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Title: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 21, 2017, 06:03:44 AM A strange idea has occurred to me today
As far as I understand it, if the mining difficulty is too low and there is plenty of hashrate all of a sudden, the mining of new blocks won't be limited to just 6 blocks per hour (on average), right? If so, given the emergence of the mining cartel (controlled by Jihan and Bitmain), they could specifically "invent" Bitcoin Cash to manipulate mining difficulty, and thus mine more blocks on both chains than just 2 times more (more than 2×6=12 blocks). If there is not enough hashrate, say, in Bitcoin Cash (as was the case), the mining difficulty will go down, so the cartel will switch their miners to mining this coin. Then there is not enough hashrate left for Bitcoin, the difficulty readjusts soon thereafter, and miners switch back mining more bitcoins on the original blockchain than before http://s61.radikal.ru/i174/1708/60/a3e09cfc53d5.jpg Then rinse, repeat Title: Re: Manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: Herbert2020 on August 21, 2017, 06:18:10 AM difficulty readjusted takes time (at least for bitcoin it does take time). and that time is about 2 weeks and for 2016 blocks not 1 hour. and i believe this means if they switch to bitcoin cash all of a sudden and mine a lot of blocks they have to wait for at least 2 weeks before coming back to bitcoin to be able to mine more blocks on a reduced difficulty.
and doing things like that will cause a lot of harm to both chains and price will not be kind to these kinds of action, it will drop and they will lose a lot of money because of it. Title: Re: Manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 21, 2017, 06:23:08 AM difficulty readjusted takes time (at least for bitcoin it does take time). and that time is about 2 weeks and for 2016 blocks not 1 hour. and i believe this means if they switch to bitcoin cash all of a sudden and mine a lot of blocks they have to wait for at least 2 weeks before coming back to bitcoin to be able to mine more blocks on a reduced difficulty. and doing things like that will cause a lot of harm to both chains and price will not be kind to these kinds of action, it will drop and they will lose a lot of money because of it. 2 weeks is not that long And I said nothing about difficulty readjusting in an hour. Where did you get that? Further, just like overfilling mempool acted toward higher fees, the low hashrate will decrease the number of blocks found on the "abandoned" blockchain that would inevitably lead to higher fees as well (which is what miners are always looking for, no matter what). Did fees going to the moon hurt prices in the past? I guess no, so why should this manipulation cause "a lot of harm to both chains and price"? Bitcoin Cash surged yesterday, just about time miners massively started mining it. Just in case, I don't claim anything up to the point of being certain about that, these are just my thoughts Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: Carlsen on August 21, 2017, 06:29:45 AM I think that would be a risky strategy.
Minng in bitcoin cash for two weeks would bring you lot of bitcoin cahs. But bitcoin cash is even way more volatile than bitcoin at the moment. Yo can not predict at what price you will be able to sell it. And after those two weeks you have an incredibly high difficulty there. When you go back, the transactions of bitcoin cash would be really slow. That would drag down the price of BCH. I think you could play that game maybe twice, but after that all trust in BCH would be lost. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: audaciousbeing on August 21, 2017, 06:30:07 AM I have read a lot of things about how the miners have done one bad thing or the other. To the manipulation of fees to the launching of bitcoin cash and now manipulating mining difficulty. In as much as I not speaking for them, be we also need to acknowledge some of the good things they have done for bitcoin because they made it available and even made our transactions possible. They also held to the faith long before some of use even find our way here. But my thinking is that if they could have so much control then Satoshi should have curtail that at the beginning.
Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: Pursuer on August 21, 2017, 07:20:01 AM Bitcoin Cash surged yesterday, just about time miners massively started mining it. not much about the hashrate and how many miners are mining bitcoin cash has changed as far as I can tell. it was just a bitcoin-cash-specific difficulty adjustment that happened to reduce the difficulty A LOT to help with the very low hashrate and production of blocks. the price is just a pump because they hyped it a lot by a lot of different news like the 8 MB block, being more profitable, and crap like that. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: DooMAD on August 21, 2017, 07:36:48 AM The miners could theoretically employ such a strategy with any other coin, so it seems unlikely they would create a new coin just for that purpose. The entire notion also relies on the flimsy (and decidedly cliche by this point) premise that there is indeed a cartel and that one person is supposedly calling all the shots and organising all of this. It's all a bit tin-foil-hat for my tastes. A sudden jump in hashrate can be explained innocuously. If you were a fairly large-scale miner, when it's time to upgrade, would you purchase one or two new pieces of hardware? Or, would it make more sense to buy in bulk and see proportionally larger gains for your investment?
It doesn't always have to be a conspiracy theory. Unless you're that bored you need to invent these far-flung fantasies just to give your brain something to do. That would make far more rational sense than anything you've come up with lately. ::) Still, if you're adamant you're on to something, maybe gather some facts and figures and attempt to prove it for once. You know, rather than just constantly speculating and stirring the pot? Evidence would be far more compelling that just blowing smoke like usual. Or is that all you're good for? Throwing enough mud in the hope it sticks? Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 21, 2017, 08:02:33 AM Still, if you're adamant you're on to something, maybe gather some facts and figures and attempt to prove it for once. You know, rather than just constantly speculating and stirring the pot? Evidence would be far more compelling that just blowing smoke like usual. Or is that all you're good for? Throwing enough mud in the hope it sticks? What about "reducing the difficulty A LOT to help with the very low hashrate and production of blocks"? Would that count as a firmly established fact (sort of proof) or what? Otherwise, what is the purpose of your post? The best part of it you seem to be talking and insinuating about myself specifically (that's nice of course, but that's certainly not what this topic is about). So the miners lowered the difficulty as they saw appropriate, and then a lot of hashrate got instantly poured into Bitcoin Cash (by far exceeding the current difficulty with dozens of blocks being mined hourly). Ironically, it coincided with the massive surge in the price of this coin, which set a perfect playground for earning hefty profits. Not bad, by any means. It might be a one-shot event, indeed, but what prevents miners from manipulating the difficulty again, at least with Bcash (and likely in some other way)? Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 21, 2017, 08:30:23 AM Well, it seems that my idea has more substance behind it than I myself first thought. Some dude above went rather verbose about me actually providing some proofs at last. Now it's time to look more closely into the matter (http://fork.lol/pow/hashrate) (I think that should pass as a proof). As always, everyone is to think for themselves and draw conclusions on their own. And I am eager to hear the opinion of that (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2107154.msg21060807#msg21060807) dude too
Hashrate chart http://s56.radikal.ru/i154/1708/2f/c6dfc925efc5.jpg Difficulty chart http://s019.radikal.ru/i620/1708/81/9782551a77eb.jpg Speed chart http://s018.radikal.ru/i528/1708/76/eeed5d363a23.jpg Difficulty adjustment chart http://s018.radikal.ru/i505/1708/43/c3aefd7729b2.jpg The last two charts seem to be particularly interesting. First, note that at the speed chart the hashrate divided by difficulty went below 1 for regular Bitcoin. In simple terms, it pretty much means lack of hashing power for the given difficulty. Second, note that the next difficulty adjustment will happen in just 2 days (I would say the cartel has timed their actions perfectly), and, ironically, the mining difficulty of Bitcoin is going down as I speculated in the opening post. Since miners mining both regular Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are essentially the same miners, the hashpower they have has to be split between the two coins, and thus with Bitcoin Cash they invented a nice tool to manipulate the difficulty by moving the hashrate power from one coin to the other when the right time comes (and earn handsomely at that) Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: Pursuer on August 21, 2017, 09:03:27 AM this is relative hashrate chart not hashrate chart.
