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This is basically really good news for bitcoin, since China will no longer source the majority of hashing power. It’s an opportunity to further decentralize has

This is basically really good news for bitcoin, since China will no longer source the majority of hashing power. It’s an opportunity to further decentralize hashing power across the globe, and for the west to take a stronger foothold.

geewee 5y ago
It seems like bitcoin enthuasiasts can always determine why something is good for bitcoin. If more people hash the system is more robust but if less people hash then it's.. uh.. also good?
- neals 5y ago
  If you look at it... Bitcoiners enthusiasm is the only thing good for Bitcoin.
- lui8906 5y ago
  It's a common joke ("this is good for bitcoin"). But in this case I would say it is actually good. I would correct your statement: 1. Greater hash power makes the system more secure from attack 2. A large amount of hash power geographically concentrated is a weak point 3. More geographically dispersed hash power is better. 4. Ideally a large amount of globally dispersed hashpower provides the best security. -- Disclosure: I do not currently own any BTC.
  - gverrilla 5y ago
    > 1. Greater hash power makes the system more secure from attack Not necessarily. There's a lot of "latent" hashpower ready to join the fight if bitcoin gets under attack, including random people and orgs around the world and the current miners themselves aswell: a lot of them mine other cryptos aswell, and could diminish their mining intensity on them to devote hashpower to bitcoin wars or stop altogether.
    - shoghicp 5y ago
      Bitcoin mining at this time requires ASIC devices that cannot switch to other algorithms, other coins that use the same, sure, but not for example Ethereum.
      - dannyw 5y ago
        There may still exist some latent hashpower from people with obsolete mining chips. Those cost more in electricity to run than they mine, but when bitcoin is under attack, operating them could be a civic measure.
        Majromax 5y ago
        > when bitcoin is under attack, operating them could be a civic measure. Unless I'm gravely mistaken about the bitcoin protocol, you wouldn't know that bitcoin is under a 51% attack until it completes. The 51% attack succeeds when the attacker's blockchain becomes longer than the publicly-accepted blockchain. But there's no reason that the attacker needs to show their work publicly; they can start in secret, mine blocks, and reveal the entire chain at once after it is some number of blocks longer than the public chain.
        rantwasp 5y ago
        lol. no. there are 2 parts: one is mining the block, the other is propagating the block. if you do what you describe, computing blocks would not be enough. you would also need to recompute blocks to account for what happened on the block chain since the split. the more time it passes, the more computing power you would need. when people talk about 51% attack they usually talk about the double spend issue. this requires 1) a large number of nodes (>51% of the network) and 2) a large amount of hashing power. you would spend some bitcoin, let it be captured in the chain and after that you would fabricate a block that spends the coins differently. now you’ve spent it twice. the miners would pick this as the longer chain and keep going. the important thing to remember is that you cannot keep your chain in the shadows and that this type of attack would be a really hard to pull off (have you ever synchronized a lot of machines to do something? it’s incredibly hard)
- casi18 5y ago
  its a funny meme, but i think there is truth in it. bad news is often good because bitcoin only needs to continue to exist to prove itself. so if lots of bad things happen and bitcoin is still sticking around then it shows resilience and makes bitcoin more attractive.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  This is good for the planet because mountains of Xinjiang coal are no longer being burned to achieve literally nothing. Unfortunately these miners are probably going to be turned on somewhere else, attached to weaker energy grids - like Texas. Fingers crossed they're won't be but that's probably asking too much in 202x. But yes of course, this is good for Bitcoin. Everything is good for Bitcoin.
  - kemonocode 5y ago
    > This is good for the planet because mountains of Xinjiang coal are no longer being burned to achieve literally nothing. By the same token I could say all the power (and pollution!) used by the US military given that it's actively hostile to my country is a waste, bad for the planet and I wish it went away, but that wouldn't be too fair towards US citizens or their allies. > But yes of course, this is good for Bitcoin. Everything is good for Bitcoin. Well, Bitcoin is cleaner for now, wasn't that one of the greater criticisms levied towards it? I'm pretty sure by now that it could be found that mining Bitcoin cures cancer and AIDS by tomorrow and detractors would still find a reason to criticize it. I don't think there's a way to win, so I don't bother.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      > By the same token I could say all the power (and pollution!) used by the US military given that it's actively hostile to my country is a waste, bad for the planet and I wish it went away, but that wouldn't be too fair towards US citizens or their allies. You could make that claim, but of course, if the US military went away I suspect more than a few people would notice. However, Bitcoin continued to work exactly as well without the extra hash rate. No byzantine generals were harmed in this hash draw-down. As such, when I say it made no difference, I mean it. Mining exhibits an un-damped positive runaway condition with respect to price, as price goes up it becomes more economical to mine. As such you can waste more power and add unnecessary extra hash capacity and make more money. Not just can, have to, as others do so, to avoid getting left behind. Full on prisoner's dilemma. When 70% of it disappears en masse, it makes no difference. > Well, Bitcoin is cleaner for now, wasn't that one of the greater criticisms levied towards it? For sure, but it won't last, that's kind of my point. The criticism is that it's roughly speaking the least efficient system humanity has ever implemented. Moving a mountain with a spoon is likely more thermally efficient. That hasn't changed, really, it's fundamental to the model.
