Bitcoin Forum

Three Chinese pools contribute 67% of the global hashrate. What would happen to the main chain if China went "offline"? They would continue inside of China the rest of the world would work off another chain. And then if/when China came back online all of their work would get squashed based on the majority of nodes being outside of China.

And any reason why so few nodes in China? Or is it just skewed based on those three large mining farms?

Thats Interesting.  Never really thought about that.   I would say you are probably correct on the results.

They would 51% the network when they came back online, invalidating the fork the rest of the world was working on.

Nothing.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img923/1885/IsyW4z.jpg

It's the nature of Bitcoin network ... if you Nuke Russia, China and Japan ... Bitcoin survive in the New-Zealand computer of a small student with a 333MH/s key.

Yes, Bitcoin would continue if you nuked their hash out of existence.  However, the second part of OP's question asked what would happen when they came back online (assuming of course they weren't really nuked, but just were no longer connected to the rest of the Bitcoin network).  They would mine their chain, rest of the world would mine its chain.  When the connection between the two was restored, it would be the 51% attack as -ck answered.

Actress Salma Hayek?

Assuming (unless you know for sure already) that the majority of the contributors to those Chinese pools are also within China and not people elsewhere in the world contributing significantly to them.

So the only thing that is stopping Antpool, F2Pool, and BTCC from combining forces (or being combined by the state) is the incentive to protect the integrity of bitcoin (the price of a BTC), their investment. Bitcoin truly is the "digital gold".

Say the Chinese gov is the funding for these pools now. And they have unloaded tons of US treasuries in the past few years. This is so interesting for China to have control of the first global currency. Is this what is going on or am I just channeling my best Jerry Fletcher.

I was under the impression it was huge farms out in rural areas in China producing all that heat. No?

There are definitely some huge mines in China, I just wonder how much of their current hash is in house and whether that amount would be >= 51% the total hashing outside given that the numbers we often see at pools include worldwide contributors.

In China electricity is so sheep that i can assume that only China has best chance for survival difficulty risings.
This is why you must rephrase the question, what will happen if China became supreme leader in mining of BTC..?
This also can be said and for alts also.

yet it needs another rephrasing..   To think that they arent going to squash us all like bugs is naive,  This was all part of the plan.  And if all transactions are processed within china and their is only 21 mil btc really only 19.5 since we all assume satoshi wont dump ::)  But anyway assuming that then eventually through simple mathematics and the transactions fees china will end up with all btc in existence. (remember btc is supposed to subsidise the miners with the trans fees as the halvings progress!  yes it will take many many years but will happen!!!. Mining has to be decentralized or it breaks all the rest of the fundamentals that make btc great to so many..Personally I feel to support another monetary system shows man has so much more to learn..  History sadly will repeat itself again.. It takes the majority to learn some lessons in life for them to see it through to future generations. But it seems only the minority really see the world for what it is.  In the world we live in today the bad outweighs the good.. Our yin is no longer proportional to the yang so to speak


Best Regards
Doug

Edit.. I shouldn't say good and bad people.. Their are no good and bad people.. We are a cause and effect mechanism.. We only react to the environment in which we are brought up in.. IN other words we don't know any better unless we are educated.. Ask why and don't ever settle for it's just because its the way it is.. Its the way it is because of some man that i can assure you.. think about it!

How can mining be decentralised it is associated with price of mining and electricity, and if you can get cheap electricity, you will get more BTCs this can be changed in future. And most of btc will hold investors who are willing to buy them no matter where they live in China or Europe.
If Satoshi wakes up i doubt he will kill his child.

So basically everyone in the US that points there miners to a Chinese pool is basically screwing themselves and the whole BTC community outside of China.

Well I know where 5% of them can point their miners if they want :)
... and I've stated many times that my pool target is 10% and no more.

