Bitcoin Forum

The FCC voted today to kill net neutrality which will now allow ISPs to throttle/block any traffic they see fit. I've seen a lot of people speculating that they're doing this to try to quash the rise of cryptocurrencies which they view as a threat to USD. Do you think it's likely that we'll see American-based mining pools and possibly even exchanges throttled? And if so, would that hurt or help mining for Bitcoin and other popular altcoins (ie would the decrease in total miners make the value go down since other miners now receive more, or would the drop in network hash rate result in more difficult mining and thus higher valued coins)?

I kind of doubt it, because there will always be options outside of the big corporate ones (at least in most cities), and I'm not sure that there is a specific movement to squash crytpos; quite frankly, I'd be surprised if they are even on the radar of the current FCC chair, this to me reads more like an attempt to bilk users for more money to use streaming services, and limit access and speeds for small businesses (basically to allow for legal extortion from the ISPs).

If it did, however, you would likely see a temporary decrease in difficulty until all the machines using the US pools found new places to point, and possibly some decline in performance for machines in the US. I think it would probably be like the recent pause in Nicehash services, where mining the individual coins went up for a bit, and the daily profitable coins appear more profitable, because Nicehash's algorithms aren't set to immediately switch to them. In other words, slight changes, but I wouldn't expect, like, LTC to become profitable on GPUs or anything.

EDIT TO ADD: also, a simple majority vote in congress can stop it from going into effect, and I guarantee you that vote will come up (how it turns out, at this point, is anyone's guess).

This is not a bad question at all. Not only is it a quintessential thing to eliminate network neutrality, it is one of the things that will be exploited.
But, what about VPN?

No. First of all the amount of users that connect to mining pools compared to streaming services like Netflix is so minuscule that ISPs don't even know what they are, let alone think about throttling them.
The Net Neutrality repeal won't hurt Bitcoin in any shape or form. Keep in mind that Net Neutrality was introduced in 2015, everything Bitcoin-related was fine before then.

There's very little reason right now for ISPs to go after crypto miners. They generally don't use a whole lot of bandwidth and are not a huge threat to the companies at this point in time. Not much will change, the story about net neutrality has been blown massively out of proportion and exaggerated way too much, though there is truth in many things. Can things change? Yes, but it will probably not be instantaneous.

A lot of good points so far; it's easy to lose perspective when you are immersing yourself in something like crypto mining. It will be interesting to see if any ASIC miners in America report anything though, especially if they get their internet through smaller ISPs that have the time to pay close attention. I understand that it doesn't use a lot of bandwidth but let's be honest this whole ordeal isn't even remotely about anything other than milking every possible cent out of consumers. As soon as they get a whiff of any significant crypto mining profits I will not be surprised to see them go after it.

The death of net neutrality is a good thing.  Keep the government out of it.  We don't need them censoring what content we have access to.  Allow the free market to operate.  Some ISP tries to throttle you or block crypto sites then another ISP will pop up and offer better service.  Free market FTW!!

Net neutrality rules WERE keeping the government out of it. The free market only works where competition is possible; in most places in the US, you have a choice between MAYBE 2-3 huge corporate options. I live in Portland, and even here there are only a couple independent companies which aren't available in all parts of the city. And in many cases the big companies own the lines themselves.

Protecting direct access is actually in the free market's interest. Terminating Title II protections only serves to benefit large corporations in positions of virtual monopoly. It is oligarchic; net neutrality prevented censorship, and removal of those protections encourages it.

if it fully goes in affect, we the users are screwed especially if isp's start block anything crypto related that we regularly use just because they don't like it and with no net neutrality around they will be able to do that freely and we wont be able to do shit about it

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/the-fcc-repealed-net-neutrality-%E2%80%94-heres-what-that-means-for-you/ar-BBGI1K8?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp (https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/the-fcc-repealed-net-neutrality-%E2%80%94-heres-what-that-means-for-you/ar-BBGI1K8?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp)

Everyone should go look up the Second bill rights if you live in the US. a lot of people including me don't know about it or didn't know about, an if FDR had lived a little longer, he would have made law ...

NO the government should have a say when it comes to some stuff and this just happen to be one of them the government was protecting us ...Like health care in the US we need a single payer system which we have and have had sense FDR started it in the 1930's .. but was block some by the Republicans...... but is back or the idea every one in the US should have access to Medicare we pay it but only the disabled and Retired can use it, remember 2018 is coming ....Don't let these Ass holes running things now get you down they won't be much longer..

We vote in the US unlike Russia .. or our votes actually count and they can't kill anyone to win a vote .
Russia may vote but there votes are kill votes so to speak you can be killed if you vote wrong .


So, Don't lose hope this will be over turned ..... it's gonna go though the courts,yet /again, once trump is gone so will all those ass hole who break our Constitution. the head of the FCC expects us to believe him, he worked for Verizon, so we know who his true Loyalty is for and it's not for the People, so hang in there time will tell ...


True but you also have to look at in a Positive way , it may not . it can take months before any thing real happens and after that another 60 days before it all goes full law and a lot can happen.

I watched the Vote on YouTube it was doomed to started with... there was no way it wasn't gonna be repealed,l feel it should have gone though the same shit Obama Care went though, three votes and it's repealed this is a big deal ...

just sayin though, its very possible it could make it through and if it does ohhh man shit bout to get real and fast, not overnight but still

They don't want your money, they want big loot. Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft cloud.... a large part of all web traffic is just for Netflix, ISP's see them making big loot, they want a cut. Besides, I don't know about you, but I pay for a certain amount of speed. Slower plans are available.
Cheers!

I'm not sure i understand what your getting at but BS they don't want our money and it's not just Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft cloud. Like you think , it will be like buying TV channels , if it happens plus paying for the Speed on top of other shit like being blocked or pay for the service being blocked, while the service being blocked is paying to.

Like maybe paying for access to the bitcointalk.org Forums, then well see how you feel, if that's free, i don't know what to say.

It was starting to happen that way before net neutrality was enforced back in 2015 that's why it was done ... back then they took heed and listened to the People .

The whole point of net neutrality was to stop that kind of unfair trade, in this case speed has nothing to do with it . speed is not why we want net neutrality.

It's called Freedom on the WED with out Limits .

And the US Government is suppose to stop this kind law breaking of basic rights, if you live in the US, which I get the feeling you don't .

37% of all web traffic in North America is Netflix. The people who own the backbone want a slice. I pay x$ now for 100mb/s connection. Tomorrow I will still have a 100mb/s connection. Maybe Netflix goes up a buck. I don't think you need to worry. The internet wasn't broke before net neutrality. Net neutrality wasn't around very long. The internet will not be broken when it is gone.

 that % is BS ..an your memory is short lived of how it was back before net neutrality ..so that said : I'm not gonna fight with a troll/bot ....... ...


Cya ...

I suggest you check the % for yourself, using a source that you trust. No need to be uncivil.

You can't possibly say that if you have a clue about what is net neutrality. Or what is means not to have it anymore.

As it was said, it will be like buying TV channels: Basic facebook/wikipedia 10$, gamer pack +20$, Netflix +10$, youporn +5$, extra adds with cheapest package, ... So you will have to pay more for any extra.

BUT, the few big ISP will be able to select what they allow you to see. So no more torrent, of course. But no more freedom of speech, because they will select what news you can read, and block those they don't like. Same for blogs and forums. No more VPN (or maybe on pro package only), no more "anything free", unless they allow it.

In the end, everything that made internet great, will disappear. The few big ISP corporations will control it entirely, and choose for you what you are allow to watch, and/or how much you have to pay to watch it.

I that really what you meant ?

Our data transfers are nothing, we will not be affected in the least bit imo.

I agree with you. But it is not much about the traffic size, or the extra price they will charge, it is about the control ISP have now over the internet. A stupid example:

- with net neutrality:
Government wants to shut bitcoin down? They can't, maybe they will close a few centralized exchanges.

- Without net neutrality:
Government wants to shut bitcoin down? They agree with ISP to block any mining activity, any website relative to bitcoin, any kind of bitcoins exchange, and of course this forum !