for example this means something like this: btc hashrate: 5000 : 98.03% bcc hashrate: 100 : 1.96% then after a week: btc hashrate: 5000 : 83.33% bcc hashrate: 1000 : 16.66% arbitrary numbers but that is practically what the chart shows. nothing about bitcoin has changed so far. the blocks are being mined at the same rate. or at least if anything has changed it is not yet noticeable. on the other hand it seems like many have been waiting for this difficulty adjustment of BCC (as I have also suspected some time ago) and as it was lowered a lot, they rushed to mine it. currently in the past 1 hour there has been about 66 blocks mined. 105 in 2 hours 129 in 3 hours but this still doesn't prove anything from bitcoin is taken to dedicate to bitcoin cash. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: minime on August 21, 2017, 09:10:08 AM see nothing wrong, miners could even stop mining at all for some time to force a sharp drop down of diff its just capitalism
Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 21, 2017, 09:15:05 AM this is relative hashrate chart not hashrate chart. for example this means something like this: btc hashrate: 5000 : 98.03% bcc hashrate: 100 : 1.96% then after a week: btc hashrate: 5000 : 83.33% bcc hashrate: 1000 : 16.66% arbitrary numbers but that is practically what the chart shows You seem to miss the whole idea behind these numbers Which I mentioned in my post but which you kinda ignored. These are not arbitrary numbers since they show the distribution of available hash power between the two coins, i.e. they should necessarily amount to 100% in total. In this case, they reveal that more and more miners stop mining Bitcoin (i.e. take some part of their hashrate from mining Bitcoin) and start mining Bitcoin Cash (i.e. move more their hashing power to this coin), you can easily see that at the Speed chart. But these are the same miners and the same hash power which is just being redistributed, so the absolute value of it is irrelevant (if that was your point) but this still doesn't prove anything from bitcoin is taken to dedicate to bitcoin cash. So you choose to ignore the facts, okay then Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: Argon2 on August 21, 2017, 09:28:09 AM Jihan has ZERO control over Bitmain/AntPool. He is nothing but a co-founder and loudmouth. You are an idiot if you think he can move a single PH/s away and not get busted. *some* AntPool miners mine BCH but Bitmain mines NONE. Educate yourself or stay ignorant...
Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 21, 2017, 09:36:36 AM Jihan has ZERO control over Bitmain/AntPool. He is nothing but a co-founder and loudmouth. You are an idiot if you think he can move a single PH/s away and not get busted. *some* AntPool miners mine BCH but Bitmain mines NONE. Educate yourself or stay ignorant... I'd rather say that it is you who is a loudmouth At first you claim that Jihan has zero, even ZERO control over Bitmain as well as AntPool, and right in the next sentence you proceed to claim that he is a co-founder. As I understand it, you can't have it both ways, i.e. to be one of the founders and have no control over what you co-founded. Further, Bitmain itself can't mine anything since they are a company producing mining equipment, not using it to mine bitcoins on their own Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: minime on August 21, 2017, 09:39:23 AM this is relative hashrate chart not hashrate chart. for example this means something like this: btc hashrate: 5000 : 98.03% bcc hashrate: 100 : 1.96% then after a week: btc hashrate: 5000 : 83.33% bcc hashrate: 1000 : 16.66% arbitrary numbers but that is practically what the chart shows You seem to miss the whole idea behind these numbers Which I mentioned in my post but which you kinda ignored. These are not arbitrary numbers since they show the distribution of available hash power between the two coins, i.e. they should necessarily amount to 100% in total. In this case, they reveal that more and more miners stop mining Bitcoin (i.e. take some part of their hashrate from mining Bitcoin) and start mining Bitcoin Cash (i.e. move more their hashing power to this coin), you can easily see that at the Speed chart. But these are the same miners and the same hash power which is just being redistributed, so the absolute value of it is irrelevant (if that was your point) but this still doesn't prove anything from bitcoin is taken to dedicate to bitcoin cash. So you choose to ignore the facts, okay then Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: Argon2 on August 21, 2017, 09:40:23 AM Jihan has ZERO control over Bitmain/AntPool. He is nothing but a co-founder and loudmouth. You are an idiot if you think he can move a single PH/s away and not get busted. *some* AntPool miners mine BCH but Bitmain mines NONE. Educate yourself or stay ignorant... I'd rather say that it is you who is a loudmouth At first you claim that Jihan has zero, even ZERO control over Bitmain and AntPool and in the next sentence you proceed to claim that he is a co-founder. As I understand it, it doesn't go well together, i.e. being one of the founders and having no control over what you co-founded. Further, Bitmain itself can't mine anything since they are a company producing mining equipment, not using it to mine bitcoins Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 21, 2017, 09:49:58 AM Jihan has ZERO control over Bitmain/AntPool. He is nothing but a co-founder and loudmouth. You are an idiot if you think he can move a single PH/s away and not get busted. *some* AntPool miners mine BCH but Bitmain mines NONE. Educate yourself or stay ignorant... I'd rather say that it is you who is a loudmouth At first you claim that Jihan has zero, even ZERO control over Bitmain and AntPool and in the next sentence you proceed to claim that he is a co-founder. As I understand it, it doesn't go well together, i.e. being one of the founders and having no control over what you co-founded. Further, Bitmain itself can't mine anything since they are a company producing mining equipment, not using it to mine bitcoins That's hilarious I guess you may want to tell us more about Bitmain investors. Who are they, the top members of the CPC? Regarding co-founding and control, Bill Gates was one of Microsoft founders (along with Paul Allen), and Microsoft is a public company at that (and has been that since 1981). Now try to tell anyone that Gates has (had) no control over Microsoft (when he was there). But ultimately this is irrelevant since this topic is not about Jihan or any other single individual. So if you have nothing to say on topic, stick your tongue in your ass and shut the fuck up you are Legendary member and you do not understand the network??? naybe you should realise bitcoin/ Bitcoin Network is owned by its miner u should stop complaining You may learn to write first Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 22, 2017, 07:43:37 AM Some dudes above asked for an absolute Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash hashrate chart. Here it is:
http://s015.radikal.ru/i332/1708/c8/a2cd03006189.jpg I'm also utterly curious if there is still anyone who is gonna claim that "this still doesn't prove anything from bitcoin is taken to dedicate to bitcoin cash". As the saying goes, seeing is believing, so I wanna hear from them, what they are gonna say now. It kinda looks like we are not very far from Bitcoin Cash hashrate taking over Bitcoin's, but this is certainly not what the cartel is looking for. They are looking for profits, as always, and today that means manipulating mining difficulty via moving hashrate around. Get ready for more to come! Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: Krimster on August 22, 2017, 08:20:56 AM All this just proves that two major coins coexisting with the same, dedicated ASICS where hundreds of millions have been invested are a recipe for trouble. This situation is not stable in the long term, but I have no idea of how it will all end.
Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: Ev0P1l0t on August 22, 2017, 01:40:20 PM thanks for sharing that, i had wondered something similar but did not have enough knowledge to even know were to start to research
Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: hatshepsut93 on August 22, 2017, 02:14:03 PM This works well if mining Bcash is on the same scale of profitability as Bitcoin, which may or may not be the case, if we consider all the money Bitmain spent on pumping in as part of the spendings. Bitmain has to genuinely convince some critical mass of investors that Bcash is worth something, via both media and the market. If the price is high only because Ver and Jihan are buying it from their own pocket, than mining it for them isn't actually more profitable than mining Bitcoin. Also, there's a risk that people haven't sold their airdrop yet will just dump Bcash, I saw some people post here saying they haven't dumped yet because they are worried about their privacy. I guess we need a Bcash mixer.
Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 22, 2017, 02:23:34 PM Things are getting hotter with every hour passing
http://s41.radikal.ru/i091/1708/5e/0ff679aa2d5b.jpg It seems like BCash hashrate is going to surpass the hashrate of regular Bitcoin with only 7 hours remaining till the difficulty adjustment. I don't know what's going to happen when there are more miners (hash power) mining Bitcoin Cash than the regular Bitcoin, but we may well be on the verge of a full scale war between the coins. Let's call it the attack of the clones (even if there is only one clone pretending to be a genuine Bitcoin) Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 24, 2017, 08:00:34 AM Now rinse and repeat part seems to be coming along:
http://s018.radikal.ru/i518/1708/c0/6e045de3d528.jpg The BCash mining difficulty was adjusted (increased) two days ago, so miners expectedly and quite naturally stopped mining this coin and moved their hashpower to mining regular Bitcoin. Then the mining difficulty got conveniently readjusted again (now decreased), and miners started mining BCash all over again. And I'm utterly curious where you are, all the criticasters, who had been ridiculing this idea at first. Why did you put your tongue in your ass now? Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: illyiller on August 24, 2017, 08:15:05 AM The BCash mining difficulty was adjusted (increased) two days ago, so miners expectedly and quite naturally stopped mining this coin and moved their hashpower to mining regular Bitcoin. Then the mining difficulty got conveniently readjusted again (now decreased), and miners started mining BCash all over again. I'm utterly curious where you are, all the criticasters, who had been ridiculing this idea at first. Why did you put your tongue in your ass now? We'll see if the hash rate floods back to BCH now. It looks like you were right. What do you think the long term effects of this manipulation will be? I suppose it keeps BCH viable (as long as there is enough price support on exchanges, and in theory, Bitmain and Roger Ver could handle that). It also increases network congestion on the BTC chain, since overall hash rate is dropping (increasing average block generation time). Combined with spam attacks on the BTC chain, this could help the BCH narrative. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 24, 2017, 09:12:53 AM The BCash mining difficulty was adjusted (increased) two days ago, so miners expectedly and quite naturally stopped mining this coin and moved their hashpower to mining regular Bitcoin. Then the mining difficulty got conveniently readjusted again (now decreased), and miners started mining BCash all over again. I'm utterly curious where you are, all the criticasters, who had been ridiculing this idea at first. Why did you put your tongue in your ass now? We'll see if the hash rate floods back to BCH now. It looks like you were right. What do you think the long term effects of this manipulation will be? In fact, it looks like we are already seeing the effects of this manipulation The price of Litecoin surged over 15% within the last 24 hours (now it retracted a little but is still well over 50 dollars per coin). This is an obvious and immediate effect of people losing trust in Bitcoin (in any Bitcoin, for that matter). If this kind of manipulation is set to continue or even become worse, people will be leaving Bitcoin in favor of other coins. So don't get surprised if you wake up one morning and see the Litecoin price over 100 dollars per piece Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: DooMAD on August 24, 2017, 09:16:37 AM Now rinse and repeat part seems to be coming along: http://s018.radikal.ru/i518/1708/c0/6e045de3d528.jpg The BCash mining difficulty was adjusted (increased) two days ago, so miners expectedly and quite naturally stopped mining this coin and moved their hashpower to mining regular Bitcoin. Then the mining difficulty got conveniently readjusted again (now decreased), and miners started mining BCash all over again. I'm utterly curious where you are, all the criticasters, who had been ridiculing this idea at first. Why did you put your tongue in your ass now? If one is to believe the narrative, then it's conceivable you might interpret collusion. But in the interests of balance (and common sense), would the more rational conclusion not be that it was simply a matter of the miners naturally following whatever was most profitable at any given time? Or even playing the long-term angle and accumulating some block rewards now for something they calculate might increase in value in future? http://www.wearedecentralised.co.uk/incentives.png Sure, there will probably be some bumps in the road because of this, but it's all part of demand and price discovery in a free and open market. I can see how conspiracies and the possibilities of potentially shady motives might seem more stimulating than boring market stuff, though. Keep up the entertaining drama and watching from the sidelines. If it keeps you distracted from having any real influence, it can only be a good thing. ::) Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 24, 2017, 09:24:06 AM I can see how conspiracies and the possibilities of potentially shady motives might seem more stimulating than boring market stuff, though. Keep up the entertaining drama and watching from the sidelines. If it keeps you distracted from having any real influence, it can only be a good thing Which conspiracy are you talking about? Would creation of Bitcoin Cash count as one, a conspiracy of sorts? Indeed, miners are mining for profits, but that's what I've been always telling at every corner, so what's your point? I've always been telling as well that we should look at what miners (especially those miners who have a "controlling stake" in Bitcoin mining) do, not what they say or pretend to do. As