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I blame Satoshi for choosing the unfortunate word "mining" as the name of the technical process that confirms bitcoin transactions. I feel it is responsible for

by qnr 12y ago

I blame Satoshi for choosing the unfortunate word "mining" as the name of the technical process that confirms bitcoin transactions. I feel it is responsible for a big part of the scammy reputation Bitcoin has today. If only it was called something like "transaction security auditing" or "ledger integrity verification" so that people would take it more seriously for what it really is.

Retr0spectrum 12y ago
I agree. When I first heard of bitcoin mining, I assumed it was some method of cracking the bitcoin security to illegitimately gain bitcoins.
jordigh 12y ago
I call it "accounting". Some day, when bitcoins can no longer be mined, all of the "miners" will just be accountants collecting accounting fees and ensuring the integrity of the blockchain.
thedaveoflife 12y ago
I am not so sure that "transaction security auditing" would be accurate though. That makes it sound like this company is doing something altruistic. The truth is that this facility was created for one simple reason: to earn Bitcoin.
- baddox 12y ago
  I would say it was created for the simple reason of maintaining the security of the blockchain. That's the fundamental idea of Bitcoin: the blockchain is protected in a decntralized manner due to proof of work. The reward is added to incentivize people to help maintain the security of the blockchain.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    So in other words, they're doing it for the reward, with a side effect of maintaining security of the blockchain. I doubt that they're doing it for an idea.
    - baddox 12y ago
      But why is that contradictory, or a problem at all? When I buy a sandwich, I do so primarily because I want the sandwich, but the reason the vendor makes and sells sandwiches isn't to satisfy me, but to make money. Both of us are "selfish" in a sense, but it's not contradictory and not a bad thing.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        Or more directly, when I am dealing with dollars and I hire an auditor to look over my financial records, they're doing it primarily to make money.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        Sure, but the difference is well pointed out by @thedaveoflife. The sandwitch vendor doesn't care about me being not hungry, and they would gladly switch to selling toilet paper to me if it was more profitable to them. Likewise, the miners don't give a damn about blockchain security. They have this black box - put electicity in, get money out. They don't care about what's going on inside. If the black box produced sandwitches, or widgets, or just spun and made sounds that make some millionaire happy, it would make no difference to them, as long as when the electricity flows in, the money comes out. It's the difference between terminal and instrumental values. It's one of the reason why some people are bewildered by what Tesla or SpaceX is doing - because they're missing the point that for Elon rockets and electric cars are terminal values and the money is just instrumental, while most of the companies we interact with have this the other way around.
        dllthomas 12y ago
        But that doesn't change the fact that sandwich makers are making sandwiches and bitcoin miners are securing the block chain. Sandwich makers aren't dollar miners.
        baddox 12y ago
        I still don't see why this is a problem. Even if all the miners don't actually care that they're securing the blockchain, the blockchain still gets secured (assuming there's not a design flaw in Bitcoin, but that's a separate issue).
  - thedaveoflife 12y ago
    A fair point, but also misleading. That's like saying a HFT trader is hoping to provide market liquidity... Really they're trying to make money. The market liquidity (or in this case blockchain verification) is an indirect benefit.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  If I go out and hire (say) tptacek (and the rest of Matasano) to perform a software security audit, aren't they're doing it to earn dollars? When a corporate board hires external financial auditor to look over their records, same thing. I don't see where your inference of altruism comes in.
  - thedaveoflife 12y ago
    The difference is that you are exchanging money for a service between two willing parties. Bitcoin miners don't take anyone else's money in exchange for verifying transactions.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      "Bitcoin miners don't take anyone else's money in exchange for verifying transactions." Yes they do. Your whole point, I thought, was that they're being paid to do it. They presently take a small fraction of value from every bitcoin. They also receive any transaction fees offered by any of the transactions they are processing, but in practice those are presently (almost?) always zero.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    The difference is that tptacek won't claim that he's doing it because he cares about your software; he will say he's doing it to earn money. He will definitely try to do it well to maintain his opinion of a professional, but he won't be pretending he does something altruistic. I'm not saying doing things for money is inherently bad. I'm just saying, let's call things what they are.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      I still don't see where the claim of altruism comes in. We're labelling things for their effects. Matasano secures your software in exchange for dollars. I'm currently making software respond quickly to network events in exchange for dollars. The sandwich vendor makes me a sandwich in exchange for dollars. Calling us all "dollar miners", simply because we're doing it mostly for the dollars, is not really "calling things what they are" - it's a horrendously lossy focus on one particular aspect of "what they are".

