Bitcoin Forum

Hi guys,

I am somewhat worried. This could lead to a extremely bad perception of the cryptocurrencies.

http://lorddoig.svbtle.com/fork-now-and-fork-hard
http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/13/time-for-a-hard-bitcoin-fork/

What is the plan?

Chuck

They are most likely rumors , nothing do to with the price no worry .

I care about perception right now. :)

If the crypto community tells the world: we have Bitcoin because it is decentralized (unlike banks) and in reality it is not, we will look like crooks.

It is fact not rumor that GHash reach 51%.

Something needs to be done about this.  Currently, bitcoin is neither centralized or decentalized.  It is some kind of hybrid with the worst of both worlds: slower decision making because of the lack of central authority and yet one organisation is powerful enough to destroy it.

If you'd read the links, you'd know that they are not rumours, but calls for a solution to the problem of the centralisation of mining.

Agreed these rumours are a very real threat and one that needs to be dealt with. Bitcoin is no longer decentralised in answer to your question. Anyone that tells you it is needs to check the OED on definitions of decentralisation.

 :-\

I do not like that.

There isn't much that we can do except hope that the devs have some workable solution to the problem in the long term and pray that GHash doesn't do anything illogical that could jeopardise the price. There has been lots of speculation of double spends and the likes but at the moment there hasn't been any concrete evidence of abuse so we haven't had a price crash yet.

Ghash is back to 33%, you can go back to sleep now, nothing to see here.

They are hiding their real power.

I think the 51% we witnessed was a demonstration of power. I do not know for what reason.

They could have blocked miners as to keep their hash rates down as they did before, but they didn't.

I would say that GHash has MUCH more than 51%.

That being said, I do have some of my miners pointed at them.

EDIT: On the subject, NO, I don't believe that BTC is decentralized anymore.
In fact, the fact that we depend on the core dev team for anything means it is centralized, and from what I understand the core dev team is under the TBF orders.
Apart from that BTC mining is completely centralized.

WTF man! You think they have over 51% and you still point miners at them... Where is your logic?!?

Think about it, if they have more than 51% what is 720Gh going to do if I remove it from them?
720Gh means jack shit for hashing power. Apart from that I would like to at least get my investment back (which I didn't yet).
I also have more than that on other pools - I don't like to keep all my eggs in one basket ;)

BTCitcoin is still 'decentralized' but it's centralized in a sense that exchanges/mining pools, etc can control it somewhat by being dishonest so, where not ever going to be 100% stress-free in a world where MEN are greedy 0r become greedy!

Current state:
GHash:  41%
Discus Fish: 14%
Unknown: 22%
etc

Bitcoin market price has always been a rollercoaster, see https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price (https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price)  
I see a tiny uptrend on the end, with a little bit of luck we'll soon be at $800  :)

As for forks or altcoins, there are tons of them.. bitcoin has the largest market share tho;

Short noob question: If there were a (small) double spend attack when would people realize that this has happened? Respectively can double spend attacks be hidden for a longer period of time?

The question should be:  is bitcoin decentralized enough?  The fact is when a new block is mined, that miner or pool has  limited control over what transactions get included in that block and subsequent blocks they mine.  Once another miner or pool mines another block, then the previous miner no longer has that limited control.  Also, once a block is mined, it is up to the rest of the network to agree to that broadcast block as the longest chain.  If other nodes on the network find a major problem with a block, then they will likely not accept that as the longest chain.  According to this site:  https://getaddr.bitnodes.io (https://getaddr.bitnodes.io), bitcoin has 7859 nodes in 99 countries.  Nearly all have to agree on the longest chain.  I would call that decentralized enough. 

tldr; Each new block mined is subject to limited attack by the miner who mined it and subsequent blocks that same miner is able to mine.  However, with 7859 nodes in 99 countries, most of whom have to agree on the longest chain, bitcoin is decentralized enough.

So if I was to setup 8000 nodes would I then be able to disrupt things?

Yeah. Clearly not.

Why not?

Because your hashrate counts.

Ghash (Government hash?, as in g-man?). J/k. Lol

Sorry, you lost me.
Are you saying that the nodes with the most hashrate count more?

To disrupt things, yes.

So, more or less it is centralized?

Yeah, that is my impression here.

Then, I wanted to verify that and wanted to know how to remedy the situation.

Its a classic common resource problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

"... individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource."

Historically, only 2 viable solutions exist:
1) An authority to regulate (% in this case)
2) Privatization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Modern_solutions

Pick your poison..... but be quick about it.

Because miners are egoistic. The Bitcoin network is not stable if you need altrusitic miners. So as a miner. Why do you use GHash and not another pool?

2. What is the real thread? Is a mining pool with 75% individual miners one entity? It depends. Can the pool fulfill double spendings which can't be recognized? I think that is pretty difficulty. So not only GHash as a company but all the miners have to ask themself: Do I profit in the long run to cheat the game?


Huge transactions. Only they can be profitable to cheat. So if you have a 51% majority and send someone 1000btc will the receiver wait 6 confirmations? This would be a 1.5% chance that GHash makes all 6 blocks. But even that is irrelevant. You don't buy a car and wait 6 confirmations. You make a fucking contract under the legal state of the country! You can't cheat that because you are not anonymous. You are only anonymous if you trade small amounts. And if not, it is your fault to get cheated...

My question is has Bitcoin ever been decentralized? When 50 guys own 90% of the Bitcoins in the world is that decentralized?

setup a new coin if you are so worried ?
add in fancy features that get people to use it ?
Its around 1am 16/06.. you could be the first alt coin that comes out on 16/06!

When the whole group is controlled by a central authority it's no longer decentralized.
So, option 1 has been around for a while.
(Do you not read the news?)

Funny how one is considered selfish for wanting to ROI after seeing that our decentralized coin is more centralized than advertised.

None the less, thanks for the link, it was an interesting read.
Perhaps you should email that link to the core dev team and TBF and see what response you will get....

That being said, I hope that the core dev team does something and fast otherwise BTC is gone.
And I like the idea of it, just not the current implementation and hows things changed.

Satoshi must be very "proud" of us all.
  

the Ghash 51% hash power happened before. What I really concern is how to prevent them reach over 51% the next time. Otherwise the confidence to bitcoin is difficult to recover.

That is a job for the core dev team.

All we can do is keep bugging them to do something about it before BTC dies.

Right. It's the threat that matters. Bitcoin was centralised. And it remains an issue as long as it's possible.

For all we know Ghash is still operating at over 50% hashrate.

Anyone who's done their research will know that's a load of bullshit, the open source nature of Bitcoin itself means that it is decentralised and there are hundreds of coins wanting to take it's place if it falls.

