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Bitcoin => Bitcoin Discussion => Topic started by: erre on January 18, 2016, 07:14:05 PM



Title: Decentralization and scalability, how can we achieve both?
Post by: erre on January 18, 2016, 07:14:05 PM
Actually, i think that decentralization and scalability are the technical issues who need to be fixed in bitcoin. This because I don't think that at the present state fungibility is a problem, but that's debatable.

XT resolves scalability issues but it pose a great centralization risk, as now centralization is a problem also without XT.

So I think that the real matter is: how to achieve decentralization? CPU/GPU mining has failed, because seems like you can always find a trick to use a more costly and effective miner. Also, every form of mining implies using electricity, and electricity greatly vary in cost around the world.

I discussed some time ago about a "proof of captcha" coin, but seems like it's not technically easy to do, and captcha can also be tricked. But I keep thinking the key is some form of human-proof, because humans are not so easy to scale (you can hire a ton of third world worker for easy tasks, but they would prefer to work alone if more profitable). I have not other ideas about how to achieve decentralization, but maybe you have....



Title: Re: Decentralization and scalability, how can we achieve both?
Post by: franky1 on January 18, 2016, 07:23:52 PM
centralization?

if you mean the corruption of coders with hidden agenda's, and paranoia about trojan code in downloaded update.. the solution is easy
if you mean not jumping instantly to 20mb blocks which would cause less distribution due to anger over bloat.. the solution is easy

https://i.imgur.com/cGt2eL5.jpg

this way users dont need to choose which group of dev's to trust  to download upgrades every 6months-2years. as the user can make changes locally without outside interference, and based purely on the discussion of acceptable increases (consensus)

if bitcoin implementations allowed for manual changes to increase limits, add opcodes and rules without having to re download a whole new program every few months.. the drama would settle down and users can be more decentralized


Title: Re: Decentralization and scalability, how can we achieve both?
Post by: erre on January 18, 2016, 11:01:39 PM
But what if more than 50% of the hashpower is controlled by a 2/3 pools and a few Chinese miners?


This is the problem i'm talking about, the block size concern me less... I think that we'll switch to bigger blocks when needed


Title: Re: Decentralization and scalability, how can we achieve both?
Post by: Kakmakr on January 19, 2016, 05:35:21 AM
In an ideal world, it would have been excellent if mining could be decentralized to the mobile market and every person with a cellphone, could have a node and contribute to the network and earn income from that. We would have the best decentralization option and we would help with re-distribution of wealth and create income possibilities for the poor.

The incentive or the reward should not be enough for people to see the need to create mining farms. Only problem is, we do not live in a perfect world.


Title: Re: Decentralization and scalability, how can we achieve both?
Post by: Amph on January 19, 2016, 08:33:58 AM
i don't think there is a centralization problem until every single farm out there or at least the majority are contorlled by a single entity

every time this argument is brought up, i propose my example, if every single miners go to one country to mine, can this be called centralization? the answer is no


Title: Re: Decentralization and scalability, how can we achieve both?
Post by: erre on January 20, 2016, 08:53:43 PM
i don't think there is a centralization problem until every single farm out there or at least the majority are contorlled by a single entity

every time this argument is brought up, i propose my example, if every single miners go to one country to mine, can this be called centralization? the answer is no

I would argue that, expecially when in this country  you have a national firewall. Also, mining farms are nothe so much, and I suppose most owners knows themself. A system who belongs to an oligarchy is not decentralised.


Title: Re: Decentralization and scalability, how can we achieve both?
Post by: Zeroxal on January 20, 2016, 09:07:18 PM
However, if some company actually gets a share of 50% of the mining market by buying big mining companies like Bitmain, private companies,... Or if the major pools decide to work together with other major pools and get more than 50% of the hash rate. They would be able to easily manipulate the blockchain,because almost every second block is mined by them.

Quote
>50% attack
Also referred to as a majority attack. If the attacker controls more than half of the network hashrate, the previous attack has a probability of 100% to succeed. Since the attacker can generate blocks faster than the rest of the network, he can simply persevere with his private fork until it becomes longer than the branch built by the honest network, from whatever disadvantage.
No amount of confirmations can prevent this attack; however, waiting for confirmations does increase the aggregate resource cost of performing the attack, which could make it unprofitable or delay it long enough for the circumstances to change or slower-acting synchronization methods to kick in.
Source:https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending