Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys,

in this post I wanna assume why apart from the pollution Bitcoin POW is moving into an dead end.

For the first I wanna determine several things:

1) Important for Bitcoins safety the Hashrate or difficulty is only a moment view. In general the safety depends on the global energie use because

2) Different companys for example Bitmain invent always new ASIC Miner which will make more hashrate with lower energy consumption

3) its human behaviour to be greedy. You wanna have always more then you owe

4) Bitcoin energy consumtion has rised approximatly from 15 Twh 7/2017 to 200 Twh 1/2022 which is factor 13 dependig on
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/.

Lets be conservative and say its only factor 6 and 100 Twh

When we assume that This gives us the following information:

If the energy consumtion keeps constant, the network safety will be lower with every "new Antminer" (see 2)

Dependig on 4 the Bitcoin energy consumtion would be 600 Twh in 2027, 3600 Twh in 2032 and 21600 Twh in 2037

To compare: the actual energy comsumtion of whole US is  4000 Twh, of China is about 7000 Twh

So even if there is new energy like fusion power, you really think its possible to serve so much energy

And if energy problem is totally solved and energy is for free, which sense makes POW safety depending on used energy


Waiting for your replies

 

How do you suggest this problem is fixed? Bitcoin has been, and will always be proof of work, meaning that no matter how much public outcry happens, BTC will stay proof of work.

4) Bitcoin energy consumtion has rised approximatly from 15 Twh 7/2017 to 200 Twh 1/2022 which is factor 13 dependig on
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/.


Waiting for your replies

2) Different companys for example Bitmain invent always new ASIC Miner which will make more hashrate with lower energy consumption

If the energy consumtion keeps constant, the network safety will be lower with every "new Antminer" (see 2)
4) Bitcoin energy consumtion has rised approximatly from 15 Twh 7/2017 to 200 Twh 1/2022 which is factor 13 dependig on
Dependig on 4 the Bitcoin energy consumtion would be 600 Twh in 2027, 3600 Twh in 2032 and 21600 Twh in 2037

the actual hashrate for the year is 155exa(155477763.7thash) average

so its actually 40TWH not 200

thus not even a 3x in the last 5 years

but as you can see ASIC efficiency has changed in 5 years to be 3x more efficient

There is a limit on the efficiency of those machines, just like with every other chip we have right now, it can't go and double efficiency every year, pretty soon it won't be happening even every 4 years, the S7 was using 28nm chips, the S19 7nm, there is a limit to how much you can get out of it.

If the profitability of mining is in a lower one-digit number there will also be no more gear sales as the difference in efficiency will not be able to make the difference from the cost of a new gear ordered, thus lowering both the demand and incentive to develop new miners.

POS is a shit way of running your blockchain and it moves against the most important factor of a legitimate cryptocurrency and that is decentralization.  So where's that leave us? With POW.  The energy consumption is way overblown.  I'm not saying it's not an issues, but it's overblown and much of it has been debunked.  Also, you provide a bunch of conjecture here, instead of concrete facts to show that POW is truly moving towards a dead end.  I will take the word of cypherpunks and they largely agree POW is the best solution right now.

to add to this.
gold uses 100% dirty fuel (diesel for excavators and sluice machines)

at a cost of $900 per ounce
mining 97003000 ounces a year
= $87,302,700,000 of dirty energy spend

lets go with a low average rate of non renewable energy spend on bitcoin mining of 50%(its between 10%-35% dirty, but lets highball it)
well it costs about $183,746.45 an hour in electric at $0.04/hwh
=$1,609,618,902
so thats $800m bitcoin dirty spend vs $87bill gold dirty spend

gold mining is 109x more dirty than even a conservative estimate of mining bitcoin.(more like 150x-500x)
but do you hear environmentalists complain about the fumes from diesel excavators as they rip up land and dig holes in the environment 109x louder than they shout about bitcoin?

The matter of pollution has been discussed many times, and there's enough info online (including fact-checking services) that show it's not a real ecological threat, and, on top of it, it's all a matter of sources of electricity, which need to become cleaner, rather than of consumption. Now, regarding the dead end, I don't understand the argument. You mean it's a problem because energy consumption is rising? It's still far from the levels that pose a problem of the lack of electricity, not to mention that miners can choose to opt out, difficulty would decrease and so would consumption. Not to mention that your calculations don't match those of franky1, so providing sources with estimates would be nice.

