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Every time I read something about Bitcoin dying I cringe. It's another article written for the attention seeking readership. Bitcoin (and many blockchain base

Every time I read something about Bitcoin dying I cringe. It's another article written for the attention seeking readership. Bitcoin (and many blockchain based coins) spiked astronomically. They all came back down as well but still unbelievably higher than where they were after the Mt.Gox crash. 20k wasn't even realistic due to the fee's being insane. The entire system is a system with sliding levers on consistency and forced supply and demand. If you want to argue about a flaw, ASIC's were the mistake. CPU hashing would have eliminated the centralization risks, GPU's could have been expected and ultimately ASIC's after that. This system is like water with all of the cracks able to be found for optimal strategies. There is so much to unpack in this it needs an article which has been written a thousand times but when you pick apart FedNet, ACH, and all of the systems amidst that, you just have something that you've grown up and obliviously trust. Bitcoin networks provide you visibility into all of it....none of this is pretty, but it's a lot more obvious from Point A -> Point B.

aeternus 8y ago
>If you want to argue about a flaw, ASIC's were the mistake. CPU hashing would have eliminated the centralization risks, GPU's could have been expected and ultimately ASIC's after that. There's really no way to prevent ASICs. With any function you pick, it will always be possible to create a custom hardware + memory design that beats a general-purpose CPU/GPU.
- latchkey 8y ago
  This is the big ProgPoW debate currently being waged over in Ethereum land. You are right, it isn't possible to prevent ASICs, in fact everything is technically an ASIC. So, with that in mind, the goal of ProgPoW is an attack on the economic incentive to build an ASIC, not an attack on the ability to build one. In other words, make purchasing a commodity GPU as inexpensive as a custom ASIC. If that is the case, there won't be an incentive to build ASICs. ProgPoW also has a second line of defense where a hard fork with a minimal set of changes, can brick existing ASICs.
  - trevelyan 8y ago
    Distributed POW eliminates ASICs by not paying for centralized mining: https://medium.com/@SaitoOfficial/eliminating-51-attacks-in-proof-of-work-blockchains-e95c60d6085a https://medium.com/@SaitoOfficial/eliminating-51-attacks-in-... The problem is that the approach does not pay the peer-to-peer network. But then neither does LN, so who is counting?
- Geee 8y ago
  It's possible to constantly change the function so that ASICs can't adapt to the the changes.
wavepruner 8y ago
After the initial ASIC "gold rush" Bitcoin mining is trending towards decentralization again. ASICs do not mean an eternal approach to centralization, it is just a temporary step along the adoption curve. See https://www.blockchain.com/pools https://www.blockchain.com/pools Also, ASICs are the most energy efficient way to perform proof-of-work.
- ufo 8y ago
  Proof of work is oblivious to efficiency. Efficiency gains are met by equivalent increases in mining difficulty, since the network attempts to calibrate towards a constant mining rate.
  - wavepruner 8y ago
    Equivalent increases in mining difficulty is the goal, as that secures the blockchain.
    - imtringued 8y ago
      No it doesn't if not everyone has access to the ASICs. If 30% of miners use highly efficient ASICs that are twice as fast they become the majority.
qes 8y ago
Preventing ASICs doesn't prevent those with more monetary resources from consolidating in the hardware space. The ASIC-resistant coins aren't that much more profitable to mine for a home miner, and if they were you'd just get edged out by more people with warehouses full of CPU's & GPU's in Iceland and China and what have you.
legohead 8y ago
hypothetical situation.. the Russian government spins up an enormous amount of processing power and performs a 51% attack on bitcoin, and "steals" billions of worth. is there any recourse?
- easymodex 8y ago
  You can't steal bitcoin, you can just double spend and the market would detect that immidiately and the price would plummet, leaving you with billion dollar worth of worthless ASIC infrastructure. So yeah the recourse is it would directly cost you billions and you will gain nothing.
trixie_ 8y ago
As long as people can buy ASICs, what's the risk of centralization? I'm pro-ASIC because it dissuades hackers from using my computer to mine crypto. If anything you should be against large mining guilds. That's the real centralization.

aeternus 8y ago

>If you want to argue about a flaw, ASIC's were the mistake. CPU hashing would have eliminated the centralization risks, GPU's could have been expected and ultimately ASIC's after that. There's really no way to prevent ASICs. With any function you pick, it will always be possible to create a custom hardware + memory design that beats a general-purpose CPU/GPU.

latchkey 8y ago
This is the big ProgPoW debate currently being waged over in Ethereum land. You are right, it isn't possible to prevent ASICs, in fact everything is technically an ASIC. So, with that in mind, the goal of ProgPoW is an attack on the economic incentive to build an ASIC, not an attack on the ability to build one. In other words, make purchasing a commodity GPU as inexpensive as a custom ASIC. If that is the case, there won't be an incentive to build ASICs. ProgPoW also has a second line of defense where a hard fork with a minimal set of changes, can brick existing ASICs.
- trevelyan 8y ago
  Distributed POW eliminates ASICs by not paying for centralized mining: https://medium.com/@SaitoOfficial/eliminating-51-attacks-in-proof-of-work-blockchains-e95c60d6085a https://medium.com/@SaitoOfficial/eliminating-51-attacks-in-... The problem is that the approach does not pay the peer-to-peer network. But then neither does LN, so who is counting?
Geee 8y ago
It's possible to constantly change the function so that ASICs can't adapt to the the changes.

wavepruner 8y ago

After the initial ASIC "gold rush" Bitcoin mining is trending towards decentralization again. ASICs do not mean an eternal approach to centralization, it is just a temporary step along the adoption curve. See https://www.blockchain.com/pools https://www.blockchain.com/pools Also, ASICs are the most energy efficient way to perform proof-of-work.

ufo 8y ago
Proof of work is oblivious to efficiency. Efficiency gains are met by equivalent increases in mining difficulty, since the network attempts to calibrate towards a constant mining rate.
- wavepruner 8y ago
  Equivalent increases in mining difficulty is the goal, as that secures the blockchain.
  - imtringued 8y ago
    No it doesn't if not everyone has access to the ASICs. If 30% of miners use highly efficient ASICs that are twice as fast they become the majority.

qes 8y ago

Preventing ASICs doesn't prevent those with more monetary resources from consolidating in the hardware space. The ASIC-resistant coins aren't that much more profitable to mine for a home miner, and if they were you'd just get edged out by more people with warehouses full of CPU's & GPU's in Iceland and China and what have you.

legohead 8y ago

hypothetical situation.. the Russian government spins up an enormous amount of processing power and performs a 51% attack on bitcoin, and "steals" billions of worth. is there any recourse?

easymodex 8y ago
You can't steal bitcoin, you can just double spend and the market would detect that immidiately and the price would plummet, leaving you with billion dollar worth of worthless ASIC infrastructure. So yeah the recourse is it would directly cost you billions and you will gain nothing.

trixie_ 8y ago

As long as people can buy ASICs, what's the risk of centralization? I'm pro-ASIC because it dissuades hackers from using my computer to mine crypto. If anything you should be against large mining guilds. That's the real centralization.