Bitcoin Forum

Could someone explain in layperson terms why it is not possible to figure out a key to solve all future hashes or blocks and create bitcoins at will?

Not sure if I phrased my question correctly but hopefully you know what I mean.

Algorithm prevents such shit from happening.

Because that "key" is different its time.

Because mathematically you need to know the prior block hash before you can compute the next one.

And unless you have > 50% of the total network hash rate, then you can't permanently compute the next hash faster than the network can.

Note you can with declining probability P (< 1) compute the next hash faster than the network with less than 50% of the hash rate. Since probability is multiplicative, then doing this for two consecutive blocks is (this is not exactly correct but for simple exposition) P x P, e.g. 0.1 x 0.1 = 0.01 so from 1 in 10 for one block rises to 1 in 100 chance for two blocks. Ditto for N consecutive blocks, e.g. for four blocks then 0.1 x 0.1 x 0.1 x 0.1 = 1 in 10,000 chance.

Anony, thanks for the explanation.

So if someone has over 50% of the total network hash rate is that something to be concerned about?  Do you think it will ever happen?

My pleasure.

Yes very worried because it means they can control the network and even modify the protocol to make it a fiat, create a zillion coins, etc.. Some argue that they can't do that because the Bitcoiners will fork to a new chain. But these Bitards forget that the masses don't care about Bitcoiner idealism. They just want to buy their pizza. See my Transactions Withholding Attack thread for more explanation on that. Once the masses are already using one fork, they won't switch. The controller could run the fork well enough that the masses are happy, even while creating more coins, etc. Exactly like fiat. We go right back where we started.

In my (opinionated) analysis it is very likely to happen (when coin rewards diminish near to 0) with Bitcoin, because of a flaw in the design (transaction fees should be zero instead).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=344154.msg3745513#msg3745513

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342848.msg3745458#msg3745458



Or another attack which gives up control of the network. Dig, dig, dig into the rabbit hole:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=349096.msg3744842#msg3744842

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222998.msg3745278#msg3745278

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=336816.msg3745161#msg3745161

For layperson , average joe, pleeb just use


Cause Obama

Alt coin users could transfer the value in their bitcoins to a more secure alt coin. The price of bitcoin would plummet but the price of the new coin would rise and we would continue using crypto coins just like we are doing with bitcoin.

Also, and I hope to be in topic, why do we need to try millions of hashes before finding the right one? Isn't there a way to create a mathematical way to just get the right hash on the first try?

That is nonsense.  It isn't that other nodes would fork it is that 100% of the nodes would simply reject a chain which violates the rules like create a zillion coins.  It doesn't matter if a single miner does it or someone with 99.999999999999999999999999999999999% of the hashpower.   An invalid block is invalid regardless of how much hahpower created it.  

Miners simply force a consensus when the network is split on the status of transactions.   All node (as in every single full node on the network regardless of if they are mining or not) independently verifies all transactions and blocks.  An invalid block is simply invalid.

Your claim is simply false and shows a lack of basic understanding of the system you are trying to "fix".

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Attacking_all_users

The hashing operation basically produces a very long random number.  The entire network is looking for the first random number that has a certain number of zeros in it.

It is totally random who "wins" - that is, gets the first random number with the proper number of zeros.

Hey you forgot that > 50% of the mining nodes will be controlled by the attacker.

If you mean non-mining nodes, they have no protocol interaction with creation of coins. Duh!

You are nonsense.


Incorrect. You are Dunning-Kruger ignorant on this issue (I recognize you are reasonably knowledgeable on Bitcoin overall).

Please stop quoting AnonyMint. The reason his Ignore link is that color is because we don't want to read his posts.

Butt hurt Bitards of course prefer to remain in a delusion.

Oh so maybe 62 gatekeepers out of 10,000 have clicked ignore. Meaningless.

Gatekeepers are people who try to suppress truth so the rest remain ignorant (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78403.msg873966#msg873966). The facts are upthead and stand on their merits.

That is exactly the plan. ;)

OMG I have 63 ignores now, another clicked to join the Bitard brigade.

I see some people have an ignore with a yellow rectangle around it....but why is your ignore red and blinking?  :o

As soon you start insult people because they don't agree with you, you lose argument

Logic doesn't have an ego.

I lose the attention of the Bitards who would prefer to remain in blissful delusion. Perfect.

I see the Bitcoin Wiki is incorrect:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Attacks#Attacker_has_a_lot_of_computing_power

So perhaps you are the 63rd Bitard who clicked out of 10,000 users on the forum. And so statistically that means what exactly?

Just another gatekeeper trying to hoodwink the novices (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78403.msg873966#msg873966). Actually I have a slight caveat to Etlase2's theory about being able to stop all transactions, Gavin implied a reasonable counter-point (http://gavintech.blogspot.com/2012/05/neutralizing-51-attack.html) that the majority of non-mining nodes would abandon a chain which doesn't process any transactions. Etlase2 fails to note that an attacker probably can't win unless it provides an advantage for non-mining nodes that outweighs any changes to the protocol which might be undesirable to some or most. But gmaxwell is technically wrong when he asserts coins can't be added. And the Bitcoin wiki is incorrect on that point too.

The reason is because as I stated upthread, the non-mining nodes don't validate the coinbase transaction, only miners do. And non-mining nodes are not going to join a minority chain in protest, because the attacker can just shift his mining resources to attack the minority chain anew. There is no escape.

Sorry blowhard Bitards.

I dare gmaxell to come here and debate me on this.

Can you try explain to me how they will able produce more coins?

Refer also to my immediately prior post.

Only miners can add coins with the coinbase transaction that is placed in each new mined block of the block chain.

If an attacker controls > 50% of the hashrate, the attacker will always have the longest block chain. So the attacker decides what is acceptable in the blocks.

The honest miners will reject any block chain which has more new coins in the coinbase transaction than was specified in Satoshi's whitepaper.

However, if the attacker has the longest chain, then the honest miners can ignore all they want, they will still have the shorter chain.

The entire double-spend security rests on the fact that only the longest block chain is valid.

So the only thing the honest miners and honest non-mining nodes could do would be to fork the block chain. But the attacker can then attack the forked chain. And so on and so on. There is no escape.

Checkmate. You accept the new coins.

P.S. If the honest miners try to blacklist the attacker by IP, he can send to the network from innumerable IP addresses employing a $100 botnet rental. Once you go down that road, the entire network has to be blacklisted, so lights out. Checkmate. You accept the new coins.

Hey dumb ass a node doesnt have to be a miner to be counted as a node. Having >50% hashing power doesnt mean >50% of network node.

Welcome to my ignore list retard,

Yeah that is precisely my point retard. You still don't get it.

To all the newbies, here is a quote from bitcoin wiki, you have to understand how bitcoin miners are rewarded

Having >50% hashing power doesnt mean you have >50% network.

The reward has to be agreed upon the network.

In short, dont listen to the retard Anony, there is a reason why hes ignored.


Here is what he said

The only thing the attacker control is transactions which are put into the blocks. Not the reward of finding blocks.

Listen up Dunning-Kruger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) novice.

The miner who finds the block, decides what to put in the coinbase transaction in that block.

The honest miners and honest non-mining nodes will reject it if it doesn't follow the agreed upon schedule for coin rewards.

However if the attacker controls > 50% of the hash rate, then the attacker's miners will accept the block.

I already explained upthread what the options of the non-mining nodes are at that point (they must fork because longest chain must be valid else the entire double-spend protection is gone, but the attacker can attack the fork, there is no escape). And they don't really have any option but to accept the new coins. Go read what I wrote at the top of this page.

Now STFU because you don't know what you are talking about. I do. You are misinterpreting what the wiki says. No where does the wiki say what you are trying to assert.

The incorrect claim in the wiki that I have quoted upthread, is because who ever wrote the wiki is listening to gmaxell, but gmaxell is wrong.

Eat humble pie.

If there is, nobody has found it yet (afawk). And there is a LOT of interest in cracking hashing algorithms because they are used in many sensitive applications. Quantum computing is one thing to keep an eye on though because quantum computers, who make use of the fact that electrons can be in several different states at the same time, for computing could be able to crack any hash within milliseconds. But then Bitcoin could move to other hashing algorithms that can not be cracked by quantum computers.

Only ignores by members above a certain level count :)

Older hashes have been broken. Typically the longer a hash is around, the more attacks on the hash are found. However, Bitcoin could change the hash in that case, so that really isn't a problem.

Yeah I know but how do we know that (mostly) only the gatekeepers are not the ones trying to control the reputation of people who stomp on their early adopter gains?

I don't see many newbies telling me they've put me on ignore. In fact, none that I remember.

Now to recap, not only is a > 50% attack very destructive as I've successfully argued and defended above, but don't forget that my first point was also that Bitcoin will be relatively easy to 50% attack once the coin rewards decline, because there is a problem with transaction fees:

I'm not a math genius, but my understanding is that the hash operation is a one-way calculation.  The best mathematical minds in the world have tried to find ways to reverse the calculation, but they all came up empty.  The consensus among mathematicians is that the problem can probably never be solved.  If they are all wrong, and someone comes up with a solution one day, it would break a whole lot more than just Bitcoin.  We would basically lose all Internet security!

