For what it's worth, come-from-beyond has a point when he says that the situation is exaggerated by an artificial situation with just two accounts.  

I decided to try a broader simulation, and see what the effects are.  

So, I set this up with 26 accounts, each having a different balance from 1000 to 26000, and bumped it up to a million trials to get consistent results despite statistical noise having a greater impact on a more complex situation.

Here's the code:

The effect is still present, in that the accounts with larger than median balances get more than their share of blocks, but it's considerably less important given the number of accounts and range of account values under consideration.  I deliberately let the smaller account win the block in every tie, just to ensure that the bias demonstrated was not due to a systematic error going the other direction. 

In this broader simulation, people do not get three times the number of blocks relative to someone with half their balance; Instead they get only a tiny fraction more than double.  (note, these pairs are AB, BD, CF, DH, EJ, and so on).

Here are the results:  


A got 0.269800% of the wins with 0.284900% of the money.
B got 0.545100% of the wins with 0.569801% of the money.
C got 0.832000% of the wins with 0.854701% of the money.
D got 1.076900% of the wins with 1.139601% of the money.
E got 1.364900% of the wins with 1.424501% of the money.
F got 1.627700% of the wins with 1.709402% of the money.
G got 1.925300% of the wins with 1.994302% of the money.
H got 2.226500% of the wins with 2.279202% of the money.
I got 2.473800% of the wins with 2.564103% of the money.
J got 2.812900% of the wins with 2.849003% of the money.
K got 3.108000% of the wins with 3.133903% of the money.
L got 3.333500% of the wins with 3.418803% of the money.
M got 3.667000% of the wins with 3.703704% of the money.
N got 3.954400% of the wins with 3.988604% of the money.
O got 4.229700% of the wins with 4.273504% of the money.
P got 4.554900% of the wins with 4.558405% of the money.
Q got 4.813100% of the wins with 4.843305% of the money.
R got 5.146400% of the wins with 5.128205% of the money.
S got 5.400300% of the wins with 5.413105% of the money.
T got 5.720200% of the wins with 5.698006% of the money.
U got 6.039900% of the wins with 5.982906% of the money.
V got 6.336200% of the wins with 6.267806% of the money.
W got 6.610200% of the wins with 6.552707% of the money.
X got 7.018400% of the wins with 6.837607% of the money.
Y got 7.296000% of the wins with 7.122507% of the money.
Z got 7.616900% of the wins with 7.407407% of the money.

Dude, there is no way someone capable of writing code is also capable of the kind of category error that would make them think there are relevant questions to ask. 

The entire purpose of code is to specify a process so exactly that there is no room for questions.  And you're looking at a thread in which two different people have posted code.  There is no possible question about what the code means that the code itself does not completely and unambiguously answer. 

The algorithm you described either is, or is not, accurately implemented by the code presented.  There are no questions to ask here.  You understand the algorithm because it's your algorithm in the first place.  If the code doesn't implement it correctly, then it's because there is an error in the code or because the description you gave isn't correct, and only you can explain the error or provide the correction.  There are no questions you can ask someone else to address that, because that knowledge is yours alone.  It does not belong to anyone else whom you could ask a question.  If the code does match, then the effect it demonstrates is an effect of the algorithm.  And if that's true, then only you as the developer can decide whether to do anything about it and if so what.  Again, no questions you can ask anyone else are relevant, because it's your decision not anyone else's.   

So I only have one question; why are you pretending to have a problem understanding this?

confirmed.  A doubled balance appears to give triple the forging power rather than double.  Doesn't matter how many "sides" the dice have.

In my example I tried 100K trials and got splits of about 75K and 25K (plus-minus statistical noise).

Here is the very simple C code;

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

// takes a balance; returns an interval to block forging time. 
double rollem(double balance){
  double roll = 0.0;
  while (roll == 0.0) 
     roll = ((double) rand())/RAND_MAX; // no divisions by zero
  return 1000 / (balance * roll);
}


// tries a hundred thousand trials and reports the advantage of an 
// account with supposedly 2x as much forging power.
main(){
  double A = 10000000;
  double B = 5000000;

  double Atime;
  double Btime;

  int count;
  int Acount = 0;
  int Bcount = 0;

  for (count = 0; count < 100000; count++){
    do{
      Atime = rollem (A);
      Btime = rollem (B);
    }while (Atime == Btime); // no ties count. 
    if (Atime < Btime) Acount++;
    else Bcount++;
  }
  printf("\nA forged %d blocks, B forged %d blocks\n", Acount, Bcount);
  printf("With A balance = 2x B balance, A forged %f times as many blocks.\n\n", 
    ((double)Acount) / Bcount);
}

And here's the compile/run:

~/src/Cred/testprogs$ gcc -o nxtforging nxtforging.c 
~/src/Cred/testprogs$ ./nxtforging

A forged 75141 blocks, B forged 24859 blocks
With A balance = 2x B balance, A forged 3.022688 times as many blocks.

