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Bitcoin network power slumps as Kazakhstan crackdown hits crypto miners

rasengan 5y ago
So this [1] has been going on and is pretty serious. It makes clear the importance of setting up mesh networks. If you're cut off from communication in the midst of something like this, you're helpless. [1] https://thehill.com/policy/international/588318-kazakhstan-government-resigns-as-demonstrators-set-fire-to-capital https://thehill.com/policy/international/588318-kazakhstan-g...
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  We need more Starlink-like services which aren't dependent on local physical infra... local mesh networks are not viable without a physical backbone, which can be turned off.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Local mesh networks are way easier to hide than Starlink transmitters. All Russia would have to do is fly one of their AWACS over a city and they could make a list of all the active Starlink transmitters, and get them arrested.
  - avmich 5y ago
    You sure know that places like China or Russia strictly forbid Starlink use? How'd you plan to use a service like this if it's considered a major offense by the autocracy?
- toss1 5y ago
  Mesh networks do sound like a real solution, but we need a substrate that can do long-distance hops. Otherwise, it'd just a bunch of population-center islands of communication. Perhaps this is better than nothing, but with that being the best case, it seems to be the hurdle preventing progress. Otherwise, seems all we've really got is Ham Radio. Suggestions as to what I'm missing here?
  - barathr 5y ago
    That's right. The natural way to do this is to do long-haul point to point wireless using commodity hardware. Such backhaul links will be limited to a few Gbps each but that's better than nothing. Building this out further, you could create a network like this: https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10897 https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10897
    - t0mas88 5y ago
      I think the problem isn't technical. Point to point links or satellite fit the requirements. The problem is that it's very dangerous to operate one in a state where the government has turned the internet off to suppress protests.
  - rasengan 5y ago
    I think what's important primarily is the inter-island communication first -- the power of the people in communication well exceeds any governmental force. But I agree, to be connected to the world at large, we need to make sure there are satellites, long haul ptp microwave wifi, and other methods connecting the islands. My heart weeps for Kazakhstan, I pray that no more will be harmed.
- henning 5y ago
  I admire nerds' ability to imagine that every political problem has a purely technical solution. It's a wonderful dream world where the answer to climate change is a hackathon.
  - avmich 5y ago
    Sounds like demonstrating a working solution to a problem doesn't convince some people :( .
  - DennisP 5y ago
    Who's saying "purely?" Tools help. They don't solve things on their own, but they do help. Oppressive governments also use tools, like surveillance equipment and weapons. Nobody makes snide remarks about their dependence on technical solutions.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  This is not a new trend. I no longer even remember who started it ( was it India ?), but these days whenever government in power is seriously challenged, internet communication is the first to go. This just happened to also hit a crypto network.
heyrhett 5y ago
Things are not looking good for Bitcoin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_tcg9kOfkg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_tcg9kOfkg
purplesnowflake 5y ago
- nalrey 5y ago
  While Kazakh people are generally tolerant to Borat jokes, the timing of this one is most inappropriate. In case you do knot know, there is a civil unrest in Kazakhstan, many people are killed, and many more are missing. I urge users of this website to be civil and stay away from any demeaning jokes, at least for now. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/asia/kazakhstan-fuel-protests-thursday-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/asia/kazakhstan-fuel-protests... https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/06/world/kazakhstan-protests https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/06/world/kazakhstan-pro...
- rchaud 5y ago
  Civilians protesting inflation are being shot dead by an authoritarian state, while Russian troops are being deployed to aid said authoritarians. Please don't minimize the gravity of the situation by attempting to connect it to an insulting stereotype that happens to play well with Western audiences.
  - foverzar 5y ago
    > Civilians They are no longer civilians if they are armed.
mediocregopher 5y ago
> Kazakhstan's crypto mining farms are mostly powered by ageing coal plants which themselves - along with coal mines and whole towns built around them - are a headache for authorities as they seek to decarbonise the economy. Let's hope they stay shut off then.
- nalrey 5y ago
  Do you know that internet is down due to civil unrest and many people are reported dead? While I understand your excitement towards Bitcoin's problems, please read up on context why it is happening. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/asia/kazakhstan-fuel-protests-thursday-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/asia/kazakhstan-fuel-protests... https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/06/world/kazakhstan-protests https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/06/world/kazakhstan-pro...