by qnr 12y ago

Retr0spectrum 12y ago

I agree. When I first heard of bitcoin mining, I assumed it was some method of cracking the bitcoin security to illegitimately gain bitcoins.

jordigh 12y ago

I call it "accounting". Some day, when bitcoins can no longer be mined, all of the "miners" will just be accountants collecting accounting fees and ensuring the integrity of the blockchain.

thedaveoflife 12y ago

I am not so sure that "transaction security auditing" would be accurate though. That makes it sound like this company is doing something altruistic. The truth is that this facility was created for one simple reason: to earn Bitcoin.

baddox 12y ago
I would say it was created for the simple reason of maintaining the security of the blockchain. That's the fundamental idea of Bitcoin: the blockchain is protected in a decntralized manner due to proof of work. The reward is added to incentivize people to help maintain the security of the blockchain.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  So in other words, they're doing it for the reward, with a side effect of maintaining security of the blockchain. I doubt that they're doing it for an idea.
  - baddox 12y ago
    But why is that contradictory, or a problem at all? When I buy a sandwich, I do so primarily because I want the sandwich, but the reason the vendor makes and sells sandwiches isn't to satisfy me, but to make money. Both of us are "selfish" in a sense, but it's not contradictory and not a bad thing.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Or more directly, when I am dealing with dollars and I hire an auditor to look over my financial records, they're doing it primarily to make money.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      Sure, but the difference is well pointed out by @thedaveoflife. The sandwitch vendor doesn't care about me being not hungry, and they would gladly switch to selling toilet paper to me if it was more profitable to them. Likewise, the miners don't give a damn about blockchain security. They have this black box - put electicity in, get money out. They don't care about what's going on inside. If the black box produced sandwitches, or widgets, or just spun and made sounds that make some millionaire happy, it would make no difference to them, as long as when the electricity flows in, the money comes out. It's the difference between terminal and instrumental values. It's one of the reason why some people are bewildered by what Tesla or SpaceX is doing - because they're missing the point that for Elon rockets and electric cars are terminal values and the money is just instrumental, while most of the companies we interact with have this the other way around.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        But that doesn't change the fact that sandwich makers are making sandwiches and bitcoin miners are securing the block chain. Sandwich makers aren't dollar miners.
      - baddox 12y ago
        I still don't see why this is a problem. Even if all the miners don't actually care that they're securing the blockchain, the blockchain still gets secured (assuming there's not a design flaw in Bitcoin, but that's a separate issue).
- thedaveoflife 12y ago
  A fair point, but also misleading. That's like saying a HFT trader is hoping to provide market liquidity... Really they're trying to make money. The market liquidity (or in this case blockchain verification) is an indirect benefit.
dllthomas 12y ago
If I go out and hire (say) tptacek (and the rest of Matasano) to perform a software security audit, aren't they're doing it to earn dollars? When a corporate board hires external financial auditor to look over their records, same thing. I don't see where your inference of altruism comes in.
- thedaveoflife 12y ago
  The difference is that you are exchanging money for a service between two willing parties. Bitcoin miners don't take anyone else's money in exchange for verifying transactions.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    "Bitcoin miners don't take anyone else's money in exchange for verifying transactions." Yes they do. Your whole point, I thought, was that they're being paid to do it. They presently take a small fraction of value from every bitcoin. They also receive any transaction fees offered by any of the transactions they are processing, but in practice those are presently (almost?) always zero.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  The difference is that tptacek won't claim that he's doing it because he cares about your software; he will say he's doing it to earn money. He will definitely try to do it well to maintain his opinion of a professional, but he won't be pretending he does something altruistic. I'm not saying doing things for money is inherently bad. I'm just saying, let's call things what they are.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    I still don't see where the claim of altruism comes in. We're labelling things for their effects. Matasano secures your software in exchange for dollars. I'm currently making software respond quickly to network events in exchange for dollars. The sandwich vendor makes me a sandwich in exchange for dollars. Calling us all "dollar miners", simply because we're doing it mostly for the dollars, is not really "calling things what they are" - it's a horrendously lossy focus on one particular aspect of "what they are".