11 ms·

Decentralization in Bitcoin and Ethereum

131 points by erwan 9y ago

efesak 9y ago
I have been running multiple bitcoin and altcoin nodes and still I am not able to run public geth node synced for month on dedicated server (4c SAS disks). So if "Bitcoin Underutilizes Its Network" then Ethereum is actively destroying itself.
- eximius 9y ago
  Yea, I don't know how anyone uses geth. Use parity (though probably not any of their contracts).
- makomk 9y ago
  I hear you basically need a fast SSD to get enough IOPS to sync Ethereum these days, especially in full archival mode.
  - unixhero 9y ago
    I have a very fast server. 500mb/sec write sustained What's the benefit of running an Etherum node with complete history?
    - ShabbosGoy 9y ago
      This is exactly how sidechaining works. I was heavily downvoted in another thread for suggesting that sidechains can mitigate network “sluggishness” for more complex Dapps.
jstanley 9y ago
As a piece of anecdata: I run a Bitcoin node at home with no troubles, but I've been totally unable to sync the Ethereum chain. Trying to do so drags my computer to its knees for hours and doesn't seem to be making very much progress.
- down 9y ago
  prepare to be downvoted by bcash trolls..
- fearface 9y ago
  Not enough IOPS
  - traskjd 9y ago
    That's basically it. My PC that keeps up (and can sync a month of updates in about an hour) will typically be thrashing an SSD at 55MB/s while using about 15Mbit/s internet. On an older PC I can't sync, it keeps falling further and further behind. It's got a slow old spinning rust disk. As a note, I believe the Geth devs have an update coming where they use more memory caching which saves smashing the disk so hard during sync.
  - unixhero 9y ago
    The final frontier
- bedane 9y ago
  Same issue using geth. Switched to parity and it worked.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  I recommend using Ethereum Wallet / geth in light mode. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/669cn9/how_to_use_the_geth_light_client_in_combination/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/669cn9/how_to_use... There is an option for this in the GUI version as well. Developer > Sync with light client (beta) I couldn't sync with the full node because it would take ages + ~100 GB. Light mode has worked like a charm.
  - theklub 9y ago
    How big is light mode?
makomk 9y ago
For some further context, Ethereum allows miners to vote on block capacity increases in a way similar to that which some people wanted to add to Bitcoin. Apparently it's recently started acting like a live demonstration of the reasons why the Bitcoin developers didn't consider this a good idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/7pfshh/why_is_8m_gas_causing_so_many_uncles/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/7pfshh/why_is_8m_...
- alanfalcon 9y ago
  Surely this has more to do with ETH’s very fast block time than the increased block size in a vacuum? That is, I don’t see how these same issues that are affecting blocks that come every ~15s can be used to draw a conclusion about a system whose blocks come every ~ten minutes.
wyc 9y ago
We should remember the most often centralized aspect of blockchain projects promising a fully-decentralized future: the developer teams. They are typically very centralized with disproportionate power over the network. See the graphs in the second half of this article: https://news.earn.com/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c28e https://news.earn.com/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c... This isn't necessarily damning, as "everything has to start somewhere," but it definitely doesn't warrant self-congratulatory pats on the back exclaiming a decentralized utopia. There's still a lot of work to do, but these projects might be the furthest along we've seen after open-source software.
- cjslep 9y ago
  It was certainly damning to Ethereum when they forked the currency to rescue the DAO.
  - imustbeevil 9y ago
    Maybe not to the price, but certainly to the movement. A majority of users don't care about decentralization. Ethereum proved that. The only thing most people want from cryptocurrencies is more USD than they put in. Editted to better represent reality.
    - cantrip 9y ago
      I think there is certainly a massive amount of uneducated speculation going on in the crypto currency world, but saying things like "no one cares about decentralization" shows a foolish lack of knowledge about the whole space. A lot of very smart people care passionately about decentralization and the technology is going to change a lot of things. It seems like from your post history you're going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
      - 549362-30499 9y ago
        I think there's certainly some interesting ideas happening, but the jury is still very much out on whether cryptocurrencies even have a future. It's been several years now and we have... what? Thousands of memes about never spending your currency because it's going to be worth x1,000,000 in the future?
elmar 9y ago
this race for the lowest block time is completely madness! what is the use of having one confirmation if the block could go orphan and your transaction could be reversed, it's like a placebo efect.
- pmorici 9y ago
  Zero conf transactions are viable on blockchains that don’t have backlogs
  - arthurcolle 9y ago
    How so?
    - pmorici 9y ago
