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> 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 h

by 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.
        homakov 9y ago
        Actually both cases are deadly. I don't think that miner take over is reversible if done right. I haven't seen a single step by step article explaining the actions in case of large double spends. Do we get air drop from some twitter account that now we do different PoW? Who decides and when? That's the thing - blockchains aren't built to be modified off-chain. Hard forks is a death and birth of a new coin. So first thing Bitcoin would die but will it be born with new PoW? Will this PoW be decentralized from china? A looot of questions. So yeah both cases with stake/hashrate are deadly enough with no plan B.
        dogma1138 9y ago
        Yes if someone gets to 51% it’s game over but with PoW you can more easily handle a takeover in progress and it’s easier to combat it’s potentiality it by simply constantly increasing your own hashrate. My biggest concern with Bitcoin is that atm we have no guarantee that the Chinese mining cabal doesn’t have 51% already. With PoS you can’t use the same strategy without negative consequences since you would harm the liquidity of the currency in the process. You can have some PoS system which would tie the number of new coins created to the liquidity of the network and a few other attributes but I don’t see how this could not be fooled by simple moving currency around the network within wallets in your control or to side channel attacks (primarily gaining controls over wallets in the real world rather than only on the block chain).
- EGreg 9y ago
  You don't need proof of work OR proof of stake to implement most things. That's why we came up with a way to prevent double spending WITHOUT GLOBAL CONSENSUS. Feedback welcome! https://intercoin.org/technical.pdf https://intercoin.org/technical.pdf
- darawk 9y ago
  Yes, but money is much more widely dispersed than hashrate, and doesn't have the same economies of scale that lead to centralization. Dispersion that stays dispersed is called decentralization.

by darawk 9y ago

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.
      - homakov 9y ago
        Actually both cases are deadly. I don't think that miner take over is reversible if done right. I haven't seen a single step by step article explaining the actions in case of large double spends. Do we get air drop from some twitter account that now we do different PoW? Who decides and when? That's the thing - blockchains aren't built to be modified off-chain. Hard forks is a death and birth of a new coin. So first thing Bitcoin would die but will it be born with new PoW? Will this PoW be decentralized from china? A looot of questions. So yeah both cases with stake/hashrate are deadly enough with no plan B.
        dogma1138 9y ago
        Yes if someone gets to 51% it’s game over but with PoW you can more easily handle a takeover in progress and it’s easier to combat it’s potentiality it by simply constantly increasing your own hashrate. My biggest concern with Bitcoin is that atm we have no guarantee that the Chinese mining cabal doesn’t have 51% already. With PoS you can’t use the same strategy without negative consequences since you would harm the liquidity of the currency in the process. You can have some PoS system which would tie the number of new coins created to the liquidity of the network and a few other attributes but I don’t see how this could not be fooled by simple moving currency around the network within wallets in your control or to side channel attacks (primarily gaining controls over wallets in the real world rather than only on the block chain).
EGreg 9y ago
You don't need proof of work OR proof of stake to implement most things. That's why we came up with a way to prevent double spending WITHOUT GLOBAL CONSENSUS. Feedback welcome! https://intercoin.org/technical.pdf https://intercoin.org/technical.pdf
darawk 9y ago
Yes, but money is much more widely dispersed than hashrate, and doesn't have the same economies of scale that lead to centralization. Dispersion that stays dispersed is called decentralization.