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    The civil unrest was triggered in part by soaring energy prices, in a country where bitcoin mining consumes 8% of total generation capacity.
    - nalrey 5y ago
      - throwawaygh 5y ago
        > But why you are using a throwaway account then? I'm not. My account is over a year old with >4500 karma. My username happens to have the word throwaway in it. So what? Your name is green. (Which I'm fine with and don't really care about... but it makes your comment a bit bewildering.)
        nalrey 5y ago
        I stand corrected regarding your account. The protest have started due to increase in natural gas prices (not the gasoline), but the root cause is not the price but income inequality. In any case, it has no (even not a remote) connection to the bitcoin network and its energy consumption, nor to coal plants. My comment was an urge to stay civil and prevent any rush excitement regarding the Bitcoin's crisis without knowing the whole picture. Specifically to counter the comments of "Let's hope they stay shut off then." PS. Yes my account is green: I have registered today once I saw this discussion, but believe me it is not a throwaway.
bitcoinmonger2 5y ago
If more countries ban crypto mining we can successfully perform a 51% attack and destroy the value of Bitcoin, which should eradicate this useless and wasteful technology forever. Hopefully more countries follow suit and the attack can begin.
- exdsq 5y ago
  I can't imagine disliking a technology so much I put it as my username and spend my free time writing about how much I hate it on tech forums
  - rasengan 5y ago
    There is a concerted effort going on here.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      No. A lot of people just passionately hate bitcoin, for rational reasons. It's not concerted. The government isn't sending people to HN to dissuade you from buying Bitcoin. If the powers that be wanted to shut down bitcoin, all they'd have to do is come together, agree to seize all mining equipment, and do a 51% attack together to fill the Blockchain with trash. Maybe also run some stings on BTC exchanges. They don't need to convince you not to use it.
      - exdsq 5y ago
        "All they'd have to do is come together, agree to seize all mining equipment, and do a 51% attack together" Think this through for a bit. Governments have holdings in bitcoin. Financial institutions have holdings in bitcoin. Citizens have significant percentages of their savings in bitcoin. Bitcoin is available in various financial instruments now, so this would have knock-on effects in the wider market. A large percentage of crypto hash rate is from unknown parties or distributed on regular computers/phones/botnets, so the governments would have to invest money into mining equipment to run this 51% attack that would end up being totally dead money after the attack. You'd have lobbying from huge money sources to stop this happening. You'd have governments looking to take advantage of this. You'd be trying to destroy the legal tender of some countries which I believe is illegal under international law. By increasing the hash rate you'd be increasing the price of the coin and incentivizing people to defend against it. And, if it all happened, people could do what happened to Ethereum and simply fork Bitcoin from the point of the attack. No more mining equipment? Run PoS.
rubatuga 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
r721 5y ago
>Internet Traffic in Kazakhstan (Last 7 Days) https://radar.cloudflare.com/kz?date_filter=last_7_days https://radar.cloudflare.com/kz?date_filter=last_7_days
dutchbrit 5y ago
Looking at the Bitcoin hash rate, it doesn’t look that extreme: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate What am I missing? Even of the whole of Kazakhstan stopped mining, and I hope they do, it wouldn’t kill Bitcoin. The difficulty will adjust but more miners will jump in as the difficulty goes down making it more affordable for others, fueled by greed unfortunately… On another note, I’ve always wondered how so many people are running full nodes, knowing that they’re essentially hosting CP images and why this isn’t being cracked down on: https://internetofbusiness.com/bitcoin-blockchain-contains-illegal-porn-say-researchers/amp/ https://internetofbusiness.com/bitcoin-blockchain-contains-i...
- exdsq 5y ago
  Nothing - it just won't have reached the front page if the headline was "Bitcoin hash rate is reduced by 1%" or whatever
- jtbayly 5y ago
  I don't see Jan 5 data on that site yet. What am I missing?
  - jtbayly 5y ago
    But now that the data from the 5th is there, I’m not seeing a drop. Perhaps it will show up on the 6th? Or the article was wrong? Or this website’s estimates off hash power are wrong?
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    You're not missing anything.
- rlpb 5y ago
  > ...knowing that they’re essentially hosting CP images and why this isn’t being cracked down on See "What Colour are your bits?" https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 Essentially this is the "nonsense conclusions" described there, but in inverse. If you're not interested in those images and don't even know specifically how to decode them, then legally you're probably not in possession of them just as I'm not worried about accidentally generating something illegal in some encoding or other by running my random number generator. And nor is any prosecutor going to care.
baybal2 5y ago
Most miners in Almaty are fleeing to Kyrgyzstan now. They have by far more valuables on hand than any bank. One shipping container farm == few megabucks depending on generation of ASIC miner chips.
lostmsu 5y ago
What a weird term 'power' they picked for the value that went down. It is either 'difficulty' or 'total hashrate'.