I marked the false statement.

Just to make that clear. Open source is open source. Decentralized is decentralized. Both terms do not imply each other in no regard.

I believe I agree with this.

It might be open source but Bitcoin core itself is controlled by a team and a foundation (and who knows who else).
So even though it is open source it is not decentralized.
And being open source doesn't mean jack shit at this point due to what I have just mentioned.

Agreed the core dev team have too much power and this is a real threat to the future of Bitcoin.

Exactly. The Bitcoin core that what is actually used in production.

No matter how great the open source nature of Bitcoin core is and how many variances of Bitcoin core exist, you either get a clone (with its own blockchain+network) or you get a Bitcoin core 2.0 with no network actually using it.

Bottom line:  how many people have been the victim of a double spend?  I am not sure a case of a successful double spend exists post march 2013 fork.  BTC is still better than fiat.

Yeah, they have way too much power, but doesnt the network also have to agree if major changes are about to be made ?
I think the combination of devs and lets say a big pool like ghash.io can (will) be the possible doom of bitcoin

Ok if ANYONE does their own research they'd see that GHash.io is now hovering at around 40%, NOT the 51% everyone is claiming.

I'm actually going to start linking people to the pie charts if I keep seeing this stupidity. It's not funny anymore. Do something by yourself instead of having it fed to you by people on the forum.

GHash.io has been dropping for the past few days. I think everything's is kind of getting resolved.

You should follow your own advice and do some research yourself.

Look at this before you make assumptions (http://blockchain.info/pools)

Good to know you were spoon fed too.

Are you serious?

Emphasis added

The problem there is that many agree with you. It adds up.

Ok then you tell me where this hyper-accurate chart is.

It was unnecessary to say "Good to know you where spoon fed too" but the concept is the same. The chart even shows decreases over the past few days.

Raindrops become a torrent.


People seem to be saying: "my hash-power does not make a difference, so I might as well benefit from the lower variance." The unseen risk is that concentration on only one pool may dramatically increase the variance in price.

this has been a very big weakness for a long time, and i hope that bitcoiners and miners come to realize it. why tout decentralization if the building blocks of the network (miners) are centralized? especially when we have the capability not to mine in this manner?

Bro, the post just above this one (yours) says that I have some of my miners pointed at GHash, call it selfish or whatever I don't give a fuck anymore bcoz people are just too blind to see a few things that are so fucking obvious.
That being said, I am not neither with or against GHash, I am against the fact that the core dev team allowed this to happen.

I will leave it at that so I can respond to the post above this one.
Have a good one.

You forgot:
3) The community is small enough for ostracism to work (less than about 150 people).

I have heard about selective hearing but never heard of selective reading before....
Read what I wrote.
I emphasized it for you.
Have a good one.

There was a "large miner" on reddit who claimed to be sticking with ghash.io as well. It is not just you.

I actually do have selective reading. Learned this when my mom told me about a want-ad in the classified section of the newspaper. I missed it because it was ¼ page, instead of postage-stamp size. Over the years I had started reading fine-print first, and ignoring 72pt fonts.

I'm not sure what you said, but do you mean you're not happy with the people not looking at the charts, or are you angry with me?

I don't care that you have miners in GHash or anywhere else, I'm just saying that I'm sick of people claiming "Oh GHash is at 49%" or whatever when they're much lower.

I'm sorry if I responded poorly, but it didn't seem that you were approving of my statement.

Due to the fact that GHash is below 45%, congrats on having miners there! More profit for you.

Philip and Yakamoto
Your problem is not with me, it's with the way the protocol works right now.

So pls don't take it on me.
It is NOT my fault that the ones responsible failed to make sure that the protocol is secure.
The fact that I have 4 of my 12 Ants pointed at GHash doesn't make me selfish.
It just makes me a smart investor (in my point of view) since I would like to have my investment back.
I am not expecting to make ANY profit out of it because apparently BTC is more centralized than you (and I) think.

If you want to keep this going, go ahead.
Give it all you got.
That will not change the fact that it IS NOT GHash's fault NOR MINE, it's the ones who are responsible for making sure the network is secure.
Apparently it's not.

EDIT: That being said, BTC is centralized because we DEPEND on them.

 

I realize that it's not your fault. Dude! If it was your fault, you'd need WAAAY more. It's not your fault or GHash's. You guys are just trying to make money!

I'm just trying to point out that people aren't looking up the rates, and as such, there's been unnecessary hype and dooms-saying about the size of GHash.

You're not selfish man! It's that you like the pool and you're using it to your advantage.

I apologize if I made you feel like it was your fault. It's not! Don't worry, I'm just getting a little excited.

Than you for explaining your side :)

it is not been descentralized for a very long time, it been an oligopoly for years

Actually, I saw 5 double spends yesterday, each roughly 6 blocks apart. Right now, there is one double spend within the last 500k transactions: https://blockchain.info/double-spends (https://blockchain.info/double-spends)

No one cares if double spends happen to small transactions... but shit will hit the fan when a large transaction is double spent.

Mining is a bit centralized but that is the problem within the miners itself. They could have moved their miners to other pools and stay there.
Overall Bitcoin remains decentralized.

My intention is not to single you out. As you pointed out earlier, you are only a small contribution to Ghash.io's hash-power. I am not upset with you specifically, but miners hashers¹ as a group that keep pointing their hash-power at pools with greater than 30% market-share.

Maybe it it my selective reading again, but you don't explicitly say who is responsible. The implication seems to be that the developers (specifically Satoshi) screwed up with a flawed protocol.

Bitcoin's innovation was to guard against malicious updates to the block-chain by requiring a "proof-of-work". This allows the validity of the block-chain to be verified in a trustless manner. The "proof-of-work" assumes two things:

• That people are generally good. (Bitcoin also makes is so that cheating in-system is more expensive than being honest.)
• That competition will ensure that no miner gets a substantial market-share. (If your business relies on bitcoin, it makes sense to invest in a full node or pay somebody to do so).

Pools having greater than 30% of the hash-power breaks the second assumption. 30% is the magic number because one of the pools may be run or coerced by a malicious person: we would not know until it is too late.

"Proof-of-work" is not something to be worked around. When you participate in the BItcoin network, you have to accept that it is a valid way to form consensus. There are no known alternatives that are still decentralized. Evidently, it is not known if "proof-of-work" can stay decentralized. However, if decentralization is not possible with "proof-of-work": that means that the experiment failed, and that Bitcoins are worth approximately $0.

I am explaining this, not to take you down, but because I believe that this situation can still be remedied with miner hasher education. With the recent DDOS, the hash-rate at Ghash.io dropped substantially; while the hash-rate at P2Pool went up (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=18313.msg7307921#msg7307921) substantially. That means that miners are using P2Pool as a fail-over. I would prefer it if more miners would use P2Pool (or something like it) voluntarily.