an aside, I find it massively disingenuous that you first say that "it is conceivable you might interpret collusion", and then proceed as if I actually claimed conspiracy here. We see the effect and result, that's what counts in the end, and that's what I'm mostly talking about. The conspiracy part (if any) is there for fun only ("the cartel") Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: matuson on August 24, 2017, 09:25:46 AM The BCash mining difficulty was adjusted (increased) two days ago, so miners expectedly and quite naturally stopped mining this coin and moved their hashpower to mining regular Bitcoin. Then the mining difficulty got conveniently readjusted again (now decreased), and miners started mining BCash all over again. I'm utterly curious where you are, all the criticasters, who had been ridiculing this idea at first. Why did you put your tongue in your ass now? We'll see if the hash rate floods back to BCH now. It looks like you were right. What do you think the long term effects of this manipulation will be? In fact, it looks like we are already seeing the effects of this manipulation The price of Litecoin surged over 15% within the last 24 hours (now it retracted a little but is still well over 50 dollars per coin). This is an obvious and immediate effect of people losing trust in Bitcoin (in any Bitcoin, for that matter). If this kind of manipulation is set to continue or even become worse, people will be leaving Bitcoin in favor of other coins. So don't get surprised if you wake up one morning and see the Litecoin price over 100 dollars per piece Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 24, 2017, 09:31:13 AM The BCash mining difficulty was adjusted (increased) two days ago, so miners expectedly and quite naturally stopped mining this coin and moved their hashpower to mining regular Bitcoin. Then the mining difficulty got conveniently readjusted again (now decreased), and miners started mining BCash all over again. I'm utterly curious where you are, all the criticasters, who had been ridiculing this idea at first. Why did you put your tongue in your ass now? We'll see if the hash rate floods back to BCH now. It looks like you were right. What do you think the long term effects of this manipulation will be? In fact, it looks like we are already seeing the effects of this manipulation The price of Litecoin surged over 15% within the last 24 hours (now it retracted a little but is still well over 50 dollars per coin). This is an obvious and immediate effect of people losing trust in Bitcoin (in any Bitcoin, for that matter). If this kind of manipulation is set to continue or even become worse, people will be leaving Bitcoin in favor of other coins. So don't get surprised if you wake up one morning and see the Litecoin price over 100 dollars per piece What do you disagree with specifically? You don't believe that Litecoin surged during the last 24 hours while it was pretty stagnant (in dollar terms) for the last month or so? If you don't believe me, Google is your friend. Anyway, this is a matter which is still in progress, and I'm just thinking (you can read that as speculating, if you please) what effect this kind of manipulation could potentially lead to in the long term (if it is set to continue). As to me, that would most likely lead to people losing their faith and trust in Bitcoin. But you may choose to disagree, of course Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: DooMAD on August 24, 2017, 09:52:13 AM I can see how conspiracies and the possibilities of potentially shady motives might seem more stimulating than boring market stuff, though. Keep up the entertaining drama and watching from the sidelines. If it keeps you distracted from having any real influence, it can only be a good thing Which conspiracy are you talking about? Well, let's see... the clue might be in the title of your thread. When people speculate over "who shot JFK", "were the moon landings faked" or "who did 9/11", it tends to involve conspiracy. As is the case when you speculate over the existence of a mining cartel manipulating difficulty. Would creation of Bitcoin Cash count as one, a conspiracy of sorts? In your head, evidently. In mine, not so much. That comes down to perspective, I'm afraid. Believe as you want. Indeed, miners are mining for profits, but that's what I've been always telling at every corner, so what's your point? That if they're mining for profit, it means they're not intentionally adjusting the difficulty as your OP alludes to. It's just a natural consequence of them chasing the profit. That means there's a distinct possibility it isn't manipulation at all. and I'm just thinking (you can read that as speculating, if you please) to what effect this kind of manipulation could potentially lead to in the long term (if it is set to continue). As to me, that would most likely lead to people losing their faith and trust in Bitcoin. If there was somehow a way to force the miners into mining what someone thought was best, that would be far more disconcerting than just letting them get on with it and do what they want. My faith and trust in Bitcoin stems from the fact that everyone has just enough individual control that no one is in control overall (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2109675.msg21154668#msg21154668). That includes any miners following any chain they please at any time they please. Bitcoin works best when everyone does whatever the hell they want. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 24, 2017, 01:23:25 PM Indeed, miners are mining for profits, but that's what I've been always telling at every corner, so what's your point? That if they're mining for profit, it means they're not intentionally adjusting the difficulty as your OP alludes to. It's just a natural consequence of them chasing the profit. That means there's a distinct possibility it isn't manipulation at all Oh, wait, I must be missing something here So you say that it is not miners who created Bitcoin Cash which would allow them to earn from switching their hashpower from one coin to the other as soon as the mining difficulty readjusts. I understand (well, somewhat, though I certainly don't agree with that point) when people doubt that it is in fact miners who are spamming the network to fill up the mempool, thus prompting users to pay higher fees. After all, it is not miners who make users pay higher fees, they do it entirely on their own, right? But what about Bitcoin Cash? Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: krishnapramod on August 24, 2017, 05:54:25 PM This extreme difficulty oscillations is damaging both to Bitcoin and BCH itself. Miners gaming on this are just looking at the small picture, short-term profit. If this oscillation goes on for a considerable period of time then it would be claustrophobic, price of either BTC or BCH would drop significantly.