- cloudhead 5y ago
  Yes, otherwise known as optimism ;)
  - eli 5y ago
    Motivated thinking
- celticninja 5y ago
  Higher hash rate is good for security, less centralised mining is also good. However a lower hash rate means less security, but if it is temporary reduction, whilst equipment moves elsewhere, this reducing reliance on mining in one nation, then the reduction in hash rate in the short term is not ideal, but has long term benefits for the network.
  - ykevinator3 5y ago
    You're reinforcing his point
- esens 5y ago
  If you own Bitcoin, you have a major incentive to spin everything as good for BTC so that they price rises. You are also incentivized to convince others to buy BTC so that the your investment in BTC pays off. Given there is no intrinsic worth of BTC, rather just the collectively belief it is worth something, these incentives are very strong with BTC.
  - lowkey 5y ago
    > Given there is no intrinsic worth of BTC, rather just the collectively belief it is worth something, these incentives are very strong with BTC. Explain how this is any different from the US dollar? What is the intrinsic worth of USD?
    - haasted 5y ago
      The ability to tax all residents and companies of the US?
      - ldiracdelta 5y ago
        Plus the ability to take away their assets if they don't comply.
      - pygy_ 5y ago
        Yes, the value of USD value is proportional to the power of the US government (and its judiciary/police/army)... The power to let the private sector flourish, mainly. The value of Crypto comes from the decentralization (no need for trusted third parties), and is proportional to the hashing power of the network. Upstarts can easily be 51%ed by an incumbent with a large mining infrastructure of the same kind... But this holds as long as people with destructive power let them run.
      - jermaustin1 5y ago
        AND US citizens and nationals no matter where they are in the world.
    - acjohnson55 5y ago
- bgroat 5y ago
  I literally opened this so thread so I could see how long it takes for someone to say "This is good for bitcoin" First comment
diegocg 5y ago
How is this good news? That the hash rate has fallen so much means that coordinating a 51% attack is perfectly doable. Imagine that the missing hashing power was mining a parallel blockchain right now. We know it's not happening, but this proves that it's much easier to do than expected. These news essentially mean that the claims about bitcoin being completely safe from state attacks are vaporware.
- lui8906 5y ago
  Hashpower was concentrated in China. It takes time for the miners to relocate and setup shop, I'd be surprised if the hash power is permanently reduced. I don't think anyone reasonable is claiming that BTC is completely safe against state attackers. That's the mission but nothing is 100% certain.
- G3rn0ti 5y ago
  Bitcoin critics would mention the 51% attack vulnerability and point to the concentration of miners in China. Now that the Chinese mining concentration resolves, it is called bad news for Bitcoin because the hash rate will fall in the short run. But good and bad are on different time scales here.
  - m3kw9 5y ago
    A bit of news. A chinese citizen doing business else where could still be implored to help China when asked.
- gregwebs 5y ago
  It’s always trivial to perform a 51% attack by forming a large mining pool. You don’t have to kick people out of China to do that. The only issue is convincing the miners to go against their economic interest. China could have relatively easily done that previously but now it will probably be difficult for any one country to become that non-economic actor with both control of hash rate and the ability to coerce miners.
Blikkentrekker 5y ago
> and for the west I find it so odd that many speak in phrases that suggest there is some global “west” vs. “east” whereas in reality it more so seems the case that there is more internal struggle within “the west” and “the east” respectively. The Chinese in general seem to have a far higher opinion of, and feel less animosity to, say, the Danish, than they will the Japanese.
- henearkr 5y ago
  Isn't Japan part of "the West" in Chinese government's rhetoric?
  - Blikkentrekker 5y ago
    That would not surprise me at all. The Dutch government also considers Japan to be “West”, but not South Korea, but it does Indonesia as a former Dutch colony, but not Suriname. The terms “Western” and “Eastern” seem more than anything be based on race, not on actual cultural similarities. — Perhaps these existed a century back, but after the Chinese cultural revolution and the U.S.A. occupation of Japan, I do not believe Chinese culture to be closer to Japanese culture than Japanese culture to be U.S.A. culture. If anything, the older division of communist vs. capitalist states made more sense. Though that difference too is shrinking with many officially communist states having incorporated a fair deal of free market, and many technically capitalist states having extensive government market direction into what is some call “social democracy”.
netrikare 5y ago
This is temporary until miners move their hardware elsewhere.
baybal2 5y ago
Funny factoid for you. Kazakhstan has now higher hash rate than USA, Mongolia also appeared on hash rate charts overnight.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
The mining equipment hasn’t been scrapped. They’re shipping it to other countries with less regulation so they can get it up and running again. Miners aren’t throwing in the towel. They’re relocating.