1. Hashers are not miners, and Bitcoin network doesn't need them. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=411099.0)
That said, I was a hasher myself last month. I normally use P2Pool, but was distraught to learn that the share-chain only applies to Bitcoin. That is, if you are merge-mining some alt-coins, the miner that finds a block does not share the reward. I mined with Eligius to reduce my variance in finding namecoins.
PS: I currently mine at a loss (10Ghash/s). Because I read fine-print and am running a full node, my biggest expense is commercial Internet access. I understand that not everybody has the time/money to do that.

Wow bitcoin has changed so much since last time I looked at it. Yes I've been under a rock this whole time, price shot up to $1200 and now down to $600. And this this whole centralization thing.

Not sure. I mean how many double-spends have been there in fiat money?

Well, Bitcoin's potential for decentralization is not something to lean back on. The decentralization is a property we must fight for continuously, if we find it valuable. I was also almost shocked to see that there was hardly any criticism on the bitcoin mailing list when the idea was expressed to lock out non-permanent nodes out of the protocol (which would also create more centralization on the node side of the protocol).

As far as I know, it is not the first time that a mining pool becomes dangerously big. I think that we should head for more distinctiveness between mining pools. If people decide on mining pools merely on which one promises the largest mining profit, then the big ones will always be preferable. But mining pools have a much greater power than creating mining profit, for which it may be time to wield it in order to create more distinctiveness. A mining pool operator can define his own policy on what transactions to include and which ones to penalize. For example, what the threshold for microtransactions is. Even smarter policies could be thought of, so it would be possible to create a mining pool which has some bias towards certain business models running on the block chain. When people would start to choose their mining pool based on the transactions they want to do on the blockchain, I would expect a much more decentralized mining industry, because people use Bitcoins for very different purposes.

Let's see, you believe Ghash has well over 51% yet you still point miners at them. I'm speechless

I had this conversation yesterday, no need to repeat myself.
Scroll back a few posts on this thread.

Your argument is that you don't think 720GH is very much and you have more than that on other pools. So what? I don't blame bitcoin newbies or people who don't know any better for mining on Ghash. But here you are saying you know there's a problem yet you still point your miners there. You're either greedy, lazy, foolish, or just don't give a fuck about BTC

No mate, my argument is that I am not the one responsible for this.
The dev team could have prevented it with a hard fork yet still choose to ignore it.

Why should I lose on my investment when the ones controlling the entire project ain't doing nothing about it?

Like I said, I have been through this conversation yesterday, I will not repeat myself.

You can call me whatever you want, but I ain't the one who let it happen.

Have a good evening :)

It does seem like mining is becoming more and more centralized, but I don't think Bitcoin altogether is centralized obviously.   I have never mined, but I wish it could go back to when individuals could mine from their own computers without the need for all the very expensive equipment.   

I guess the more power that is out there the stronger the network becomes, but still...

@S4VV4S

LOL

You and miners like you are absolutely the ones who are creating the problem by continuing to mine there. You just can't seem to grasp this fact.

Maybe you should grasp on this fact: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=651056.0

Like I said I am just a small fish in the pond and not one of the bigger fish that are causing all this shit.

Who cares who you think created the problem. You acknowledge there is a problem but you choose to perpetuate it rather than mine elsewhere. And for what? To get a few satoshis worth of Devcoin and Ixcoin?

I don't understand why you would link to that thread. What does a BTC dev selling coins have anything to do with this. Every miner no matter how small should be part of the solution but it seems you are more interested in being part of the problem. A school of fish is bigger than a blue whale

No, coz I am greedy.

Satisfied?
Can we end this now?

We are wasting bandwidth for no reason.

It's like both of us are talking to a wall.
All you get back is an echo and that is only if you are in an empty room.

You're fucking hopeless man, hopeless. Keep mining at Ghash, you deserve each other

The hash rate has decreased. It is now at most 43%.

Honestly, I don't care he's still mining there. He's a small fish, he admits that.

But I'm looking at your statement and you declare that's it's his fault he's sitting there and continuing mining.

Look at the charts. The mining has decreased substantially.

As such, there is no issue with him still mining there.

He is not perpetuating the problem. Others are solving it, and he's just adding his two cents.

Unless you can prove that him changing pools will change 1% of the total hashrate, I see no issue.

I'm not even going to explain this.

And you are fucking stupid.

Welcome to my ignore list.

That being said, when a lead dev loses hope because the dev team DID NOT make sure that this wouldn't happen and still IGNORE IT,
it means that it will happen again and again.

That being said I do NOT believe GHash will perform a 51% attack due to the fact that they have too much invested in this now.
Now double spending is a different story but that doesn't affect me.

Now fuck off, and have a good evening :)

It's an honor to be on your ignore list. So you would rather a hard fork than actually mining elsewhere. LOL. What exactly is a hard fork going to do? How will that solve the issue?

"It's not a problem because it doesn't affect me" - absolutely disgusting attitude.

So, you're calling 43% a huge success? The mining has decreased, because some people decided to do something, while others sat back and said "it's not my problem" and continued to mine there.

A hard-fork is a last resort that very well may kill the project.

If the dev team controls the entire project, then something is very wrong. Gavin Anderson has had a policy of being very conservative with protocol changes. This allows the development of alternate implementations. Currently the vast majority of the miners use the reference implementation, possibly with minor tweaks. That does not always have to be the case though.

This is a hard fork that is required.

What happens next time we get 51% ?
Move your miners again?

This is an important issue.
In fact it is the most important issue right now if BTC is to survive.

Expecting miners to move point their equipment elsewhere everytime we have something like this is a weakness in the protocol.

If BTC is to survive the dev team should eliminate all weaknesses now that BTC is still young.

That is not case i'm afraid.

As we could all witnessed few days ago, network is not safer with ASIC's than it was before them. If ASIC's were never made, we would have 1000x more active miners than we have now.
It would be same investment (or maybe even bigger) for someone to produce enough GPU's to attack that network as it is now (to produce enough ASIC's to attack network).

And history has shown, that, to attack network, you don't need to build 1 single chip (gpu or ASIC). All you need is high quality pool that makes money out of that network anyway, and you can control network like it's yours. Ain't that just silly situation?

Makes you head spin when you think about it.