So this [1] has been going on and is pretty serious. It makes clear the importance of setting up mesh networks. If you're cut off from communication in the midst of something like this, you're helpless. [1] https://thehill.com/policy/international/588318-kazakhstan-government-resigns-as-demonstrators-set-fire-to-capital https://thehill.com/policy/international/588318-kazakhstan-g...

radicaldreamer 5y ago
We need more Starlink-like services which aren't dependent on local physical infra... local mesh networks are not viable without a physical backbone, which can be turned off.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Local mesh networks are way easier to hide than Starlink transmitters. All Russia would have to do is fly one of their AWACS over a city and they could make a list of all the active Starlink transmitters, and get them arrested.
- avmich 5y ago
  You sure know that places like China or Russia strictly forbid Starlink use? How'd you plan to use a service like this if it's considered a major offense by the autocracy?
toss1 5y ago
Mesh networks do sound like a real solution, but we need a substrate that can do long-distance hops. Otherwise, it'd just a bunch of population-center islands of communication. Perhaps this is better than nothing, but with that being the best case, it seems to be the hurdle preventing progress. Otherwise, seems all we've really got is Ham Radio. Suggestions as to what I'm missing here?
- barathr 5y ago
  That's right. The natural way to do this is to do long-haul point to point wireless using commodity hardware. Such backhaul links will be limited to a few Gbps each but that's better than nothing. Building this out further, you could create a network like this: https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10897 https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10897
  - t0mas88 5y ago
    I think the problem isn't technical. Point to point links or satellite fit the requirements. The problem is that it's very dangerous to operate one in a state where the government has turned the internet off to suppress protests.
- rasengan 5y ago
  I think what's important primarily is the inter-island communication first -- the power of the people in communication well exceeds any governmental force. But I agree, to be connected to the world at large, we need to make sure there are satellites, long haul ptp microwave wifi, and other methods connecting the islands. My heart weeps for Kazakhstan, I pray that no more will be harmed.
henning 5y ago
I admire nerds' ability to imagine that every political problem has a purely technical solution. It's a wonderful dream world where the answer to climate change is a hackathon.
- avmich 5y ago
  Sounds like demonstrating a working solution to a problem doesn't convince some people :( .
- DennisP 5y ago
  Who's saying "purely?" Tools help. They don't solve things on their own, but they do help. Oppressive governments also use tools, like surveillance equipment and weapons. Nobody makes snide remarks about their dependence on technical solutions.
A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
This is not a new trend. I no longer even remember who started it ( was it India ?), but these days whenever government in power is seriously challenged, internet communication is the first to go. This just happened to also hit a crypto network.

heyrhett 5y ago

Things are not looking good for Bitcoin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_tcg9kOfkg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_tcg9kOfkg

purplesnowflake 5y ago

nalrey 5y ago
While Kazakh people are generally tolerant to Borat jokes, the timing of this one is most inappropriate. In case you do knot know, there is a civil unrest in Kazakhstan, many people are killed, and many more are missing. I urge users of this website to be civil and stay away from any demeaning jokes, at least for now. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/asia/kazakhstan-fuel-protests-thursday-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/asia/kazakhstan-fuel-protests... https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/06/world/kazakhstan-protests https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/06/world/kazakhstan-pro...
rchaud 5y ago
Civilians protesting inflation are being shot dead by an authoritarian state, while Russian troops are being deployed to aid said authoritarians. Please don't minimize the gravity of the situation by attempting to connect it to an insulting stereotype that happens to play well with Western audiences.
- foverzar 5y ago
  > Civilians They are no longer civilians if they are armed.

mediocregopher 5y ago

> Kazakhstan's crypto mining farms are mostly powered by ageing coal plants which themselves - along with coal mines and whole towns built around them - are a headache for authorities as they seek to decarbonise the economy. Let's hope they stay shut off then.

