3 ms·

>Bitcoin is wasteful because the increasing energy costs does not increase the total number of transactions that can be processed. Are you saying the number of

>Bitcoin is wasteful because the increasing energy costs does not increase the total number of transactions that can be processed. Are you saying the number of transactions the market will demand of a system is independent of the trust of the system? If I need to move $250,000[1] in one hour with ~100% certainty are you saying an IOU from a bank janitor is equivalent in value to a bitcoin transaction? An increase in attack costs increases the types of transactions that can occur safely on L1. The number of L2 updates are unbounded by L1 transaction capacity, increase attack costs gives the market confidence L2 updates cannot be erased. A high cost to signal which money you're willing to use filters out fraud attempts. Which should I trust more, Malory Money who double-pinky swears to run her Malory Money servers 5 years from now but is signaling with no costs or Bobby Bitcoiner who signals by billions of dollars in single-use capex (ASICS) [1] 12.5 BTC/block * 3850 $/BTC * 6 Blocks/hour < tx.value()

root_axis 8y ago
> Are you saying the number of transactions the market will demand of a system is independent of the trust of the system No. I'm saying that if a 51% attack is practically impossible today, the increasing amount of energy consumed to secure the same amount of transactions is wasted. It's also a sign that the system is broken because the amount of energy consumed has no practical impact on security. Reasoning otherwise would suggest it is justified to consume infinite energy because that would be infinitely secure.
- DINKDINK 8y ago
  >a 51% attack is practically impossible today It appears you think a 51% attack is when an external agent attempts to out hash the network. This is only one type of 51% attack. A 51% attack means there is a almost equal amount of hash rate being applied to two divergent, consensus equivalent chains. This can happen in above scenario or when existing miners attempt to reorg blocks (See ETC 51% attack) There is nothing stopping this behavior from occurring at any point in time. The only check on this behavior is the cost to rewrite history, decrease this cost, and you increase the profitability of such attacks.

root_axis 8y ago

> Are you saying the number of transactions the market will demand of a system is independent of the trust of the system No. I'm saying that if a 51% attack is practically impossible today, the increasing amount of energy consumed to secure the same amount of transactions is wasted. It's also a sign that the system is broken because the amount of energy consumed has no practical impact on security. Reasoning otherwise would suggest it is justified to consume infinite energy because that would be infinitely secure.

DINKDINK 8y ago
>a 51% attack is practically impossible today It appears you think a 51% attack is when an external agent attempts to out hash the network. This is only one type of 51% attack. A 51% attack means there is a almost equal amount of hash rate being applied to two divergent, consensus equivalent chains. This can happen in above scenario or when existing miners attempt to reorg blocks (See ETC 51% attack) There is nothing stopping this behavior from occurring at any point in time. The only check on this behavior is the cost to rewrite history, decrease this cost, and you increase the profitability of such attacks.