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How to Kill Bitcoin (Part 2)

48 points by noch 6y ago

mdoms 6y ago
Is there a version of this article that doesn't spend so much time dicking around?
deleted 6y ago
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dreadlordbone 6y ago
The amount of Bitcoin hate on Hacker News is astounding.
- ddtaylor 6y ago
  It's also very regular. I have been monitoring "new" and looking at it's content and I see a lot of regularly posted negative Bitcoin content. I actually don't think there are any other subjects on HN that are so universally attacked with such regularity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  I still think it’s mostly people who knew about bitcoin early and decided not to buy it.
  - hiimtroymclure 6y ago
    This is how I read things as well. so much jealousy. I stop reading any btc criticism at the endless climate impact/criminal activity discussions. Of all the things that impact climate change, this is the offender we decide to focus on? Of all the ways criminal activity is facilitated, this is currency we focus on? Such a brilliant technology seems lost on HN because people are jealous they missed the boat.
    - kd913 6y ago
      It consumes the amount of electricity comparable to nations whilst limited to 300k transactions. It is a massive enabler of corruption and crime. This whilst offering almost nothing back in return In terms of low-hanging fruit of things to hate, yes this should be pretty damn high on the list. This is as a person who originally mined coins in 2011.
    - the_gastropod 6y ago
      Let's dive in: > Of all the things that impact climate change, this is the offender we decide to focus on? Whataboutism... > Of all the ways criminal activity is facilitated, this is currency we focus on? Also whataboutism... > Such a brilliant technology seems lost on HN because people are jealous they missed the boat. What's so brilliant about it? And you're really projecting here re: the jealousy...
      - hiimtroymclure 6y ago
        Starting with 'Lets Dive in" and only using 1 word made me lol. Then only word being 'whataboutism'... which is an infinite loop of an argument. Literally the same as saying "I know you are but what am I". And clearly I'm on the crypto train. Why would I be projecting jealousy? That I secretly wanted to off the crypto train? lol
  - ghastmaster 6y ago
    That makes sense. If they did not deem it viable then, and their minds have not changed, then they should not deem it viable now.
  - hdsj 6y ago
    Early is subjective too. Anyone who heard about it before 2020 is probably kicking themselves a little. I imagine most inexplicably angry HN posters first read about it before 2015 (missing out on at least 100x profit; $10k -> $1M).
    - rawtxapp 6y ago
      Now they are gonna miss the 50k->1M, so need to stop it at all costs.
  - epx 6y ago
    I kind of regret not buying when it was worth US$ 2 (actually it was not easy to buy with money, back then). Whatever happened after US$ 1000 is out of my preoccupations. I had the chance to participate on a Ponzi scheme once, in 1993. I declined because I could not accept the idea of getting quick money knowing that 7 every 8 people would lose money.
  - munificent 6y ago
    Everyone seeks a narrative that makes them the moral protagonist. If you see a group of people describing something you yourself participate in as environmentally and economically destructive, you have to choose a framework in which to process that information. Some options are: 1. Sure it has some, ahem, negative externalities and I am somewhat bad for participating. But all of those people are just as compromised as me and they're only mad because they didn't get in first. I am no worse than them. If anything, I'm at least honest about my position. 2. They are right, I am selfishly participating in something that benefits me at the expense of the world. The problem with 2 is that acknowledging and wanting to be morally correct forces you to change your behavior. So 1 is an easy pick. But that doesn't imply that it's correct.
    - camjohnson26 6y ago
      Maybe but isn't it just as likely that people choose behavior they morally agree with? I have no strong feelings on Bitcoin right now, but I'd examine both arguments and choose to buy or not based on which side seemed stronger. If I chose to buy people could say I changed my beliefs to match my behavior, but really I chose my behavior to match my beliefs. Same if I chose not to buy.
      - munificent 6y ago
        > Maybe but isn't it just as likely that people choose behavior they morally agree with? Yes, but that moral interpretation is based on the framework they use to contextualize the behavior. Is cutting down a tree moral? Well, if it was a fire hazard next to an orphanage, maybe. If it was endangered and you were going to sell it for personal gain, probably not.
- TheBlight 6y ago
  Is it really surprising that a group that prides itself on knowing-it-all can't cope with missing the boat that was docked right in front of them for years?
  - grassgreener 6y ago
    What boat? where is it sailing to now? Is bitcoin purpose just to make you rich? What did we miss? Maybe, I missed the latest Medium article on why we are near adoption(!?). The tech is useless and detrimental to our earth. It finances terrorism, human trafficking and other ponzi schemes. But Elon Musk... just pumping an unregulated market. The fact that he created Dogecoin is a pretty strong giveaway of his stance on the subject of the blockchain Edit: Elon Musk didn't created Dogecoin
    - cl0ne 6y ago
      Elon Musk didn't create Dogecoin.
      - grassgreener 6y ago
        Thanks, I genuinely thought he was behind it. Anyway the facts that is backing it doesn't really change my take on his involvement.
- fwiwm2c 6y ago
  It is another level. So many people missed the bus and are just salty or frustrated. I am so surprised that this happened given all of us are in tech (and have good income and awareness of blockchain) and it would have made sense to invest just a bit in all these years to see where that takes us. Now it is all about how Bitcoin is a ponzi, key reason for climate change and solves no issues whatsoever. Maybe all those things are correct (I don't know) but it sure was a good way to make a lot of money -- and most of the people here just missed it. And this hate is not new. Look at this well commented thread from 2015 when Bitcoin went down to $180 and HN is still filled with comments like that this is not surprising and they don't see it coming back from hereon: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8884838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8884838 We haven't learned anything? Have we?
  - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
    So yes this is exactly why I hate it so much. Not because I personally didn't get rich from it. But because we engineered a way to magnify the wealth of the people who need it least, at a huge environmental cost for no reason. It's like all of the worst tendencies of our society reduced down and maximized.
    - fwiwm2c 6y ago
      Exactly the type of people I was referring to in my comment. Read the 2015 thread. You would find people who mirror you.
      - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
        I mean I've had this opinion since 2010 we've always been here.
      - bostonsre 6y ago
        So what, you made money off of trading it like a commodity and that makes you correct how exactly? You just brush aside the opposing viewpoints without speaking to them or acknowledging that they have merit. You also don't think it's possible that you don't actually understand what is happening with bitcoin and you got lucky? You don't know what the end state is, no one does. Winning money at roulette doesn't make you a profit that saw into the future.
- epx 6y ago
  I used to believe. Bought when it was US$ 1k, sold at 1.1k when I ceased to believe, and have no regrets whatsoever. Perhaps I am missing something ("the market is always right"?), one day we will know. If Bitcoin diverts surplus money from real estate for a while, and fellow software developers/cypherpunks sell it one day before the bubble bursts, therefore taking money from boomers and FOMOs, I am happy enough.
  - psychlops 6y ago
    [snarky comment removed, my apologies]
    - epx 6y ago
      I don't care. And many things could have happened between 1.1 and 52 (stolen wallets et al.). One could argue that whoever bought and held has been remunerated for the risk.
  - javert 6y ago
    > If Bitcoin diverts surplus money from real estate for a while, and fellow software developers/cypherpunks sell it one day before the bubble bursts, therefore taking money from boomers and FOMOs, I am happy enough. Interesting admission. Wanting to see some group suffer seems to be the motivation for a decent amount of the bitcoin hate on HN. Guess you simply hate some other groups more than you hate bitcoiners.
    - epx 6y ago
      'Hate' is a strong word. Fact is, there are people out there with lots of money that needs to be 'parked' somewhere. Enough has been said about real estate boom caused by empty houses being bought by Chinese while the locals can't make rent. If Bitcoin absorbs this kind of surplus money, it is kind of positive. But all bubbles eventually burst.
      - javert 6y ago
        Investment money pours into real estate because the financial system is broken. Hopefully bitcoin will help fix that.
- superbcarrot 6y ago
  Is it just bitter people who missed out on making a lot of money? Or is it sober and relatively informed people who are assessing Bitcoin correctly? How do we tell the difference between the two?
  - javert 6y ago
    That's a false dichotomy. I think bitcoin is genuinely hated, just like a lot of people and technology are hated. It doesn't necessarily come from an analysis of bitcoin, whether rational or irrational. And it doesn't necessarily come from people who are upset because they think they are too late to make money from bitcoin.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - 6510 6y ago
      If the haters were of one mind they would have killed it long ago.
  - nervousvarun 6y ago
    Personally don't think it's a FOMO thing it's more of a "why is this so profitable" thing? The success of Bitcoin isn't entirely rational. And people generally (probably disproportionately so on HN) try to analyze phenomenon like this analytically. The thing is though...financial markets are not always rational. This isn't unique to BTC. Edit: typo
- cwhiz 6y ago
  I would say it gets about as much hate as any other Ponzi scam. It's just that other Ponzi scams aren't as wildly popular. But then again, other scams aren't causing global economic and environmental damage.
- ayemiller 6y ago
  I actually read the article and it has nothing to do with hating bitcoin. It delves into the logistics of a theoretical attack against Bitcoin's proof-of-work blockchain. Quite interesting if you're willing to put down your pitchfork.
  - devonbleak 6y ago
    It's just a 51% attack with extra steps. PoW requires that you do the work. Making a big long fake chain with higher difficulty than the existing chain requires expending even more resources than the existing network. Not to mention you have to keep updating your fake chain every time a legit block gets accepted because all of the hashes will change. The idea is garbage.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  What's wrong with disliking unnecessary environmental destruction?
- mdoms 6y ago
  If you find a significant portion of the communities you generally align with are fervently opposed to something it can pay to take a step back from your own entrenched position and ask why. The environmental concerns around Bitcoin are not trivial. To many of us they are very, very serious. Not to mention the very real practical concerns around usage of Bitcoin - the fees, long confirmation times, poor throughput, etc. Again, real issues.
  - s_dev 6y ago
    This whole 'Bitcoin is bad for the envoirnment' reads like: "Volcanoes contribute massively to climate change we need to turn them off to save the planet"
    - mdoms 6y ago
      I don't even have words for how dumb of an analogy this is. I am speechless.
      - s_dev 6y ago
        There really is no option to turn off Bitcoin even if humanity agreed on it -- author can only imagine suggestions that might thoeretically work but won't. It was designed like the internet to be virtually indestructible.
  - rawtxapp 6y ago
    That just means you didn't research it properly, if you had and stepped back, you'd know that layer 2 technologies are solving majority of your concerns around speed and fees and that the world will inevitably move to green energies sooner or later.
- kache_ 6y ago
  chalk it up to seething nocoiners
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  I'm having a really hard time seeing this as something that should just be knee-jerk dismissed as hate. Frankly, speculating on the author's motives isn't even a particularly useful line of thought. Bitcoin is supposed to be all about resiliency. And the way you achieve resiliency is by continually running thought experiments to try and probe for possible weaknesses. This article may seem far-fetched right now, but it's amazing how often novel new large-scale attacks turn out to contain elements that featured in speculative writing that was previously dismissed as being far-fetched.
- z3rgl1ng 6y ago
  Because it’s been ten plus years of hype, and nothing to show for it. Because it’s an obvious get-rich-quick scheme that will leave the poor as bag-holders, again. Because it sucks up the air for conversation about things that actually matter. Because the arrogance of its boosters is insufferable.
- dang 6y ago
  What's not so astounding is how terrible this thread is. Please don't post unsubstantive comments and especially please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents and especially^2 please don't take HN threads on meta generic flamewar tangents. I know it's exciting in one way but it's boring in another way, and that's the way that matters. It only makes discussion worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
lixtra 6y ago
Of course Bitcoin can be taken down with enough (according to the article worldwide) concerted efforts. Compare that with the parliament of the most powerful nation on earth being overrun by a few thousand morons.
- capableweb 6y ago
  > the most powerful nation on earth > parliament [...] overrun by a few thousand morons Chose one! And I think we already know the answer. Speaking of morons in parliament, the US has a lot of morons in their parliament as well.
gfodor 6y ago
Plan falls apart at Step 1. The rest no matter how clever can't work without step 1. China and Russia and others would align against any Western powers seeking to destroy bitcoin at this point. Beyond that, many Western powers would start running the calculus of the potential upside of marginalizing USD by allowing bitcoin to continue, and choose to not participate or actively undermine efforts of those trying to kill it. At best it would never materialize given the obvious diplomatic and game theoretic consequences. At worst, it would escalate to an arms race that may even spill over into a real conflict. I'll admit it would be somewhat ironic, in this era of fear around climate change, to see us get into an arms race over who can burn the most energy fastest in an un-winnable game that also doesn't have the same obvious consequences of not de-escalating as MAD. May answer the question around the Great Filter. I wonder if we'll find ancient ASICs scattered across the surface of Venus.
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  And especially would fall apart at the step where Lockheed takes all that confiscated material and sets up a centralized operation. Never in a million years would China/Russia allow that.
  - api 6y ago
    So imagine they build it from scratch instead. That would cost a bit more, but still very little compared to what governments can muster. The central point that any large nation state has more than enough resources to 51% Bitcoin is entirely valid.
    - gfodor 6y ago
      Yes, but the problem is that it's hard to imagine a world where a large nation state (or group of states) collaborates on a 51% attack and there are no other nation states trying to counter that effort.
      - api 6y ago
        In that case it turns into something resembling the Reagan spend-the-USSR-to-death Cold War strategy. While China and Russia may see some value in BTC weakening US hegemony, I wonder how much they'd be willing to spend to defend it. Right now the USA can probably spend more and also de-facto controls TSMC (Taiwan is a US client state), the most advanced fab that could make the most power efficient mining chips.
rybosworld 6y ago
TLDR: If you're willing to spend $100 million per day, you can theoretically shut down Bitcoin
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  And can get all world governments aligned.
  - psychlops 6y ago
    Most of whom would be delighted to see the dollar dethroned.
deleted 6y ago
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chc4 6y ago