How are you at advanced mathematics?  Enormous awards await the person who solves the problem that the best minds in the world say is impossible to solve!

Ok  you have control > 50%  you add 1000 bitcoin to new address and release the block you won race now how network will react to new chain whit additional 1000 bitcoin in only your chain ?

LOL all i see this is this dumb ass keeps making 3 posts in a row. Happy all i see is "ignored"

The dumb ass has a delusional that 51% attack can create zillions coins....  ::)

While all it does is to stall/halt blockchains when the network nodes reject the attackers blocks.

Then what? ...

Simple, we can change the rule that include some sort of proof of stake (so this requires the attacker hold the majority of old bitcoins in circulation). The attacker will then troll the forums like Anony .... ;D

You make it sound as if you can just generate a random hash with a certain number of zeros in it, but this is where the nonce value comes in isn't it?

It will be rejected since it doesn't follow the protocols of the bitcoin network. The attacker has effectively forked the chain and created an altcoin at that point.

You can ignore Anonymint, he's a troll spreading FUD in order to pump his own altcoin.

The network will reject the attackers block. If the attackers keep his hashing power, it would halt the network. However a new rule can be made in one day that nullify his attacking power.

He could just be a retard..... Like the journalist in Contagious movie.... spreading FUD to make 12,000 ppl not to take vaccines.

What timeframe would you give for the >50%attack to occur from this point in time?

Do you believe there is an altcoin that does not have these concerns or could one be developed?

Lastly, although u seem to have a high number of ignores, I do prefer to listen to those that can backup their arguments, and although the conversations can somewhat deteriorate at times, it seems to be more so than frustration than inability to understand other points of view.

personally commend you for providing not only various probable weaknesses within the bitcoin DNA but also back that up with what seems to be competent evidence with merit.

I'm sure mr satoshi when completing his white paper did not allow for human greed and power!

When contemplating whether you are full of shit or have valid argument, one only has to understand that to be the minnow on one side of the battle is honourees in itself, win or lose, so should be given credence.

Appreciate your efforts and personally enjoy your posts, although with your obvious strength in economics and also coding, it is certainly at time hard to understand the various Swazi language, but guess we all have our s and w.

Cheers

Hey , what???
He does have an altcoin?
I thought he was just trolling how bitcoin will fail. Not that he has a better "idea" !

He could be the creator of ICoin.....

His motives are pretty clear.

This is absolutely 100% false.  Non mining nodes still reject invalid blocks, and would thus only download and validate valid blocks.  The 51%er would thus just do the equivilant of create a hard fork which only he can use, while the smaller sub-network would create valid blocks that user clients would accept.  So all of the non-mining lay users still wouldn't even see the invalid blocks, they'd just notice that confirmation times have slowed.

I get it now you won the race you have 50% bitcoin network power you produce block and inside  block is messag  'I'm with stupid' now you have block chain.  Bitcoin transaction block,Bitcoin transaction block,Bitcoin transaction block,'I'm with stuppid',Bitcoin transaction block,Frank was here,Bitcoin transaction block,Bitcoin transaction block. Longest chain won.   

I was trying to simplify the process in order to answer the question.  Here is the mining process in simple terms:

1) Hash the block
2) Check the hash and if the hash calculated matches the current difficulty (number of zeros) you win!  Transmit the block to the network and collect your 25 BTC.
3) ELSE increment the nonce in the block (and/or change the block in other ways) and go to 1)

This is what is being done quadrillions of time per second 24/7 in order to secure the Bitcoin system.

You are correct on a narrow point, but it doesn't really help you because the big picture is (more or less) as I have stated upthread.

It is very amusing how you argue that breaking the protocol by following a minority chain is somehow a resistance to an attack. You assume too many factors which you have apparently not thought out. I will explain.

You must consider that if the 50% attack is easy because of the transactions flaw I have explained which severely limits funding for the miners, then 90% attack is probably also relatively easy. For 50% you need 1x the honest miners' hash rate, for 75% you need 3x, for 80% you need 5x, for 90% you need 9x. To pick 50% as an arbitrary limit out of one's ass, isn't really analyzing the potential threat.

So if the clients follow the 10% chain and go for 1-confirmation transactions, they will see their transactions delayed by roughly 20 minutes 90% of the time, 30 minutes 81% of the time, 40 minutes 73% of the time, 50 minutes 66% of the time, 60 minutes 59% of the time, 2 hours 28% of the time, etc..

With the recommended 6-confirmations, that is 2 hours 90% of the time, 3 hours 81% of the time, 4 hours 73% of the time, 5 hours 66% of the time, 6 hours 59% of the time, 12 hours 28% of the time, etc..

So if they follow the 10% chain, Bitcoin is dead, especially with the level of volatility in the price and hour delay is not functional.

Even if you pick the arbitrary limit of 50%, for 1-confirmation that is still transactions delayed 20 minutes 50% of the time, 30 minutes 25% of the time, 40 minutes 13%, etc.. And for standard 6-confirmations that is transactions delayed 2 hours 50% of the time, 3 hours 25% of the time, 4 hours 13%, etc..

---

Also you are assuming that by the time coin rewards become small around 2033 or 2040, that the masses will get their non-mining node clients from the Bitcoin foundation or an honest party. Thus you assume that 100% of the clients will not collude or prefer to not have their transactions severely delayed to be point of being unusable.

You assume that violating the "longest chain rule" is harmonic in any way, which is is not, because chaos is something you don't control.

It is very likely the attacker can collude with an interested party which controls a significant number of customers access, e.g. Amazon.com

See my Transactions Withholding Attack.

So customers are more likely to say, "fix the problem Amazon". They won't give a flying f$ck about the "protocol". They will only want the damn transaction to complete timely. Even if Amazon was not colluding, they would likely make the decision to go with the 90% chain out of practical necessity.

Also the "idealistic" client nodes that you are thinking save your ass, also are going to get pissed off. They are going to demand the system doesn't take an hour to send a freakin transaction. So someone is going to offer an open source client that offers to adopt the 90% chain. And many your "idealistic" folks are going to realize that a few extra coins in the short-term is not hurting them as much as hour long delays. So they adopt the 90% chain as a stopgap solution in the near-term and look for an altcoin that isn't broken (no transactions flaw which makes the mining underfunded and thus vulnerable to 50 - 95% attack).

---

So with anything less than (the impossible) 100% perfect top-down control over the non-mining client nodes, the entire double-spend protection is gone, because you will have spends occuring in two chains with clients disagreeing over which chain is the valid one. As I wrote upthread:


So really I don't think you've refuted my point.

What I said upthread stands as fact. The non-mining nodes are basically helpless. You have not presented a viable nor credible counter-argument.

The Bitards try to diminish the severity of the > 50% attack and claim it is no big deal and they can deal with it. They are in delusion.

Oh yes he does and his 1400+ posts of FUD and his white papers are here to convince us that Bitcoin will fail for various reasons so we should all jump ship and work on his better ideas.  You can read all about all the fatal flaws in Bitcoin here:

http://anonymint.org, http://anonycash.org and http://anonycoin.org

Hey AnnoyMint:  Why waste your time here?  Bitcoin is doomed, right?  We are all just a bunch of total idiot Bitards supporting a totally failed experiment, right?  Go create your better idea and when we all realize that Bitcoin has failed we will all come begging you teach us the correct way to do things, right?

Sorry but I will not see your response.

Those ideas were abandoned as unworkable in April. I will go take the domains down now. I forgot.

My motives are very clear. Bitcoin is extremely evil. It is handing the internet and everything we worked so hard to protect right into the lap of the NWO, 666, cartels and all the bullsh8t that people think it is supposed to preventing.

It is antithesis of what you think it is. I am not going mince my words. I will tell you frankly. I will not stop until we replace Bitcoin with something not so vulnerable.

Well now you are talking about changing to a different protocol entirely. You've moved the goalposts. We were talking about Bitcoin and Bitcoin's mining ecosystem. Now you are talking about PPC Peercoin.

You assume you can update all the clients out in the world, then you are naive or insane. You have no experience whatsoever if you are claiming that. We are talking 2033 or 2040 when coin rewards diminish, so we should be talking about a billion clients and all sorts of diversity of how outfits such as Amazon have the client integrated into their website and maybe they have a vested interest to not agree and not to adopt.

See my Transactions Withholding Attack.

It is as if all your arguments boil down to "we the Bitcoin foundation run the Bitcoin top-down and we can control every node and chaos doesn't exist". Bullsh8t. That is not what happens in the real world where competition reigns and everyone is looking for an edge and an arbitrage.

Your limited hangout fantasy delusion. You tots still playing with your trucks in the sandbox in the backyard.

Proof-of-stake can in theory also be attacked:

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/9336/can-anyone-explain-this-vulnerability-in-ppc

You don't know shit about what I think Bitcoin is or why I'm here. And you don't care, it's just not what you want it to be, and you're butthurt over it. You think you know what's better for us than we do? And you claim to be a flavor of anarchist? If you have better ideas, fine, great, share them, but stop with spreading lies and bullshit and claiming you're doing it to save us from evil or whatever the fuck, that's exactly the kind of bullshit thinking that landed the world in the place it is now. You're worse than those you claim to be against.

