- knocte 9y ago
  Thanks so much for that analysis! My mind was not that irrational then when making that guess :)

upvotinglurker 9y ago

I think they mean it is true in the same sense that "anyone can be president of the US" is true, e.g. true in theory, but in practice, it requires significant wealth which most do not have. I would have worded it differently than calling it a "lie" though (since it technically isn't).

knocte 9y ago
But since "everyone being a miner" doesn't solve anything (even if everybody decides to donate their electricity without getting profits), since the ASIC manufacturers would still control the majority of the network, then any argument based on that analysis is moot already. (Yeah sorry I should not have said "lie" but just "infeasible" and "useless".)