This attack is pretty unrealistic. For one, China is extremely invested in Bitcoin, and if they were to seize equipement from miners it would be to drive up the price, not try to kill it. For two, pricing hash power as USD ignores that they aren't the same. The US doesn't need to spend $9m per day (actually $45m per day, since this is from Jul 8, 2020 @ 9k, and BTC has since went way up) since they can't buy Bitcoin ASICs any better than anyone else can, and probably a lot worse since govt procurement is fucked. There's a limited amount of ASICs in the world, and no matter how much they subsidize the electricity cost it doesn't do anything until they have 51% hash power.
- meitme 6y ago
  Surprised China is invested in Bitcoin. In what way?
zyphr 6y ago
Not sure when the next https://breaking-bitcoin.com/ https://breaking-bitcoin.com/ conference will be after covid. But I am sure they would love to have you.
capableweb 6y ago
Since we're ignoring the geo-political climate (like Russia would just watch West tear down Bitcoin without trying to counter it seems unlikely since Russia is the wildcard in this story), generally making lots of leaps and other things that should have been considered, I have a simpler solution: - The US proclaims a "War on Mining" - Using a bitcoin full node to track IPs, drones to find locations and warheads to "disable" mining operators, bomb every mining location once found Approx cost of operation: less than "$100m per day"
simmanian 6y ago
I believe blockchain tech has the potential to change the world. With that said, I do have some burning questions: 1. Can there be consensus mechanisms that are environmentally sustainable? Does PoS work well? We have so many "new" blockchains with "new" consensus mechanisms but not enough information on the tradeoffs among them. 2. Do we actually need blockchain for anything other than finance? Can't we use p2p for things like governance? Can't we achieve a similar level of trust using traditional p2p tech?
- jules-jules 6y ago
  Ethereum PoS is live and secured by 3.5M Ether right now. It uses 99% less energy than PoW https://beaconcha.in/ https://beaconcha.in/
  - simmanian 6y ago
    Any idea how the energy savings are measured?
tiborsaas 6y ago
Kill it. It's gone now. So what happens next? Ethereum will be #1. I guess you want to take it down too. It will be tougher job since all those smart contracts are not just "dumb coin money" anymore, but let's say you succeed with that too. What's next? Start a global brainwashing program to erase the idea of a decentralized network from the mind of people? It will only create a situation like we see with the war on drugs. Drugs won, at least we should learn from it. BTC might be a financial drug, but declaring war on it is equally pointless. Point is, it might be possible to kill BTC, but the core ideas are here to stay with us on the long run. The genie is out of the bottle and it's not going back.
- beyondcompute 6y ago
  “Interesting” logic. “We eradicate HIV. So what? Malaria will occupy it’s place in the list of deadly diseases. We stop serial killer A. So what? Serial killer B will become number 1. We stopped all burglars. So what? Cyber-crime becomes the leading threat! It’s too late, the idea of the crime is out of the bottle! What do you want, to start global brainwashing operation to tell people that stealing is bad?!” Well yes. Why not start a “global brainwashing program” of explaining to folks that burning a noticeable share of world’s energy to create a mechanism that is outside of control of (ideally) democratic and therefore accountable governments and is to a good degree under control of shady groups is not such a good idea? Additional note for those interested. A while ago I watched a lecture by Francis Fukuyama where he talks among other things about states which collapse simply because they’ve lost effective control over part of their territory. That’s actually pretty scary and makes you think. It’s good when a government is able to control a certain thing but doesn’t. And it’s a different story when a government simply cannot do anything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKq_YvC1R14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKq_YvC1R14 P.S. Drugs are actually a bad example. Most of them haven’t won at all. And in many places they were practically driven out (including alcohol). Their price increases when you prohibit them. Their effectiveness does not depend on the number of users, etc.
fogof 6y ago
This article actually makes a good point, which I think many bitcoiners ignore, which is that governments have a big ability to seize hashrate and use it against the network. I have some criticism about the piece though. The article plays it a bit fast and loose with which sets of countries need to cooperate to bring bitcoin down. It lists "everyone from the G20 and beyond" as an example of an international coalition wanting to bring down Bitcoin. But it then admits >>> Plus we’re mostly talking about China and the CCP here, since that’s where the majority of mining activity is, so, yeah. But later says >>> Overall, you successfully seize 80% of the global Bitcoin hash rate and all the best mining locations, and it’s now under your control to do with as you please. But the first quote shows what the problem is with framing this as an action of an international coalition: China really controls 80% of the global hashrate, so even if every other country were on board, it is really up to China whether the network gets destroyed.
- capableweb 6y ago
  > This article actually makes a good point, which I think many bitcoiners ignore, which is that governments have a big ability to seize hashrate and use it against the network. I have some criticism about the piece though. We been here before and governments have proven that they can't really seize anything online, for long. Look at thepiratebay, how long have people been trying to take that website down? It wasn't even decentralized before and they could still manage. How the fuck are they gonna manage to take down a decentralized network you can run from anywhere? Protocols can change as well. Make the protocol automatically ignore miners connected from government IPs, and there is a 100 more solutions to this problem. > China really controls 80% of the global hashrate No, "China" as a country doesn't "own" 80% of the global hashrate. Bypassing that you can never really know where a mining operation is located (proxies are really easy to setup today), a lot of mining operations are indeed based in China, but just because the organization is based in China doesn't mean that the entire mining pool is based in China.
  - fogof 6y ago
    > look at thepiratebay, how long have people been trying to take that website down Taking down piratebay servers is fundamentally different from launching a 51% attack on Bitcoin. In the former, any mirror of the site that is left up can serve for everyone that wants to visit it. In a 51% attack on Bitcoin, any node running Bitcoin software would recognize the attack chain as valid, so everyone would have to make a coordinated effort to change their clients to fight back. > you can never really know where a mining operation is located (proxies are really easy to set up today) [1] here, by the way, is a project from cambridge that tracks IP addresses connecting to pools and says that 65% come from China. It's not clear to me why one would go to the trouble of setting up a proxy to mine bitcoin, especially when speed of connectivity might be the difference between your block getting included or failing to get included. And if all these miners are going through proxies, why set them up in China specifically, when many other countries don't have laws against bitcoin mining? [1] : https://cbeci.org/mining_map https://cbeci.org/mining_map
seaourfreed 6y ago
The Counter Attack wins. BTC holders counter attack and win. STRATEGY #1: * Bitcoin mining is effectively Peer-to-Peer DB sync. * People who owned medium or high amounts of BTC run software that broadcasts good chains vs attack chains. They cryptographically sign it with their addresses. * BTC holders who support keeping bitcoin going, are running a small number of mining nodes. * They keep rejecting attach chains. They keep accepting valid chains. By side channel peer-to-peer sync by BTC holders. * BTC effectively is forked. Attack chain keeps attacking their trash chain. Legit chain keeps processing transactions and rejecting sync of attack chains. STRATEGY #2: * Ethereum is years into PoS. Effort doubles down to finish this in 2 months. * BitcoinPoS is created. Starts with BTC chain balances, but uses PoS. Every bitcoin is now living on BitcoinPoS chain. * Gov attacker wastes $$ creating attack chains in PoW when bitcoin continues in the PoS universe. Gov wasted $10 billion on this. Politicians are voted out of office. Politicians realize robbing the American people is unacceptable. Bitcoin was created because of the Wall Street 2008 Mortgage Crisis theft. The citizens don't take kindly and respond...