Dependig on 4 the Bitcoin energy consumtion would be 600 Twh in 2027, 3600 Twh in 2032 and 21600 Twh in 2037

I dont believe POS makes more centralisation.

Not only does it brings centralisation, but it can't even reach consensus (https://yanmaani.github.io/proof-of-stake-is-a-scam-and-the-people-promoting-it-are-scammers/).

If POS so easy go hack ADA and get  at least 1% of the 25 Billion USD.

So what exactly is DASH, even when many say the current value of it its not good

We're talking about Bitcoin.

The guy in your blog says its not invented. It IS invented already  ;)
So why BTC does not copy paste to make a start  ::)

You think there will be a technically limit how fast to solve the SHA 256 function. Dont believe so.

What I have learned in my years here in Crypto: As beginner I thought Hashrate and price has a function. But it has not because people speculate (see point 3)

I dont believe POS makes more centralisation. You can run it with Pools same POW and when you get 4% ROI a year, the rich get not as far richer then with investing in estates.

As beginner I thought Hashrate and price has a function.

Imagine voting based on the value of your assets, where Musk has 100 billion votes and 30 millions have zero since they only have debts.

This is an invalid argument. It's true, but so is in PoW too. It's obvious that those with more money can have greater share. This is not why PoS brings centralisation; it's because those who want to secure the network need those who are securing the network. In PoW, anyone's free to setup their hardware and start securing, but in PoS, it's down to those entities' judgment if new people can enter.

In POS you miraculously have to come up with those 100 billion votes, in POW a huge mining farm can be brought down by poeple hobby mining, each losing 1$ a day on electricity but making the guys behind Foundry bankrupt, in POS you can't do that.
And, now I wonder why I haven't said this in the first place.

The difference I was trying (and failed miserably at it) to point out is that unlike POS in order to get more votes you don't have to make the other guys rich by doing so nor do you have to force them to give you a share of it in a redistribution of wealth.

I am starting to think the only people who are really pushing POS are people who either don't want to deal with mining or really just want to pump their shitcoin / token for some reason.

see Proof of Stake designs achieve as low as a 4 second block speed with 100% protection from double spends.

it's because those who want to secure the network need those who are securing the network. In PoW, anyone's free to setup their hardware and start securing, but in PoS, it's down to those entities' judgment if new people can enter.

The difference I was trying (and failed miserably at it) to point out is that unlike POS in order to get more votes you don't have to make the other guys rich by doing so nor do you have to force them to give you a share of it in a redistribution of wealth.
They will keep accumulating wealth (coins) while you're going to keep losing as you will never afford to put aside as much money as they do.

This is half-true or maybe even false. The system protects you from double-spending as long as the ones who own the most of the money supply sign their blocks honestly. The system cannot ensure those few won't double-sign for the given block. We've already explained that it's designed to centralize overtime anyways:

Algorand’s Immediate Transaction Finality

With proof-of-work protocols like Bitcoin, in which users solve crypto puzzles, there is a chance that two users could solve for a valid block at the same time. When two nodes get a valid block simultaneously, the blockchain forks into two because different groups of users may see different candidates for the next block. A fork may persist for a while, and its branches may even be elongated by the addition of new blocks. But eventually, all branches but one (the longest) will die , and all the blocks in the dead branches will disappear. The transactions on the dead branches are considered invalid; they basically never happened.

Similarly, an adversary could partition the network, convincing different groups of users to accept different blocks at the same height in the blockchain. As a result, contradicting transactions will be accepted by different users, causing a fork in the chain. This allows the adversary to double-spend their money.

Forks are an unwelcome source of uncertainty and delay. If a payment made to you appears in the latest block added to the chain, you cannot immediately consider yourself paid. This is because a branch may overcome the current chain and your block may end up in a dead branch and disappear. Before considering yourself paid, you would need to wait for a sequence of blocks to be added to yours, so as to minimize the chance that the block containing your payment will end up on a dead branch. Some people recommend waiting for six blocks to be added after yours to be confident that your block will remain on the chain; others recommend an even longer wait if the payment made to you is sizable. So rather than waiting ten minutes (Bitcoin’s transaction time) to have reasonable confidence in the finality of a transaction, in reality you have to wait hours.

