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This is incredibly naive. 1) As other posters have already noted, these miners have economies of scale already set up to dominate any fork that still utilizes

This is incredibly naive. 1) As other posters have already noted, these miners have economies of scale already set up to dominate any fork that still utilizes the SHA hash. Changing the hashing algorithm would be akin to creating a whole new coin. 2) All sufficiently de-centralized crypto mining eventually devolves into an electricity arbitrage game. ASICs are way too easy and cheap to build to give anyone a lasting advantage via computing efficiency, and once you normalize for capital costs whoever has the cheapest energy wins. For scale you also need access to lots of bandwidth and proximity to fabrication of the hardware begins to matter since mining is a zero sum game. Given those needs China will probably end up dominating most sufficiently de-centralized crypto mining. 3) You drastically underestimate the political, economic, and social cache of the Chinese miners in both the Bitcoin and general cryptocurrency world. Not only do these guys underpin a niche industry (that's worth lots of $$$), but they have their own network effects at this point. I think the main takeaway, which forking can never solve, is that the second any kind of decentralized currency shows any kind of value the powers that be will seek to centralize it. This is a problem with TOR just as much as it is a problem with Bitcoin, and one that I'm not sure we can solve today. Maybe one day we'll get another paper from Satoshi solving it for us.

darawk 9y ago
> As other posters have already noted, these miners have economies of scale already set up to dominate any fork that still utilizes the SHA hash. Changing the hashing algorithm would be akin to creating a whole new coin. No it wouldn't. The hashing algorithm is not intrinsic to Bitcoin. Changing it doesn't need to impact anything else. > 2) All sufficiently de-centralized crypto mining eventually devolves into an electricity arbitrage game. ASICs are way too easy and cheap to build to give anyone a lasting advantage via computing efficiency, and once you normalize for capital costs whoever has the cheapest energy wins. For scale you also need access to lots of bandwidth and proximity to fabrication of the hardware begins to matter since mining is a zero sum game. Given those needs China will probably end up dominating most sufficiently de-centralized crypto mining. That is true for PoW based mining, sure. Proof of stake doesn't have that problem, though. > 3) You drastically underestimate the political, economic, and social cache of the Chinese miners in both the Bitcoin and general cryptocurrency world. Not only do these guys underpin a niche industry (that's worth lots of $$$), but they have their own network effects at this point. I agree that they dominate and will continue to dominate hashrate. I disagree that that is a significant problem.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  Proof of stake also has this problem; just instead of who has the most ASICS its who has the most money which in all fairness just cuts out the middleman.
  - homakov 9y ago
    The number of entities is much higher. It's not like 15/15/15% stakes and 3 entities. It's hundred.
    - dogma1138 9y ago
      It's impossible to know the actual number of entities, just like it's with mining you can't know if the mining pools are actually owned by a single individual giving them 51% or more of the total hash rate or not. Same thing with PoS you can have individuals using shells to buy a large stake in the currency sure it would take a while but it's not impossible. AOL's hostile takeover over of Time Warner was valued at ±160 billion dollars at the time, the total market cap of Bitcoin is now 200 billion, if it would be a PoS coin it could be a target of a takeover by corporations yet alone governments.
      - homakov 9y ago
        That's drastically more expensive than hijacking 3 miners in 1 country. But doable, right now by state power like US. But still better than pow.
        dogma1138 9y ago
        I really don’t think so, ASICs are cheap but not that cheap, and they open you up for an arms race. PoW is also more resilient to hostile take over since you can counter it by investing in more miners, while with PoS if some one gets 51% or w/e number is needed to control the consensus it’s game over and there is nothing to do about it. So while you might think China can just take over all the mining pools it’s true but it’s reversible whilst if the Chinese population would come to own 51% of any currency and China would say comrades would you kindly turn over your ECoins there is nothing you can do about it other than fork over which would devastate the currency.

darawk 9y ago

> As other posters have already noted, these miners have economies of scale already set up to dominate any fork that still utilizes the SHA hash. Changing the hashing algorithm would be akin to creating a whole new coin. No it wouldn't. The hashing algorithm is not intrinsic to Bitcoin. Changing it doesn't need to impact anything else. > 2) All sufficiently de-centralized crypto mining eventually devolves into an electricity arbitrage game. ASICs are way too easy and cheap to build to give anyone a lasting advantage via computing efficiency, and once you normalize for capital costs whoever has the cheapest energy wins. For scale you also need access to lots of bandwidth and proximity to fabrication of the hardware begins to matter since mining is a zero sum game. Given those needs China will probably end up dominating most sufficiently de-centralized crypto mining. That is true for PoW based mining, sure. Proof of stake doesn't have that problem, though. > 3) You drastically underestimate the political, economic, and social cache of the Chinese miners in both the Bitcoin and general cryptocurrency world. Not only do these guys underpin a niche industry (that's worth lots of $$$), but they have their own network effects at this point. I agree that they dominate and will continue to dominate hashrate. I disagree that that is a significant problem.

dogma1138 9y ago
Proof of stake also has this problem; just instead of who has the most ASICS its who has the most money which in all fairness just cuts out the middleman.
- homakov 9y ago
  The number of entities is much higher. It's not like 15/15/15% stakes and 3 entities. It's hundred.
  - dogma1138 9y ago
    It's impossible to know the actual number of entities, just like it's with mining you can't know if the mining pools are actually owned by a single individual giving them 51% or more of the total hash rate or not. Same thing with PoS you can have individuals using shells to buy a large stake in the currency sure it would take a while but it's not impossible. AOL's hostile takeover over of Time Warner was valued at ±160 billion dollars at the time, the total market cap of Bitcoin is now 200 billion, if it would be a PoS coin it could be a target of a takeover by corporations yet alone governments.
    - homakov 9y ago
      That's drastically more expensive than hijacking 3 miners in 1 country. But doable, right now by state power like US. But still better than pow.
      - dogma1138 9y ago
        I really don’t think so, ASICs are cheap but not that cheap, and they open you up for an arms race. PoW is also more resilient to hostile take over since you can counter it by investing in more miners, while with PoS if some one gets 51% or w/e number is needed to control the consensus it’s game over and there is nothing to do about it. So while you might think China can just take over all the mining pools it’s true but it’s reversible whilst if the Chinese population would come to own 51% of any currency and China would say comrades would you kindly turn over your ECoins there is nothing you can do about it other than fork over which would devastate the currency.