- ttul 6y ago
  If proof-of-stake is pushed to completion faster, everyone wins. The reason PoS hasn't yet launched is perhaps because PoW is the default and nobody has yet found a reason to stop doing it.
cletus 6y ago
The level of cognitive dissonance around Bitcoin (and crypto in general) is kind of amazing. That much I will agree on. But to dismiss anything pointing out the flaws in Bitcoin as sour grapes from people who missed out? Wow. That's cognitive dissonance right there. The simple truth here is that: 1. Bitcoin consumes an awful lot of energy; 2. It solves a problem for almost nobody; and 3. It's not as secure as people think it is. I've become increasingly convinced that (1) is what will ultimately doom Bitcoin. I mean it will likely be replaced by something more energy-efficient (ie PoS vs PoW). But that transition will be a massive event in wealth redistribution. As for (2), Bitcoin seems to have two forms of utility: - To escape capital controls in many countries. Wealthy individuals in China trying to bypass Chinese capital controls was (IMHO) a big initial driver in Bitcoin. This also covers countries without a stable currency (eg Venezuela) or artificial limits on currency conversion (eg also Venezuela); and - Illegal stuff. You could argue that Bitcoin is also an asset you can hold for diversification purposes but ask yourself this: would people hold Bitcoin if it was expected to hold a constant value against the US dollar? Or another relatively stable currency? Or even a basket of such currencies? That's impossible to know but I suspect not. I strongly suspect that expectations of BTC rising in value is a big part of why people buy and hold it. "Ponzi scheme" is one characterization of this. I'm not sure it's fully accurate but it's not that far off either. I think "tulip fever" may be more accurate. Either way, the chickens come home to roost eventually. As for (3), I can't speak to the technical merit of the suggested attack in this post. It's known however that the network as a whole is vulnerable to a 51% attack (and I honestly believe there are several who could orchestrate such an attack if they were so inclined). Personally I find this fascinating. And sure I wish I could go back to 2010 and buy $1000 worth of Bitcoin. But that applies to anything. Buying Apple in 1999. Buying Amazon at, well, pretty much any point. Buying land in the 1990s.
- fragsworth 6y ago
  > It solves a problem for almost nobody You're missing the big problems it solves, the main reasons many smart people have bought into it: Cryptocurrencies are the ONLY liquid assets in the world that you can prove, from first principles, 1) how much of it exists, and 2) that you actually own it. As long as you know what you're doing, you don't have to concern yourself with 1) fraud, 2) hidden stockpiles, 3) someone stealing it, and 4) political instability. These are good things for society. Some of us realized these things when we started buying into it, and when we see people poo-pooing it and completely ignoring these benefits, I can see why people tend to get dismissive.
wheelie_boy 6y ago
This whole thing reminds me a bit of xkcd.com/538/ The simplest way for the US to get rid of bitcoin is to secretly declare it a national security threat, then identify, apprehend, and possibly extradite a majority of the Bitcoin Core developers. Then force them to release a new version which is easier to control, but incompatible with the old version. Maybe this is just a PoS version, with inherent flaws? If some of the miners stay with the old version that's fine - a fork helps your goal.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  You don't think there are any legal hurtles to doing so?
  - wheelie_boy 6y ago
    This is an extremely aggressive approach - the scenario is that the government considers it a threat to national security, which presumes that modifying national laws isn't a problem. You'd be able to detain developers from other countries with extradition agreements, and maybe a few others if you want to risk angering those countries. That'd probably be enough. A lot of the discussion in the linked post is about specific ways that countries could take down bitcoin, but my main point is that if a majority of large countries wanted to take it down, they have a large variety of tools they could use to do so. Building a lot of hash capability is probably low on the list. The tech is built and run by people, and countries have a lot of ways of exerting power on people, should they consider it important. Like, the US was arranging coups across central and south america so that bananas would be cheap, I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that violence is a tool they'd reach for to take down bitcoin if needed.
    - morlockabove 6y ago
      That might be good in the long run; bitcoin's notoriously flawed when it comes to privacy, speed, power use etc. But maintains top position because it were forst; were USG to crush it, a more modern, privacy-centered currency like monero could take center stage.
andrewla 6y ago
Realistically this falls apart almost immediately, when you try to assemble the political will to actually ban Bitcoin. While you can talk about governments being willing to spend money on the drop of a hat, this just isn't realistic. Spending billions to combat magic internet money when prescription drug prices are sky-high? Spending billions to combat magic internet money when we don't even have enough to fund the programs that we are operating now? If somehow you managed to muster the political will, the assumption that the cost structure could remain fixed is also laughable. As critics are quick to point out, Bitcoin uses a large amount of energy. Enough energy to mine 100 blocks ahead would require 100 times that energy, and that's assuming that the energy use stays constant, where it would clearly not do so. That amount of energy expended on the effort would be sufficient to substantially affect global energy markets, which would in turn affect the Bitcoin price. The most you could hope for would be to bring up a mining operation that would be competitive with the rest of the network, and thereby throttle on-chain transactions. Bad news for you, ban-fans; the network is already severely throttled, and the price doesn't seem to be bothered much by it.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  China could do this unilaterally.
  - tom_mellior 6y ago
    And the fact that they haven't done it yet indicates that they are not interested in doing it. Why would they? Mining a large part of the world's Bitcoin means lots of foreign money flowing into the country.
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      China has taken quite a few anti-bitcoin measures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country_or_territory#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country...
      - 6y ago
meitme 6y ago
If government want to kill bitcoin they don't need technological solutions. They can ban companies from trading in it. And ban banks from interacting with companies that exchange it. Makes it very difficult for you to move money in/out. And there will be little to do with the bitcoin once you have it.
6510 6y ago
Let me suggest a classic. It traditionally worked like this: You buy as much as you can (preferably all) of what is produced for a while. The factory flourishes on this new found demand. Then you reintroduce the product to the market cheaper than the freshly produced crop. The factory scales down as you've removed your demand and you've taken a significant amount of additional demand out of their game. You can just repeat the buy and sell cycles and make waves in the market until it gets unbearable for existing players however in a more perfect settings you create an artificial market where you are both the buyer and the seller. That way you can sell to yourself for 0.9 the one day and for 0.8 the next needing only one widget to make as many trades as you want. If others are willing to sell for 0.8 you buy theirs too and "sell" it for 0.7 the next day. Of course the situation with bitcoin vs state players is unique. If you can arrest people holding bitcoin you can obtain a significant amount of widgets for free and win the game without having to invest much. Additionally, by constantly buying on the cheap you can lure the doubting rebels out of the woods.
Black101 6y ago
You don't need to kill Bitcoin... Bitcoin can adapt to our current situation. ETH started the switch to proof of stake for example... Bitcoin could do the same.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

