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Title: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: Furyan on August 17, 2011, 01:57:43 PM This seems odd to me, given the computing power of the network. I haven't seen this since I started tracking it.
Any clues? I've seen blips of 20-30 minutes before but nothing this long. Goes to show the "luck" part of the whole equation... Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: jackjack on August 17, 2011, 01:59:30 PM Variance and maybe the hashpower used in ixcoin and i0coin
Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: Gabi on August 17, 2011, 02:00:11 PM Quote given the computing power of the network Remember difficulty Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: Furyan on August 17, 2011, 02:00:52 PM Quote given the computing power of the network Remember difficulty The difficulty is tuned to keep the rate of generation essentially constant. A blip like this is anything but... Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: ElectricMucus on August 17, 2011, 02:05:12 PM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
Here is your explanation. Look at the graphs if you don't care about the math. Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: Gabi on August 17, 2011, 02:06:33 PM Quote given the computing power of the network Remember difficulty The difficulty is tuned to keep the rate of generation essentially constant. A blip like this is anything but... and 50 minutes is not so strange Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: matsh on August 17, 2011, 02:09:31 PM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution Here is your explanation. Look at the graphs if you don't care about the math. Normal distribution can't possibly be correct, since that would imply it could go down below zero minutes. Poisson, perhaps? Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: matsh on August 17, 2011, 02:13:11 PM Anyway, we have a new block now. It took 57 minutes and 46 seconds...
Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: payb.tc on August 17, 2011, 02:15:38 PM Variance and maybe the hashpower used in ixcoin and i0coin noone else commenting on this? i think there's no 'maybe' about it... if you've followed either of those threads you'd know many hundreds (or thousands) of Ghash/s have switched over from bitcoin mining. probably temporary if those other currencies die off quickly. Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: evoorhees on August 17, 2011, 02:19:50 PM There have been periods of a couple hours before where no block was solved. It's just variance in the random ability of the network to solve the hash.
Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: Gabi on August 17, 2011, 02:20:26 PM Basing on:
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-small-lin-2k.png Hashrate basically didn't really chance due to ixcoin, i0coin, gabicoin and whatelsecoin... Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: ElectricMucus on August 17, 2011, 02:35:41 PM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution Here is your explanation. Look at the graphs if you don't care about the math. Normal distribution can't possibly be correct, since that would imply it could go down below zero minutes. Poisson, perhaps? Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: Yuusha on August 17, 2011, 02:52:10 PM I0coin is essentially an Insurance policy versus year 0 of Bitcoin. If Satoshi decides to start spending any of his 1 to 1.5 million BTC, we need to have a valid alternative. I0coin is such an alternative. IXcoin is an inflated version of Bitcoin with a different guy doing the initial mining and having a huge wallet to start with. I0coin is probably the most democratic currency option we have presently, barring the exception of Artforz, who is mining a lot. So basically, I0coin is based upon a myth?Cool. Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: hashcoin on August 17, 2011, 03:01:35 PM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution Here is your explanation. Look at the graphs if you don't care about the math. Normal distribution can't possibly be correct, since that would imply it could go down below zero minutes. Poisson, perhaps? The number of blocks found in a fixed time interval is Poisson. But the actual time between blocks, that is Exponential (actually, Geometric, but the former is a good approx to the latter for small success probabilities). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_distribution Suppose you have a coin that is biased so it lands heads w.p. p. Then Geometric(p) is the distribution of the number of times you need to flip a coin before seeing heads. You can view testing a nonce as a coinflip of very small bias. Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: memvola on August 17, 2011, 04:15:09 PM Yup, but the computing power means nothing, cause difficulty regulate the block production rate First I thought that more computing power would mean less variance because of law of large numbers. However, since the probability is inversely proportional to the number of trials, the variance coarsely stays the same, am I right? Variance and maybe the hashpower used in ixcoin and i0coin noone else commenting on this? i think there's no 'maybe' about it... if you've followed either of those threads you'd know many hundreds (or thousands) of Ghash/s have switched over from bitcoin mining. probably temporary if those other currencies die off quickly. As Gabi has noted, network computational speed variability doesn't seem to have changed. I don't think there is immense interest towards those blockchains. I don't know how to check it myself but difficulties sould reflect this fact. Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: stryker on August 17, 2011, 05:10:04 PM within the last week or so I've seen deepbit solve a block in 630 hashes and one in 13,000,000 hashes.... thats chance for you
Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: hugolp on August 17, 2011, 05:15:03 PM The currency fork that provides an encrypted wallet by default is ALWAYS going to be better than one that doesn't. Additionally, the next biggest currency could probably use Unbalanced Oil and Vinegar cryptography for the public and private keys to thwart Shor's algorithm being used on a quantum computer. Put simply, if the core Bitcoin team has stopped innovating, then competing currencies are the solution. It's been over 6 months since Bitcoin breached $1 per, there is simply no excuse for not having an encrypted wallet unless the developers are being bought off or just lazy to the detriment to the rest of the community. 1. The developers are volunteers. Nobody is paying them. If they dont contribute they are not being lazy, they are just doing whatever they need to do. If you want you can take their place and contribute to the community. 2. Encrypted wallet is already in the git branch and will be in the next release. Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: Maged on August 17, 2011, 09:14:41 PM So basically, I0coin is based upon a myth? Cool. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37333.msg458441#msg458441 1. The developers are volunteers. Nobody is paying them. If they dont contribute they are not being lazy, they are just doing whatever they need to do. If you want you can take their place and contribute to the community. Or I can just use a competing currency. Over time I'll see if it succumbs to being just as lethargic, and I can switch back or to another that is implementing features that are worthwhile. I like the idea of competing digital currencies, because it forces innovation upon developers and early adopters of each currency. Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: Hawkix on August 17, 2011, 09:47:22 PM Besides, (not) having an encrypted wallet (or wallet at all) is not what defines Bitcoin. Its the client, not the protocol, nor the blockchain.
Personally, I consider all those "alt"coins just as curiosity with no long life. Consider namecoin, which, imho, has much higher practical benefits and still has to fight for attention of miners. Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: Yuusha on August 17, 2011, 10:47:11 PM So basically, I0coin is based upon a myth? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37333.msg458441#msg458441Cool. Title: Re: No blocks solved in 50 minutes? Post by: aq on August 18, 2011, 12:55:46 AM The currency fork that provides an encrypted wallet by default is ALWAYS going to be better than one that doesn't. Additionally, the next biggest currency could probably use Unbalanced Oil and Vinegar cryptography for the public and private keys to thwart Shor's algorithm being used on a quantum computer. Put simply, if the core Bitcoin team has stopped innovating, then competing currencies are the solution. It's been over 6 months since Bitcoin breached $1 per, there is simply no excuse for not having an encrypted wallet unless the developers are being bought off or just lazy to the detriment to the rest of the community. 1. The developers are volunteers. Nobody is paying them. If they dont contribute they are not being lazy, they are just doing whatever they need to do. If you want you can take their place and contribute to the community. 2. Encrypted wallet is already in the git branch and will be in the next release. Both points are valid. However, having said this, there is a lot of open source software out there that seems to be developed much faster. Most of the open source developer love their projects and put long hours of work into them, without being payed. Call it enthusiasm, call it motivation. So one can suspect that somehow the bitcoin developers are not as motivated or enthusiastic as one would like them to be. And I think it is legitimate to ask about the reason, or at least why it appears to be so. So I say, we should try to motivate them. As I know from myself, you can't buy enthusiasm, but money could help a little bit. That is one of the reasons I started this other thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=35905.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=35905.0). Unfortunately there is still no bitcoin bounty website out there :( |