Yeah possibility but improbable.  I am actually legit and report everything I make to the goverment.  They are really after the big guys, if thats you and you don't report you better leave the USA.  Coinbase already has to fork over 2013-2015 accounts to the IRS so 2016 is next im sure and then many peeps will start going to jail.

Uncle Sugar could have shut this down a long time ago; laws don’t apply to the Fed. They WANT cryptoa. They want the tax revenue from it. Especially under Trump’s watch. My dad has been a CPA for over 50 years and has seen it all. The Fed just wants their cut. Look at gambling and booze. Just pay them what they want and they’ll go away. That’s where good accounting has value. Write off your equipment, utility, and building rent off for your newly formed small business. With Trump’s biz tax plan you can expect to ride the money train legally. I’m up over $50k over the last year in my 401k account. I expect to experience the same rise during his reign.

Net Neutrality is about as much about it's name as the Patriot Act is about patriotism.

Besides, Obummer stuck a pen in his butt and said that Net Neutrality was important and decreed it to be so.  If you want real Net Neutrality, congress will have to act.

I think it's highly unrealistic to expect the death of net neutrality to foster the growth of smaller ISPs. As it stands, many ISPs already have "monopolies" since so few of them actually choose to compete with each other. There are plenty of areas around where I live where your only choice is either AT&T *or* Charter, not both. These bigger companies often own various construction rights and things to prevent competitors from digging/building the required infrastructure to provide comparable service. Heck, Comcast and Verizon are even fighting legal battles all the time to stop cities from setting up their own municipal broadband. So now they can charge customers even more to fuel their legal/permit battles and make sure no real threats ever rise.
That's completely irrelevant now. No matter what speed you're paying for it will be legal for them to throttle you unless you give them what they want. If they decide they don't like what you're doing, they could even block you completely. That's why I'm a little worried about mining; I know it doesn't use much bandwidth, but our ability to connect to pools and submit shares now depends on the whim of a few huge companies.

I don't think that's true. I have a contract. I pay for a service, they provide it. Throttling done, if any, will be far upstream.

WAT?
Stop watching bullshit TV news.
Nobody gets killed if voted lol
Who told you that?

This thread has gotten pretty funny.

Mining predated Net Neutrality - I don't see it's demise *IF IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS* being a noticeable issue, since mining is low bandwidth.

 I do think Net Neutrality was one of the VERY FEW things the Obama Administration ever did that has some logic to it.


 It is UNCOMMON in the US to only have ONE choice for an ISP - though it IS common for the competition to be between differing TYPES of service, like Cable vs DSL vs Cellular vs Sat (and vs EthernetToThePowerPole in some areas) among other less-common options.

 I can't remember the last time I lived in a place that had only "ONE" choice for an ISP (but I concede I've not lived in a true rural area in the Age of the Internet).

I don't think that mining in America will die. And I'm sure it won't die with net neutrality.
Reasons, a few already mentioned above my comment

Hey some states are taking it to count so it will take some time to go into effect an the FCC can't make it permanent law, only congress can and they don't need trump signing it either, an in 2018 when the people get control back they will make it law that IPS are a Unity if not before. an it's about to go before congress.

I would still worry because of other stuff that could stop it trump might try to pull.

http://theweek.com/speedreads/743904/net-neutrality-fight-about-move-congress

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Friday he intends to force a net neutrality vote under the terms of the Congressional Review Act (CRA). "It's in our power to do that," Schumer said. "Sometimes we don't like [administrative rule changes] but now we can use the CRA to our benefit, and we intend to." Were a net neutrality law passed by Congress, it would be more impervious to repeal than the agency-level policy the FCC rescinded.

they have 83 percent of voters for net neutrality  (including 75 percent of Republicans). and I looked up that % and it was higher. it's depends what poll you look at .
...

I'm not disagreeing with you but read the Constitution with a open mind and heart then look at what trump is doing and what Obama did then it might makes sense the stuff Obama did . o yea look up the second bill of rights FDR would have written into the Constitution if he lived long enough , that explains the Constitution better, that every America can understand and our rights in plan English, what we should not see in the US because of what our Constitution says now but has never been explained in great detail.