48 points by noch 6y ago

mdoms 6y ago

Is there a version of this article that doesn't spend so much time dicking around?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dreadlordbone 6y ago

The amount of Bitcoin hate on Hacker News is astounding.

ddtaylor 6y ago
It's also very regular. I have been monitoring "new" and looking at it's content and I see a lot of regularly posted negative Bitcoin content. I actually don't think there are any other subjects on HN that are so universally attacked with such regularity.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
camjohnson26 6y ago
I still think it’s mostly people who knew about bitcoin early and decided not to buy it.
- hiimtroymclure 6y ago
  This is how I read things as well. so much jealousy. I stop reading any btc criticism at the endless climate impact/criminal activity discussions. Of all the things that impact climate change, this is the offender we decide to focus on? Of all the ways criminal activity is facilitated, this is currency we focus on? Such a brilliant technology seems lost on HN because people are jealous they missed the boat.
  - kd913 6y ago
    It consumes the amount of electricity comparable to nations whilst limited to 300k transactions. It is a massive enabler of corruption and crime. This whilst offering almost nothing back in return In terms of low-hanging fruit of things to hate, yes this should be pretty damn high on the list. This is as a person who originally mined coins in 2011.
  - the_gastropod 6y ago
    Let's dive in: > Of all the things that impact climate change, this is the offender we decide to focus on? Whataboutism... > Of all the ways criminal activity is facilitated, this is currency we focus on? Also whataboutism... > Such a brilliant technology seems lost on HN because people are jealous they missed the boat. What's so brilliant about it? And you're really projecting here re: the jealousy...
    - hiimtroymclure 6y ago
      Starting with 'Lets Dive in" and only using 1 word made me lol. Then only word being 'whataboutism'... which is an infinite loop of an argument. Literally the same as saying "I know you are but what am I". And clearly I'm on the crypto train. Why would I be projecting jealousy? That I secretly wanted to off the crypto train? lol
- ghastmaster 6y ago
  That makes sense. If they did not deem it viable then, and their minds have not changed, then they should not deem it viable now.
- hdsj 6y ago
  Early is subjective too. Anyone who heard about it before 2020 is probably kicking themselves a little. I imagine most inexplicably angry HN posters first read about it before 2015 (missing out on at least 100x profit; $10k -> $1M).
  - rawtxapp 6y ago
    Now they are gonna miss the 50k->1M, so need to stop it at all costs.
- epx 6y ago
  I kind of regret not buying when it was worth US$ 2 (actually it was not easy to buy with money, back then). Whatever happened after US$ 1000 is out of my preoccupations. I had the chance to participate on a Ponzi scheme once, in 1993. I declined because I could not accept the idea of getting quick money knowing that 7 every 8 people would lose money.
- munificent 6y ago
  Everyone seeks a narrative that makes them the moral protagonist. If you see a group of people describing something you yourself participate in as environmentally and economically destructive, you have to choose a framework in which to process that information. Some options are: 1. Sure it has some, ahem, negative externalities and I am somewhat bad for participating. But all of those people are just as compromised as me and they're only mad because they didn't get in first. I am no worse than them. If anything, I'm at least honest about my position. 2. They are right, I am selfishly participating in something that benefits me at the expense of the world. The problem with 2 is that acknowledging and wanting to be morally correct forces you to change your behavior. So 1 is an easy pick. But that doesn't imply that it's correct.
  - camjohnson26 6y ago
    Maybe but isn't it just as likely that people choose behavior they morally agree with? I have no strong feelings on Bitcoin right now, but I'd examine both arguments and choose to buy or not based on which side seemed stronger. If I chose to buy people could say I changed my beliefs to match my behavior, but really I chose my behavior to match my beliefs. Same if I chose not to buy.
    - munificent 6y ago
      > Maybe but isn't it just as likely that people choose behavior they morally agree with? Yes, but that moral interpretation is based on the framework they use to contextualize the behavior. Is cutting down a tree moral? Well, if it was a fire hazard next to an orphanage, maybe. If it was endangered and you were going to sell it for personal gain, probably not.
TheBlight 6y ago
Is it really surprising that a group that prides itself on knowing-it-all can't cope with missing the boat that was docked right in front of them for years?
- grassgreener 6y ago
  What boat? where is it sailing to now? Is bitcoin purpose just to make you rich? What did we miss? Maybe, I missed the latest Medium article on why we are near adoption(!?). The tech is useless and detrimental to our earth. It finances terrorism, human trafficking and other ponzi schemes. But Elon Musk... just pumping an unregulated market. The fact that he created Dogecoin is a pretty strong giveaway of his stance on the subject of the blockchain Edit: Elon Musk didn't created Dogecoin
  - cl0ne 6y ago
    Elon Musk didn't create Dogecoin.
    - grassgreener 6y ago
      Thanks, I genuinely thought he was behind it. Anyway the facts that is backing it doesn't really change my take on his involvement.
fwiwm2c 6y ago
It is another level. So many people missed the bus and are just salty or frustrated. I am so surprised that this happened given all of us are in tech (and have good income and awareness of blockchain) and it would have made sense to invest just a bit in all these years to see where that takes us. Now it is all about how Bitcoin is a ponzi, key reason for climate change and solves no issues whatsoever. Maybe all those things are correct (I don't know) but it sure was a good way to make a lot of money -- and most of the people here just missed it. And this hate is not new. Look at this well commented thread from 2015 when Bitcoin went down to $180 and HN is still filled with comments like that this is not surprising and they don't see it coming back from hereon: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8884838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8884838 We haven't learned anything? Have we?
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
  So yes this is exactly why I hate it so much. Not because I personally didn't get rich from it. But because we engineered a way to magnify the wealth of the people who need it least, at a huge environmental cost for no reason. It's like all of the worst tendencies of our society reduced down and maximized.
  - fwiwm2c 6y ago
    Exactly the type of people I was referring to in my comment. Read the 2015 thread. You would find people who mirror you.
    - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
      I mean I've had this opinion since 2010 we've always been here.
    - bostonsre 6y ago
      So what, you made money off of trading it like a commodity and that makes you correct how exactly? You just brush aside the opposing viewpoints without speaking to them or acknowledging that they have merit. You also don't think it's possible that you don't actually understand what is happening with bitcoin and you got lucky? You don't know what the end state is, no one does. Winning money at roulette doesn't make you a profit that saw into the future.
epx 6y ago
I used to believe. Bought when it was US$ 1k, sold at 1.1k when I ceased to believe, and have no regrets whatsoever. Perhaps I am missing something ("the market is always right"?), one day we will know. If Bitcoin diverts surplus money from real estate for a while, and fellow software developers/cypherpunks sell it one day before the bubble bursts, therefore taking money from boomers and FOMOs, I am happy enough.
- psychlops 6y ago
  [snarky comment removed, my apologies]
  - epx 6y ago
    I don't care. And many things could have happened between 1.1 and 52 (stolen wallets et al.). One could argue that whoever bought and held has been remunerated for the risk.
- javert 6y ago
  > If Bitcoin diverts surplus money from real estate for a while, and fellow software developers/cypherpunks sell it one day before the bubble bursts, therefore taking money from boomers and FOMOs, I am happy enough. Interesting admission. Wanting to see some group suffer seems to be the motivation for a decent amount of the bitcoin hate on HN. Guess you simply hate some other groups more than you hate bitcoiners.
  - epx 6y ago
    'Hate' is a strong word. Fact is, there are people out there with lots of money that needs to be 'parked' somewhere. Enough has been said about real estate boom caused by empty houses being bought by Chinese while the locals can't make rent. If Bitcoin absorbs this kind of surplus money, it is kind of positive. But all bubbles eventually burst.
    - javert 6y ago
      Investment money pours into real estate because the financial system is broken. Hopefully bitcoin will help fix that.
superbcarrot 6y ago
Is it just bitter people who missed out on making a lot of money? Or is it sober and relatively informed people who are assessing Bitcoin correctly? How do we tell the difference between the two?
- javert 6y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. I think bitcoin is genuinely hated, just like a lot of people and technology are hated. It doesn't necessarily come from an analysis of bitcoin, whether rational or irrational. And it doesn't necessarily come from people who are upset because they think they are too late to make money from bitcoin.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 6510 6y ago
    If the haters were of one mind they would have killed it long ago.
- nervousvarun 6y ago
  Personally don't think it's a FOMO thing it's more of a "why is this so profitable" thing? The success of Bitcoin isn't entirely rational. And people generally (probably disproportionately so on HN) try to analyze phenomenon like this analytically. The thing is though...financial markets are not always rational. This isn't unique to BTC. Edit: typo
cwhiz 6y ago
I would say it gets about as much hate as any other Ponzi scam. It's just that other Ponzi scams aren't as wildly popular. But then again, other scams aren't causing global economic and environmental damage.
ayemiller 6y ago
I actually read the article and it has nothing to do with hating bitcoin. It delves into the logistics of a theoretical attack against Bitcoin's proof-of-work blockchain. Quite interesting if you're willing to put down your pitchfork.
- devonbleak 6y ago
  It's just a 51% attack with extra steps. PoW requires that you do the work. Making a big long fake chain with higher difficulty than the existing chain requires expending even more resources than the existing network. Not to mention you have to keep updating your fake chain every time a legit block gets accepted because all of the hashes will change. The idea is garbage.
fxtentacle 6y ago
What's wrong with disliking unnecessary environmental destruction?
mdoms 6y ago
If you find a significant portion of the communities you generally align with are fervently opposed to something it can pay to take a step back from your own entrenched position and ask why. The environmental concerns around Bitcoin are not trivial. To many of us they are very, very serious. Not to mention the very real practical concerns around usage of Bitcoin - the fees, long confirmation times, poor throughput, etc. Again, real issues.
- s_dev 6y ago
  This whole 'Bitcoin is bad for the envoirnment' reads like: "Volcanoes contribute massively to climate change we need to turn them off to save the planet"
  - mdoms 6y ago
    I don't even have words for how dumb of an analogy this is. I am speechless.
    - s_dev 6y ago
      There really is no option to turn off Bitcoin even if humanity agreed on it -- author can only imagine suggestions that might thoeretically work but won't. It was designed like the internet to be virtually indestructible.
- rawtxapp 6y ago
  That just means you didn't research it properly, if you had and stepped back, you'd know that layer 2 technologies are solving majority of your concerns around speed and fees and that the world will inevitably move to green energies sooner or later.
kache_ 6y ago
chalk it up to seething nocoiners
mumblemumble 6y ago
I'm having a really hard time seeing this as something that should just be knee-jerk dismissed as hate. Frankly, speculating on the author's motives isn't even a particularly useful line of thought. Bitcoin is supposed to be all about resiliency. And the way you achieve resiliency is by continually running thought experiments to try and probe for possible weaknesses. This article may seem far-fetched right now, but it's amazing how often novel new large-scale attacks turn out to contain elements that featured in speculative writing that was previously dismissed as being far-fetched.
z3rgl1ng 6y ago
Because it’s been ten plus years of hype, and nothing to show for it. Because it’s an obvious get-rich-quick scheme that will leave the poor as bag-holders, again. Because it sucks up the air for conversation about things that actually matter. Because the arrogance of its boosters is insufferable.
dang 6y ago
What's not so astounding is how terrible this thread is. Please don't post unsubstantive comments and especially please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents and especially^2 please don't take HN threads on meta generic flamewar tangents. I know it's exciting in one way but it's boring in another way, and that's the way that matters. It only makes discussion worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