What lies did I spread? Name one. You can't. So that makes you the liar.

So enlighten us? Why are you supporting Bitcoin when it has severe vulnerabilities that hand the electronic currency to the government and cartels?

I am not butt hurt over anything. I am explaining to the newbies what you would prefer to sweep under the rug. I will not lose. So why would I be butt hurt? You will lose. I don't mean this argument, because you already lost that. I mean you will lose by supporting Bitcoin.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=350299.msg3753842#msg3753842

Exactly.

STILL WRONG.

ALLL NODES AS IN ALL 100,000+ ON THE NETWORK REGARDLESS OF IF THEY ARE MINING OR NOT VALIDATE ALL TX AND ALL BLOCKS.  That is the security model of Bitcoin.  No node trusts the output of any other node.  So miner makes a block giving him a single extra Satoshi and relays it to his peers.  Guess what?  Those peers validate the block and the block is invalid.  It is simply dropped.  It never becomes part of any chain.

A BLOCK WITH MORE COINS THAN ALLOWED BY THE PROTOCOL IS INVALID. PERIOD.  1+1 = 3 is still invalid even if it is the longest chain.  Nodes (once again ALL NODE not just miners) use the longest (most work) VALID chain.  A chain which contains blocks which mint extra coins is ALWAYS invalid and thus will NEVER be picked by any node.

Already refuted upthread, c.f. my rebuttal of luv2drnkbr.


Incorrect. You have a very narrow (myopic) view of the situation, which thus is erroneous. Read my rebuttal of luv2drnkbr. Try to wrap your mind around the reality.

No it is correct.  See I actually know how Bitcoin works.

Invalid blocks are never part of the longest chain.  Never.  Not once, not ever.   All nodes independently verify data received by other nodes.  That is the basic cornerstone of Bitcoin's security model.  If you can't get that right then why should anyone listen to any on the nonsense you are spouting.

As for your rebutal that is also nonsense.  Invalid blocks aren't included in the difficulty adjustment calculation.  They are simply dropped.  What part of dropped don't you understand?  The remaining valid miners would find blocks at ~10 minute interval.

So if in the time 2016 blocks should be found miners produce 2016 valid blocks and the attacker produces 489748971983472982372189 invalid blocks the 489748971983472982372189 invalid blocks are simply dropped.  They just cease to exist as far as every node on the network is concerned.  2016 valid blocks were found in the difficulty adjustment period so difficulty remains "low".  Now the bad actor WAS mining valid blocks are started mining invalid blocks it would be no different than simply stop mining.  Blocks would be found slower, difficulty would go down, blocks would be found faster again.

This is just another in a very long string of attempts to find the "fatal flaw" in Bitcoin.  Remember his claim that ASICs would cause the downfall of Bitcoin?  This is just his "fatal flaw" du jour.

Use your ignore button.  His rantings are the reason it is there.

Dropped by a minority of the mining in this case. So the majority chain will grow longer even faster if the minority chain doesn't include the attacker's blocks in the calculation of the difficulty. Because we can assume the attacker will include the blocks generated by the minority chain in its longer chain.

So you are thinking that transactions will not be slower in the minority chain, but relative only to the expected 10 minute block period. The attacker's chain will be much faster.

So all my arguments to luv2drnkbr still apply. The clients will have an incentive to have faster transactions. Instead of 60 minutes for 6-confirmations in the minority chain, the 90% chain will offer it in only a few minutes.

I am sorry but you are wrong.

I already found it.



Mining funding will be miniscule after coin rewards end, because there is a tension with transaction fees that has no solution. If you scale tx fees as a percentage then they will become orders-of-magnitude higher than debit cards (apparently some have a flat fee), because of the very high value of BTC in fiat. Whereas, if you don't, then mining is underfunded relative to the value of Bitcoin's economy, thus a 50 - 95% attack is very likely. The only solution is to eliminate transaction fees entirely and keep coin rewards.

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O yeah , interesting replies!
I got to avoid this thread! even though I sometimes see DeathAndTaxes as the last poster.

What the f$ck man can't you read? Are you really that dense?

Try to read it again more slooowly.

The block is not dropped by the > 50% miners who are controlled by the attack. And you don't top-down control all of the non-mining peers and their incentives. The longer block chain will be processing transactions up to an order-of-magnitude faster than the minority chain.

It only takes some non-mining clients that recognize the longer chain as valid (open source remember! don't expect every node to run your source code), to throw an entire monkey wrench into which spends are valid. Then you have chaos. The market will vote and the vote won't be 100% for either chain.

And I will place my bets on the masses preferring faster transactions than a few coins which don't affect them in any way.

The clients don't wag the miners. The miners are either consistent else the clients are free to choose.

P.S. I see your ignore is brown too.

One thing I will say is thay with this much money involved and the value continuing to rise, there is a HUGE incentive for people to try and find a way to do an attack.  Since it is web based anyone in the world can try to attempt this.  Think of all the mafia groups all over the world. 

I do not fully understand the way bitcoin works enough to say if it is possible or not but it is certainly something we should all think about.

It would be nice if this could be a constructive discussion instead of resorting to name calling.

When the coin rewards decline to near 0 roughly 2040ish, then my discovery is that the transaction fees rewards can not scale as a percentage of the commerce, because the transaction fee in comparative dollars would be much higher than fiat alternatives. Thus mining will be underfunded relative to the value of the Bitcoin economy to be gained by attacking it.

Even if transaction fees were scaled up (ignoring fiat alternatives or if I am mistaken about fee structure of fiat alternatives), if miners are funded significantly from transaction fees (and no longer primarily from coin rewards), then Bitcoin is subject to takeover by cartels due to the Transactions Withholding Attack (search the forum for it).

Thus the target date for Bitcoin to be taken over technically is 2040ish, perhaps 2033 earliest.

Realize it could be taken over much sooner than that by governments, since Bitcoin is not anonymous, they can attack the users with taxes, treble penalties, etc.. Rogue governments can do anything in crazy economic implosions, e.g. communist Wiemar Germany followed by Nazis, Stalin, China's purge of 57 million people, etc.. I believe such an economic implosion is coming globally after 2015. But I think the government has a more clever plan for takeover.

I believe Bitcoin will fail much sooner than that being a ponzi-pyramid-variant-bubble (no exact name for the scheme Bitcoin is, but it has NO INTRINSIC VALUE because transactions can't scale due to the concentration of ownership of the coin and the fact that the rich can't spend, they must cash out). This is covered in great detail in my posts, so if you want to dig into that, click my name and read posts in November. Basically I see the world government (G20 + IMF + World Bank + UN, etc) moving in after the ponzi collapse to clawback all the gains to provide justice to all the old ladies who were destroyed by Bitcoin's collapse.


As far as I know there is not one now without any major concerns, except I am aware of Freicoin but apparently demurrage is negative to some or most but I am not saying they should be and I haven't studied Freicoin closely nor have I monitored its price and adoption.

I believe one is being developed.


Yes they are frustrated with me and I am frustrated with them.

I don't know if novices can follow the upthread debate. I doubt it.

Basically what it has boiled down to is if the > 50% attacker modifies the protocol then the rest of the network has to choose which protocol rule it keeps:

a. longest (i.e. faster) chain wins
b. other protocol priority (e.g. coin rewards schedule) wins

My antagonists claim they control 100% of the non-mining clients and force them to do #b. I am saying they are insane if they think they control anything 100% that is open source and/or involves a billion actors.

Once the miners disagree (#a or #b), then the clients are free to do what ever fits each one of them best. Are they likely to converge to a consensus (#a or #b) or diverge into a Tragedy of the Commons (incompatible double-spend mess mix of #a and #b)? It would behoove those who are large and have control over many clients to push it in the direction that is most advantageous for the most customers, thus likely to converge rather than diverge.

The danger is that some large outfit such as Amazon would seize that opportunity have faster transactions (i.e. choose #a) than its competition since it will likely control the client its customers employ (integrated into the Amazon website).

The competition would then need to react else lose customers. So #a is going to win and #b is fantasy of those geeks who think they control something that they don't. They fundamentally don't understand free markets.


It is difficult to be the minnow. If I am wrong, let them present an argument. I will admit when I am wrong. Thus far they either just don't see my point (some of them) or they will disagree with the unlikelihood that they can exert 100% top-down control.

I hope I didn't embarrass you in any way by answering your post late, after the landscape of the debate had changed. My antagonists made some strong rebuttals, but they didn't expect that I am more knowledgeable than they thought. Some of them still don't get my point, and of course an idiot views a genius as being an idiot.

If you think it is difficult for you to follow the debate, imagine that even some of them who are reasonably expert on the block chain can't quite get my point.

This is far above the pay grade of most Bitcoiners.

I was just trying to inject some humor into the conversation. No one is on my ignore list. Although, I do not consider all opinions to be valid, I do consider them to be interesting. It is important to be aware of other people's misconceptions. Besides, you never know when they may have a valid point.