"How to attack Bitcoin network" DIY guide:
1) Create mining pool
2) Remove mining fee's, but offer secondary product related to mining on which you will make insane amount of money
3) Keep making money and attracting miners
4) Once you have enough hash power, execute attack

That way you 1) Make shitload of money and 2) Attack BTC network
And naive ppl are counting how much $$$ attacker would have to spend on "new hardware".  :D

just because its distributed doesnt mean that it is also decentralized.  I still cant figure out what took GH so long to back things off.  Why did they not start backing down once they reached 45%

Yes! that is exactly what hashers (distinct from miners) should do. My advice is simple: if a pool has more than 30% of the network hash-power, point your hashers at a different one.

If you get tired of switching pools, you can join P2Pool (or something like it): it is a decentralized pool.

If a hard-fork happens, I will have to re-evaluate my interest in Bitcoin. A pool (Deepbit) controlled more than half the hash-power before. No hard-forks were used to correct that: people simply moved away from the pool. I fail to understand why that is not a viable option every time a pool gets too large.

Because BTC will never become mainstream if this weakness remains.
And you cannot expect miners to keep an eye and keep changing pools instead of just fixing the problem once and for all.
And to be honest I do not want to lose faith on  BTC.
I am working on a couple of projects regarding BTC and it makes me wonder if my time and investment is safe.
The way things are (with all the bad news) it's kind of scary.

PS: Why would you have to re-evaluate if a hard fork was made as to ensure that the network is safe?

Y U no use https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Getblocktemplate

It's not a weakness, it's a strength.

All you people calling for a hard fork don't realise you're asking for a disaster.

Right now, no mining pool can take their mining power past 50% because it will break their business model. That's why GHash are calling for this - so that they can take their "monopoly" past 50% without devaluing the bit coin economy.

We need to let this scenario play itself out and NOT pander to mining monopolists. Over time, mining businesses will start to naturally decentralise through their inability to grow limitlessly.

On the other hand, if we implement a hard fork, the happiest of all concerned will be the pools who will now safely be able to grow their monopoly to 75% or even 90% without the prospect of an inhibitory devaluation at 50.

That's what people are asking for here with this hard fork nonsense - 90% mining monopolies. That prospect is far more daunting that a pool hitting 50% where the worst they can do is double spend the next block the odd time.

Erm, what?
The protocol needs to change as to allow NO-ONE to grow past 10-15% max.

That's what I want.

LoL. How exactly do you expect them to do that ?

Through some system of centralised control ?

Disable pool mining altogether in some way, problem solved. Or https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool only.

Because people in general, are greedy bastards. As we could see few days ago, ppl DID NOT move their miners away from pool that HAD 51%!! That pool had to move it's own hash power!! So relaying on "people" is as bad as it gets. Hard fork is needed very very much. "People" are really bad at making decisions that go against their own profit (moving to other pool for example where they will earn little bit less).

Nope, if the protocol was to be changed as to not allow a node to submit x number of blocks within x time, and all nodes agree to this, it would be a start.

Hashing power is measured by how many blocks are solved by one pool or miner at the day right?

If you can limit that then problem solved.

Innit?

Yer. Irriz.

as above, not very smart people thinking about insane stupid solutions
thats sad

Yes its down to 41% but the fact is that not that his a small fish , its the fact that 1000 small fishes act the same way , then it is a problem and this is whats happening.

Every small fish keeps saying I am a small fish bla bla bla... Small fish + 1000 Small fishes = Alot of fucken fishes!

And I am surprised this was not seen in the original protocol, it was even said in early posts by satoshi that large organisations will be mining with powerful machines or something like this, how could someone as smart as Satoshi and CO not see this coming.

I have made a suggestion here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=655572.0   
(and a couple of posts above yours)

How are you going to determine how many blocks a node has submitted?

By assigning each node with a personal signature maybe.

I am not an expert on the matter.

I am just making a suggestion here.

Ok let's have a calm discussion and make our own suggestions.

So, people want individual nodes, hard forks, or no pool being allowed past 15%.

On the nodes topic; I have no knowledge on that, so don't ask me.

On the fork topic; No. A hard fork is a last resort. You can't willy-billy fork the blockchain.

On the 15% topic; Turn it into 25% and I can kinda of see it happening. GHash and Cex.io should point SOME of their hardware at different pools. Not all, but some at least.

And who does this "assigning"?  Some sort of trusted authority?  Doesn't that just replace the miner that has 51% of the network hashing power with some other authority you need to trust?

"DECENTRALIZE!!"

"GIVE US AN ALTERNATIVE TO FIAT!!"

"DON'T BE A LEMMING!!"

"THE POWER OF BITCOIN IS IN YOUR HANDS!!"

*mumble*mumble*mumble*

"Wait! You mean I have to practice what I preach?"

"But that means I'll earn 0.001% less bitcoin!!"

"Besides, someone ELSE will take care of it."

I've been with Slush since 2011.

Despite the fact that many tout the advantages and decentralization of bitcoin, we all crawl back to what benefits our self the most. Human nature. Even when you create a digital haven that could be free of such entrapment's.

People say they want a decentralized Bitcoin, but they're not willing to take any kind of responsibility for it. Like this imbecile S4VV4S. It's up to "someone else" to fix the problem.

Anyone mining on a pool with >30% of the network doesn't believe in decentralization. Simple as that. Govern yourselves accordingly

It's little twats like you that pollute this forum dick snot.

This imbecile S4VV4S has been trying hard to get the core dev to listen to him and do something about the problem.

All you do is point fingers and accuse people.

Well guess what dip shit?

I have been more active on the subject than you.

And thank got I forgot to hit the ignore btn yesterday so now I can see what a real dickhead you are.

EDIT: I do apologize for coming out a bit "strong" but you are a real idiot man. Al you do is point fingers and do nothing to help the REAL problem.

I explained at least 3 times, but you fail to understand.

"Proof-of-Work" is not a design flaw: it it Bitcoin's defining feature.

If we have to resort to hard-forks to mitigate one entity controlling more than half the hash-power, then the "experiment" will have failed.

PS: the purpose of hashing is to secure the network. If you are blindly pointing your hash-power at whomever pays the most, there is a very real possibility that you are actually attacking the network. Some Pools such as Eligius support getblocktemplate: that lets you point hash-power at pools without willful blindness.

So if SHA-256 is compromised, and the core dev team switch to sha-512 you will "re-evaluate"?

Just an example here of a possible scenario that will happen at some point within the next few years.

You fail to understand what I am saying.
Right now (especially after the GHash 51%) I am having trouble explaining to people that BTC is safe, because really it's not anymore.
The reason is simple:
We BELIEVE in a trustless protocol yet we have to trust that the one with 51% share of the network rate will behave.
Does that sound trustless to you?

LOL @ S4VV4AS

My apologies man it's nothing personal. But...

Have you considered the possibility that you're the one that doesn't understand? You've been trying to get the devs to hard fork meanwhile continuing to point your miners to Ghash. Unbelievable.

