3 ms·

Miners find a block and distribute them to the P2P Bitcoin network. Blocks do not carry IP addresses, and everyone running a Bitcoin node contributes to sharing

Miners find a block and distribute them to the P2P Bitcoin network. Blocks do not carry IP addresses, and everyone running a Bitcoin node contributes to sharing blocks, so you'd have a hard time finding out who is mining just from the IP. If the Chinese miners are using a public mining pool, you may be able to see who is connected to the pool. If they're pool mining, they do not even have to run a Bitcoin node in the first place.

littlestymaar 9y ago
> Miners find a block and distribute them to the P2P Bitcoin network. Blocks do not carry IP addresses You just need to become part of the p2p network by yourself, and log the IP of people you communicate with …
- ThatPlayer 9y ago
  Miners also do not need to be part of the p2p network. A mining pool for example will distribute the block for you and send you the bitcoins. There's also a tool to send transactions [1] so you do not even have to be part of the network to send/receive transactions. [1] https://insight.bitpay.com/tx/send https://insight.bitpay.com/tx/send - These still require your signing key, so you can use Bitcoin without ever being on the network. It just requires you to trust all the block explorers that you have actually received payment.
  - paulmd 9y ago
    Any way you want to slice this, there is data travelling, and China has the deep packet inspection and machine learning technology to identify what type of connection it is even if it's encrypted or tunneled. The average lifespan of an unauthorized VPN connection transiting the Great Firewall is a few minutes or less, depending on how much data you try to push across it. It's really not hard to fingerprint a connection just based on traffic analysis, even if you can't see the actual data travelling across it. If China wants it shut down, it'll be shut down, full stop.
  - joe_the_user 9y ago
    If China decides it doesn't want bitcoin mining, a miner won't be able to hide behind other miners... Of course, the question is remain what authorities actually want to stop it and how much.

littlestymaar 9y ago

> Miners find a block and distribute them to the P2P Bitcoin network. Blocks do not carry IP addresses You just need to become part of the p2p network by yourself, and log the IP of people you communicate with …

ThatPlayer 9y ago
Miners also do not need to be part of the p2p network. A mining pool for example will distribute the block for you and send you the bitcoins. There's also a tool to send transactions [1] so you do not even have to be part of the network to send/receive transactions. [1] https://insight.bitpay.com/tx/send https://insight.bitpay.com/tx/send - These still require your signing key, so you can use Bitcoin without ever being on the network. It just requires you to trust all the block explorers that you have actually received payment.
- paulmd 9y ago
  Any way you want to slice this, there is data travelling, and China has the deep packet inspection and machine learning technology to identify what type of connection it is even if it's encrypted or tunneled. The average lifespan of an unauthorized VPN connection transiting the Great Firewall is a few minutes or less, depending on how much data you try to push across it. It's really not hard to fingerprint a connection just based on traffic analysis, even if you can't see the actual data travelling across it. If China wants it shut down, it'll be shut down, full stop.
- joe_the_user 9y ago
  If China decides it doesn't want bitcoin mining, a miner won't be able to hide behind other miners... Of course, the question is remain what authorities actually want to stop it and how much.