When you see this kind of setup below in the link, you can start to see the serious business of miners.

Only take one of these massive outfits to be offered incentives to form alliances and suddenly have potential problems I guess.

http://hongwrong.com/hong-kong-bitcoin/

Either this is a typo, or you beleive there will still be debt-based government backed currencies in 2040.

Didn't see that claim. Well done, at least I will read less nonsense in the future.

I also highly doubt that the code would get cracked soon, if ever.

LOL :D

Can't resist bringing this up now and again.

Just for him:
http://robotmoola.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/unclesam.png
 :D

AnonyMint, the first 3 times you think you understand Bitcoin you are wrong. Lots of us have been there. It is a harsh, but amazing trip.

I don't know why you think I don't understand Bitcoin. I did not lose the argument upthread.


I am going to enjoy very much. You will eat humble pie.

If we don't replace Bitcoin (which I do believe we will, I'm encouraged to see Litecoin's price rising to $36 with $1.2 billion mcap, although Litecoin has probably all the same vulnerabilities), then I do very much think there will be an electronic currency that was morphed from a failure of Bitcoin and is tied in with a government fiat system. The powers-that-be have already announced their plans. And it is very clear to me that Bitcoin has been planted with certain key design flaws that enables the takeover.

Here are the links about the plans of the powers-that-be on enforcing negative interest rates on money by locking everyone into an electronic currency and eliminating cash. You must read all the links to gain a big picture understanding and you see there was a grand plan for many years as it all fits together:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/17/negative-interest-rates-eliminating-cash-the-summers-solution/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/18/15800/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/19/congressional-hearings-on-bitcoin/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/20/the-bitcoin-hearing/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/20/hyperinflation-all-just-hype/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/21/negative-interest-rates-coming-soon-to-a-bank-near-you/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/20/the-tree-has-been-cut-electronic-money-will-force-an-underground-economy-based-on-barter/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/27/downs-of-negative-rates-the-fed/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/22/land-of-confusion-negative-rates-may-cause-the-phase-transition-in-equites/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/24/confidence-in-the-economy-is-changing-from-public-to-private/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/27/the-2-3-trillion-nobody-mentions-about-quantitative-easing/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/23/china-the-dollar/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/15/chinas-reform-push-for-2020/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/15/china-a-new-era/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/25/can-states-go-bankrupt-are-there-exceptions-to-the-unfunded-pensions/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/25/unfunded-pensions-are-our-doom/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/15/muni-implosion/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/23/tax-revolts-and-that-309-year-cycle/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/23/real-estate-3/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/22/real-estate-collapse-or-liquidity-crisis-2015-75-2020-05/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/23/real-estate-outside-usa/
www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2013/11/21/heres-why-the-philippines-economic-miracle-is-really-a-bubble-in-disguise/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/23/capital-flows-currency-flows/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/21/capital-flows-the-key-to-everything/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/21/death-always-creeps-in-from-the-periphery-of-an-organism/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/15/expect-riots-rise-of-nationalism-after-2015-75-to-pick-up-steam/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/15/rise-of-dictatorship-in-germany/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/14/merkel-rejects-referendums-in-germany/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/13/euro-germany-trade/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/14/france-economic-numbers-show-decline-3rd-quarter/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/15/us-will-pass-russia-by-2015-as-top-oil-producer/

My intuition that Bitcoin was a Trojan planted (probably by the NSA at the behest of some powers-that-be) started when I noticed in Satoshi's whitepaper that he was pitching it as a better gold, because gold coin rewards continue forever. Gold's above ground supply has always increased throughout the history of man. Immediately I smelled a scam, where he was going to induce all those liberty lovers (many of whom where already looking for alternatives to fiat, such as gold and silver) to become euphoric and illogical. It was very clever marketing, because it is obvious that he realized their suspicion and better judgment would be clouded and they would not notice the vulnerabilities caused by that decision to set a hard limit of 21 million coins. The ponzi result is the most glaring result of that design decision. Then other vulnerabilities also derive from that design decision as explained below. It is so ironic that what the investors love most about Bitcoin, is precisely why it is evil. Also couple this with most of you don't understand monetary economics well. And you think that debasement is bad or somehow connected to expansive Keynesian government spending. You don't realize that the government exists to stop the hoarding of the 3% because otherwise the economy would go into gridlock (the gridlock you will see as Bitcoin reaches the tip of its ponzi bubble). Either we debase decentrally or the government does it. And when the government does it, it becomes Keynesian:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/22/gold-can-still-be-fiat/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/21/war-on-gold/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/21/gold-to-be-or-not-to-be/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/21/hyperinflation-definition/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/21/will-electronic-money-be-deflationary/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/13/medicare-is-seizing-estates-of-anyone-over-55/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/11/crabs-in-a-bucket/
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/11/keynesianism-monetarism/

But I also think Satoshi was smarter than his handlers. He hid the decentralized solution inside of a Trojan. All we have to do is change a few of the design parameters, then we eliminate the main reason government exists; we eliminate the power vacuum. And we the people win. I have a historic example of the scientists lying through their teeth to DARPA, otherwise we would not have the internet today:

World Without Web (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3335).

Satoshi appears to have done the same outsmarted his handlers at the NSA, giving us the key insights and market excitement to do the correct design.

Bitcoin vulnerabilities:

a. Massive $trillions mcap Ponzi market failure, world's governments will be forced to clawback for "public good". Because the design of the coin is to not distribute to spenders, rather to create an asset bubble with no intrinsic value because it is impossible to distribute to spenders and become a currency. The math/logic for this is in the November archive of my posts in other threads.

b. Not anonymous, very easy to identify all the users in order to tax and clawback. People are ignorant of the vulnerabilites of Tor, VPNs. Mixers are nonsense without widespread strong IP anonymity and some way to be sure spenders aren't revealing their identities to vendors, because they can be honeypotted and over time you are discovered probabilistically as the others in the mixers screw up and revealed their identities in the downstream chains of the coins. The problem of taint is huge, because if the government knows the identity of just one person in the chain of the coin's history, it can compel that person to be responsible for all activity on the coin backwards and forwards in all time, until that person reveals the identities and transactions from whom the coin was purchased and spent to.

c. Dominated by ASICs means if the world's governments (or even a few large corporations) put their combined resources into sequestering all ASIC production and ramping it up, they can easily obtain > 50% of the mining hash rate at any time. Dominated by ASICs is much more vulnerable than dominated by PCs (CPUs) if care is taken to eliminate botnets.

d. As a backup plan if the above three doesn't make it a reality sooner, the design of Bitcoin is a dearth of funding for mining as coin rewards decline. Thus either facilitating a 50 - 95% attack or if transaction fees are significant, then a Transactions Withholding Attack (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=336350) takeover by cartels, especially with legal force of governments to help the cartels take form. Orthogonal to that catch-22 dilemma, my logic is that Bitcoin's fees will spiral up (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=340686.msg3681159#msg3681159) thus enabling the Transactions Withholding Attack while also demotivating transactions.

e. On top of this, Bitcoin has nothing in its design which motivates pools to be small. And I recently refuted (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=339902.msg3719385#msg3719385) gmaxell's claim (from the 50% attack thread in 2012) that P2Pool can't be attacked.

My apologies then. That you for the clarification. Peace be with us.

Then why not tend towards something like devcoin where coins are unlimited and you will have hash go nonstop especially as its merge mined so when 2140 hits people can switch to devcoin to mine and people can use it as it will be safe from 51% attacks from merged mine pools. Brilliant!

Since money supply doesnt scale at 50k per block indefinetily but miners getting  5k per block 45k going to paying for work (isnt this the point of a medium of exchange?), You may see an initial inflationary spiral in price as you see today it flopped down under pressure...however the silver lining is that it would just prove tobe a great opportunity as math would tellus its actually very deflationary by design without losing incentive to mine!

Think about it as userbase grows and the growth of supply year over year shrinks ie amount of coins vs total supply gets less and less the coin becomes deflationary as population grows.. At some point saturation sets in and gdp will drive price. A semi deflationary mechanism that keeps a network secure while providing a way for work to be paid by community donation (mining) may be better than something freicoin?

Other alts what about ppc? Based on drmand supply but with static tx fees you may have an issue once they get so high in terms of price of goods that people may stop transacting based on a high tx fee.. Raising ming rewards? Maybe good? I still like the idea of a known static growth since we all know that herd mentality sets in on surprises... Dynamic block rewards creates incentivd to hack the system to raise rewards and the. Hoarding coins...

Sorry I tried to put this in lehmans terms without the technical jargon I would love for everyone to get in on this discussion... You dont have to be a visionary.

If you reread my long post above, I am asserting if we wait, it will be too late. Once the $trillions ponzi-bubble collapses (2015-2016 is my guesstimate based on the 12X per annum increase in market cap), the government takes over moving the world into a morphed Bitcoin protocol electronic currency. Then there won't be any way to transfer wealth into another altcoin.

I have not studied Devcoin nor merge mining in depth, but my thought is devcoin being merged-mined with Bitcoin is vulnerable when Bitcoin is.