In contrast, the Algorand blockchain never forks. Two blocks can never be added to the chain at once because only one block can have the required threshold of committee votes. At most, one block is certified and written to the chain in a given round. Accordingly, all transactions are final in Algorand. When the consensus protocol decides on a block, this decision is never changed. Every honest user soon learns of this decision, and no honest user ever thinks that a different block at the same height was chosen. Once a block appears, users can rely on the transactions it contains immediately and they can be confident that the block will forever be part of the chain, which means the money they receive is safe.

And in the event of a network partition in Algorand, the adversary is never able to convince two honest users to accept two different blocks for the same round. This is true even when the partition may last for an indefinite amount of time and nobody knows when it will be resolved. Algorand’s chain never forks and users’ balances remain secure.

I already reported to the mods to lock this topic.

Actually Algorand does not allow any forking, so double spends are impossible.

With proof-of-work protocols like Bitcoin, in which users solve crypto puzzles, there is a chance that two users could solve for a valid block at the same time. When two nodes get a valid block simultaneously, the blockchain forks into two because different groups of users may see different candidates for the next block. A fork may persist for a while, and its branches may even be elongated by the addition of new blocks. But eventually, all branches but one (the longest) will die , and all the blocks in the dead branches will disappear. The transactions on the dead branches are considered invalid; they basically never happened.

Similarly, an adversary could partition the network, convincing different groups of users to accept different blocks at the same height in the blockchain. As a result, contradicting transactions will be accepted by different users, causing a fork in the chain. This allows the adversary to double-spend their money.

Forks are an unwelcome source of uncertainty and delay.

This is because a branch may overcome the current chain and your block may end up in a dead branch and disappear. Before considering yourself paid, you would need to wait for a sequence of blocks to be added to yours, so as to minimize the chance that the block containing your payment will end up on a dead branch.

Some people recommend waiting for six blocks to be added after yours to be confident that your block will remain on the chain

In contrast, the Algorand blockchain never forks.

Two blocks can never be added to the chain at once because only one block can have the required threshold of committee votes.

At most, one block is certified and written to the chain in a given round.

Accordingly, all transactions are final in Algorand.

When the consensus protocol decides on a block, this decision is never changed.

Every honest user soon learns of this decision, and no honest user ever thinks that a different block at the same height was chosen.

Once a block appears, users can rely on the transactions it contains immediately and they can be confident that the block will forever be part of the chain, which means the money they receive is safe.

And in the event of a network partition in Algorand, the adversary is never able to convince two honest users to accept two different blocks for the same round.

This is true even when the partition may last for an indefinite amount of time and nobody knows when it will be resolved.

Algorand’s chain never forks and users’ balances remain secure.

The energy consumption has grown because the reward has grown

You think there will be a technically limit how fast to solve the SHA 256 function. Dont believe so.

sorry off topic :-)

This doesn't make much sense. If it's implementing a blockchain, it's doomed to have forks one way or another. Not allowing them sounds vague.

It's impossible to 'ban forks' because they're not something you deliberately 'make', but something that emerges in a decentralized blockchain inherently.

First, the Algorand blockchain overcomes one significant problem that has been observed with any chain that becomes popular, a hard fork.

As Silvio Micali, a Turing award winner and founder at Algorand explained in a blog post:

“The Algorand blockchain does not fork. Each new block is separately agreed upon and is guaranteed to remain on the Algorand chain forever.

The Algorand consensus is not a drawn-out process. The fact that more and more blocks are attached to a given block B does not make it more and more probable that consensus on B has been reached. Algorand separately reaches agreement on a new block. When this is done, it reaches agreement on the next block. And so on.”

Thus, its users can immediately rely on the transactions as soon as they appear in a new block without having to wait for the block to become sufficiently deep in the chain.

