Bitcoin Forum

Is it really possible to restrict pool max hash rate to one hundredth of total network hash rate?

This way Bitcoin can be truly distributed, and not controlled by few big entities. Also, if this could be implemented, then 51% attack will become impossible.

Surely you jest... It would just end up making BTC Guild1, BTC Guild2 etc as a way around it.

That's bad.. :(

Any ways exist to restrict pool Max hash rate? Technically, theoretically, or through protocol..?!

If it is technically possible to restrict pool max hashrate to one hundredth of total network hashrate, then at a later point of time this can be further restricted to one thousandth, one millionth, etc.

In future, miners can try to solve a block in a agreed upon range, and be rewarded equally based on their hashrate. This way mining will become a shared task than a competition.

A current solution would be for users to pick pools with lower hash rates to mine on, when a pool is nearing 51%.

why not just do away with pools all together? oh, wait then most miners would have zero income for most of the time. If not for pools, there would be a lot fewer miners. Stop trying to bite the hand that feeds you.

contact each miner on every pool and get them to work together to spread their hashrates across pools - miners will mine where they see the most benefit to themselves (sometimes mistakenly)
good luck with it :)

Ask the bitcoin legislature to make it a law, then contact the bitcoin police when it's broken.

Educate miners.  Mine via a P2Pool node (such as nastyfans.org:9332 by using your Bitcoin address as your username).

Education not going to help. We need protocols, and make technically impossible for anyone to own more than 1% of hash power. Later this can be adjusted further down to one millionth, and one billionth, if required.

1 millionth isn't even in the realm of reality.  You need to be able to find at least a few blocks before difficulty rises.

How are you going to limit it by pool?  How do you know who is part of the same "pool"?  As stated above, each pool would just split into several smaller pools.  BTCguild will just make 100 load balanced pools, with 100 different coinbases.

- 1 million different, level-2 block chains, reward will be millionth of 25 BTC
- per minute level-2 blocks, merging to main block chain every 10 mins
 - ...

May be I'm wrong. Any thoughts?

Reducing the proof of work into mini-blocks favors larger entities over smaller ones.  By reducing the difficulty of the problem and making it have multiple parts, the lottery aspect is reduced significantly, favoring the person with more tickets even more.

This too shall pass.

Just a symptom of the ASIC gold rush. Scared investors trying to ensure profitability are desperate to give themselves "the edge", failing to see that everyone is rapidly choosing to use the same competitive advantage. A significant amount of people are going to end up with an ROI measured in light years, perhaps even the majority. It's a fever, and there is nothing we can do except wait for the temperature to die down.

This. I split my hashrate between Ozcoin, Slush, and Bitminter. I prefer multiple smaller/mid sized pools, and I don't see what the problem with that is.

I completely agree.

I also agree on the difference between an investor and a btc user.

It is every investors own decision. If some think they are better off by putting the btc system at risk, it is the way it is. We will keep on paying taxes for system relevant financial institutions to have fiat money and loose most of the money spent on asics. This for certain will freeze the hype.

I am a miner, not an Investor. So I do not mine on a pool with more than 10% of the total hash rate. Slush czech lottery style, ozcoin, bitminter, bluecoin, bigpit. I also mine solo - Han Solo Lottery Style. I never made it to a block so far, but winning the lottery is the target and would be great.

So mining to me was and is the lottery. Pools were not invented to stop the lottery, but some pools today try to Camouflage the Initial concept. It is unlikely, but what will happen if BTCguilt doesn't win a block for two month?

the bigger pools generally charge higher fees.

In the course of a few day sampling, using btcguild and its ability to find 1/3 of blocks may seem better than something like slush which is hours between blocks, but over the course of weeks or months, the variance will fade away and it will become obvious which pool is keeping several percent more of your potential income

Slush is 2%, BTC Guild is 3%.  BTC Guild pays for orphans.  Comparing those two you'll end up with basically the same payout, except WAY smoother on BTC Guild.

EDIT:  And BTC Guild pays NMC which Slush doesn't anymore.  That alone is a more than 1% increase in income, completely making up for the 1% fee difference without even factoring in the orphan blocks being paid out as part of the 3% fee.