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> And of course, claiming that anybody can have access to this hardware is very very debatable. The best indicator of how this is not accessible by everybody is

by lawn 9y ago

> And of course, claiming that anybody can have access to this hardware is very very debatable. The best indicator of how this is not accessible by everybody is how centralized this industry is nowadays (just look at the correlation between ASIC manufacturers and owners of mining pools). Even if you repeat a lie a thousand times, it's not going to become true :) https://coin.dance/blocks https://coin.dance/blocks Where is the centralization? Also, the issue isn't as much ASICs as it is the free electricity in China.

deleted 9y ago
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knocte 9y ago
> Where is the centralization? If there was no centralization, people would still be profitable doing solo mining. Most of the pools these days are pools because they own huge mining datacenters already (not because they have a lot of miner-users).
- lawn 9y ago
  That's not how we should see decentralization, "lacking a central point of control" is a better definition. What you're arguing for is the mining to be distributed. https://medium.com/@johnblocke/decentralization-fetishism-is-hindering-bitcoins-progress-11cfa5c7964d https://medium.com/@johnblocke/decentralization-fetishism-is...
  - knocte 9y ago
    Centralization is not a bool variable: true|false. There are degrees to it. Of course I'm not claiming that bitcoin mining is centralized (100%), but it's definitely not very decentralized.
    - lawn 9y ago
      Of course, as argued in the linked article. But I don't agree that it's very centralized as it is now, which is the context I responded to: > The best indicator of how this is not accessible by everybody is how centralized this industry is nowadays
  - Retric 9y ago
    Effectively 4 people, when they agree, completely control bitcoin. That's more centralized than the US dollar.
    - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
      That's like saying Thomas W. Farley controls 21 trillion dollars worth of companies. Pools do not control hash power, they merely organize it. That's not to say they don't play a major role in the politics of Bitcoin clients and rules, but to say they 'completely control' Bitcoin is wholly incorrect. These sorts of hyperbolic statements greatly degrade the quality of discourse on centralization.
      - Retric 9y ago
        Thomas W. Farley is so far from the same thing, I can only assume your being intentionally disingenuous. It's much closer to talking about the CEO of hedge fund, and they frankly do have massive amounts of control. However, in this case the Chinese government can take over these data centers on a whim. You can argue it's a different story when it's spread across a million basements, but highly centralized hashing power is easy to either take over or take offline.
qznc 9y ago
If Antpool, BTC.top, F2Pool, and Bixin conspire, they control 51% of the mining power. There is the oligarchy aka centralization.
- lawn 9y ago
  That's the four biggest pools (to get a consistent > 50% it might not even be enough) who need to collude. That's not very centralized. Of course the situation could be better, but it's still in a good place imo. It's better than it has been historically for example when a single pool (GHash.IO) approached 50% by itself.
- sktrdie 9y ago
  The whole point is that the miners within the pool can change to other pools if they want to!
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
  Pools are not miners. Pools can only make decisions that the miners will tolerate, and historically miners have recognized the dangers even of pool centralization. There is very little friction to changing pools.

by lawn 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

knocte 9y ago

> Where is the centralization? If there was no centralization, people would still be profitable doing solo mining. Most of the pools these days are pools because they own huge mining datacenters already (not because they have a lot of miner-users).

lawn 9y ago
That's not how we should see decentralization, "lacking a central point of control" is a better definition. What you're arguing for is the mining to be distributed. https://medium.com/@johnblocke/decentralization-fetishism-is-hindering-bitcoins-progress-11cfa5c7964d https://medium.com/@johnblocke/decentralization-fetishism-is...
- knocte 9y ago
  Centralization is not a bool variable: true|false. There are degrees to it. Of course I'm not claiming that bitcoin mining is centralized (100%), but it's definitely not very decentralized.
  - lawn 9y ago
    Of course, as argued in the linked article. But I don't agree that it's very centralized as it is now, which is the context I responded to: > The best indicator of how this is not accessible by everybody is how centralized this industry is nowadays
- Retric 9y ago
  Effectively 4 people, when they agree, completely control bitcoin. That's more centralized than the US dollar.
  - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
    That's like saying Thomas W. Farley controls 21 trillion dollars worth of companies. Pools do not control hash power, they merely organize it. That's not to say they don't play a major role in the politics of Bitcoin clients and rules, but to say they 'completely control' Bitcoin is wholly incorrect. These sorts of hyperbolic statements greatly degrade the quality of discourse on centralization.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Thomas W. Farley is so far from the same thing, I can only assume your being intentionally disingenuous. It's much closer to talking about the CEO of hedge fund, and they frankly do have massive amounts of control. However, in this case the Chinese government can take over these data centers on a whim. You can argue it's a different story when it's spread across a million basements, but highly centralized hashing power is easy to either take over or take offline.

qznc 9y ago

If Antpool, BTC.top, F2Pool, and Bixin conspire, they control 51% of the mining power. There is the oligarchy aka centralization.

lawn 9y ago
That's the four biggest pools (to get a consistent > 50% it might not even be enough) who need to collude. That's not very centralized. Of course the situation could be better, but it's still in a good place imo. It's better than it has been historically for example when a single pool (GHash.IO) approached 50% by itself.
sktrdie 9y ago
The whole point is that the miners within the pool can change to other pools if they want to!
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
Pools are not miners. Pools can only make decisions that the miners will tolerate, and historically miners have recognized the dangers even of pool centralization. There is very little friction to changing pools.