      You can accept an valid signed transaction with low risk even if it hasn't confirmed yet because in a blockchain w/o regular massive backlogs the chances that it doesn't confirm are very low. So for smaller every day transactions there isn't a need to wait for an actual confirmation. In a situation as exists with Bitcoin currently it's anyone's guess whether a transaction will ever confirm because there are HUGE backlogs that haven't cleared for several months. A transaction has a high chance of being dropped regardless of the fee being paid because the backlog and fee level required to get confirmed at all is unpredictable. Bitcoin Core also has what they call RBF which increases the chance that a dishonest person can double spend an unconfirmed transaction exponentially. Makes 0-conf transactions unusable on Bitcoin Core.
- dgacmu 9y ago
  It's actually a good idea within limits. Faster block times reduce the variance in the time it takes to achieve a certain degree of safety. 3 confirmations on BTC takes 30 minutes in expectation, but it's very easy for it to take 60 or 90. In contrast, while it would also take expected 30 minutes to get 120 confirmations on Ethereum, the likelikhood of it going substantially longer is small. Waiting 30 minutes for a transaction is annoying, but you can plan around it. Unexpectedly waiting an hour and a half is maddening. :)
whoishiring_ch 9y ago
So... Ethereum sucks and Bitcoin is great?
ericb 9y ago
There is hidden centralization of dev teams and clients in both projects. Bitcoin core could probably be sunk by covert US government or mafia-esque intervention with the dev team. Both bitcoin core and ethereum are monocultures, which makes them much more vulnerable to black swan bugs.
- konschubert 9y ago
  Nobody is required to run code changes put up by the dev team. Anyone, anytime can fork the code, and thereby the block chain, and create a second version of the currency. The question is: Which one do people attribute value to?
  - seanalltogether 9y ago
    You could fork the code without forking the chain. I'm actually surprised that there aren't multiple organizations writing software against the bitcoin data model. Transactions and blocks are pretty well understood at this point, and maybe having other devs writing test features and extensions could help push the community in a positive direction.
  - amarkov 9y ago
    The risk vector isn't that the dev team will push "PR 666: add master key to all wallets". It's that someone will introduce a subtle bug (such as a side channel leaking your private key), which goes undetected for months or years, until it's revealed that they've been slowly siphoning off and selling bitcoin they weren't entitled to. In a scenario like that, people might not attribute value to the current chain or the months-old clean one.
- lawlessone 9y ago
  I think that is what happened with cash. Bitcoin cash copied bitcoin and inserted new bugs into it.
elmar 9y ago
the big elephant in the room is that Bitcoin and Ethereum networks have good latency because the guy in rural Africa simply doesn't mine because he as no chance of making money, if people in remote regions with very bad connections entered the game the propagation time to 95% of the network would go to 60s or more.
KasianFranks 9y ago
Crypto has created the first large division I've seen in the software development community. "Open" has been a way to describe how money is not necessary except when you need it but never do if you have rich parents or are catering to old school investors. Crypto provides the first a way for things to be truly Open.
- n-bluth 9y ago
  > "Open" has been a way to describe how money is not necessary except when you need it but never do if you have rich parents or are catering to old school investors I do not understand this.
  - KasianFranks 9y ago
    Money has always been viewed as a side-show, dog and pony, a circus if you're purist software engineer. 30 years in the Valley taught me this along with BBS protocols sharing and learning with my brethren. GNU also taught us this, the most remarkable software effort in existence. We have to be open to change and evolution of software. One more thing: The guys that wrote this article should be be looking at how intersections of 2 arrays can be more efficiently calculated. This is the big one with the blockchain.
DennisP 9y ago
The complaint about Ethereum's uncle rate seems a bit off base, since unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum's uncles aren't wasted; they contribute to its accumulated hash count, play a part in fork selection, and reward the miners who make them.
tomerweller 9y ago
"...a Byzantine quorum system with 20 nodes would be more decentralized than Bitcoin or Ethereum with significantly fewer resource costs. Of course, the design of a quorum protocol that provides open participation, while fairly selecting 20 nodes to sequence transactions, is non-trivial." That's exactly what the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) is: https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-protocol.pdf https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-protocol.pd... (Full disclosure: I work at Stellar)
he0001 9y ago
A thought in the light of Spectre and meltdown, if we look at distributed computing as an ooo execution, couldn’t one trick someone to act, and therefore spill information about something they really shouldn’t or normally wouldn’t done, because of the “fake” branch being revoked?