If you support decentralization, do not mine at pools with >30% of the network. For the last time, a hard fork is not the answer.

You've been quite vocal lately about your concerns related to a mining pool gaining more than 50% of the total network hashing power.

I'm curious, do you understand what the risks are?  Do you know what they can (and can't) do because of that hashing power?  Do you understand what the effective difference is between having 49% of the total hashing power and 51% of the total hashing power?

Can I ask you something?

Do you even have any miners?
Do you own more than 10BTC?

If you do then put your mind to work.

You do not wanna lose that do you?

Neither does GHash (not at this point at least).

GHash does NOT worry me.
They would be stupid to risk a MULTI-million dollar businnes to a 51% attack or double spends when the price of BTC is so LOW (and I am saying this because the price of BTC is peanuts compared to what it will be by the end of the summer).
And they know that.

No 51% attack will happen right now and not even within the next couple of years unless the one doing it has invested a shit load of millions just to crash BTC.
The only one that can do that is the US gov and they don't and you know why?

Because they love the idea of BTC.
It's just idiots like you that don't see things clear.

BTC gives the CIA the tools they didn't have before in trackng down transactions.

As far as decentralization goes, once again you are an idiot.
BTC protocol itself is controlled by a team which is control by a foundation run by an accused pedophile (and some suspect the CIA as well).

Where exactly do you see decentralization in this?


Apart from that:
Once again you are an idiot.....

You expect EVERY single person on the planet that has a miner to just keep an eye just in case some pool gets 51% hashrate to move their miners.

That wont happen.

People are greedy.

And you are an idiot.

And BTC will NOT become mainstream if that is the case.

Did I make my self clear?

PS: Did I mention your an idiot?

I am not worried about any pool doing anything right now bro.
I made that clear.

No. It isn't.


Neither the "dev team", nor the "foundation" can make me run a protocol that I don't want to.

You've stated:

"I am having trouble explaining to people that BTC is safe, because really it's not anymore."

Explain what you mean when you say it is "not safe".  What danger do you think exists?

Your coins depend on them.
If you can't see that then I have missunderstood you.
I thought you were a VERY smart man.

To me IT"S NOT.

To newcomers looking into the dangers it is.
Is that clear?

Ok, well now I think we're really getting somewhere  :D

If Ghash does not worry you, what does? And how will a hard fork solve it.

Honestly yes, I do expect miners to monitor their pools. I don't see what's so unreasonable about this. BTC is the greatest thing to come out of our generation, I'll do whatever I can to help secure the network

???

That isn't saying anything.

Depend on them how?  They can't take my coins just because they have hashing power.  They'd need my private key to do that.

I know exactly what the risks are, but I'm not convinced that you do.  You've been acting very concerned about the fact that a pool exceeded some magical 50% number and seem certain that the protocol needs to be "fixed".  But I'm not sure that you even understand what a mining pool with 51% can do that a mining pool with 49% can't do.


I never said I was VERY smart.  I'm just trying to understand why you think that BTC isn't "safe".

This is totally false by the way. You clearly don't understand how bitcoin works

OK, maybe I got missunderstood myself.

It is not safe to the eyes of newcomers which prevents BTC from becoming mainstream.
That's what I meant.

And yes your coins depend on the protocol which depenends on the core-dev team.
If the protocol is comprimised your coins and private keys mean nothing because your coins will be worthless.

BRO common man, I told you from yesterday I DO NOT want t get into ANY kind of arguments with you.

WHat I want is the ones responsible for the protocol to make sure that it is safe.
EVERYBODY wants that.

Don't you?

Jesus, why are we still arguing?

The mere concentration of hash-power harms the network.

They are going ahead and amassing >50% of the hash-power because they over-estimated the network hash-rate growth when ordering their miners. The reason is that they at least want to make back their investment before the hash-rate climbs any more.

This is short-sighted and will destroy their business. Much like the credit-default swaps that caused the 2008 banking collapse.
 

I couldn't agree with you more.

I had an idea but Danny pointed out that it wont work because there are flaws.
And I accept that.

But something needs to be done.

I, just like you wantg to see BTC go mainstream.

This is holding it back.

Why is people attacking me for asking for this?

I'm so confused.

I thought you said that you thought it already WAS safe.

You're just concerned that the newcomers don't know it.

I think we need to start be figuring out if you are concerned that newcomers don't know that it is safe, or if you yourself are concerned that it isn't safe.

Bro, me personally I am not worried.
However, every single person I have talked to about BTC seemed to be stuck to the "dangers" instead of the benefits.
The 51% attack being the biggets.
They even asked me: how is it decentralized if one entity can control it?

WHat am I supposed to say?
The core-dev team is working on it?
Are they?

That is an issue that if resolved - IT WILL - make BTC mainstream.

I'm not interested in arguing... but I think it's important to understand that the beauty of the bitcoin protocol is that no one can make changes to it, as you seem to believe is possible. All of the existing miners would have to switch to mining that new fork, you can't just make changes on the fly like that

People are attacking you because you don't appear to take responsibility for your own actions.

Hash-power is of global strategic importance; a munition if you will. Why would you use it without a modicum of monitoring?

Why do you think it is irrational to stay off concentrated pools, given the extreme risk to the BItcoin network for failing to do so?

This is what I am trying to say.
People are attacking me because I have 720GH at GHash - where I have 1.5TH on another pool, but apparently that doesn't matter to them because I am a bad guy.
I didn't bring GHash to 40PH+ with my 720GH.

That being said, the core-dev team cannot expect every miner to keep an eye on the hash rates when they can jsut sort it out once and for all.

People are greedy.
It has been proven even after GHash had 51%. - EDIT: YES, me included - I didn't do anything because I wasn't worried
They did not move their miners.
The hash rate dropped ONLY after the DDOS attack.

So, do you want a trustless system or not?
Shoudl we trust pools?
Should we trust individual miners to point their equipment elsewhere?
OR
Shoudl we put an end to this now and help make BTC mainstream?

What would you choose?

IMO, if we can't trust miners and hashers to avoid concentrating hash-power, then Bitcoin has failed.

Despite comments up-thread, we are not dealing with complete imbeciles here. If you can handle making sure you don't exceed 12amps of continuous draw on a 15amp circuit; you can handle checking if your pool appears to have a dangerous amount of hash-power.

In the bitcoin community, there is no reason to trust anyone. You just have to hope.

That being said, people can earn trust, like here on the forum.

That's my argument here.
We want a trustless system yet we have to depend that nobody will screw us over.

I do not belive that there should be ANY kind of regulation or central authority, but since the dev-core team might be having difficulty comming up with a solution maybe we can join heads and create a TRUST-LESS system that prevents accumulation of 51% network hashrate.