geewee 5y ago

It seems like bitcoin enthuasiasts can always determine why something is good for bitcoin. If more people hash the system is more robust but if less people hash then it's.. uh.. also good?

neals 5y ago
If you look at it... Bitcoiners enthusiasm is the only thing good for Bitcoin.
lui8906 5y ago
It's a common joke ("this is good for bitcoin"). But in this case I would say it is actually good. I would correct your statement: 1. Greater hash power makes the system more secure from attack 2. A large amount of hash power geographically concentrated is a weak point 3. More geographically dispersed hash power is better. 4. Ideally a large amount of globally dispersed hashpower provides the best security. -- Disclosure: I do not currently own any BTC.
- gverrilla 5y ago
  > 1. Greater hash power makes the system more secure from attack Not necessarily. There's a lot of "latent" hashpower ready to join the fight if bitcoin gets under attack, including random people and orgs around the world and the current miners themselves aswell: a lot of them mine other cryptos aswell, and could diminish their mining intensity on them to devote hashpower to bitcoin wars or stop altogether.
  - shoghicp 5y ago
    Bitcoin mining at this time requires ASIC devices that cannot switch to other algorithms, other coins that use the same, sure, but not for example Ethereum.
    - dannyw 5y ago
      There may still exist some latent hashpower from people with obsolete mining chips. Those cost more in electricity to run than they mine, but when bitcoin is under attack, operating them could be a civic measure.
      - Majromax 5y ago
        > when bitcoin is under attack, operating them could be a civic measure. Unless I'm gravely mistaken about the bitcoin protocol, you wouldn't know that bitcoin is under a 51% attack until it completes. The 51% attack succeeds when the attacker's blockchain becomes longer than the publicly-accepted blockchain. But there's no reason that the attacker needs to show their work publicly; they can start in secret, mine blocks, and reveal the entire chain at once after it is some number of blocks longer than the public chain.
        rantwasp 5y ago
        lol. no. there are 2 parts: one is mining the block, the other is propagating the block. if you do what you describe, computing blocks would not be enough. you would also need to recompute blocks to account for what happened on the block chain since the split. the more time it passes, the more computing power you would need. when people talk about 51% attack they usually talk about the double spend issue. this requires 1) a large number of nodes (>51% of the network) and 2) a large amount of hashing power. you would spend some bitcoin, let it be captured in the chain and after that you would fabricate a block that spends the coins differently. now you’ve spent it twice. the miners would pick this as the longer chain and keep going. the important thing to remember is that you cannot keep your chain in the shadows and that this type of attack would be a really hard to pull off (have you ever synchronized a lot of machines to do something? it’s incredibly hard)
casi18 5y ago
its a funny meme, but i think there is truth in it. bad news is often good because bitcoin only needs to continue to exist to prove itself. so if lots of bad things happen and bitcoin is still sticking around then it shows resilience and makes bitcoin more attractive.
arcticbull 5y ago
This is good for the planet because mountains of Xinjiang coal are no longer being burned to achieve literally nothing. Unfortunately these miners are probably going to be turned on somewhere else, attached to weaker energy grids - like Texas. Fingers crossed they're won't be but that's probably asking too much in 202x. But yes of course, this is good for Bitcoin. Everything is good for Bitcoin.
- kemonocode 5y ago