And giving away the funding that should be for miners to secure the network is going to make it more vulnerable if ever it is independent of Bitcoin.

For me it is a hair-brained economic concept. Sorry to criticize another altcoin and I do love open source, but I think this is wrong and harmful.


Giving away for free what isn't free, hasn't ever not created failure.

Coin rewards should go to miners to secure the network. How does creating open source benefit the security of the Devcoin chain? And who gets to choose which open source projects are funded? That is antithesis of decentralization.


I think so. ;)


I have some recent discussion on Peercoin:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=330230.msg3753624#msg3753624
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=330230.msg3761408#msg3761408

Yes but it is a static reward and scales with the price so mining incentive is still there I mean you can also actually do some work to recieve coins like its designed for. Didnt adam smith say you win as a team not individual? Apply it here.

Population growing demand grows supply remain static thats all the deflation we need. i know what you mean that if we wait they will essentially milk the system by transfering trillions over to their new system like qe where they essentially writeoff their own debt by calling qe when usd is high buy low sell high.

Just disregard the fact that a small pct is given to miners because that doesnt really affect the incentive long run.. I think it actually makes sense because your allocating resources to get work done ala resource based economy.. Your generating wealth via a miner efficiency cycle. This allocation may make sense as you would want to get some actual work for all that used power kind of like PoS PoW... But in a totally subtle way.

Devcoin is simple 20% miners 80% workers bounties are created and givin coins once people do them as writers are also paid for writing etc

Suply increases staticically which would avoid panic.. Anytime you dont know supply demand or it shifts you will have panic and therein incentive to skew demand supply essentially breaking a dynamic block reward.

Who decides which open source projects are funded?

If it is the miners, they can find ways to pay it to themselves.

If it is the coin foundation, they can similarly game it, just as our politics is gamed by vested interests (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342007.msg3761567#msg3761567).

Besides the point we speaking about economic ramifications... Im sure it can evolve to be democratic in decisions.. If it doesnt Ill just make my own that works democraticaly through an electoral process so even I need to fight to keep leader position etc.

Actually anyone can suggest bounties but we vote for which ones are important... Ideally this will evolve to something more efficient but its the idea that counts. miners are paying via electricity. Later a bounty exchange can be created to match vendors with developers like workforcrypto.com

I still can't decide whether Anonymint is a very successful troll at winding people up, or he really is that incapable of understanding how the mining process and nodes actually work. If the former, congratulations. If the latter, I feel sorry for his lack of understanding. There's no point repeating what others have said as they've already explained the reasons why Anonymints argument makes no logical sense,so there's really nothing more to add.

I have refuted their arguments upthread. If you can't understand, all I can say is that to a lower IQ person such as apparently yourself (or maybe you are just too lazy to really try to understand), intelligence appears to be noise or incorrect. In short, you don't understand my rebuttal (until you convince me otherwise).

It wouldn't help for me to explain in more detail my thesis than I already have. I covered all the points upthread.

Re-read these two posts:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=349869.msg3754669#msg3754669
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=349869.msg3755466#msg3755466
(skip to the "Basically what it has boiled down ...")

Those are my rebuttals. They have not been refuted.

Can you guarantee that you know what source code every open source client in the world is running in 2040? Nonsense. Can you guarantee how they will react to an inconsistent rule choice in the block chain? How can you make such a guarantee? I suppose you think Gavin Andresen is a God.

Logic.

Democracy always fails:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342007.msg3761567#msg3761567

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342007.msg3762047#msg3762047

It is all we have, then it is stable for about 78 years per collapse cycle. I am hoping for something better.

I'm calling paid troll. Gotta be.

I can guarantee you that is not the case. No one is paying me a dime. I was offered to partner with investors in the $millions range and I declined in order to retain my independence.

I firmly believe in the logic I have presented, and I am truly frightened by the coming events I believe are underway.

And I am working to prevent those bad outcomes all by myself. Although I have shared some of my algorithms with others just in case something happens to me.

I do hope to be paying myself though. Meaning I hope there is one or more altcoins coming, perhaps influenced by my efforts.

So what your saying is because a human factor that the distribution of mining wealth cant be distributed efficiently to the benefit of all? Its sure a smaller problem than losing the incentive to mine :p

I think cycles like the kress cycle are based on phscycology more than political structure but hey noone knows for sure. Thats why I like the idea of stable known growth because surprises are the worsed things to imsert into the herd.

Ahh, pumping your own coin, that old trick. Thought you was up to something.
So what's it gonna to be? Premined? Preminted? Instamined? Or good old fashioned closed source? Maybe a hybrid of all of them.

Everything possible to make sure you won't mine it. You will eat humble pie.

please provide logic on how tx fees can sustain mining? I always hated static tx fees and scaling fees may cause other issues?

Essentially a devcoin with 100% to miners? I prefer the idea of allocating coins minted to work or growth it wont change the long term incentive to mine especially if merge mined so that you leverage btc network strength for now.... I think we already have what we need just work to make the ones we have work. no need to make more.

Sorry I don't want to comment further on designs of altcoin.

"Talk is cheap, show me the code" - Linus Torvalds.

If there are no further challenges to my upthread points, I will exit now. Thanks to all for the challenges, that is what I needed in order to verify my thought process.

It could be possible if you knew the future of transactions, which is not probable. The problem is in the way the blocks stack up over time. If you knew the future you'd know the future.

I don't see how that would enable you to calculate the chain of hashes faster than your percentage of the network hashrate.

Add one more reason for the faster chain to win.

* because everyone will realize that the weaker chain has insufficient hash rate and could be gamed by the mining power that is behind the faster chain. That hash rate could also do things which are not protocol violations thus more difficult to detect in some cases. Thus fear will contribute to drive the convergence to the faster and stronger mining chain.

Edit:

Also if the attacker forks the coin supply curve (or other unwanted protocol change), he could also potentially add features that people want as another way to entice them to the faster (longer) chain. (note I am not thinking of launching an altcoin in this manner, so if ever it happens it isn't me)

I would be interested to learn how your alt-coin solves this problem? Tell us more...

The only way I can think of, is that your coin is closed source and you distribute the binaries.

Make the 50%+ attack much more unlikely. Allow that the non-mining clients will do what ever they can, but they can't control the mining with < 50% of the hash rate (at least not since I apparently found the solution to the recently published 33% selfish-mining attack, which I added in the comments section at hackingdistributed.com).

It is when there is an inconsistency in the mining, that the non-mining clients are potentially in disarray and have to make a choice. If it happened today, maybe the foundation could reign it in. Years from now, I don't know if they will retain the necessary level of iron-fisted control. And depending on such centralization is not resilient design.

I wouldn't do an altcoin that is closed-source. If you see that, it isn't me. No promises on the premine, except I wouldn't do a 10% premine or anything ridiculous. You have to fund things somehow.

I'd really prefer not to comment too much on vaporware. I hope to also encourage others to launch altcoins.

anonymint (or others)

this thread is immensely helpful, appreciate the hostilities as it appeases my bipolar learning style.

My major concern with life on earth is total resource depletion and receding population, with a global economy built on infinite growth.

Things like "grow the money supply at 5% a year" are subtly predicated on that paradigm.

It's not an absolute position on my part, I have a lot of faith in technology, but also I see bifurcation of the species ongoing...in the boat is becoming an ever smaller proportion relative to not in the boat.

I'm sure there's some discussion of this elsewhere already so a link would be fine. Simple question is can we design a system that works in a global economy of diminishing resources and energy and shrinking population, that is actually favorable? Does any alt currency support this...


(also how can I check to see how many people are ignoring me?  ;)

I am slightly mistaken. Without checkpoints that prevent a longer chain from going too far backwards in time, a broken SHA-256 could be a serious threat. However the community has many copies of the history, I think there have been some checkpoints, and I don't think many clients have an incentive to erase that history from the ledger.

The tl;dr version is that the algorithms require so much processing that it is impossible to crack them due to the limits of thermodynamics (since energy cannot travel faster than light) so it is currently impossible to crack, and never will be impossible to crack, even when quantum computer emerge it would still remain on the realm of fantasy, even if someone would build a computer the size of earth it would take them millions of years to come close.

If Sha-256 is broken i think the coin is screwed anyway. I mean even private addresses will be a lot less secure.

If I understand correctly, this is important for example because your public address is not revealed until you spend from it. I believe this is a reason why it is suggested not to recycle addresses.

And if elliptical cryptography is ever broken (Schneier and others already don't trust it too much, Lamport signatures is solution to quantum computers), having the public key shielded inside of a SHA-256 hash adds another layer of security. There is some discussion between gmaxell and myself (and others) on that subject a couple/few of months ago in the forum.

But once you've spent an address that risk is gone on the spent address.

So I guess there is some notion that we could quickly update all the hashes on unspent addresses to a new hashes. In the interim, the hacker would only get to know our public keys not our privates ones.

Or am I missing the point?

Upthread those who debated against me stopped after making the point that shorter chain transactions would not be delayed because 100% of the non-mining nodes would ignore the longer chain. I refuted with the argument that they couldn't insure 100% compliance and I listed some motivations which make it difficult to make that assumption in my opinion. They can not argue that the longer chain is not faster, thus relatively speaking I was correct in stating the shorter chain would be significantly slower.