131 points by erwan 9y ago

I have been running multiple bitcoin and altcoin nodes and still I am not able to run public geth node synced for month on dedicated server (4c SAS disks). So if "Bitcoin Underutilizes Its Network" then Ethereum is actively destroying itself.

eximius 9y ago
Yea, I don't know how anyone uses geth. Use parity (though probably not any of their contracts).
makomk 9y ago
I hear you basically need a fast SSD to get enough IOPS to sync Ethereum these days, especially in full archival mode.
- unixhero 9y ago
  I have a very fast server. 500mb/sec write sustained What's the benefit of running an Etherum node with complete history?
  - ShabbosGoy 9y ago
    This is exactly how sidechaining works. I was heavily downvoted in another thread for suggesting that sidechains can mitigate network “sluggishness” for more complex Dapps.

jstanley 9y ago

As a piece of anecdata: I run a Bitcoin node at home with no troubles, but I've been totally unable to sync the Ethereum chain. Trying to do so drags my computer to its knees for hours and doesn't seem to be making very much progress.

down 9y ago
prepare to be downvoted by bcash trolls..
fearface 9y ago
Not enough IOPS
- traskjd 9y ago
  That's basically it. My PC that keeps up (and can sync a month of updates in about an hour) will typically be thrashing an SSD at 55MB/s while using about 15Mbit/s internet. On an older PC I can't sync, it keeps falling further and further behind. It's got a slow old spinning rust disk. As a note, I believe the Geth devs have an update coming where they use more memory caching which saves smashing the disk so hard during sync.
- unixhero 9y ago
  The final frontier
bedane 9y ago
Same issue using geth. Switched to parity and it worked.
52-6F-62 9y ago
I recommend using Ethereum Wallet / geth in light mode. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/669cn9/how_to_use_the_geth_light_client_in_combination/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/669cn9/how_to_use... There is an option for this in the GUI version as well. Developer > Sync with light client (beta) I couldn't sync with the full node because it would take ages + ~100 GB. Light mode has worked like a charm.
- theklub 9y ago
  How big is light mode?

makomk 9y ago

For some further context, Ethereum allows miners to vote on block capacity increases in a way similar to that which some people wanted to add to Bitcoin. Apparently it's recently started acting like a live demonstration of the reasons why the Bitcoin developers didn't consider this a good idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/7pfshh/why_is_8m_gas_causing_so_many_uncles/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/7pfshh/why_is_8m_...

alanfalcon 9y ago
Surely this has more to do with ETH’s very fast block time than the increased block size in a vacuum? That is, I don’t see how these same issues that are affecting blocks that come every ~15s can be used to draw a conclusion about a system whose blocks come every ~ten minutes.

wyc 9y ago

We should remember the most often centralized aspect of blockchain projects promising a fully-decentralized future: the developer teams. They are typically very centralized with disproportionate power over the network. See the graphs in the second half of this article: https://news.earn.com/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c28e https://news.earn.com/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c... This isn't necessarily damning, as "everything has to start somewhere," but it definitely doesn't warrant self-congratulatory pats on the back exclaiming a decentralized utopia. There's still a lot of work to do, but these projects might be the furthest along we've seen after open-source software.

cjslep 9y ago
It was certainly damning to Ethereum when they forked the currency to rescue the DAO.
- imustbeevil 9y ago
  Maybe not to the price, but certainly to the movement. A majority of users don't care about decentralization. Ethereum proved that. The only thing most people want from cryptocurrencies is more USD than they put in. Editted to better represent reality.
  - cantrip 9y ago
    I think there is certainly a massive amount of uneducated speculation going on in the crypto currency world, but saying things like "no one cares about decentralization" shows a foolish lack of knowledge about the whole space. A lot of very smart people care passionately about decentralization and the technology is going to change a lot of things. It seems like from your post history you're going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
    - 549362-30499 9y ago
      I think there's certainly some interesting ideas happening, but the jury is still very much out on whether cryptocurrencies even have a future. It's been several years now and we have... what? Thousands of memes about never spending your currency because it's going to be worth x1,000,000 in the future?

elmar 9y ago

this race for the lowest block time is completely madness! what is the use of having one confirmation if the block could go orphan and your transaction could be reversed, it's like a placebo efect.