lixtra 6y ago

Of course Bitcoin can be taken down with enough (according to the article worldwide) concerted efforts. Compare that with the parliament of the most powerful nation on earth being overrun by a few thousand morons.

capableweb 6y ago
> the most powerful nation on earth > parliament [...] overrun by a few thousand morons Chose one! And I think we already know the answer. Speaking of morons in parliament, the US has a lot of morons in their parliament as well.

gfodor 6y ago

Plan falls apart at Step 1. The rest no matter how clever can't work without step 1. China and Russia and others would align against any Western powers seeking to destroy bitcoin at this point. Beyond that, many Western powers would start running the calculus of the potential upside of marginalizing USD by allowing bitcoin to continue, and choose to not participate or actively undermine efforts of those trying to kill it. At best it would never materialize given the obvious diplomatic and game theoretic consequences. At worst, it would escalate to an arms race that may even spill over into a real conflict. I'll admit it would be somewhat ironic, in this era of fear around climate change, to see us get into an arms race over who can burn the most energy fastest in an un-winnable game that also doesn't have the same obvious consequences of not de-escalating as MAD. May answer the question around the Great Filter. I wonder if we'll find ancient ASICs scattered across the surface of Venus.

camjohnson26 6y ago
And especially would fall apart at the step where Lockheed takes all that confiscated material and sets up a centralized operation. Never in a million years would China/Russia allow that.
- api 6y ago
  So imagine they build it from scratch instead. That would cost a bit more, but still very little compared to what governments can muster. The central point that any large nation state has more than enough resources to 51% Bitcoin is entirely valid.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    Yes, but the problem is that it's hard to imagine a world where a large nation state (or group of states) collaborates on a 51% attack and there are no other nation states trying to counter that effort.
    - api 6y ago
      In that case it turns into something resembling the Reagan spend-the-USSR-to-death Cold War strategy. While China and Russia may see some value in BTC weakening US hegemony, I wonder how much they'd be willing to spend to defend it. Right now the USA can probably spend more and also de-facto controls TSMC (Taiwan is a US client state), the most advanced fab that could make the most power efficient mining chips.