Anything done by regulation can be undone the same way. If you want something you have to make it law. It's supposed to be that way. It's good that it's that way. We already have three laws that govern the internet.
1. The Sherman Ant-trust Act. Sure, it's from 1890, but it's still going strong. It's based on the Federal Goverment's Constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. So that thing you were worried about, the throttling people's small buisnesses or forums like this one? That's already illegal.
Ironically, under "net neutrality", regulations could have been promulgated to do the thing you seem to fear the most. However, the regulations were never finalized. Conservatives feared the regulations, which were never made public, would be used to censor their ideas. And smart democrats understood that sometimes the shoe goes on the other foot.

2. The Interstate Commerce Act. This works hand in hand with the Sherman act to allow Congress to keep anybody from getting too much control over any one resource. Google and Amazon really don't like these two laws! Someday it will probably come for them, they spend a lot of lobbying dollars making sure they don't get applied too strictly.

3. The Communications Act of 1934 -Created the FCC and gives them broad powers to regulate freedom of access and much more.

These are the 3 laws currently governing the interwebz. We had 18 consecutive years of exponential growth under them prior to this regulation in 20015. The regulation was never finalized, never implemented, and never used. It never did anything. I'm not sure that you would even miss it if it weren't for all the talking heads crying the sky is falling the world is ending people will die.
Cheer up! Everything is Awesome.

they got paid off by big crop the head of the FCC now used to work for Verizon. weather you agree or not they were throttling speeds back then, i remember it happening , Comcast was limiting what you could use without reasonable limit .and shutting you down if you watched to many moives legally that was one of the reasons i went to Verizon when they came were i live.. don't get me going about the shit Verizon was starting to pull ...or do you remember Verizon going to count and over turning something.I guess not. even after net neutrality was done they figured out another way to get you that was illegal and those cases were dropped by the FCC now ... and net neutrality was voted on I remember the days when TOM Wheeler was asking the Public and doing hearing the right way not like they are now and it was finalized weather you agree or not it was.  once congress makes it's law it won't be so easy any more to change. you really need to go back and look at what was going on . by your comments i bet your one of those who thinks insurance was fine before the AcA when it fact it wasn't unless you were rich or had a good job People were dieing from lack of good health care they couldn't afford and still are .an if they worked there was limits on the Insurance. while the rich were getting corporate welfare and still are and complaining about the poor and still are . sorry man I'm American your not

Oyea Netflix and Verizon tried to settle it without the Government stepping but Verizon got greedy and other ISP were tiring the same stuff .

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-throttling-netflix-traffic-even-after-its-pays-for-more-bandwidth


gl cya .

It doesnt work that way.   lol  Google tried to expand in my area but it got block by AT&T and the city.

I like how he said the US government was censoring content when they weren't and net neutrality was the cause, if they were it would be like it is in the UK .. were the government does censor content unless they changed it.

and those so called Free markets what free markets ? .

Some ISP tries to throttle you or block crypto sites then another ISP will pop up

That won't happen either no new ISP will pop up and those Crypto sites will stay blocked ..
you know i thought the Government was the problem for a while . when in fact those regulations are keeping the Wolfe's off our backs and keeping us free ...it's not the people there regulating its the big Crop those regulations apply to, who don't care .

Topeka I know you are good at what you do but you are feeling strong feelings about this. Make yourself stop feeling feelings and start thinking thoughts. Cold hard logic. Remove feelings and do a Spock.I think that if you can do this you will see better. People who have bad intent are trying to make you have strong feelings about this. Do math about your life. This has changed nothing. Your life is the same, it's still really good! Nobody is coming for you or your family. Nobody is ruining the interwebz. You are still a good person no matter if you want the rule  or you like it taken back.

Right, but it IS common for your DSL and your Cable providers to both be gigantic telecommunications monopolies (thanks, Clinton) who would benefit from throttling bandwith to price gouge companies. ;)

I got throttled! I called my isp and told them I want to step down from 100mbps to 30mbps, and I told them I want to pay less, they said ok, and then....
 they cut my service to 30mbps! They throttled me!
Wahwah.

"another ISP will pop up"

Hahahaha no. Even in most major cities it isn't profitable to start an ISP. So telecommunications companies have a virtual monopoly in most markets...