nalrey 5y ago
Do you know that internet is down due to civil unrest and many people are reported dead? While I understand your excitement towards Bitcoin's problems, please read up on context why it is happening. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/asia/kazakhstan-fuel-protests-thursday-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/asia/kazakhstan-fuel-protests... https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/06/world/kazakhstan-protests https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/06/world/kazakhstan-pro...
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  The civil unrest was triggered in part by soaring energy prices, in a country where bitcoin mining consumes 8% of total generation capacity.
  - nalrey 5y ago
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      > But why you are using a throwaway account then? I'm not. My account is over a year old with >4500 karma. My username happens to have the word throwaway in it. So what? Your name is green. (Which I'm fine with and don't really care about... but it makes your comment a bit bewildering.)
      - nalrey 5y ago
        I stand corrected regarding your account. The protest have started due to increase in natural gas prices (not the gasoline), but the root cause is not the price but income inequality. In any case, it has no (even not a remote) connection to the bitcoin network and its energy consumption, nor to coal plants. My comment was an urge to stay civil and prevent any rush excitement regarding the Bitcoin's crisis without knowing the whole picture. Specifically to counter the comments of "Let's hope they stay shut off then." PS. Yes my account is green: I have registered today once I saw this discussion, but believe me it is not a throwaway.

bitcoinmonger2 5y ago

If more countries ban crypto mining we can successfully perform a 51% attack and destroy the value of Bitcoin, which should eradicate this useless and wasteful technology forever. Hopefully more countries follow suit and the attack can begin.

exdsq 5y ago
I can't imagine disliking a technology so much I put it as my username and spend my free time writing about how much I hate it on tech forums
- rasengan 5y ago
  There is a concerted effort going on here.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    No. A lot of people just passionately hate bitcoin, for rational reasons. It's not concerted. The government isn't sending people to HN to dissuade you from buying Bitcoin. If the powers that be wanted to shut down bitcoin, all they'd have to do is come together, agree to seize all mining equipment, and do a 51% attack together to fill the Blockchain with trash. Maybe also run some stings on BTC exchanges. They don't need to convince you not to use it.
    - exdsq 5y ago
      "All they'd have to do is come together, agree to seize all mining equipment, and do a 51% attack together" Think this through for a bit. Governments have holdings in bitcoin. Financial institutions have holdings in bitcoin. Citizens have significant percentages of their savings in bitcoin. Bitcoin is available in various financial instruments now, so this would have knock-on effects in the wider market. A large percentage of crypto hash rate is from unknown parties or distributed on regular computers/phones/botnets, so the governments would have to invest money into mining equipment to run this 51% attack that would end up being totally dead money after the attack. You'd have lobbying from huge money sources to stop this happening. You'd have governments looking to take advantage of this. You'd be trying to destroy the legal tender of some countries which I believe is illegal under international law. By increasing the hash rate you'd be increasing the price of the coin and incentivizing people to defend against it. And, if it all happened, people could do what happened to Ethereum and simply fork Bitcoin from the point of the attack. No more mining equipment? Run PoS.

rubatuga 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

r721 5y ago

>Internet Traffic in Kazakhstan (Last 7 Days) https://radar.cloudflare.com/kz?date_filter=last_7_days https://radar.cloudflare.com/kz?date_filter=last_7_days

dutchbrit 5y ago

Looking at the Bitcoin hash rate, it doesn’t look that extreme: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate What am I missing? Even of the whole of Kazakhstan stopped mining, and I hope they do, it wouldn’t kill Bitcoin. The difficulty will adjust but more miners will jump in as the difficulty goes down making it more affordable for others, fueled by greed unfortunately… On another note, I’ve always wondered how so many people are running full nodes, knowing that they’re essentially hosting CP images and why this isn’t being cracked down on: https://internetofbusiness.com/bitcoin-blockchain-contains-illegal-porn-say-researchers/amp/ https://internetofbusiness.com/bitcoin-blockchain-contains-i...

exdsq 5y ago
Nothing - it just won't have reached the front page if the headline was "Bitcoin hash rate is reduced by 1%" or whatever
jtbayly 5y ago
I don't see Jan 5 data on that site yet. What am I missing?
- jtbayly 5y ago
  But now that the data from the 5th is there, I’m not seeing a drop. Perhaps it will show up on the 6th? Or the article was wrong? Or this website’s estimates off hash power are wrong?
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  You're not missing anything.
rlpb 5y ago
> ...knowing that they’re essentially hosting CP images and why this isn’t being cracked down on See "What Colour are your bits?" https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 Essentially this is the "nonsense conclusions" described there, but in inverse. If you're not interested in those images and don't even know specifically how to decode them, then legally you're probably not in possession of them just as I'm not worried about accidentally generating something illegal in some encoding or other by running my random number generator. And nor is any prosecutor going to care.

baybal2 5y ago

Most miners in Almaty are fleeing to Kyrgyzstan now. They have by far more valuables on hand than any bank. One shipping container farm == few megabucks depending on generation of ASIC miner chips.

lostmsu 5y ago

What a weird term 'power' they picked for the value that went down. It is either 'difficulty' or 'total hashrate'.