I know I am being a but pushy here, but I like you have invested in BTC and believe in BTC.
And it's things like things that are holding us back.

Great!  Then there isn't a problem.  Lets not go trying to fix something that isn't broken.  Instead, lets work on educating others so that they won't be worried either.


Then you should start explaining to them why you aren't worried.  Educate them.  If people don't understand something, then they fear it.  The solution isn't to change the system.  The solution is to educate people.


And you explained to them that one person can't control it, right?


The truth.

That having 51% doesn't allow them to steal your bitcoins.  That having 51% doesn't allow them to create more than 21 million bitcoins.  That having 51% doesn't allow them to change the size of the block reward.  That having 51% doesn't allow them to do very much that they couldn't already do with 49%.  Teach them.  Inform them.  Knowledge is the key to overcoming fear of the unknown.


Working on what? I thought we just agreed that it isn't something to be afraid of.


I agree.  A lack of knowledge and irrational fears needs to be resolved.  The resolution is education.

Bro, depending on the devs to make a change (which will not make the network any safer btw) is the definition of centralization.

It is up to each and every miner to avoid concentrating their hashpower on any one particular pool

Yeah, try explaining to Cypriots (after what happened with Neo-Bee) that BTC is safe...
It's already got a bad name here man.

And I am working on a couple of projects to promote BTC but I need to feel a bit more confident that I can get people to trust it.
If you know what I am saying.

It's not easy after what happened with Neo-Bee.
People look at me as if I am trying to scam them.

And yes I explain everything, but unfortunately even though technology is not far behind here, the majority of people are...
If you know what I mean....

Couldn't agree with you more.
That's why - maybe - a solution can be presented that is decentralized and doesn't allow any one pool or individual to accumulate more than a certain % of hashrate

???

What does Neo-Bee have to do with mining hash rates?

Even if you could keep mining pools from gaining more than 50% of the hash power, it wouldn't prevent things like Neo-Bee.

If that's what has people concerned about the safety of Bitcoin, then you need to focus your attention on increasing transparency in business, not in regulating mining pools.


Magically keeping mining pools from gaining more than 50% of the hash power isn't going to make people who are concerned about Neo-Bee trust it.  You're focusing your attention in the wrong direction.


If people aren't willing to take the time to understand why it's safe, then regulating miners isn't going to fix it for you.

I was referring to the educating people part.....
Hash rate is part of the 51% attack problem.

Which isn't a problem, so doesn't need to be fixed.

I think you may be underestimating the dangers of mining concentration.
My latest book-mark: How A Mining Monopoly Can Attack Bitcoin (http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/16/how-a-mining-monopoly-can-attack-bitcoin/)

I am considering ignoring S4VV4S. They keep insisting that self-regulation can't work, even though it has in the past (admittedly when the community was smaller). A hard-fork to make hash-power concentration irrelevant would also "(loose the) decentralized trust narrative, (causing the) inability to differentiate Bitcoin from competing technologies."

Edit: in the speculation sub-forum it is often said that Bitcoin is either worth $astronomical_number or $0. I don't think I can overstate that a hard-fork to work around mining concentration will tend to make the latter value the more correct one.

I think this sums it up nicely.  There are lots of things a 51% pool can't do, but there are also a lot of non-armageddon type things that it can.  The hacking distributed guys have done a good job laying things out and make a pretty convincing case that bitcoin isn't decentralized if a single entity is at 51%. 

Agreed, because these are the main arguments for decentralized systems.

You clearly haven't been paying attention in this thread, or you'd realize that my response was in reference to S4VV4S claiming that it isn't a problem for pools to have 51%, and then demanding that someone try and fix this problem.

If he doesn't believe that there is a problem, then there is no need for him to continue demanding that the protocol be "fixed" (why fix something that isn't broken?).  If he feels that the protocol must be "fixed", then he should start admitting that there is a problem.  Until he gets over his cognitive dissonance, and chooses one side of the debate or the other, any conversation on this topic with him is useless and unproductive.  Every time you tell him that he has the power to vote with his hashpower, he states that he doesn't believe there is a problem that would require him to do so.  Then in the same post he talks about how the problem needs to be "fixed".

Here we go again....

Danny I have much respect for you man, and I do believe you have a lot of knowledge but I don't think you got my point.

I (as in me personally) am not worried about a 51% attack right now.
I am worried about what this is doing to BTC (mostly caused by media FUD).

The FUD that has been going around is damaging BTC rep and it's slowing down adoption as people tend to see the bad side of things instead of the benefits.

I personally am involved in projects that are aimed to promote BTC.

And yes I "demand" (as you put it) for this "problem" to be fixed as to get BTC to acquire greater adoption.

Seriously man, do you not read the news?
NOT everybody has the knowledge to understand that when a pool has 51% it doesn't necessarily mean destruction.

We need to get rid of this issue if we want mass adoption.
And you cannot expect the average Joe to have the knowledge you have on the subject.
If you want BTC to succeed then I advise you (just like you advised me) to put your knowledge and skills on how to get rid of this problem rather than - well basically - go bypassed it.

I don't understand why that is so difficult for you to comprehend.

Gavin himself stated that he has a "solution" but it's currently not needed (or something along those lines).
When will it be needed, when we actually have a 51% attack?

bitcoin is slowly becoming more and more centralized with miners

with services and users it is diversifying

You DID bring Ghash to 40PH+

Let's assume the following:

Ghash has 40PH
Ghash owns 50% = 20PH
Miners on Ghash own the other 50%
If each miner had 720GH, that would be about 27,000 miners to equal 20PH

The world pop is ~ 6.6B
If 0.01% use bitcoin, that is 660,000 users
Say a little less than half of us mine bitcoin = 300,000

Now, let's assume that 1/3 of the network hash is pool owned. ~96PH total
That is ~63PH owned by "private" miners, of which there are 300,000
That is only an average of 212GH per miner
You are 3.5x above that average

So yes you and the other miners at Ghash ARE causing the problem.

No one can tell you to point your miner(s) at a certain pool, that is the freedom of the network. Yet that freedom also brings responsibility. You are to act responsibly to protect the network. Asking for a hard fork is taking away that freedom and centralizing it. That is the opposite of what bitcoin is about.

You want a tool? Here, use this (https://blockchain.info/pools?timespan)
It will tell you which pools are "too big". Move to a smaller pool and all is fine. Each one of us holds the future of bitcoin in their hands. We can build, we can just toss it to the side, or we can destroy. It really is up to you.

You guys are so fucking selfcentric that you don't get the point.
ITS NOT THE POOLS FAULT NOR MINE.
THE PROTOCOL AS IT IS IS FLAWED.