~/src/Cred/testprogs$

I think it corresponds with the case where A forges 3/4 of the blocks and B forges 1/4 of the blocks, which gives A more advantage than we expect or desire; with 2x as much balance, A ought to be forging 2/3 not 3/4.

I'm going to write a toy simulation and check this; it's possible that in my gedanken experiment I messed up some statistics and that in a simulation I won't.

Mt.Gox prices are only relevant when quoted in Japanese Yen. 

They do cite dollar prices, but you cannot easily get money from them unless you are in Japan, and therefore getting the money in Yen.

The prices they cite in Dollars are subject to artificial exchange rates that you can expect to evaporate in fees as they trade currencies for you to get Dollars. You won't actually get your Dollars before the end of the following week anyway, so there is effectively no chance of making timely trades to arbitrage any market advantage that does poke its head above the fees anyway. 

Dollar prices quoted on Gox are illusory.

Um, okay.  Let's look at it with continuous probabilities on the range 0..1 then.

Wallet A has a 100K account and wallet B has a 50K account.  Wallet A throws am infinite-sided die mapped to 0..1 and gets N1, wallet B throws the same infinite-sided die and gets N2. 

Wallet A then takes a default generation time of (say) 10M seconds and divides by 100K x N1, while Wallet B takes the same default generation time and divides by 50K x N2. 

If B gets the shorter/first time, B forges the new block while if A gets the shorter/first time, A forges the new block.

So, for A:  10M seconds /(100K x N1) = 100 seconds / N1
while, for B:  10M seconds/(50K x N2) = 200 seconds / N2

And that means that if N1 < N2 (ie half the time) A always forges the block.

Otherwise, if N1 < N2/2, (ie, half the remaining time) A always forges the block.

Otherwise, N1 > N2/2, and B forges the block. 

I ignore the case where N1 == N2/2; we were throwing infnite-sided dice so the probability is infinitesimal.

I think all are agreed that the presented model is not the right way to do it.  But does it accurately state the forging process that the current code implements?

I sure hope not, because...


Effective countermeasures will result in Bitcoin becoming worthless for doing any legal trade.

What I see on Fiatleak is that for several hours now the vast majority of the volume in Bitcoin trading is happening inside China.  Chinese people are selling to other Chinese people, in huge volumes.  The rest of the world, not so much is happening.

I don't doubt for a minute that the buyers and the sellers are people in different positions w/r/t the upcoming rules changes.  People who believe they can or can't defeat the new rules, or that the new rules do or don't forbid what they want to do with their coins. 

But I see hardly any volume moving coins into or out of China - this is looking like it's going to be a market non-event as far as actually moving prices.  If the Chinese action were driving prices up, we'd see money moving into China.  If it were driving prices down, we'd see money moving out of China.  But what's happening now is that money is moving around at a furious rate - but almost all of it *within* China. 

Cash has better anonymity than Bitcoin.

And when the amounts start to get large, the powers that be are scared to death of it.

In the USA there's precedent on the books that says anyone who travels carrying more than $5000 in cash can be detained while an investigation is conducted and the police figure out whether the person can be charged and if so with what crime.  Cash itself, in any moderately large amount, is considered to be probable cause that someone is a drug dealer, smuggler, trafficker, pimp, mule, or whatever. 

So if you're someone who just sold your house in Key West and you're getting on a train with a suitcase full of money that you intend to buy a house in Chicago with, you are likely to rot in jail until you can prove you didn't get the money in a drug deal, you don't intend to spend it on child sex slaves, and you're not just a courier moving it around for the mafia. 

The kind of mind that set and upheld that precedent is the kind of mind that's going to have to interact with the idea of Bitcoin and the fact that someone can send 20 BTC across the world instantly -- and that if they were careful while receiving the coins, careful while doing the transfer, and careful while spending any other coins they had at any of the same addresses or got in change when they did the transfer, there might be absolutely no way to ever know who it was that sent the coins. 

We've already got "silent" nodes sharing subnets with dot-gov's listening on the network to figure out where transactions originate and correlate network addresses to bitcoin addresses.  We've already got snoops dropping 'dust' on addresses to see whose client spends the dust (and therefore reveals who must own the addresses).  We've already got coin marketplaces dealing with know-your-customer laws and providing information on demand to law enforcement.  I don't see us getting rid of any of those things in the current climate. 

I think the writing is on the wall.  They're either going to find a reasonably reliable way to penetrate Bitcoin's anonymity, or they're going to outright make the use of Bitcoin into a crime. 

Is there some alternative I'm not aware of, where I can see list B but needn't be exposed to list A?  

As far as I'm concerned the behavior in list B is correct and the behavior in list A is wrong.  A is handy for being automatic, but it would be much nicer to have a B-only option, even if it means manually 'follow'ing each thread I post in.

As matters stand I cannot ever 'unfollow' a thread once I have posted in it. And when it devolves into a pissing match about who knows what fractional reserve banking is and what backing a currency means and who is ignorant and who is stupid, I desperately need to unfollow it.


EDIT:

Ah.  There is a 'watchlist' link right below the one I've been using which has exactly the effect I was hoping for.  I understand now.

I have been using it (rarely) for a different purpose, and remained unaware of what it did when there were new posts in "watched" topics.

Thank you for directing my attention to where I found it.  I suggest changing the link text to "show new posts in your watchlist" to make it clearer what it does.

Okay, does that get the post number and the number represented squared up again?

One of the first things I do when I come to the forum is use the link that says "Show new replies to your posts."  This presents a list of every thread that has new posts, which is either (A) a thread you've ever posted in or (B) a thread you've "watched" using the "watch this thread" link.

Some of those threads were interesting and worth following them when I posted in them, but have now devolved into pissing matches where inane arguments about definitions mixed with pointless accusations of ignorance and stupidity are going on.  The "Unwatch" link will remove a topic from list B, but has absolutely no effect on list A. 

I want an "IGNORE THIS THREAD" button that will remove a thread from both list A and list B. 

Please.  So I don't have constant updates about mere puerile stupidity just for the sin of having once posted in what looked like a promising thread.

Last August.  Got on at $10, and it's been a hell of a ride.  Sold enough later that no matter what happens we made %100 on our money - and that left us with 80% of our initial stash. So from here on out it's gravy.  Just wish I'd bought more.  :-) 


For most of my professional career I worked at startups hacking natural-language and machine-learning code in C++.  Now I'm sort of upset about how such code is being used (to exploit consumers and invade privacy) so I've backed off from it and instead I'm riding herd on a database for a freight company.  On my own time I've been dabbling with coding games.  Except  now I've left off game development and started putting together an altcoin (plus stuff) that I hope will be the next generation of cryptocurrency.

The good news is that my retirement is paid for; the bad news is I now feel like I owe the world a good turn to make amends for my sins.

The wife is a contract accountant whose clients currently include a major online porn company.  As I see it her job and the way people are using the results of her work is far more ethically pure than the way people are using the results of mine.


I think you left out about a half-dozen combinations that different people find quite worthwhile, but I'm with you in spirit.  Good news is for everybody.

It is clear that I do not believe what you believe.  Enjoy your stay on planet Earth.

That's dumb.  Fractional reserve banking was created by the free market.


Fractional reserve banking has, since its invention, continued after occasional collapses.  An economic collapse in no way presages the end of fractional reserve banking.  It existed before bailouts were a possibility, and will continue to exist with or without them. It existed before banks were regulated, and was originally illegal.  The laws were changed because it was shown to provide economic stimulus and social mobility that was lacking in its absence.  Also, because it is profitable,  it will continue to exist (in black market credit, aka loan sharking) even if it is banned.


Sorry, no.  It is so.  Bitcoin is a limited asset considered to have value, and our institutions will treat it exactly the same way they treat limited assets considered to have value.  

The only significant differences are that things our financial institutions do with other limited assets considered to have value, are things that people can mostly do for themselves with Bitcoin.  So there is less in the way of "additional services" that can be offered in lieu of interest to induce people to trust the financial institutions to handle their Bitcoin for them.  The only improvement I see a rational hope for is that depositors of Bitcoin in financial institutions should be able to hope for better interest rates in the long run.

if you're sailing you've got plenty of power from the prop shaft or a towed generator, and no problem with ac or refrigeration.  Your sails generate more power than any windmill. 

