Bitcoin Forum

The next (last?) in a series of threads in the project to update and fill-in the New to BitCoin? Start here! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7269.0) sticky.

If a thread already exists on this subject please let us know and the moderators can add it to the sticky instead of this one. These questions may have already been answered and addressed many times, which is why it is good to have them included in one location and pointed to from that sticky. Please give us your definitive answer to this question, to help out new users coming to this forum as well as existing members who see these questions asked over and over again. Everyone is welcome to give their view of the subject, which is better perhaps than getting only one answer from one central self-appointed authority who thinks s/he knows it all and is only interested in pushing their obnoxious agenda or boosting their own ego ( This is a general hypothetical statement. No particular individual is being referred to here. ).

Thank you for your participation and input; karmacoins will be sent to those with the best Bitcoin community spirit.  ;D

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This thread is meant to answer the question asked in the sticky, New to BitCoin? Start here! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7269.0):

Could miners collude to give themselves money or fundamentally change the nature of BitCoin?        Thread coming

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Could miners ( or mining pools ) collude to give themselves money or fundamentally change the nature of BitCoin?

Well perhaps one saving grace is that the more greedy and sociopathic one entity becomes the more likely they
are to not want to cooperate with others and would rather stab others in the back to get more for just them...
( e.g. see the movie The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040897/) ;) )
which is why I tend to not put too much stock into the big world wide type conspiracy theories.

Also some say about the pools that if one of them start doing something that the majority of bitcoiners don't like
then miners will leave that pool for another ( like the p2pool ) or to mine solo.  But others may counter that a lot
of miners are too sheep-like and/or apathetic ( like voters in countries like America and Canada ;) )  and wouldn't
do much at all, even if it was pointed out to them that it would be in their own best interest to do something like
consider leaving the pool they are in. Another might bring up the time factor and suggest that a big pool could pull
something off before miners could react to do something about it.

Hmm...  what does everyone think?  Is this something to be concerned about?

It's not something to be concerned about because:

- participating in a pool is voluntary
- polls will avoid doing things that will hurt their ROI by driving people away from Bitcoin and destroying it's value
- participants will avoid a pool that does things that will hurt their ROI by driving people away from Bitcoin and destroying it's value
- it's difficult or nearly impossible to hide shady business in Bitcoin because of it's openness

- even if it happened, the majority of the public can start using a fork with honest miners and render the pools irrelevant


Bottom line: Because no one forces anyone to use Bitcoin and because Bitcoin is ultra transparent, anyone who doesn't want to hurt their investment in Bitcoin and return on this investment will do everything in their power to operate honestly and help protecting the protocol against attacks.

I guess what a lot of people forget is most pools were opened by miners wanting to give other miners a better experience and to promote Bitcoin.

So whilst conspiracy theories abound about these "evil poolowners" there aren't actually many of them around and those that are get found out pretty quickly.

threads like https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66026.0 and others show this :)

Thanks Graet, I hadn't seen those threads before. 

With all the posts expressing concerns about the mystery miner,

Miners that refuse to include transactions are becoming a problem (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=69423.0)

and the posts expressing concerns about Vlad's ASIC operation,

[ANN] A public company will build a huge Bitcoin Mining Operation (ASIC). (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75298.0)

It seems there are a lot of people who still think this is a subject to worry about.
 

Mystery Miner was likely a botnet owner (perhaps targeting Macs) that appears to be gone now. Nevertheless, developers started to think about ways to assure the work for a block will actually be done. So, this issue doesn't seem to be a great concern right now.

I believe many problems are solvable because Bitcoin is a dynamic system in many ways. Users, miners, pool operators, future Asic farmers, developers and many more all have the ability to act upon upcoming problems. Vlad's plans are still plans only and he will not be the only one coming up with Asics. It's the way things work in technology. There'll always be a bigger fish. Just because he says so doesn't give him any advantage over other competitors and we will see what will happen in the perhaps not so distant future.

Another worry of mine was the entire "tainted coins" issue with MtGox acting as a self-proclaimed law enforcement agency. This will also not likely to be be a fatal problem. Either Gox will really hurt its reputation and lose a lot of money and/or people will start mixing coins all over the place (happens anway in time).

Personally, although I'm convinced Bitcoin is a great project remember not to invest more than you can afford to lose. It is risky. Shit may still hit the fan, as they say. (Don't ask me who they are.)

It's good risks are being discussed to find out if they really are a problem or not.