It's as simple as that.

You cannot expect every single fucking miner to point their equipment elsewhere EVERY FUCKING TIME theres a 51% concentration instead of just getting rid of the problem.

You know why?

BECAUSE YOUR TRUSTLESS SYSTEM DEPENDS ON TRUST, between miners and pools.

Nice decentralization and trustless system we have there......

Considering how many "corporations" are mining, enough of them with a user input wouldn't be super bad. There would just have to be a large variation between the pools, and lots of hardware in each.

It would be bad, but it wouldn't necessarily wreck everything. Cloud mining works (Unless you have a phobia for that kind of thing) and having 15 different companies pointed at different pools wouldn't necessarily wreck the system, but it all depends on how you look at it.

On a side note, however, the amount of stuff you can use Bitcoin with is increasing dramatically, and that's better for everyone.

If you forget about 51% pools for a second, there is a second problem too. Mining has become big boys game. Samller miners are dropping off faster than new ones that are getting into game. Those who survive are getting bigger and bigger, and are swallowing each other slowly. To enter mining game you just need more and more money, which cant be good for decentralization and diversity.
If things continue way they are going right now, at some distant future, there will be only few very large entities mining and battleing it out with insane ammount of hash power and money that they need to invest just to stay a float and not to be swallowed by one little bit above them.

Do you think that there will ever be a time when mining will come back to common user? I just cant see it happen with what we have today.

The trust is in NOT the system, it's in the execution. You and another party can TRUST that your transaction will be processed by the bitcoin protocol and be irreversible. You still need to trust the person to whom you send bitcoin to honor the sale/service/exchange as agreed. The network/system, does nothing to make that trustless.
Pools were not something that existed when bitcoin was released. It's miners working together to help all miners that AGREE to work together to split found blocks proportionately. This is not something bitcoin needs to control, as the blockchain is decentralized and visible to anyone. IF a pool abuses it's hash power and attempts to re-write, the network will punish them and they will have ZERO trust forever more. A 51% attack is detectable and preventable. No one entity has shown that they have enough hash power to do so.
The FUD will always be there. Before the Ghash 51%, it was mutable TX, before that it was hacked exchanges, before that China, etc, etc.

Great. Then there's nothing to fix.


If the media is the problem, then fix the media.


Not sure what that has to do with this discussion.  Lots of people "are involved in projects".  Lots of people aren't.  It doesn't change the fact that either we need to be worried about a 51% attack, or their is nothing to fix and people just need to be educated.  If the media was saying that Bitcoin transactions could be reversed, would you be saying that we need to change the protocol to fix it so they stop saying that?


A problem that you say doesn't exist needs to be fixed?  You are familiar with the term "cognitive dissonance", right?


Generally? No.  I've found that they rarely know what they are talking about and are more interested in improving revenue than delivering facts.


And we can't fix media FUD by changing a protocol.


Which is why we need to focus on education.


I wouldn't expect the average Joe to be using a highly volatile, extremely risky, beta software safely at all.


I don't care if it succeeds or not. It's an interesting experiment, and I look forward to seeing how it all plays out.  I expect it to succeed, but there's certainly a possibility that the whole thing collapses in the future.


I have no difficulty comprehending at all.


Great.  So nothing to worry about anymore then.  We can all move on to other discussions.


Yes, obviously.  No need to fix it unless it's actually broken.

This was Satoshi's plan.  Are you not aware of this?  This has been known and expected from the beginning, Satoshi even said so himself.


No.

There can be a pseudo-return to those days, but it's very iffy.

If pools or companies allowed for miners to take part in votes on what the company or pool should do based on their mining rate, then it may bring back more miners. But a LOT of things would have to change.

I have to laugh at the statement where you said there will be giant entities battling it out, but I think those "entities" will entail cloud mining, such as GHash's companionship with cex.io. PBMining, and a few others exist that use a cloud hashing format, and I think that's how the mining would still be done by the "users" but hosted by the companies.

The problem is in the protocol yes, but that's not the point. You, as in the miners, aren't doing the necessary to scale down this problem. Instead you're sticking to ghash.io and that's why we ended up here.
If miners actually did care about BTC no pool would get close to 30% not to mention 50%.

Are you even listening to your self?

BTC was built upon greed.
You are an idiot by making comments like that.

PS: Yes, GREED....
SATOSHI mined more than 1 million BTC, he ONLY transacted ONCE and that was to Hal Finney.
He kept the rest to himself......

OK, so I am back and we could go on forever quoting each other trying to prove our point.

But I am not going to do that because it's pointless.

But I do have one question for you Danny:

How does a computer programmer that always takes the time to think about possible attacks and try to prevent them, accept the fact that the current protocol is flawed and can lead to a serious, actually completely destructing attack?

Doesn't really go hand to hand with what you are arguing about with me does it?

One more question:
Did you ever produce anything at all?
Because I can guarantee to you that there will always be someone better than you ready to "attack" your software and be very successful at it.

PS: It's PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) not GPG.

BTW does anybody else have an idea on how we can get rid of the problem?
If you got an idea just let us know and we can build upon it.

the funny part is :

in P2P file sharing, miner pool is like server of indexing files ... all attack by private investissments.
and you see ... at the end, only decentralizer DHT or Kademlia win to "continu" the job.

solo-mining is like that.
or P2Pool (for high end hashrate machine).

---

i don't understand why ghash.io use 1 identity in the bitcoin network... it's really simple to split 1 server in 10 others to split mining job.

That's ok, I've got enough patience.


Well, not entirely.  At least when others see this thread, they'll have an opposing viewpoint so they'll be less likely to mistakenly believe that your proclamations have significant merit.


I'm fully aware of many of the risks involved in the Bitcoin protocol.  I accept them, because there isn't yet any known way to fix them without a trusted authority.  The particular risk you are referring to has been known since the original announcement of the the Satoshi whitepaper, before the programming was ever even released.  There are two possibilities:

• It isn't a problem, and Bitcoin will be a successful experiment because the financial incentives result in the network being protected
• It is a problem, in which case Bitcoin is a failed experiment.

Time will tell which is true.  Without running the experiment, there's no way to know for sure.  So here we are, thousands (or millions?) of us all voluntarily participating in a global experiment on distributed consensus protected by proof of work.


Not sure what you mean.

You are trying to say that there isn't a problem, but we need to fix the problem (that doesn't exist?) so that the media won't scare people.

I'm just trying to help you decide if there is a problem or not so we can have a logical discussion.  It's impossible to have an intelligent discussion with someone that wants to fix a problem that they don't believe exists.


Nah.  My employer pays me to sit around and accomplish nothing.

Silly question, meet silly answer.


Probably, but at least I don't get defensive and argumentative when someone points out weaknesses in my ideas.  I'm willing to consider the advice on its merits and accept the verifiable facts.  Then I can work with others to find ways to strengthen the program.  Interestingly, none of the software that has been implemented to my specifications has been "attacked" successfully yet.  All successful attacks on software I've been involved in either attacked weakness in code that was under someone else's control, or attacked weaknesses that I had already pointed out, but which the company chose to ignore.

That doesn't mean I'm incapable of being unaware of weaknesses in my software, but it does demonstrate that making an effort to understand what you are saying/doing and researching ideas that have been discussed in the past results in much better ideas than just suggesting ideas that have already been analyzed without being aware of the past analysis or taking the time to consider the implications.



You say Toemaytoe, I say Tahmahtoe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Privacy_Guard).

Clearly you two are not on the same page, name calling doesn't help anyone.

He is asking (among other things) if you think it is a problem because you haven't been clear on that. For example...

So you are not worried about a 51% attack, but are worried about media FUD about a 51% attack. What is the bigger problem, the risk of a 51% attack or the FUD about a 51% attack?  If the FUD is the problem, could education be the answer?

I don't think it's fair to claim nothing has been done to eliminate the risk of a 51% attack. As far as I know, there is no known way to solve this problem without a central authority, all pow/pos coins are affected. Does this mean the problem is being ignored? I wouldn't think so, I am sure there is at least one person out there working on a different method for consensus.

Minor edits for clarity

You are absolutely right.
So there's no point of arguing.
Maybe I don't understand what Danny is saying or maybe he doesn't understand what I am saying.
So no point for this to go on.

Danny I apologize man.
Maybe I don't understand what you are saying.
I have edited my posts.

Proof of Activity: Extending Bitcoin’s Proof of Work via Proof of Stake

http://eprint.iacr.org/2014/452.pdf

No, no, no, no.

PoS is a great way to shell out lots of coins to those who already have lots of coins, or the world's greatest pre-mine scamming system ever.

Sure, it may eliminate PoW issues, but giving out the coins is far worse than mining them at a high difficulty. I'd rather have the community mine then have them sit there and collect coins for no reason. And, guess what! Few coins with PoS have been very successful in terms of adoption...

@Yakamoto
Not that we need yet another PoS vs PoW discussion. But to clarify: With fiat, you buy mining rigs to mine BTCs or to buy BTCs directly. With BTC, you buy other coins like PoS coins. So, in the end, the rich stay rich.

I can see your point, and let's avoid that discussion.

I guess that is a fair statement, so thanks for explaining that to me.

I guess the PoA wouldn't necessarily be bad, but I think it still has to prove itself.

I have to keep this short because my battery is almost out, sorry.

PoA is not PoS. read the paper. Activity (run a full node) is the matter for which the full node receive a portion of the reward sometimes. not only the strongest ones also the not so strongest ones. and this will help to develop the network of full nodes. otherwise it will turn to centralization in the next time because there is no incentive to run a full node with little hash power. little hash power will go into pools as the situation is since years. it is time to change the minting process. now!

Chancing the mining process is impossible, right?

No, not impossible. Just not a good idea if you want some consistency in the experiment called Bitcoin.

This is one area where altcoins are actually useful: they can try out new mining algorithms without disrupting everybody.

Not a good idea = impossible in practical terms. Until SHTF aka something breaks on a major scale, nothing will be changed.

agreed dude.

Probably one of the only good uses of alt coins. some of them do have interesting algorithms ill give them that.

So, we wait until some Altcoin takes over?

Nope, not gonna happen, for we will take action.

Exactly! The action will be people selling their BTC for the coin! It's foolproof!

In all honesty, however, there may very well be a alt-coin used for "everyday" stuff, but Bitcoin will always be the gold reserve for those currencies.

I expect an alt-coin is the future for everyday use, but Bitcoin will always be the gold backing for every crypto, until it eventually dies for whatever reason.

It's still decentralised. Anyone who thinks differently doesn't know what decentralisation is.

Then, you might enlighten us with your definition of decentralization.

I think this is what he means:

1. The monetary supply is still not changeable without the devs doing something.
2. A 51% attack is not occurring, and as such, no transactions are currently being controlled.
3. No one person owns more than 15% of BTC in existence. As such, it is difficult to control supply and demand without at least 25% of said commodity or item.
4. There is still no central bank
5. The money is still being generated at a predictable rate. There is no super damaging inflation.
6. The people are still controlling (A decent amount) the amount being generated, as well as countering large pools.

I honestly cannot understand why people still think it's NOT decentralized. Please, enlighten me. But after looking at everything, the only "centralized" thing is that everyone is still claiming GHash is still at 49%, when no-one bothers to look.

Tell me YOUR definition of centralization.

It does look interesting, but is there any evidence on PoA being stable enough for production? In the paper, they already mention game-theoretic holes in the protocol. There are solutions provided, but how high is the chance that there will be more flaws? Is there an implementation in the wild?

"But 51%er can turn dishonest at any moment, for there is a huge difference between someone who only holds 49% of the revenue, and someone who holds 51%. A 49%er can collect only 49% of the rewards if they are honest; if they engage in selfish mining, they can collect almost 100% of the rewards, but they cannot launch a full 51% attack. A 51%er can collect 100% of the mining rewards."

The article is wrong in general simply because there is no specific number that is important. It is a gradual change. "51% attack" is simple to say and became the common language used to describe the weakness. The higher one group goes, the more confirmations are needed to confirm mining and transactions because there is a higher and higher risk of doublespend and other consensus attacks succeeding for a given confirmation. We are at risk at 40% and at 60%, and technically the other percentages too.

I am pretty much regurgitating a reminder of this very fact from the front page of r/bitcoin this week.

no, that's wrong. 50% is a magic number. with less than that, a malicious miner and only undo a few blocks at a time when they run lucky, but the rest of the network will overtake them if they don't publish their side-mined chain asap. but with 50%+1 they can mine in secret knowing they will be guaranteed to have the longest chain if they mine long enough. so with 49% of the network, they can undo maybe 5 or 10 blocks at a time, and they have to publish them right away or risk the network overtaking them. with 51% then can undo 10000 blocks whenever they want without worry. it is a BIG difference and it most certainly IS a magic number.

That could be a big problem!

A solo miner with > 50%?  Yes.

A mining pool with > 50%?  No.

Imagine for a moment if GHash.io doesn't show any solved blocks on the publicly shared blockchain for the next 10000 blocks (70 days).  None of the miners get any payouts.  How many miners do you think will continue to run their equipment in a pool that pays them absolutely nothing for 70 days?