pmorici 9y ago
Zero conf transactions are viable on blockchains that don’t have backlogs
- arthurcolle 9y ago
  How so?
  - pmorici 9y ago
    You can accept an valid signed transaction with low risk even if it hasn't confirmed yet because in a blockchain w/o regular massive backlogs the chances that it doesn't confirm are very low. So for smaller every day transactions there isn't a need to wait for an actual confirmation. In a situation as exists with Bitcoin currently it's anyone's guess whether a transaction will ever confirm because there are HUGE backlogs that haven't cleared for several months. A transaction has a high chance of being dropped regardless of the fee being paid because the backlog and fee level required to get confirmed at all is unpredictable. Bitcoin Core also has what they call RBF which increases the chance that a dishonest person can double spend an unconfirmed transaction exponentially. Makes 0-conf transactions unusable on Bitcoin Core.
dgacmu 9y ago
It's actually a good idea within limits. Faster block times reduce the variance in the time it takes to achieve a certain degree of safety. 3 confirmations on BTC takes 30 minutes in expectation, but it's very easy for it to take 60 or 90. In contrast, while it would also take expected 30 minutes to get 120 confirmations on Ethereum, the likelikhood of it going substantially longer is small. Waiting 30 minutes for a transaction is annoying, but you can plan around it. Unexpectedly waiting an hour and a half is maddening. :)

whoishiring_ch 9y ago

So... Ethereum sucks and Bitcoin is great?

ericb 9y ago

There is hidden centralization of dev teams and clients in both projects. Bitcoin core could probably be sunk by covert US government or mafia-esque intervention with the dev team. Both bitcoin core and ethereum are monocultures, which makes them much more vulnerable to black swan bugs.

konschubert 9y ago
Nobody is required to run code changes put up by the dev team. Anyone, anytime can fork the code, and thereby the block chain, and create a second version of the currency. The question is: Which one do people attribute value to?
- seanalltogether 9y ago
  You could fork the code without forking the chain. I'm actually surprised that there aren't multiple organizations writing software against the bitcoin data model. Transactions and blocks are pretty well understood at this point, and maybe having other devs writing test features and extensions could help push the community in a positive direction.
- amarkov 9y ago
  The risk vector isn't that the dev team will push "PR 666: add master key to all wallets". It's that someone will introduce a subtle bug (such as a side channel leaking your private key), which goes undetected for months or years, until it's revealed that they've been slowly siphoning off and selling bitcoin they weren't entitled to. In a scenario like that, people might not attribute value to the current chain or the months-old clean one.
lawlessone 9y ago
I think that is what happened with cash. Bitcoin cash copied bitcoin and inserted new bugs into it.

elmar 9y ago

the big elephant in the room is that Bitcoin and Ethereum networks have good latency because the guy in rural Africa simply doesn't mine because he as no chance of making money, if people in remote regions with very bad connections entered the game the propagation time to 95% of the network would go to 60s or more.

KasianFranks 9y ago

Crypto has created the first large division I've seen in the software development community. "Open" has been a way to describe how money is not necessary except when you need it but never do if you have rich parents or are catering to old school investors. Crypto provides the first a way for things to be truly Open.

n-bluth 9y ago
> "Open" has been a way to describe how money is not necessary except when you need it but never do if you have rich parents or are catering to old school investors I do not understand this.
- KasianFranks 9y ago
  Money has always been viewed as a side-show, dog and pony, a circus if you're purist software engineer. 30 years in the Valley taught me this along with BBS protocols sharing and learning with my brethren. GNU also taught us this, the most remarkable software effort in existence. We have to be open to change and evolution of software. One more thing: The guys that wrote this article should be be looking at how intersections of 2 arrays can be more efficiently calculated. This is the big one with the blockchain.

DennisP 9y ago

The complaint about Ethereum's uncle rate seems a bit off base, since unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum's uncles aren't wasted; they contribute to its accumulated hash count, play a part in fork selection, and reward the miners who make them.

tomerweller 9y ago

"...a Byzantine quorum system with 20 nodes would be more decentralized than Bitcoin or Ethereum with significantly fewer resource costs. Of course, the design of a quorum protocol that provides open participation, while fairly selecting 20 nodes to sequence transactions, is non-trivial." That's exactly what the Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) is: https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-protocol.pdf https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-protocol.pd... (Full disclosure: I work at Stellar)

he0001 9y ago

A thought in the light of Spectre and meltdown, if we look at distributed computing as an ooo execution, couldn’t one trick someone to act, and therefore spill information about something they really shouldn’t or normally wouldn’t done, because of the “fake” branch being revoked?