I don't see how it this bad?
Bitcoin have nothing with this. You can mine it or buy it.
Only if you don't like China economic growth supported with this mining farms (but this is insignificant at the global level). Bitcoin is good because you really don't need to know who was previous owner and where is mined, this is point!

If you do not see how it is bad, then you do not understand the importance in miner incentive and the model of decentralization. If three pools are responsible for 75% of mining hash, to me, this is centralizing the control of incentive for mining. The simple fact that companies like BitMain (Chinese) are making the software in their antmining products read-only is also sketchy. You buy hardware that remains in control of the largest mining pool? You cannot change default ssh passwords? Pretty sketchy.

Decentralization is termin related for bitcoin not for mining.
Bigger question is distribution, and it is not so good. Decentralization is guaranteed because no one controlling bitcoin as one entity such as banks or government, and this is accomplished using wallets, and transaction through blockchain..

You missed my point. I am saying that the centralization of mining is on course to be a major problem. If for some reason China went offline - this would be a major threat to bitcoin based on the centralization to mining coming out of China. What is the impact on Chinese mining perception towards an increase in block size given the government limitation on throughput?

I guess we would find out how many Non-Chinese miners are using Chinese pools  - because they would be forced to relocate. And this is a pretty interesting exercise.

If you really want to go at it.

Partner someone whos in the factory business and negotiate a deal that can off-set the electricity cost with their business and use half the side of the ware house into mining.

Ship all the mining gear you get here at a bargain and hope to god there is a return since the main element of cost is gone.

After that hiring managers, etc. Re-create another brand standing for U.S within in China lol.

I think Satoshi  showed incredible political insight to when  he wrote “A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”.   He points out “Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes.  The cost of mediating increases transaction costs”... These “costs” create work for predominately western institutions, arguably skewing global redistribution of wealth per head of capita.

The Chinese miners will not go off line.  They have a different ethos.  Plus “The Party” (government) protect them.  We need to remember ¾ of the worlds population are  Chinese.  It is very good for global redistribution of wealth per head of capita that ¾ of the distribution of the bitcoin network is Chinese based.

Some say it is wrong that they have such big mining operations but they are a collectivist society.  They pool their work.  Historically, agriculture was scaled up by the collective farming model in both Russia and China.  Depending how you were raised is how you will interoperate this, (cultural relativism).  If you were raised in the US you may see this as “Communism”.  If you were raised in Israel, you may compare this to the “kibbutz”. 

This “collectivist” approach gives the Chinese some security as they are all “on side” however, our western individualist approach is somewhat more vulnerable as our governments and financial institutions are "on their own sides” competing against us.  Nothing to stop JPMorgan, Lloyds, etc starting their own Blockchain and in cahoots with governments, outlaw bitcoin.
If you ask me.... the western (German and US) proportion of the network is more likely to go “off-line” than the Chinese proportion because of this.

Absolutely a great way to look at it .. Opened my eyes a bit.
Thanks for that

Best Regards
Doug

greenuser, arguing against yourself makes no sense :)

Peer-2-peer is exactly that ... individual, not collectivist.

Centralised pools, like my own as well of course, are not the design of bitcoin.
They represent a large point of control of bitcoin and thus a risk of simplifying an attack on bitcoin by interfering with a (very) small target.

Currently almost 60% of bitcoin is effectively controlled by 2 people.
That is not at all in line with a “A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” design.

If USA went off-line, well, then there's the rest of the world still online anyway.
It's not USA vs China, it's a peer-2-peer world wide distributed network, that currently has MAJOR centralisation in 2 people in China.

There are other sizeable pools and miners in China, fortunately not under the control of those 2 people.
There should be more for the safety of Bitcoin.

There is of course the other issue of the GFW ... but that's a whole 'nother discussion :)

--

FYI: this is also one of the reasons why I've stated that my pool has a limit of 10% of the network - even 10% is high, but at least that limit, if it was chosen by other pools also, would mean that the distribution of bitcoin control would mean it would be safer from attacks than it is today.