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> then there will be more demands to make the blocks bigger again, eventually leading to centralization Because having a bigger block size raises the barrier t
by osteele 9y ago
> then there will be more demands to make the blocks bigger again, eventually leading to centralization
Because having a bigger block size raises the barrier to being a miner. (CapEx and OpEx are both greater.)
Imagine the other extreme: mining is so cheap that every phone, watch, and — oh let's just throw in every mouse and pigeon cortex — can be a miner. This is near one extreme of decentralization.
That's unattainable[1], but it's an intuition hook for the fact that the more expensive you make mining, the more centralized it becomes.
[1] IOTA tries to get closer to this. It makes a couple of changes from Bitcoin / Ethereum / etc. (1) IOTA uses a graph instead of a chain — this is why mining is cheaper, and low-powered IOT devices can mine. (2) IOTA uses homegrown cryptography, (EDIT: that has been proven exploitable multiple times), instead of reviewed standards. (2) isn't necessary for (1), nor does it help decentralization; it just seems to be an attached vanity project.
- lawlessone 9y agoIota is horrendous(they rolled their own crypto and its bad) and no IOT company will ever bother with it.
- osteele 9y ago> Iota is horrendous(they rolled their own crypto and its bad) Yeah, I probably didn't emphasize this enough. In addition to last year's curl fiasco[1], and this year's email dump[2], there's now this unlucky-13 exploit[3]. > no IOT company will ever bother with it This would seem to follow, but [4] (partnership with Cisco, Samsung, and Volkswagen), if true, contradicts it. (I'm skeptical of IOTA partnership announcements because of last year's IOTA/Microsoft “partnership”[5].) [1] https://hackernoon.com/why-i-find-iota-deeply-alarming-934f1908194b https://hackernoon.com/why-i-find-iota-deeply-alarming-934f1... [2] https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/cryptographers-urge-users-and-researchers-to-abandon-iota-after-leaked-emails https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/crypt... [3] http://blog.lekkertech.net/blog/2018/03/07/iota-signatures/ http://blog.lekkertech.net/blog/2018/03/07/iota-signatures/ [4] https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/630565/blockchain-network-iota-teams-up-cisco-volkswagen-others-data-marketplace/ https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/630565/blockchain-n... [5] https://cointelegraph.com/news/iota-clarifies-misleading-microsoft-quote-no-official-partnership https://cointelegraph.com/news/iota-clarifies-misleading-mic...
- SnowProblem 9y agoIf anyone can be a miner, then malware can be used to do a 51% attack. Something like that happened with Monero recently [1]. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/news/sites-are-using-your-browser-mine-crypto-it-could-be-good-thing/ https://www.investopedia.com/news/sites-are-using-your-brows...
- wmf 9y agoBitcoin is not vulnerable to botnets because it effectively requires ASICs.
- SnowProblem 9y agoYep. Just pointing this out because some in BTC want to change the PoW to make mining more decentralized.
- Cypher 9y agoDid you know just 5 Nano nodes control over 51% of the network? https://www.nanode.co/representatives https://www.nanode.co/representatives