  > This is good for the planet because mountains of Xinjiang coal are no longer being burned to achieve literally nothing. By the same token I could say all the power (and pollution!) used by the US military given that it's actively hostile to my country is a waste, bad for the planet and I wish it went away, but that wouldn't be too fair towards US citizens or their allies. > But yes of course, this is good for Bitcoin. Everything is good for Bitcoin. Well, Bitcoin is cleaner for now, wasn't that one of the greater criticisms levied towards it? I'm pretty sure by now that it could be found that mining Bitcoin cures cancer and AIDS by tomorrow and detractors would still find a reason to criticize it. I don't think there's a way to win, so I don't bother.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > By the same token I could say all the power (and pollution!) used by the US military given that it's actively hostile to my country is a waste, bad for the planet and I wish it went away, but that wouldn't be too fair towards US citizens or their allies. You could make that claim, but of course, if the US military went away I suspect more than a few people would notice. However, Bitcoin continued to work exactly as well without the extra hash rate. No byzantine generals were harmed in this hash draw-down. As such, when I say it made no difference, I mean it. Mining exhibits an un-damped positive runaway condition with respect to price, as price goes up it becomes more economical to mine. As such you can waste more power and add unnecessary extra hash capacity and make more money. Not just can, have to, as others do so, to avoid getting left behind. Full on prisoner's dilemma. When 70% of it disappears en masse, it makes no difference. > Well, Bitcoin is cleaner for now, wasn't that one of the greater criticisms levied towards it? For sure, but it won't last, that's kind of my point. The criticism is that it's roughly speaking the least efficient system humanity has ever implemented. Moving a mountain with a spoon is likely more thermally efficient. That hasn't changed, really, it's fundamental to the model.
cloudhead 5y ago
Yes, otherwise known as optimism ;)
- eli 5y ago
  Motivated thinking
celticninja 5y ago
Higher hash rate is good for security, less centralised mining is also good. However a lower hash rate means less security, but if it is temporary reduction, whilst equipment moves elsewhere, this reducing reliance on mining in one nation, then the reduction in hash rate in the short term is not ideal, but has long term benefits for the network.
- ykevinator3 5y ago
  You're reinforcing his point
esens 5y ago
If you own Bitcoin, you have a major incentive to spin everything as good for BTC so that they price rises. You are also incentivized to convince others to buy BTC so that the your investment in BTC pays off. Given there is no intrinsic worth of BTC, rather just the collectively belief it is worth something, these incentives are very strong with BTC.
- lowkey 5y ago
  > Given there is no intrinsic worth of BTC, rather just the collectively belief it is worth something, these incentives are very strong with BTC. Explain how this is any different from the US dollar? What is the intrinsic worth of USD?
  - haasted 5y ago
    The ability to tax all residents and companies of the US?
    - ldiracdelta 5y ago
      Plus the ability to take away their assets if they don't comply.
    - pygy_ 5y ago
      Yes, the value of USD value is proportional to the power of the US government (and its judiciary/police/army)... The power to let the private sector flourish, mainly. The value of Crypto comes from the decentralization (no need for trusted third parties), and is proportional to the hashing power of the network. Upstarts can easily be 51%ed by an incumbent with a large mining infrastructure of the same kind... But this holds as long as people with destructive power let them run.
    - jermaustin1 5y ago
      AND US citizens and nationals no matter where they are in the world.
  - acjohnson55 5y ago
bgroat 5y ago
I literally opened this so thread so I could see how long it takes for someone to say "This is good for bitcoin" First comment