Right now, BCH is just a pump and dump coin, no real usage, no merchant adoption, its value is entirely dependent on speculators and if miners keep gaming on difficulty then an accelerated BCH generation would lead to inflation and in turn dumping. Bitcoin Cash developers are having a discussion on the difficulty drop consensus rule. Quote I think such a faster rate of coin generation is problematic as it would lead to faster halving(less than 2 years), which leads to faster rise of transaction fees. This leads to the very problem for which bitcoin cash was created to solve. Furthermore, faster generation of coins will also lead faster into unexplored lands of comparable transaction fees overcoming block reward incentive. Don't know what they are more concerned about, faster halving with increased transaction fees or increased transaction fee overcoming block reward. Some suggestions put forward by developers are changing the algorithm, removing EDA, small block target. https://github.com/Bitcoin-ABC/bitcoin-abc/issues/75 If this was intentional or not, apart from miners profiting, the whole switching cycle is damaging to both the coins. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: veins11 on August 24, 2017, 06:07:01 PM A strange idea has occurred to me today As far as I understand it, if the mining difficulty is too low and there is plenty of hashrate all of a sudden, the mining of new blocks won't be limited to just 6 blocks per hour (on average), right? If so, given the emergence of the mining cartel (controlled by Jihan and Bitmain), they could specifically "invent" Bitcoin Cash to manipulate mining difficulty, and thus mine more blocks on both chains than just 2 times more (more than 2×6=12 blocks). If there is not enough hashrate, say, in Bitcoin Cash (as was the case), the mining difficulty will go down, so the cartel will switch their miners to mining this coin. Then there is not enough hashrate left for Bitcoin, the difficulty readjusts soon thereafter, and miners switch back mining more bitcoins on the original blockchain than before http://s61.radikal.ru/i174/1708/60/a3e09cfc53d5.jpg Then rinse, repeat For the above two outfits mentioned, they would have to keep a lot of people quiet to pull it off. Conspiracies happen, but I think in this case any conspiracy to control bcc or btc mining, and the output (btc and bcc) would be some of the bigger players in bitcoin (the market movers). Regarding hashrate, dfficulty and blocks mined, it depends on how much is thrown at bcc. If it is extremely competitive, like btc has been, the lower difficulty would not help, as the competition for a block is fierce. So blocks would be 10 minutes or longer regardless of the difficulty, and the biggest would win in most cases. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: darkangel11 on August 24, 2017, 06:30:46 PM I think it's possible and easy to do. I'm fairly certain BCC is being manipulated by its wealthy supporters. They were hoping for it to take some of the bitcoins value after the fork and achieve a ratio close to 70-30, but it failed. BCC had less than 10% of BTC value and soon went down below 5%. We recently saw it gain value again and becoming profitable to mine. Coins like that with not much hash power allocated into it are easy to manipulate.
Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 24, 2017, 07:02:59 PM Regarding hashrate, dfficulty and blocks mined, it depends on how much is thrown at bcc. If it is extremely competitive, like btc has been, the lower difficulty would not help, as the competition for a block is fierce. So blocks would be 10 minutes or longer regardless of the difficulty, and the biggest would win in most cases. I basically agree with you But could anyone imagine just a few months ago that miners are going to pull off this trick? And they did just that, and now reap profits essentially raising their revenue above and beyond what simple mining rewards and high fees could potentially offer them. So when the profit potential of this trick is finally exhausted, they could come up with something entirely new. Or they could just split Bitcoin once again and create yet another Bitcoin Cash Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: illyiller on August 24, 2017, 10:43:03 PM This extreme difficulty oscillations is damaging both to Bitcoin and BCH itself. Miners gaming on this are just looking at the small picture, short-term profit. If this oscillation goes on for a considerable period of time then it would be claustrophobic, price of either BTC or BCH would drop significantly. We'll see. BTC hash rate dropped considerably, but it's continuing to rebound, with block time back to one every ~10.3 minutes. Meanwhile, BCH is still in a bullish pennant formation and BTC is making new highs as we speak. So, it's really tough to say what will happen. There's a lot of money rushing into this market, so yes, maybe the split is diluting each network's share. But it doesn't seem like the market particularly cares about the dropping hash rate. In theory, that should deplete the value since security is dropping, threatening utility as congestion builds. But again, the market may not care (or maybe the markets just aren't efficient, and late buyers are working off incomplete information). In any case, all of this is unprecedented, so we have to wait and see what will happen. We might all be blind-sided by what happens next. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 25, 2017, 06:02:42 AM But it doesn't seem like the market particularly cares about the dropping hash rate. In theory, that should deplete the value since security is dropping, threatening utility as congestion builds. But again, the market may not care (or maybe the markets just aren't efficient, and late buyers are working off incomplete information). In any case, all of this is unprecedented, so we have to wait and see what will happen. We might all be blind-sided by what happens next That could be envisaged and should have been expected And thus taken care of and exploited to the full. Even if there is no mining cartel, it should have been thought up or invented since it is very handy as we talk about the actions of miners which look very much like a concerted effort even if they are prompted entirely by profit motives (but we still have Bitcoin Cash created specifically by miners). My point is that high fees and slow confirmation times didn't affect Bitcoin prices much (if at all), so the cartel could very well expect that their "manipulation" of mining difficulties won't affect prices much either (at least, in the short term). Thus they could safely deploy "new means" to meet their goals, those of earning more profits Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: illyiller on August 25, 2017, 06:33:36 AM But it doesn't seem like the market particularly cares about the dropping hash rate. In theory, that should deplete the value since security is dropping, threatening utility as congestion builds. But again, the market may not care (or maybe the markets just aren't efficient, and late buyers are working off incomplete information). In any case, all of this is unprecedented, so we have to wait and see what will happen. We might all be blind-sided by what happens next That could be envisaged and should have been expected [...] My point is that high fees and slow confirmation times didn't affect Bitcoin prices much (if at all), so the cartel could very well expect that their "manipulation" of mining difficulties won't affect prices much either (at least, in the short term). Thus they could safely deploy "new means" to meet their goals, those of earning more profits Fair enough, Mr. Prophet. :P What do you think the long term implications will be? Maybe there is so much money (both smart and dumb) flowing into the market that none of this matters in the short term. But in the long term, this seems detrimental to Bitcoin's network effect. Investors need to choose one or the other: cheap Bitcoin with bigger blocks, or expensive Bitcoin with smaller blocks.... That's an oversimplification, but you can see how this might be damaging to Bitcoin's network effect as a whole, right? Maybe the split will be more accurately reflected in the markets when crypto returns to a bear market (whenever that is). Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 25, 2017, 07:36:58 AM But it doesn't seem like the market particularly cares about the dropping hash rate. In theory, that should deplete the value since security is dropping, threatening utility as congestion builds. But again, the market may not care (or maybe the markets just aren't efficient, and late buyers are working off incomplete information). In any case, all of this is unprecedented, so we have to wait and see what will happen. We might all be blind-sided by what happens next That could be envisaged and should have been expected [...] My point is that high fees and slow confirmation times didn't affect Bitcoin prices much (if at all), so the cartel could very well expect that their "manipulation" of mining difficulties won't affect prices much either (at least, in the short term). Thus they could safely deploy "new means" to meet their goals, those of earning more profits Fair enough, Mr. Prophet. :P What do you think the long term implications will be? Maybe there is so much money (both smart and dumb) flowing into the market that none of this matters in the short term. But in the long term, this seems detrimental to Bitcoin's network effect. Investors need to choose one or the other: cheap Bitcoin with bigger blocks, or expensive Bitcoin with smaller blocks As to me, there are more dangerous things awaiting us in the nearest future That is not to say that fiddling with mining difficulty will have no consequences whatsoever (I already mentioned Litecoin surging a dozen %% yesterday), but personally, I'm inclined to think that the coming showdown (again) between the Bitcoin Core team and the NY agreement conspirators in November will quickly overshadow these minor tricks. It could be said that miners are acting flawlessly in their pursuit of profits, and these manipulations will quickly get forgotten once the tensions start to rise again in a month or so Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 27, 2017, 06:20:55 PM And here we go again:
http://s016.radikal.ru/i334/1708/88/ed9aff90ff73.jpg I'm curious if there is still anyone who is doubting that miners are making full use of the opportunity to earn more profits by moving their hashpower to and fro. Note that the BCash hashrate has dropped almost to zero, i.e. virtually no one is mining this coin presently (obviously till the next difficulty adjustment). By the way, people are massively buying up litecoins right now, the price has risen a whopping 20% within mere 12 hours today and continues to rise. It kinda looks folks are not quite happy with the miners' abuse of power and choose just to walk away from Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin, for that matter Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: DooMAD on August 28, 2017, 07:25:30 AM Note that the BCash hashrate has dropped almost to zero, i.e. virtually no one is mining this coin presently (obviously till the next difficulty adjustment). By the way, people are massively buying up litecoins right now, the price has risen a whopping 20% within mere 12 hours today and continues to rise. It kinda looks folks are not quite happy with the miners' abuse of power and choose just to walk away from Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin, for that matter And what's to stop miners from suddenly jumping on Litecoin's chain and doing exactly the same thing there? That's right, nothing. Litecoin was supposed to be ASIC-resistant, but that lasted all of a month, heh. If it's profitable, they'll find a way and start following that chain. Any contrary to the way you paint the picture, that's actually a good thing. So either stop using coins that utilise proof of work entirely, or accept that the hashers are free to come and go as they please. The real way to influence the miners (rather than constantly sniping at them from the forums or other social media) is to create the biggest incentives to secure the chain you ideally wish to be transacting on. Clearly Bitcoin has some competition at the moment, so we have to consider the possibility that maybe we can't just fuck the miners off entirely in order to do what the developers want all the time. It's almost as though we need SegWit and a larger base blocksize to maintain balance, in that each side has to concede a little for everyone to move forward. Then we can forget all about BitcoinCash and miners hopping between chains, because incentives will be correctly aligned. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: pearlmen on August 28, 2017, 07:33:13 AM I am really getting sick and tired of how there are several news about the cartels because the cartels are in business to make money and they will do everything possible to achieve that objective and that's exactly what they are doing but what we can do about it is not to make noise on forums which cannot change anything but ensuring that other massive organisations are influenced to come so as to break the chain of all this domineering factors exhibited by the cartels.
Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 28, 2017, 07:56:07 AM Note that the BCash hashrate has dropped almost to zero, i.e. virtually no one is mining this coin presently (obviously till the next difficulty adjustment). By the way, people are massively buying up litecoins right now, the price has risen a whopping 20% within mere 12 hours today and continues to rise. It kinda looks folks are not quite happy with the miners' abuse of power and choose just to walk away from Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin, for that matter And what's to stop miners from suddenly jumping on Litecoin's chain and doing exactly the same thing there? That's right, nothing. Litecoin was supposed to be ASIC-resistant, but that lasted all of a month, heh. If it's profitable, they'll find a way and start following that chain. Any contrary to the way you paint the picture, that's actually a good thing. So either stop using coins that utilise proof of work entirely, or accept that the hashers are free to come and go as they please Well, somehow I expected you to be smarter than that For that to work out with Litecoin, you would obviously have to create Litecoin Cash (or Litecoin Cheque, or something to that tune). Indeed, some miners could actually go for that, and I don't know what Charlie Lee would say to that but I strongly suspect that the other miners would quickly kill the renegades themselves after he mentions about switching to PoS (note that he can do that any moment so miners are already well-bridled). Regarding your other point (the way to influence the miners), the only real way to bring them back to their senses is to massively switch to the same Litecoin, which people are already doing, anyway. And explaining to them what miners are really up to is just one way to make them think in this direction Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: DooMAD on August 28, 2017, 08:23:16 AM Note that the BCash hashrate has dropped almost to zero, i.e. virtually no one is mining this coin presently (obviously till the next difficulty adjustment). By the way, people are massively buying up litecoins right now, the price has risen a whopping 20% within mere 12 hours today and continues to rise. It kinda looks folks are not quite happy with the miners' abuse of power and choose just to walk away from Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin, for that matter And what's to stop miners from suddenly jumping on Litecoin's chain and doing exactly the same thing there? That's right, nothing. Litecoin was supposed to be ASIC-resistant, but that lasted all of a month, heh. If it's profitable, they'll find a way and start following that chain. Any contrary to the way you paint the picture, that's actually a good thing. So either stop using coins that utilise proof of work entirely, or accept that the hashers are free to come and go as they please Well, somehow I expected you to be smarter than that For that to work out with Litecoin, you would obviously have to create Litecoin Cash (or Litecoin Cheque, or something to that tune). Indeed, some miners could actually go for that, and I don't know what Charlie Lee would say to that but I strongly suspect that the other miners would quickly kill the renegades themselves after he mentions about switching to PoS. Regarding your other point (the way to influence the miners), the only real way to bring them back to their senses is to massively switch to the same Litecoin, which people are already doing, anyway. And explaining to them what miners are really up to is just one way to make them think in this direction //EDIT: I apologise for those remarks and was mistaken. I'm not sure how I managed to forget about Scrypt and other algorithms being separate to SHA256. Though I still I still maintain that forks of Bitcoin aren't necessarily indicative of a miner conspiracy. So a gap in the market was filled by some developers who felt the same way. Now there's some pretty evident volatility in which chain is more profitable at any given time, so there's some corresponding changes in hashrate to go along with that. Volatility doesn't necessarily imply manipulation. Obviously we can't rule out the possibility that there might be some collusion, but I personally think it's doubtful that a single individual or group has leverage over a majority of hashrate. I'm still willing to bet on the notion that this is all just everyone following what's in their own best interests in a free and open market, which is precisely how this was designed to work. So again, it can all be explained entirely innocuously. There doesn't have to be a cartel for this current situation to arise. Nothing provided in this thread so far is definitive proof of anything. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: Krimster on August 28, 2017, 08:37:35 AM You really aren't doing much to alter the perception I have of you that you don't understand how mining works. At any time and for any reason, miners can change the software they are using and point their hashpower at any other proof of work chain. That means, if they saw fit, they could hop between Bitcoin and Litecoin just as easily as they currently hop between Bitcoin and BitcoinCash. or indeed Bitcoin and any other altcoin. That hopping would still result in similar swings in difficulty adjustments (although some altcoins may handle that slightly differently if their adjustments occur more or less quickly) to the ones we're witnessing here. There's no mandatory requirement to fork a coin just to mine an alternate version of it, when you could just as easily choose any other altcoin out there. This line of thinking also potentially negates your theory that the creation of BitcoinCash was some sort of conspiracy or cartel decision and leans more towards the likelihood that I'm suggesting, in that BitcoinCash was simply filling a gap in the market that some developers aren't willing to cater to. To elaborate on that, consider that out of all the thousands of potential altcoins out there, if any other altcoin was profitable and provided a ruleset that the miners found amiable, they could have switched to it. But they didn't. They want to mine Bitcoin, but at the same time, some of them happen not to agree with the direction it's currently heading in. So a gap in the market was filled by some developers who felt the same way. Now there's some pretty evident volatility in which chain is more profitable at any given time, so there's some corresponding changes in hashrate to go along with that. Volatility doesn't necessarily imply manipulation. Obviously we can't rule out the possibility that there might be some collusion, but I personally think it's doubtful that a single individual or group has leverage over a majority of hashrate. I'm still willing to bet on the notion that this is all just everyone following what's in their own best interests in a free and open market, which is precisely how this was designed to work. So again, it can all be explained entirely innocuously. There doesn't have to be a cartel for this current situation to arise. Nothing provided in this thread so far is definitive proof of anything. I can't stop laughing!! A Legendary account telling us that at any time. a miner can point his hashing power to a different PoW, and switch from BTC to LTC (or I guess ETH, XMR etc, for the matter). And the best part of all is that he tells other people that "they don't understand how mining works"!! Honestly, this is simply sublime. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on August 28, 2017, 08:43:31 AM Note that the BCash hashrate has dropped almost to zero, i.e. virtually no one is mining this coin presently (obviously till the next difficulty adjustment). By the way, people are massively buying up litecoins right now, the price has risen a whopping 20% within mere 12 hours today and continues to rise. It kinda looks folks are not quite happy with the miners' abuse of power and choose just to walk away from Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin, for that matter And what's to stop miners from suddenly jumping on Litecoin's chain and doing exactly the same thing there? That's right, nothing. Litecoin was supposed to be ASIC-resistant, but that lasted all of a month, heh. If it's profitable, they'll find a way and start following that chain. Any contrary to the way you paint the picture, that's actually a good thing. So either stop using coins that utilise proof of work entirely, or accept that the hashers are free to come and go as they please Well, somehow I expected you to be smarter than that For that to work out with Litecoin, you would obviously have to create Litecoin Cash (or Litecoin Cheque, or something to that tune). Indeed, some miners could actually go for that, and I don't know what Charlie Lee would say to that but I strongly suspect that the other miners would quickly kill the renegades themselves after he mentions about switching to PoS. Regarding your other point (the way to influence the miners), the only real way to bring them back to their senses is to massively switch to the same Litecoin, which people are already doing, anyway. And explaining to them what miners are really up to is just one way to make them think in this direction You really aren't doing much to alter the perception I have of you that you don't understand how mining works. At any time and for any reason, miners can change the software they are using and point their hashpower at any other proof of work chain. That means, if they saw fit, they could hop between Bitcoin and Litecoin just as easily as they currently hop between Bitcoin and BitcoinCash. or indeed Bitcoin and any other altcoin This doesn't seem to be the case Anyway, you seem to be too obsessed with your perception of me (just in case, I massively don't care) that you fail to make a few reality checks. As far as I know, with Bitcoin Asics you can mine only Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and some other coin (but certainly not Litecoin). And I specifically addressed that issue (even if it were possible to mine Litecoin with Bitcoin mining equipment) since I in fact expected you to come up with something like this. If you failed to get that idea too, I can repeat it again. It would be a one-off event with Charlie Lee most likely turning Litecoin into a PoS coin in less than no time. Right now he seems to be tied by a sort of agreement with miners, but if miners go nuts, he will be no longer tied by it Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: leonair on August 28, 2017, 01:10:49 PM A strange idea has occurred to me today As far as I understand it, if the mining difficulty is too low and there is plenty of hashrate all of a sudden, the mining of new blocks won't be limited to just 6 blocks per hour (on average), right? If so, given the emergence of the mining cartel (controlled by Jihan and Bitmain), they could specifically "invent" Bitcoin Cash to manipulate mining difficulty, and thus mine more blocks on both chains than just 2 times more (more than 2×6=12 blocks). If there is not enough hashrate, say, in Bitcoin Cash (as was the case), the mining difficulty will go down, so the cartel will switch their miners to mining this coin. Then there is not enough hashrate left for Bitcoin, the difficulty readjusts soon thereafter, and miners switch back mining more bitcoins on the original blockchain than before http://s61.radikal.ru/i174/1708/60/a3e09cfc53d5.jpg Then rinse, repeat As for every aspect in life when it comes in profiting to a thing there is always a group that we called cartel and with your thoughts I am very much agree with it because some groups are really doing this kind of doings. But with this being said by you I think the Bitcoin developers will surely already think about it and will find a way to prevent this. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: jaysabi on September 05, 2017, 09:55:29 PM And here we go again: http://s016.radikal.ru/i334/1708/88/ed9aff90ff73.jpg I'm curious if there is still anyone who is doubting that miners are making full use of the opportunity to earn more profits by moving their hashpower to and fro. Note that the BCash hashrate has dropped almost to zero, i.e. virtually no one is mining this coin presently (obviously till the next difficulty adjustment). By the way, people are massively buying up litecoins right now, the price has risen a whopping 20% within mere 12 hours today and continues to rise. It kinda looks folks are not quite happy with the miners' abuse of power and choose just to walk away from Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin, for that matter I certainly concur with your analysis about the purposeful targeting of mining, but I don't think it's intended to be abusive. It's just following the money. When it's more profitable to mine BCash, that's where a sizable group of miners go. When they run the difficulty up to the point where it's more profitable to switch back to Bitcoin, they do. I don't see anything currently that suggests it's intending to be abusive rather than intending to optimize income. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on September 06, 2017, 05:03:52 AM And here we go again: I'm curious if there is still anyone who is doubting that miners are making full use of the opportunity to earn more profits by moving their hashpower to and fro. Note that the BCash hashrate has dropped almost to zero, i.e. virtually no one is mining this coin presently (obviously till the next difficulty adjustment). By the way, people are massively buying up litecoins right now, the price has risen a whopping 20% within mere 12 hours today and continues to rise. It kinda looks folks are not quite happy with the miners' abuse of power and choose just to walk away from Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin, for that matter I certainly concur with your analysis about the purposeful targeting of mining, but I don't think it's intended to be abusive. It's just following the money. When it's more profitable to mine BCash, that's where a sizable group of miners go. When they run the difficulty up to the point where it's more profitable to switch back to Bitcoin, they do. I don't see anything currently that suggests it's intending to be abusive rather than intending to optimize income. Indeed, this is what you would expect from any rational being They are just following the scent of money, there is nothing inherently wrong in that (everybody and his dog do basically the same anyway). But, first, don't forget that it is damaging Bitcoin. That would most certainly mean even slower confirmation times and higher fees. In fact, it means just that, which has already been sort of proven (especially when the whole bunch starts mining the alternative Bitcoin). And, second, recall how and thanks to whom Bitcoin Cash came about Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: jaysabi on September 13, 2017, 05:22:36 PM And here we go again: I'm curious if there is still anyone who is doubting that miners are making full use of the opportunity to earn more profits by moving their hashpower to and fro. Note that the BCash hashrate has dropped almost to zero, i.e. virtually no one is mining this coin presently (obviously till the next difficulty adjustment). By the way, people are massively buying up litecoins right now, the price has risen a whopping 20% within mere 12 hours today and continues to rise. It kinda looks folks are not quite happy with the miners' abuse of power and choose just to walk away from Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin, for that matter I certainly concur with your analysis about the purposeful targeting of mining, but I don't think it's intended to be abusive. It's just following the money. When it's more profitable to mine BCash, that's where a sizable group of miners go. When they run the difficulty up to the point where it's more profitable to switch back to Bitcoin, they do. I don't see anything currently that suggests it's intending to be abusive rather than intending to optimize income. Indeed, this is what you would expect from any rational being They are just following the scent of money, there is nothing inherently wrong in that (everybody and his dog do basically the same anyway). But, first, don't forget that it is damaging Bitcoin. That would most certainly mean even slower confirmation times and higher fees. In fact, it means just that, which has already been sort of proven (especially when the whole bunch starts mining the alternative Bitcoin). And, second, recall how and thanks to whom Bitcoin Cash came about Slower confirmation times are self-regulating, so at most it would be a problem only two weeks in duration before solving itself. Higher fees I'm not sold on as a consequence, as it should also have a self-regulating mechanism to it in that mining difficulty doesn't directly equate to higher fees, only a large queue of unconfirmed transactions competing for limited block space would push transactions fees higher. I certainly don't trust the any mining cartel, whether it be one operating on Bitcoin, BCash or one that switches back and forth, and it has nothing to do with the currency they choose and everything to do with the fact that any sufficiently large group of people become protectionist and use their collective power to their own self-interests. Unless BCash folks are actively sabotaging the Bitcoin network in some fashion, benignly mining on their own chain or attempting to make their own system better doesn't affect Bitcoin much except for potential loss of customers, and that's entirely Bitcoin's own fault. Title: Re: Cartel manipulating mining difficulty? Post by: deisik on September 13, 2017, 05:45:25 PM And here we go again: I'm curious if there is still anyone who is doubting that miners are making full use of the opportunity to earn more profits by moving their hashpower to and fro. Note that the BCash hashrate has dropped almost to zero, i.e. virtually no one is mining this coin presently (obviously till the next difficulty adjustment). By the way, people are massively buying up litecoins right now, the price has risen a whopping 20% within mere 12 hours today and continues to rise. It kinda looks folks are not quite happy with the miners' abuse of power and choose just to walk away from Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin, for that matter I certainly concur with your analysis about the purposeful targeting of mining, but I don't think it's intended to be abusive. It's just following the money. When it's more profitable to mine BCash, that's where a sizable group of miners go. When they run the difficulty up to the point where it's more profitable to switch back to Bitcoin, they do. I don't see anything currently that suggests it's intending to be abusive rather than intending to optimize income. Indeed, this is what you would expect from any rational being They are just following the scent of money, there is nothing inherently wrong in that (everybody and his dog do basically the same anyway). But, first, don't forget that it is damaging Bitcoin. That would most certainly mean even slower confirmation times and higher fees. In fact, it means just that, which has already been sort of proven (especially when the whole bunch starts mining the alternative Bitcoin). And, second, recall how and thanks to whom Bitcoin Cash came about Slower confirmation times are self-regulating, so at most it would be a problem only two weeks in duration before solving itself. Higher fees I'm not sold on as a consequence, as it should also have a self-regulating mechanism to it in that mining difficulty doesn't directly equate to higher fees, only a large queue of unconfirmed transactions competing for limited block space would push transactions fees higher. I certainly don't trust the any mining cartel, whether it be one operating on Bitcoin, BCash or one that switches back and forth, and it has nothing to do with the currency they choose and everything to do with the fact that any sufficiently large group of people become protectionist and use their collective power to their own self-interests. Unless BCash folks are actively sabotaging the Bitcoin network in some fashion, benignly mining on their own chain or attempting to make their own system better doesn't affect Bitcoin much except for potential loss of customers, and that's entirely Bitcoin's own fault You seem to misunderstand the whole shebang First, there are no Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash miners, these are mostly the same miners. Second, they don't spread their hashing power between the two coins as you might think. They either mine the regular Bitcoin (when its difficulty goes down) or mine Bitcoin Cash (when its difficulty has decreased). And while the whole bunch are mining one coin, the other coin is starving in terms of the number of blocks mined. It doesn't matter much for Bitcoin Cash since no one uses it anyway (apart from some speculation, obviously). But this is not so with the original Bitcoin. So when no one mines it (well, almost no one), the new blocks become few and far in between. And this, as you can easily guess, leads to the Bitcoin mempool being filled with unconfirmed transactions. As simple as it gets |