When you want to sit still in a bay or a harbor though, and you would prefer not to be hooked up to shore power, the power requirements for either would be a problem.  There's where the big-ass windmill  generator (or a diesel genset) becomes necessary.  And even that is iffy because bays and harbors are subject to only the gentlest breezes, not the kind of wind that generates big power. 

You can bank enough in your battery bank to run a refrigerator for a couple days.  And that's even with old-fashioned lead batteries; I hear the new ones are a lot more power per pound.   Airconditioning draws more than three times as much power as refrigeration but it is, IMO, completely unnecessary because the water mediates the temperature.  Even in the middle of summer when it's breaking 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Fresno, the air out over the Pacific, or in San Francisco Bay, is rarely more than 75 degrees.  I guess it gets hotter in the tropics, but I've never been further south than Acapulco.  Anyway, I'm baffled when people run airconditioners in boats. But they do.

If you told me you wanted to keep a boat cool inside, and I were designing the boat, I would circulate fluid through a metal keel and a network of copper tubing mounted right under the deck.  That would effectively keep the interior of the boat not much warmer than the actual water, which is plenty cold enough for most people, and it would require a hell of a lot less power than an airconditioner.  But I've never heard of a boat that actually does that.  Hmmm, it might cause condensation, which is usually bad for the interior of boats - it can promote mold etc. if not captured.    Then again, condensation is free fresh water if you can capture it effectively. 

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot:

http://www.emarineinc.com/categories/Solar-Panels/

Solar panels are the rule rather than the exception on modern boats.  At least 70% of the boats you find in any marina will have some of these new high-efficiency panels that are tough enough to walk on, usually either on the deck or on the doghouse.  They're handy, quiet, and very low-maintenance, and they provide enough power to run your critical electronics systems (or if you're rigged with the new LED running lights, can store enough in your batteries to keep your lights running all night). 

That said, they don't provide very much power.  If you want something power-hungry like refrigeration or, god forbid, air conditioning, then you need to have something else.  I sort of hate guys who make noise and stink by running diesel generators at anchor in an otherwise quiet harbor, but if they want to run a refrigerator or an airconditioner, and don't have a big wind generator, that's what they usually wind up doing.

Uh, marine wind turbines: 

http://www.emarineinc.com/categories/Wind-Turbines/Marine-Wind-Turbines/

These are common and getting more common. Lots of cruisers use them. An alternator hooked up to a propeller blade, what's not to like?

Marine towed generators/turbines:

http://www.wire-wiz.com/id84.html

These provide electrical power from sail (if you're on the ocean) or from current (if you're anchored in a river) or from tides (if you're anchored at the mouth of a bay or tidal lagoon).  I don't use these, and In practical terms I don't like them;  deploying, recovering, and stowing these towed generators is a pain in the tush (especially if you want to recover it without stopping the boat).

I much prefer running a generator off the prop shaft in all of these situations; it's simple and easy and skips all the deploy/recover/stow hassle, and provides more power, if your boat is set up for it.  It's an even bigger win if your boat uses an electric motor; that way you don't even need a generator as a separate machine.  OTOH, with an electric motor you can't just buy fuel and then run the motor for hundreds of miles on a windless day the way you can with an internal combustion motor.

But most sailboats aren't built for that;  to make it practical you have to be getting enough power to overcome the friction where the prop shaft goes through your stuffing box, and there are bad logistical issues involved in getting belts on or off the prop shaft if one ever breaks because without unmounting the motor or unmounting the prop and shaft itself, you can't get a new belt over the shaft.  And in most sailboats you have to crawl around teeny spaces under the lazarette to even get at the part of the prop shaft where you could mount a pulley, so it's a real pain in the ass to install or maintain.  Finally you have to mount a prop that's a bit wider (and causes more drag) than would be necessary just to transmit motor power to the water, and that involves modifications to your skeg and rudder to accomodate the larger size prop.

So setting up your boat to easily and conveniently generate electrical power off the prop shaft involves major, expensive alterations, or a customized boat build.

But there are people who specialize in exactly that:  http://www.electricyacht.com/

So let's assume our mystery official bought a bunch of bitcoin when s/he first heard about it, then talked it up/endorsed it in China, the price rose massively, s/he sold out, then shorted, then came out with the banking ban and got coverage with the above tone started.  Price went down, and whoever it is covered the short and now has an acre of money.

The cool thing about that game is it can be played several times.  China in -- price goes up. China out -- price goes down.

If our mystery official wants to go back to the pump, s/he's buying up coins now.  S/He'll wait at least six months to keep the cognitive dissonance to a dull roar, then go to work on getting the banking ban overturned and start to talk it up again.