So instead of haggling with clients over an unconfirmed funds transfer (as may be the case with Bitcoin), a merchant accepting tokens that are underpinned by the Algorand blockchain is assured of the finality of the transfer

This is a very good point. It's also worth mentioning the halvings; meaning not only are ASIC improvements going to hit a certain performance wall, also the rewards will get lower, pushing down the amount of miners running. So effectively, the power consumption will always be bound to price/coin and coins/block.

First, the Algorand blockchain overcomes one significant problem that has been observed with any chain that becomes popular, a hard fork.

The Algorand blockchain does not fork. Each new block is separately agreed upon and is guaranteed to remain on the Algorand chain forever.

The Algorand consensus is not a drawn-out process. The fact that more and more blocks are attached to a given block B does not make it more and more probable that consensus on B has been reached.

Algorand separately reaches agreement on a new block. When this is done, it reaches agreement on the next block. And so on.

Thus, its users can immediately rely on the transactions as soon as they appear in a new block without having to wait for the block to become sufficiently deep in the chain.

So instead of haggling with clients over an unconfirmed funds transfer (as may be the case with Bitcoin), a merchant accepting tokens that are underpinned by the Algorand blockchain is assured of the finality of the transfer

I still wait to find out how.

Security.

Now we come to security. Assume that I am a very powerful adversary, capable of corrupting users extremely quickly whenever I want. Clearly, I would love to corrupt the members of the committee, but I have a problem: I do not know who they are.

This is so because committee members are selected by a secretly run, cryptographically fair, individual lottery. Thus, only they know who they are, up to the moment in which they propagate through the network both their winning tickets and their opinions about the block. Only at that time I might learn who the committee members are and, given my super powers, I can immediately corrupt the entire committee. But so what? Corrupting them at this time is too late. Whatever the committee members had to say, they have already said, and their winning tickets and up-or-down opinions about the block are virally propagating throughout the network. I have no more power to put their messages back in the bottle than a government has the power to put back in the bottle messages virally propagated by WikiLeaks.

In other words, the Algorand approach is secure because beforehand, an adversary does not know whom to corrupt, and by the time he does, corruption is useless.

But newer tech has greater possibilities. 

The PoS design of Algorand makes forks impossible and that is according to
Silvio Micali, a Turing award winner.  *Turing Award, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Computing*

First, the Algorand blockchain overcomes one significant problem that has been observed with any chain that becomes popular, a hard fork.

“The Algorand blockchain does not fork. Each new block is separately agreed upon and is guaranteed to remain on the Algorand chain forever.

The Algorand consensus is not a drawn-out process. The fact that more and more blocks are attached to a given block B does not make it more and more probable that consensus on B has been reached. Algorand separately reaches agreement on a new block. When this is done, it reaches agreement on the next block. And so on.”

Thus, its users can immediately rely on the transactions as soon as they appear in a new block without having to wait for the block to become sufficiently deep in the chain.

So instead of haggling with clients over an unconfirmed funds transfer (as may be the case with Bitcoin), a merchant accepting tokens that are underpinned by the Algorand blockchain is assured of the finality of the transfer

Interesting to know that algorand gives a more secure transaction at a almost instant speed while not needing to compromise the majority % of the power grid like bitcoin.

A Comparison to Bitcoin PoW, is if any one knows the 3 to 4 mining pool operators that have over 51% hashrate, all they have to do is corrupt them.

Take some computer programming classes until you find someone that can explain it to you.

A Comparison to Bitcoin PoW, is if any one knows the 3 to 4 mining pool operators that have over 51% hashrate, all they have to do is corrupt them.

If you still don't understand , and still are not believing even the person who won a turing award.

Take some computer programming classes until you find someone that can explain it to you.

I don't believe in 'argumentum ab auctoritate'; we don't do that in science.

Except that no merchant would consider a new not yet proven altcoin (one of 10,000) instead of 10+ years standing Bitcoin.

This reminded me of Feynman (https://youtu.be/f61KMw5zVhg).  :)

Hmm, I suddenly feel an association swinging around my head. Couldn't the same thing had been said for the hundreds of years standing fiat currencies back in 2009? I think this changes the subject; we currently examine the potential of a crypto. In other words: Its underlying technology.

I see you two have your comedy routine practice well in hand and serious conversation is not what you want.