However apparently some weren't convinced that argument of mine is a slam dunk.

So here is the (mini) Spud Webb (not quite a Shaq glass shattered) slam dunk.

The attacker can also apply some his hash rate advantage to sending blocks that have no transactions or which drop certain transactions (such as the non-cartel customers in my Transactions Withholding Attack).

Thus the transactions can also be delayed in the shorter chain too.

Okay I realize the caveats so it isn't quite a Big Shamrock.

Edit: s/minority chain/shorter chain/ above. The shorter chain has a minority of the mining hash rate, yet we arguing whether it will have a minority, majority, or 100% of the non-mining nodes.

AnonyMint, a chain which is changing the rules as you say will not affect the chain that is not changing the rules. Neither can or will build off of each other, thus the "longer" chain cannot delay transactions on the shorter chain. If the longer chain diverts hash power to the shorter chain, then it is the same old boring attack as the 51%.

When presented with two chains, one short which contains all valid blocks and a second which is longer but contains invalid blocks, the system will accept the short chain with the valid blocks and drop the longer chain with the invalid blocks.

No problem so far.  Making a chain with one or more invalid blocks, even if it is longer, is not even an attack per se it is just a huge waste of hashing power.

So, the entire totally theoretical attack hinges on two things being true:

1) The attacker must have a huge amount of hashing in order to create the chain with the invalid block or blocks

2) The attacker must have distributed enough of "their" clients which have been programmed to accept the invalid blocks.

But this is not really an attack, it is just the definition of an alt:  hashing power with a different set of rules + clients that support the different set of rules.

So the "attack" is simply describing the creation of an alt coin - let's call it the AnnoyCoin.  So yes, anyone that wants to can/has/will create an alt coin.  This is nothing new at all.  It is then up to the market to decide which coin to use.  Upon the creation of this new alt coin some may follow it others will not.

I do see the concern that if this AnnoyCoin is created by instantly taking a large chunk of the Bitcoin hashing power then confirmation times will increase until the next adjustment.  So, here is the story as I understand it:

The Annoy Foundation releases a new client.
They get 50% market penetration with their new client (no one notices the changes - unlikely)
They also gain 50% of the hashing power
They switch on the "back door" in all of their clients and also switch their hashing power over to the AnnoyCoin rules
This causes confirmations on the remaining Bitcoin network to double to 20 minutes
People are upset, some sell, prices drop, etc.
Those that wait out the four weeks of long confirmation times are rewarded with cheap coins and normal confirmation times once the difficulty gets adjusted
There are now two coins:  Bitcoin and AnnoyCoin

I think we already have merged mine coins that will do what Anonymint wants that is have some kinda inflation aspect to create money velocity.. DeVcoin freicoin ppc xpm on top of my head will do what he wants.. Dvc is the only static supply growth I know of the rest are dynamic and this is a different issue altogether.

Exactly but the AnnoyCoin created has such a flawed understanding of Bitcoin he seems to think the creation of this altcoin will somehow stop the existing Bitcoin.


And lets take this a step further.  AnnoyCoin has no advantages over Bitcoin, it also has a massive inflation rate which benefits the dishonest miners at the core of it.  The additional monetary inflation is a wealth transfer from anyone using it to the miners.  Add to that it is centrally controlled by a cartel which has shown itself to be williing to destroy the benefits of Bitcoin for selfish greed.

So it is a free market and people can choose the vastly superior Bitcoin or the AnnoyCoin.   It pretty much is a no brainer.  People would sell off the AnnoyCoin in masses to transfer their wealth to the superior system.  In reality the default choice is Bitcoin as anyone who doesn't download and install the AnnoyCoin client would remain on the real Bitcoin network.  Users on the Bitcoin client would never even SEE the AnnoyCoin blocks, other than a temporary increase in block time there would be no effect on them at all.  So AnnoyCoin will never exist outside of the annoying brain of its creator.

Sorry guys you are still incorrect.


Incorrect. You are just slow minded or not paying attention. See below.

---

Narrowly speaking true. However if you consider all the exogenous factors, it is not true.

Unless the shorter chain will be honored by every non-mining node in the universe (yeah right  ::)), then the longer chain will fork the ledger, thus double-spends will be possible one on each chain (longer chain would not include blocks from shorter chain that contained coin spends that were already spent on the longer chain). This will cause the shorter and longer chain to become dubious. Thus either there must be convergence on one of the chains else chaos and messy confusion erupts.

Also in my immediately prior post, I explained that if the attacker has more than 50% of the hash rate (i.e. more than 1X the shorter chain's hash rate), it can apply the excess to creating valid blocks in the shorter chain which drop some strategic transactions, thus causing transactions to be delayed in the shorter chain. Apparently that didn't sink in yet for DeathAndTaxes. He is still stuck on the upthread posts, and hasn't caught up to my latest point.


The longer chain is always much faster than the shorter chain. I call that a delay. Plus it can delay using excess hash rate to add valid blocks to the shorter chain which drop (some) transactions. By including some (perhaps only its own customers) transactions, Gavin's proposed solution doesn't work.


Incorrect. It is creating havok in the shorter chain while offering faster transactions in the longer chain.

Also it might even offer feature improvements in the longer chain that the foundation has been unwilling to offer.

Also it might be combined with a cartel, so the cartel's customers (and all their non-mining nodes) are on the longer chain.

Sorry guys. You all lost the argument (not you Etlase2 more to the other antagonists).

I have basically written a user manual teaching Amazon.com how to take over Bitcoin, if this is combined with my Transactions Withholding Attack.

---

Stop right there. You can't guarantee that all non-mining nodes in the universe will adopt the shorter chain, when presented with two or more competing protocol errors to choose between:

a. Bitcoin protocol is to follow the longest chain

b. Bitcoin protocol is not to change the coin supply schedule

Also, the attacker might sweet the incentive to choose #a, by offering more desirable feature improvements to the protocol in the longer chain.

Also the attacker might be aligned with a cartel which has control of significant portion of the customers and the non-mining nodes.

Why are you guys so slow in realizing this?


Incorrect because of what I have written above.


Incorrect. I have already explained upthread that the funding for mining in Bitcoin dies, because coin rewards diminish and then the transaction fees must increase as the price of Bitcoin rises, because security of the proof-of-work needs to rise with the value (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=350536.msg3764768#msg3764768) of the Bitcoin economy, which will kill off transactions. And when transaction fees are significant relative to coin rewards the Transactions Withholding Attack (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=336350) is available.

Bitcoin is doomed, and there are even more reasons it is (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=351712.msg3772916#msg3772916).


Not a correct analogy to an altcoin, because there is a protocol error in either choice, longer or shorter chain.

And thus Bitcoin is forked with double-spends one in each chain.


It is irrelevant whether anyone notices there are clients with different choices about which protocol error to choose.

There is nothing that can be done to change the outcome at the point.

The only solution is to not kill the funding for mining so the 50+% attack becomes more difficult to do.

---

You assume Bitcoin is better, yet I have explained above it is not better for numerous reasons. One big flaw is it doesn't fund mining enough in the future to protect the security. The occurrence of this attack will reveal this to be true, which lowers confidence in the shorter Bitcoin chain forever. The masses don't care about the increase of M in the Quantity Theory of Money they can not even detect it. That is why fiat works so well for the central banks. In fact, you are entirely incorrect (mathematically incongruent) to assume that increases in M are inflationary (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222998.msg3615848#msg3615848)! That assumption puts your credibility in the toilet.

The masses will be more pissed off about the chaos and double-spends and the fact that Bitcoin is so weak on security.

They are much more likely to accept Amazon.com's choice of the longer chain which works and is secure (from the perspective of the dumb masses who click a 1-click-checkout button).

Why would non-mining nodes not honor the real chain? For them not to, they would have to download and accept Amazon.com's version of bitcoin. Highly improbable. While SPV nodes could be fooled, I believe there are people working on allowing full nodes to provide proof to SPV nodes of invalid blocks.


If they have >50%, they can delay transactions indefinitely. Create a competitor and attack bitcoin. Why create this gigantic fabrication to make some ridiculous attack sound viable?


This is quite wrong. The difficulty will adjust on both networks as appropriate.


This is called a competitor. Yes, it is possible that competitors will exist in the future--they do now. Hardly a flaw.

Because the customers of Amazon.com click an order button on Amazon.com, they don't download a client. The non-mining node (for all customers) will be on Amazon.com's server.

More importantly because the shorter chain will also contain a protocol error. Clients will have to decide which protocol change is the greater evil. Their perspective will not necessarily be that the longer chain is more evil, as I have explained in the prior post in reply to DeathAndTaxes. In fact, the longer chain is likely to be perceived as superior.


Gavin claims to know an unimplemented solution for that attack, which I linked upthread (page 2 I think) where I mentioned that claim of yours.

The best the attacker can do to avoid Gavin's solution is to include his customers' transactions in the valid blocks to avoid detection by Gavin's solution.


Incorrect because the longer chain has control it can change the protocol for block period of the longer chain to whatever it wants. The shorter chain is stuck at the awful 10 minutes of Bitcoin per confirmation. Plus by making valid blocks with dropped transactions in the shorter chain, the effective delay will be longer than 10 minutes per confirmation. For the Satoshi whitepaper recommended 6-confirmations that is 60 minutes plus the extra delays inserted, so figure upwards of 2 hours or so depending how much hash power the attacker has.


The difference is how I explained it to BurtW in the prior post (reread my prior post, I was adding to it as you were replying). There is a protocol error in both the longer and shorter chain. This is much worse for Bitcoin than a better altcoin, it wrecks havoc in Bitcoin's chain.

AnonyMint doesn't understand how blockchain forking works, and that it creates two distinct currencies instead of one you can double spend. He doesn't understand that invalid blockchains can't include blocks from valid ones, or the other way around, because they are chains with each block needing to reference the prior block. He doesn't understand that clients and nodes enforce Bitcoin rules, not miners, and clients don't care which chain is the longest if the longest is invalid. He also doesn't understand the difference between offchain and onchain transactions, or any of the economics around transaction fees, believing that once block rewards go away, transaction fees will go to zero. He's a newbie, still not understanding a lot about Bitcoin, but he is a loud and obnoxious newbie who, while is impossible to argue with, nevertheless is spreading a lot of useless and incorrect FUD around the forums, which may scare away other newbies. He also loves to hear himself talk, posting all over the forum, linking to his posts in other threads every chance he gets, and even quoting his own posts to reply to himself.

I suggest instead of continuing to allow him to fill thread after thread with his nonsense and continuously burry rebuttals to his idiocy under more FUD, that people simply reply that AnonyMint doesn't understand the system, is wrong, and that others should just ignore him.

This requires a huge suspension of disbelief, something I am not fond of doing unless I am watching a movie or reading a book. Bitcoin and its ilk, quite unlike EFT, are push transactions, not pull. I'm sure somewhere in the decapages of rants you have on this subject you've touched on this, but I and everyone else following this argument should find it excessively unlikely that the masses will be so willing to give up the newfound power of being their own bank to Amazon or whomever for the sake of "1-click purchases", when the reality is URIs can make it pretty darn close to that as it is.

If this is the basis for your argument, it's pathetic.


I proposed a potential solution over a year and a half ago. Bells, whistles, and/or stagnation of the bitcoin protocol tend to be of higher priority than protecting the block chain.


Again, it's an altcoin. Even SPV nodes would reject this as the difficulty between blocks would drop accordingly and would no longer even be valid for those receiving only the headers. Trying to hamfist a change like this on the bitcoin population should be no less difficult than changing the bitcoin protocol itself, therefore there is little advantage to one major cartel over everyone not part of the cartel.


Yes, bitcoin is easy to attack, that is nothing new. The cartel attack is unnecessary bloviation.

A spend from the blocks prior to the creation of the longer chain, can appear on both the longer chain and to a different recipient on the shorter chain. Forking means all the value from before the fork can be double-spent, one in each chain.


Correct, but this doesn't stop the attacker from putting valid blocks on the shorter chain which drop transactions.

And it doesn't stop the longer chain from including all the transactions (which are not double-spends) from the shorter chain.

So I don't know why you claim I don't understand that. Nothing I wrote above conflicts with this.


Clients and nodes have a rule and that is to choose the longest chain. They need to follow this rule, otherwise proof-of-work isn't secure.

When faced with a block chain which is longest, yet has a protocol variation, the clients and nodes must make a choice of which protocol rule violation they wish to make.

You can not be sure that 100% of clients and nodes will choose the insecure shorter chain. It is provably insecure because the attacker can use the excess hash rate (needs only 50% to create the longer chain, rest is excess) to attack the shorter chain with valid blocks which drop transactions.

If you brain is too slow to get that overall analysis, then it isn't my problem.


I did not write transaction fees will go to zero. I wrote the opposite, which is they will either increase too much or they will be insufficient relative to the value that you want the network to have. There is no middle ground between the two bad outcomes with transaction fees. Yes I would prefer to make them zero and perpetual coin rewards in an altcoin, because this would entirely solve the problem of this entire thread.

You proven to me many times in the past in other threads that you are dolt. So please stop wasting my time.

At least try to read more carefully before you embarrass yourself over and over every time you debate me.


Well folks that demonstrates that why he is not even reading carefully and making so many embarrassing errors. He is just trying to spread FUD.

There is no choice to be made. The chain is either valid or it is not. A longer chain with invalid blocks (extra coins or modified difficulty or whatever else) does not enter into consideration.

Folks please realize that Etlase2 feels he is a competitor to me because he is working on Decrits (not proof-of-work) and I am possibly working on a proof-of-work altcoin.

So he has a vested interest to discredit any attack I have described which my potential altcoin would fix. This is pure selfishness at the cost of bettering our crypto-currency future. I am very disappointed to see him stoop this low in his ethics. I had higher hopes on him and his altcoin.


Complete nonsense and FUD.

Spending "one-click" on Amazon would not require that balances be kept offchain in an Amazon wallet. Why do you guys keep repeating this offchain nonsense. I never claimed that!

Amazon's customers will still keep their balances onchain, and the Amazon "1-click" will simply deduct from the block chain with a normal block chain transaction.

The point is Amazon controls the non-mining node which is interfacing with the Bitcoin network.

This is much more convenient for customers and the masses hate difficult things. They will obviously prefer to go click a button at Amazon.com than to download a client and fiddle. Besides Amazon.com may not allow them to use an external client. Most masses go with the flow. They don't give a sh8t about your idealistic view. They just want to complete their order as easily as possible (no downloads, no technical hoops to jump through).

As for the private keys, yes the customer will let Amazon store them, but the balances will still be onchain.

Masses don't want to lose their private keys. They don't want to worry about where they will safe keep them. They don't give a sh8t about your idealistic view of every man is an island hunkered down in their bunker clutching their memory card of private keys in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

Your fanaticism is either feigned or you are in the tinfoil hat category.


No disagreement from me.


That is an irrelevant point. It adds no strength to your argument that nodes which prefer the shorter chain prefer the shorter chain.

There are many people who want Bitcoin to adopt a shorter block period. Many people know how to alter a few lines in an open source code and offer a binary download. This is only useful if the longer chain exists. A shorter chain fork with a different protocol would not have the same force, because the main chain would be longer and double-spends would not be contentious nor could the attacker significantly disrupt transactions. Not contentious because the masses are not going to approve of a chain that isn't secure because it is shorter and thus weaker security.

And isn't just an altcoin, because of the havok wrecked by double-spends one into each chain and also the attacker's excess hash rate applied to dropping transactions from the shorter chain. No solution can stop the attacker from putting his customers' transactions in those valid blocks on the shorter chain and delaying everyone else in the shorter chain.


Your (feigned?) tinfoil fanaticism is the only bloviation I see proven.


By which Gavin-God do you guarantee that all nodes will choose that choice?

Does your God hold a shotgun to the head of every person and every large Amazon running a node (on behalf of the dumb customers)?

Your definition of "valid" is not enforceable.

No, it can't be. It creates two different coins. You can't double-spend your fake coins on the bitcoin network that rejected your fake blocks. You have coins that can only be spent on the valid chain, and different coins that can be spent on the new invalid chain. It's no more a threat than Litecoin, since people using Bitcoins will simply not accept your invalid coins.


This just makes the invalid chain less trustworthy, because while Bitcoin continues to track every coin's history, this invalid chain will keep bringing in outside coins that may or may not even exist any more. It would be as if Bitcoin randomly brought in Litecoin transactions into its blocks. Chaos.


This is what I mean when I say you don't know how Bitcoin works. Rule #1, always, is to check that each transaction and each block is valid. No rules go before this, and if it is invalid, it is dropped and not even rebroadcast to the other nodes, so invalid transactions and blocks don't even get a chance to propagate through the network. After that the rule about longer chains comes in. Yes, I am 100% sure of this.



If they are too much, competition in the form of new miners will come in and drive them down. If they are insufficient, private interests will come in to try to secure the network. As I said, this has all been discussed heavily years before you even found out about Bitcoin.

So, let me reiterate:

AnonyMint doesn't understand the system, is wrong, and others should just ignore him.

Only one question.  You claim that there is a situation with protocol violations "in the chain", in fact the client has to choose between two chains - both with protocol violations.

How did the protocol violations get into the chain?  Invalid blocks are not put in the chain.  Invalid blocks are not forwarded.  The rest of the system does not see invalid blocks and if it does it drops them.

Sure, any miner can spit out an invalid block.  But all the Bitcoin nodes that see it as invalid will drop it.  They will wait for the next valid block to come along and accept that one.

In your scenario this may take a while.  In your scenario there may be several invalid blocks received during that time but the Bitcoin nodes will reject them all and continue to wait for the valid block.

As I said before if you have been able to get an alternate client out there that does accept these invalid blocks then you have simply branched off an alt coin.  Bitcoin remains.  All the Bitcoin clients will continue to ignore all your invalid blocks and wait for valid ones.