diegocg 5y ago

How is this good news? That the hash rate has fallen so much means that coordinating a 51% attack is perfectly doable. Imagine that the missing hashing power was mining a parallel blockchain right now. We know it's not happening, but this proves that it's much easier to do than expected. These news essentially mean that the claims about bitcoin being completely safe from state attacks are vaporware.

lui8906 5y ago
Hashpower was concentrated in China. It takes time for the miners to relocate and setup shop, I'd be surprised if the hash power is permanently reduced. I don't think anyone reasonable is claiming that BTC is completely safe against state attackers. That's the mission but nothing is 100% certain.
G3rn0ti 5y ago
Bitcoin critics would mention the 51% attack vulnerability and point to the concentration of miners in China. Now that the Chinese mining concentration resolves, it is called bad news for Bitcoin because the hash rate will fall in the short run. But good and bad are on different time scales here.
- m3kw9 5y ago
  A bit of news. A chinese citizen doing business else where could still be implored to help China when asked.
gregwebs 5y ago
It’s always trivial to perform a 51% attack by forming a large mining pool. You don’t have to kick people out of China to do that. The only issue is convincing the miners to go against their economic interest. China could have relatively easily done that previously but now it will probably be difficult for any one country to become that non-economic actor with both control of hash rate and the ability to coerce miners.

Blikkentrekker 5y ago

> and for the west I find it so odd that many speak in phrases that suggest there is some global “west” vs. “east” whereas in reality it more so seems the case that there is more internal struggle within “the west” and “the east” respectively. The Chinese in general seem to have a far higher opinion of, and feel less animosity to, say, the Danish, than they will the Japanese.

henearkr 5y ago
Isn't Japan part of "the West" in Chinese government's rhetoric?
- Blikkentrekker 5y ago
  That would not surprise me at all. The Dutch government also considers Japan to be “West”, but not South Korea, but it does Indonesia as a former Dutch colony, but not Suriname. The terms “Western” and “Eastern” seem more than anything be based on race, not on actual cultural similarities. — Perhaps these existed a century back, but after the Chinese cultural revolution and the U.S.A. occupation of Japan, I do not believe Chinese culture to be closer to Japanese culture than Japanese culture to be U.S.A. culture. If anything, the older division of communist vs. capitalist states made more sense. Though that difference too is shrinking with many officially communist states having incorporated a fair deal of free market, and many technically capitalist states having extensive government market direction into what is some call “social democracy”.

netrikare 5y ago

This is temporary until miners move their hardware elsewhere.

baybal2 5y ago

Funny factoid for you. Kazakhstan has now higher hash rate than USA, Mongolia also appeared on hash rate charts overnight.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

The mining equipment hasn’t been scrapped. They’re shipping it to other countries with less regulation so they can get it up and running again. Miners aren’t throwing in the towel. They’re relocating.