rybosworld 6y ago

TLDR: If you're willing to spend $100 million per day, you can theoretically shut down Bitcoin

camjohnson26 6y ago
And can get all world governments aligned.
- psychlops 6y ago
  Most of whom would be delighted to see the dollar dethroned.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

chc4 6y ago

This attack is pretty unrealistic. For one, China is extremely invested in Bitcoin, and if they were to seize equipement from miners it would be to drive up the price, not try to kill it. For two, pricing hash power as USD ignores that they aren't the same. The US doesn't need to spend $9m per day (actually $45m per day, since this is from Jul 8, 2020 @ 9k, and BTC has since went way up) since they can't buy Bitcoin ASICs any better than anyone else can, and probably a lot worse since govt procurement is fucked. There's a limited amount of ASICs in the world, and no matter how much they subsidize the electricity cost it doesn't do anything until they have 51% hash power.

meitme 6y ago
Surprised China is invested in Bitcoin. In what way?

zyphr 6y ago

Not sure when the next https://breaking-bitcoin.com/ https://breaking-bitcoin.com/ conference will be after covid. But I am sure they would love to have you.

capableweb 6y ago

Since we're ignoring the geo-political climate (like Russia would just watch West tear down Bitcoin without trying to counter it seems unlikely since Russia is the wildcard in this story), generally making lots of leaps and other things that should have been considered, I have a simpler solution: - The US proclaims a "War on Mining" - Using a bitcoin full node to track IPs, drones to find locations and warheads to "disable" mining operators, bomb every mining location once found Approx cost of operation: less than "$100m per day"

simmanian 6y ago

I believe blockchain tech has the potential to change the world. With that said, I do have some burning questions: 1. Can there be consensus mechanisms that are environmentally sustainable? Does PoS work well? We have so many "new" blockchains with "new" consensus mechanisms but not enough information on the tradeoffs among them. 2. Do we actually need blockchain for anything other than finance? Can't we use p2p for things like governance? Can't we achieve a similar level of trust using traditional p2p tech?

jules-jules 6y ago
Ethereum PoS is live and secured by 3.5M Ether right now. It uses 99% less energy than PoW https://beaconcha.in/ https://beaconcha.in/
- simmanian 6y ago
  Any idea how the energy savings are measured?

tiborsaas 6y ago

Kill it. It's gone now. So what happens next? Ethereum will be #1. I guess you want to take it down too. It will be tougher job since all those smart contracts are not just "dumb coin money" anymore, but let's say you succeed with that too. What's next? Start a global brainwashing program to erase the idea of a decentralized network from the mind of people? It will only create a situation like we see with the war on drugs. Drugs won, at least we should learn from it. BTC might be a financial drug, but declaring war on it is equally pointless. Point is, it might be possible to kill BTC, but the core ideas are here to stay with us on the long run. The genie is out of the bottle and it's not going back.

beyondcompute 6y ago
“Interesting” logic. “We eradicate HIV. So what? Malaria will occupy it’s place in the list of deadly diseases. We stop serial killer A. So what? Serial killer B will become number 1. We stopped all burglars. So what? Cyber-crime becomes the leading threat! It’s too late, the idea of the crime is out of the bottle! What do you want, to start global brainwashing operation to tell people that stealing is bad?!” Well yes. Why not start a “global brainwashing program” of explaining to folks that burning a noticeable share of world’s energy to create a mechanism that is outside of control of (ideally) democratic and therefore accountable governments and is to a good degree under control of shady groups is not such a good idea? Additional note for those interested. A while ago I watched a lecture by Francis Fukuyama where he talks among other things about states which collapse simply because they’ve lost effective control over part of their territory. That’s actually pretty scary and makes you think. It’s good when a government is able to control a certain thing but doesn’t. And it’s a different story when a government simply cannot do anything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKq_YvC1R14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKq_YvC1R14 P.S. Drugs are actually a bad example. Most of them haven’t won at all. And in many places they were practically driven out (including alcohol). Their price increases when you prohibit them. Their effectiveness does not depend on the number of users, etc.

fogof 6y ago

This article actually makes a good point, which I think many bitcoiners ignore, which is that governments have a big ability to seize hashrate and use it against the network. I have some criticism about the piece though. The article plays it a bit fast and loose with which sets of countries need to cooperate to bring bitcoin down. It lists "everyone from the G20 and beyond" as an example of an international coalition wanting to bring down Bitcoin. But it then admits >>> Plus we’re mostly talking about China and the CCP here, since that’s where the majority of mining activity is, so, yeah. But later says >>> Overall, you successfully seize 80% of the global Bitcoin hash rate and all the best mining locations, and it’s now under your control to do with as you please. But the first quote shows what the problem is with framing this as an action of an international coalition: China really controls 80% of the global hashrate, so even if every other country were on board, it is really up to China whether the network gets destroyed.

capableweb 6y ago
> This article actually makes a good point, which I think many bitcoiners ignore, which is that governments have a big ability to seize hashrate and use it against the network. I have some criticism about the piece though. We been here before and governments have proven that they can't really seize anything online, for long. Look at thepiratebay, how long have people been trying to take that website down? It wasn't even decentralized before and they could still manage. How the fuck are they gonna manage to take down a decentralized network you can run from anywhere? Protocols can change as well. Make the protocol automatically ignore miners connected from government IPs, and there is a 100 more solutions to this problem. > China really controls 80% of the global hashrate No, "China" as a country doesn't "own" 80% of the global hashrate. Bypassing that you can never really know where a mining operation is located (proxies are really easy to setup today), a lot of mining operations are indeed based in China, but just because the organization is based in China doesn't mean that the entire mining pool is based in China.
- fogof 6y ago
  > look at thepiratebay, how long have people been trying to take that website down Taking down piratebay servers is fundamentally different from launching a 51% attack on Bitcoin. In the former, any mirror of the site that is left up can serve for everyone that wants to visit it. In a 51% attack on Bitcoin, any node running Bitcoin software would recognize the attack chain as valid, so everyone would have to make a coordinated effort to change their clients to fight back. > you can never really know where a mining operation is located (proxies are really easy to set up today) [1] here, by the way, is a project from cambridge that tracks IP addresses connecting to pools and says that 65% come from China. It's not clear to me why one would go to the trouble of setting up a proxy to mine bitcoin, especially when speed of connectivity might be the difference between your block getting included or failing to get included. And if all these miners are going through proxies, why set them up in China specifically, when many other countries don't have laws against bitcoin mining? [1] : https://cbeci.org/mining_map https://cbeci.org/mining_map

seaourfreed 6y ago

The Counter Attack wins. BTC holders counter attack and win. STRATEGY #1: * Bitcoin mining is effectively Peer-to-Peer DB sync. * People who owned medium or high amounts of BTC run software that broadcasts good chains vs attack chains. They cryptographically sign it with their addresses. * BTC holders who support keeping bitcoin going, are running a small number of mining nodes. * They keep rejecting attach chains. They keep accepting valid chains. By side channel peer-to-peer sync by BTC holders. * BTC effectively is forked. Attack chain keeps attacking their trash chain. Legit chain keeps processing transactions and rejecting sync of attack chains. STRATEGY #2: * Ethereum is years into PoS. Effort doubles down to finish this in 2 months. * BitcoinPoS is created. Starts with BTC chain balances, but uses PoS. Every bitcoin is now living on BitcoinPoS chain. * Gov attacker wastes $$ creating attack chains in PoW when bitcoin continues in the PoS universe. Gov wasted $10 billion on this. Politicians are voted out of office. Politicians realize robbing the American people is unacceptable. Bitcoin was created because of the Wall Street 2008 Mortgage Crisis theft. The citizens don't take kindly and respond...