Now you say they can take some of their excess hash power and produce valid blocks with only their customers in them - sure that is their right and those blocks will be accepted.  The non-customer transactions will have to wait for a different miner to pick them up and get them into a block.

Every miner is free to pick and choose which transactions they include and which ones they don't.  Nothing new there.

My point is that your scenario where there are protocol violations in the Bitcoin branch makes no sense by definition.  The Bitcoin branch is the one that contains only valid blocks per the Bitcoin protocol.

Another good example of what I mean is this


If Amazon is holding customers private keys, then Amazon is already holding all of customers money. Completely. There is no need for Amazon to do on-chain transactions, since all that would do is add complexity and expense to their system. But, as I said, AnonyMint doesn't understand the difference or the concepts of on and off chain transactions.

How many freshly created public addresses that have yet to be funded and linked to is needed to negate the above?

The shorter chain will indeed ignore the longer chain.

The longer chain can still attack (with excess hash rate) with valid blocks which drop transactions of others in the shorter chain.


Which system? By which God that holds a gun to the head of every node can you guarantee the voting of nodes for what they prefer?


How do define what is "Bitcoin" at that point?

You have the value from the original Bitcoin being double-spent into two competing chains.

Which chain is the correct one?

As a merchant which chain should I accept as valid and why?

And remember the shorter chain will have delayed transactions and be under continual attack. I am pretty sure most people are going to give up on that insecure shorter chain which you call "Bitcoin" and "valid". For the masses it will feel like "invalid". Your technical arguments won't matter at all to them.

Would you please stop your intentional (as you admitted upthread) FUD. You have made no point at all (including the post before the above quoted one).

Amazon can't go spending the customer's balances. The balances are still onchain and the customer can spend them else where too, not just on Amazon.

You have done a well enough job discrediting yourself. Sorry if you can't handle it when someone who actually knows what they're talking about addresses your points.


Where did I claim that? I quoted myself so you can see that I didn't.


What I did claim is that it would require a big suspension of disbelief to think that this will be the norm. Of course, it's a requirement for your nonsensical attack.


Not only is it an altcoin, it's already been done. Guess what? It went nowhere.


And this is completely tertiary to your attack, and is a standard attack against bitcoin as I pointed out.


It is a matter of consensus. Which I pointed out in the prior post, and defeated you again, by saying:


What the fuck do amazon customers care if their transactions confirm quicker? Amazon is in control of everything anyway, under your scenario.

The one that contains only valid blocks which contain valid transactions.

Any other chain is a new alt coin and is not Bitcoin.


Your opinion.  We shall see.

You don't reveal your public address to the network when it is funded. The sender will hash your public address and send the hash to the network. Bitcoin 101.

Or did I miss your point?

Your definition of "valid" requires 100% top-down, centralized control. When given a conflict of chains, the merchants are going to be confused, because customers will demand they honor the coins they received on each chain. Customers are innocent. Why should they suffer?

I see you believe in a top-down, centralized crypto-currency.

Well I believe only a currency that is decentralized will survive because top-down, centralized is very easy to attack.

That is more than an opinion, it is intelligence.

Bruno,

this is not the thread you were looking for (just an old jedi mind trick)

BTW:  when you branch off a new alt coin as in your scenario here everyone that has Bitcoins at that point also gets the same number of your new alt coins.  We can cash them all in!  We can cash them all in as fast as we can find some poor sucker that want to buy them (for real Bitcoins).  We can increase our Bitcoin holdings as we crash your silly little alt coin and pound it into the dust.

Those poor saps that are left holding your new alt would be the real losers - hopefully your cartel.

Thanks for confirming I won the argument by resorting to FUD (grasping at threads).

Have no answer I see.

Actually, as long as the format remains the same which the silly alt that attempted this did (I don't remember what it was called, maybe bitcoin2?), any transactions you make that are valid on either chain will propagate to both. Otherwise the alt would specifically have to create a new addressing/tx format incompatible with bitcoin1 and simply carry over the original tx out set.

They can cash in your shorter chain as fast as they can too.

You have no answer I see:

You can't refute the facts, so you resort to ad hom attacks, then say you won because nobody bothers to respond to it?

If the shorter chain is propagating transactions from the longer chain, it is no longer ignoring it and thus giving it credibility.

Comparing this attack to some attack that did not have sufficient hash rate, staying power, and didn't attack when Bitcoin is widespread and valuable is not a credible retort.


Use of "nonsensical" is FUD. You have disproven nothing.


It is not tertiary, it adds to the motivation to join the longer chain.

I refuted all the points.

Readers can see you all trying to obfuscate and run away from the points I have made.

Jesus you are clueless.

Since you are apparently too stoopid (or is that you just intentionally spreading more FUD?), let me spell it out for you.

If those nodes who go for the longer chain, find that the shorter chain is also grabbing those transactions and placing them in blocks in the shorter chain too, then their coins will always be valid every where the shorter chain is accepted by merchants as well every where the longer chain is accepted by merchants.

Good night, happy alt chain dreams everyone.

Thanks. Let's end this sh8t. And you guys wonder why I get arrogant and pissed off.

Time for action. Enough of this talk!

Yet another fundamental misunderstanding of the bitcoin protocol brought to you by anonymint. Perhaps you should grasp the concept in its entirety before producing theoretical attacks? Don't you think that that is a minimum requirement? Why do you have to say things like "it is my understanding"? Why don't you actually understand it before acting like you know everything?

My bad.

If a transaction exists on the shorter chain, then its outputs can be spent on the shorter chain.

If a transaction exists on the longer chain, then its outputs can be spent on the longer chain.

If the shorter and longer chains are copying each other's transactions (where they don't conflict), then the outputs can be spent on both chains. Once a conflict occurs, you have double-spend and the two chains can't copy each other.

Can we end this sh8t now! This is wasting my scarce time. I have work to do. Make your point clear and let's be done with this talk!

Excellent idea. Please stop posting here, and get on with your "work".

AnonyMint and everyone else:

This thread is a mess.  However it has sparked my interest.

I would like to explore a very specific scenario as a learning experience for myself and anyone else that wants to join in.  I have started a new thread which gives the exact scenario and ask that you join me there.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=352734.0
 

So how is doing a premined coin distributing the initial coins fairly? Wasn't you claiming Bitcoin is doomed because lack of distribution?

Seems to me you find Bitcoin broken because not enough are distributed to yourself.

You got me now. I will premine it all for myself. And then the currency will be worth nothing and I will own lots of nothing. And my desire to have a coin I can use to survive the coming global SHTF outcome will not exist. And my novel algorithms would be wasted or end up in clones which probably don't have the ability to bring them to fruition in large scale. Now that would be an enormous waste of all the energy I have expended thus far. Yes I would like to make some profit, but I don't need to gouge society. Let me quote something from Martin Armstrong that I agree with as follows.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/29/the-share-market/


Wise man.

Allow me to post a wise quote as well:


Sound familiar AnonyMint?

I don't either; it's only an explanation of how it could be impossible. You can't know the future or predict at such granularity (per transaction). If you think you have some edge in predicting the trends, that's where their might be some cash.

I suggest instead of continuing to allow him to fill thread after thread with his nonsense and allow him to continuously burry rebuttals to his idiocy under more FUD, that people simply reply that AnonyMint doesn't understand the system, is wrong, and that others should just ignore him.

P.S. I said that AnonyMint was the one hurrying rebuttals to his FUD with even more FUD, not that others, or I, should cover his FUD with our own FUD. As in AnonyMint makes up bullshit claims, people reply to point out and explain why his claims are bullshit, and AnonyMins responds with so many of his own posts, self-replies, and extra bullshit, that the explanations of why his original claims are wrong get covered up in even more bullshit. Hope that clears it up a bit.

Only until one of those coins is spent on one chain, but is not spent, or is sent to a different address on the other chain. They would basically have to be perfectly synchronized with every spend, otherwise their transaction history diverges. So, realistically, this twice-spending will occur once.

Since this thread is a mess, mostly because we really do not have a concrete example to work with, I have created a concrete example of what I believe AnonyMint is talking about here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=352734.0

Please join the discussion there.

AnonyMint:  On the new thread please let me know if the example I give is a basic stripped down version of what you are talking about.  If it is not then let me know what needs to be changed to bring it in line with the attack vector you are discussing.

Please keep the posts civil on the new thread.  Thanks!

Note I've just put Rassah on ignore (he and LauraM are the only two in my ignore list), so I won't be reading his character assassination campaign and thus won't be responding to it.

Have real work to do it. After much experience with him including he being the first person to call me crazy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=336816.msg3775361#msg3775361), I have concluded he presents only 60 Hz noise. Never had I learned one fact or new morsel of information from all of his posts. The low signal-to-noise ratio thus earns him my highest and rarest medal-- an ignore.

He won't read this, but for other's sake, please note that I have never claimed to be intentionally spreading FUD about him. I said he is spreading FUD, and then covers any attempts at correcting him under even more FUD. Also, please not that I have tried very hard, as have BurtW, MoonShadow, and many other well respected members of this forum who know the ins-and-outs of Bitcoin way better than AnonyMint, but



is a perfect description of AnonyMint's modus operandi.