ttul 6y ago
If proof-of-stake is pushed to completion faster, everyone wins. The reason PoS hasn't yet launched is perhaps because PoW is the default and nobody has yet found a reason to stop doing it.

cletus 6y ago

The level of cognitive dissonance around Bitcoin (and crypto in general) is kind of amazing. That much I will agree on. But to dismiss anything pointing out the flaws in Bitcoin as sour grapes from people who missed out? Wow. That's cognitive dissonance right there. The simple truth here is that: 1. Bitcoin consumes an awful lot of energy; 2. It solves a problem for almost nobody; and 3. It's not as secure as people think it is. I've become increasingly convinced that (1) is what will ultimately doom Bitcoin. I mean it will likely be replaced by something more energy-efficient (ie PoS vs PoW). But that transition will be a massive event in wealth redistribution. As for (2), Bitcoin seems to have two forms of utility: - To escape capital controls in many countries. Wealthy individuals in China trying to bypass Chinese capital controls was (IMHO) a big initial driver in Bitcoin. This also covers countries without a stable currency (eg Venezuela) or artificial limits on currency conversion (eg also Venezuela); and - Illegal stuff. You could argue that Bitcoin is also an asset you can hold for diversification purposes but ask yourself this: would people hold Bitcoin if it was expected to hold a constant value against the US dollar? Or another relatively stable currency? Or even a basket of such currencies? That's impossible to know but I suspect not. I strongly suspect that expectations of BTC rising in value is a big part of why people buy and hold it. "Ponzi scheme" is one characterization of this. I'm not sure it's fully accurate but it's not that far off either. I think "tulip fever" may be more accurate. Either way, the chickens come home to roost eventually. As for (3), I can't speak to the technical merit of the suggested attack in this post. It's known however that the network as a whole is vulnerable to a 51% attack (and I honestly believe there are several who could orchestrate such an attack if they were so inclined). Personally I find this fascinating. And sure I wish I could go back to 2010 and buy $1000 worth of Bitcoin. But that applies to anything. Buying Apple in 1999. Buying Amazon at, well, pretty much any point. Buying land in the 1990s.

fragsworth 6y ago
> It solves a problem for almost nobody You're missing the big problems it solves, the main reasons many smart people have bought into it: Cryptocurrencies are the ONLY liquid assets in the world that you can prove, from first principles, 1) how much of it exists, and 2) that you actually own it. As long as you know what you're doing, you don't have to concern yourself with 1) fraud, 2) hidden stockpiles, 3) someone stealing it, and 4) political instability. These are good things for society. Some of us realized these things when we started buying into it, and when we see people poo-pooing it and completely ignoring these benefits, I can see why people tend to get dismissive.

wheelie_boy 6y ago

This whole thing reminds me a bit of xkcd.com/538/ The simplest way for the US to get rid of bitcoin is to secretly declare it a national security threat, then identify, apprehend, and possibly extradite a majority of the Bitcoin Core developers. Then force them to release a new version which is easier to control, but incompatible with the old version. Maybe this is just a PoS version, with inherent flaws? If some of the miners stay with the old version that's fine - a fork helps your goal.

michaelmrose 6y ago
You don't think there are any legal hurtles to doing so?
- wheelie_boy 6y ago
  This is an extremely aggressive approach - the scenario is that the government considers it a threat to national security, which presumes that modifying national laws isn't a problem. You'd be able to detain developers from other countries with extradition agreements, and maybe a few others if you want to risk angering those countries. That'd probably be enough. A lot of the discussion in the linked post is about specific ways that countries could take down bitcoin, but my main point is that if a majority of large countries wanted to take it down, they have a large variety of tools they could use to do so. Building a lot of hash capability is probably low on the list. The tech is built and run by people, and countries have a lot of ways of exerting power on people, should they consider it important. Like, the US was arranging coups across central and south america so that bananas would be cheap, I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that violence is a tool they'd reach for to take down bitcoin if needed.
  - morlockabove 6y ago
    That might be good in the long run; bitcoin's notoriously flawed when it comes to privacy, speed, power use etc. But maintains top position because it were forst; were USG to crush it, a more modern, privacy-centered currency like monero could take center stage.

andrewla 6y ago

Realistically this falls apart almost immediately, when you try to assemble the political will to actually ban Bitcoin. While you can talk about governments being willing to spend money on the drop of a hat, this just isn't realistic. Spending billions to combat magic internet money when prescription drug prices are sky-high? Spending billions to combat magic internet money when we don't even have enough to fund the programs that we are operating now? If somehow you managed to muster the political will, the assumption that the cost structure could remain fixed is also laughable. As critics are quick to point out, Bitcoin uses a large amount of energy. Enough energy to mine 100 blocks ahead would require 100 times that energy, and that's assuming that the energy use stays constant, where it would clearly not do so. That amount of energy expended on the effort would be sufficient to substantially affect global energy markets, which would in turn affect the Bitcoin price. The most you could hope for would be to bring up a mining operation that would be competitive with the rest of the network, and thereby throttle on-chain transactions. Bad news for you, ban-fans; the network is already severely throttled, and the price doesn't seem to be bothered much by it.

bryanlarsen 6y ago
China could do this unilaterally.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  And the fact that they haven't done it yet indicates that they are not interested in doing it. Why would they? Mining a large part of the world's Bitcoin means lots of foreign money flowing into the country.
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    China has taken quite a few anti-bitcoin measures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country_or_territory#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country...
    - 6y ago

meitme 6y ago

If government want to kill bitcoin they don't need technological solutions. They can ban companies from trading in it. And ban banks from interacting with companies that exchange it. Makes it very difficult for you to move money in/out. And there will be little to do with the bitcoin once you have it.

6510 6y ago

Let me suggest a classic. It traditionally worked like this: You buy as much as you can (preferably all) of what is produced for a while. The factory flourishes on this new found demand. Then you reintroduce the product to the market cheaper than the freshly produced crop. The factory scales down as you've removed your demand and you've taken a significant amount of additional demand out of their game. You can just repeat the buy and sell cycles and make waves in the market until it gets unbearable for existing players however in a more perfect settings you create an artificial market where you are both the buyer and the seller. That way you can sell to yourself for 0.9 the one day and for 0.8 the next needing only one widget to make as many trades as you want. If others are willing to sell for 0.8 you buy theirs too and "sell" it for 0.7 the next day. Of course the situation with bitcoin vs state players is unique. If you can arrest people holding bitcoin you can obtain a significant amount of widgets for free and win the game without having to invest much. Additionally, by constantly buying on the cheap you can lure the doubting rebels out of the woods.

Black101 6y ago

You don't need to kill Bitcoin... Bitcoin can adapt to our current situation. ETH started the switch to proof of stake for example... Bitcoin could do the same.

deleted 6y ago

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