lol
read the advert on page one.
bitmain selling CHIPS first and releasing asic RIGS at a later date(november)

"Bitmain leads the global blockchain industry in the production of integrated circuits for cryptocurrency mining, as well as mining hardware under the Antminer brand"

the downside is that to avoid the influx of hobbiests wanting to plague then with minimal orders and technical cries. they sell CHIPS to the big industry types. not regular joe. as chips are useless unless you know what you are doing with circuitry you wish to attach. also bitmain supply circuit blueprints for to them big industries.

you will be surprised that there a re actually a few differing asic RIG companies that have a bitmain branded CHIP inside

backdoor
the firmware is open source. you will be shocked at who is involved.
also the performance advantage is so that bitcoin users can gain 20% hashpower. this is to stop some outsider from making hardware.
in short better for us to use it. then to follow twitter advise and no one uses it but the gt shocked and cry when "bankers/government" use it instead.

EG if you had a car race would you follow twitter advice to avoid using a racecar with 240mph top speed. and only use a racecar of 200mph.. then cry if a banker turns up and they decide to us a 240mph vehicle?....
kinda funny for the reddit/twitter propaganda groups to say dont use a car with turbo/NoS boost


fresh off the blockchain.... not reddit/twitter
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/00000000000000000018a65ff0bbbc2a93493c693d05dd65c6a8dcbb881f55fb
notice transactions in that block
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/7ab7b7a7f5fe7465f9622d46ae59553396f8e6ee3691497056f27099fecdeb94

what if i told you that there is a high chance that an exchange you use or a merchant gateway or a hardware wallet or even a software wallet can be tied back to a single company with some ownership stake in your coin holding/using solution.. see post above for hints(link provided in previous post)

check out https://dcg.co/portfolio
bitflyer
bitgo
bitoasis
bitpay
bitpesa
bitso
blockchain.info
        blockstream(paid core devs)
        bloq(paid devs involved in the bilateral split)
buda
changetip
circle
coinbase

... and thats just letters B and C (also notice the media control in the list.. coindesk)

1. the chips are made in taiwan not china.
2. the chips are made by a different company
3. different companies can buy the chips and then create their own device/circuits and sell their own asics rigs
3. the pools such as "antpool" are several farming facilities. (china, mongolia, georgia, icelnd, usa) *
4. ran by separate companies as sublease *
5. ran by different people. *

* you can notice this easily by the half dozen different coin reward addresses being reused. rather than just 1
(yep some even use bech32 addresses as their coin reward myth busts that they are "wu" single minded**)

more importantly
mining pools do not program the rules of bitcoins protocol. they can only collate(gather) transactions into a block formation that set protocol (CODED BY CORE) allows them. else the blocks get rejected.

so here is the question.
now the "china 50%".... "jihan runs it all"...  myths are busted.
what is your dis-like?

is it the reality or the reddit/twitter propaganda** that decided your dislikes?

** reddit/twitter PR can lie. but data in a blockchain is immutable so which would you turn to as source of real stats/data

exactly
the only reason you have not seen this really happen is that the coins that do PoC(proof of capacity/cpu/components) are coins that are worth very little and have no real merchant real life utility. so its not worth the bother.. however if a coin should become popular then you would see pooling/farming begin.

as said before some of the popular PoS coins are already seeing people pool funds together or use exchanges as their pooled/syndicated stake, leaving the little guys with alittle dust amounts (hobbyists) with no chance

also coins that have no 'acquisition cost' to get fresh coins, EG PoS(requirements is just a signature) also dont have good bottomline 'value' price support. literally if it costs nothing to get the coin people will literally sell it all the way down to a penny and still consider it profitable. so its not just a security of the data that PoW helps. but also the security of the bottomline price supportline as it costs something to make fresh coin people wont just sell it at any price. they will look to sell only above what they paid to get it.

developing/3rd world countries. jumped passed and bypassed the landline fibre optic and are going straight to 5G wireless.
they have for the last few years been deciding to jump passed and bypass btc and are going straight to altcoin

kind of a shame though. bitcoin has just turned into an investment tool for elitists who want to be FIAT rich

ya but just doing a bitcoin fork keeping parameters the same is lame. (no innovation. no inspiration. just copy and paste script kiddy stuff to just give people more airdrops(well just the minimal single tweak as the lame excuse as to why a new airdrop should happen(facepalm)).. thats what that big list of altcoins that tag on the name "bitcoin" do)

exponential income?
those merchant service gateways seen drastic drop in merchant use of BTC. so yea i agree that they had to adapt. but dont you see the problem in that.

so many people spout out btc is tops. yet i have travelled to many countries and spoke to merchants and service gateways and many are not seeing the 2009-2013 ethos, promises and features they had/wanted

"too many 'too the moon' make me fiat rich promoters"
"not enough btc security carers"
"ramping up the price 100x and then PR campaigning 75% discount if... is still 25x more expected than promised"

many have gone on to use other coins. and see many other coins far cheaper to use that will also allow them an on-off ramp into LN without ever needing to touch btc. too many people around the world are saying bitcoin is becoming the 'myspace' of crypto.

yet theres still a group of people over promising that bitcoin is facebook and will offer a fast snapchat service. but doing so more so to kiss the developers asses. rather than be honest about the day to day issues service/network users actually experience outside the developer friends groupchat

CLAMCOIN may 12th 2014

uses bitcoins genesis block. any anycoin holders on the 12th may 2014 also has clams
and its PoS

so absolutely no need to just make another fork for the sake of making a fork

to correct the OP

environmental disaster??
um.. no

bitcoins hashpower is the equivelent to 10 trillion Pc's hashrate yes
bitcoins hashpower is the equivelent to 333 billion GPUs hashrate yes

but
only 3.6million asics

in prospective for all those screaming "china has 50%"
if china did have 50%.. thats only 20twh a year that would be that scenario of "china has 50%"
(yep bitcoin mining is 40twh a year)

here is the kicker though
china produce 6000twh a year for residents and businesses.. and so comparing it 6000 vs 20 (0.3%)

other fun fact
china produce more than they use. 13% is excess that they keep running evn if wasted/unpaid

mining again 0.3% buy some of the excess... its like buying perfectly edible food that would just go to landfill anyway, but just wouldnt get used otherwise.

having travelled to many countries talking about bitcoin. i have noticed that 3rd world countries (wages are like 5-25cents an hour there) have decided bitcoin is not for them as the fee's are more than an hours labour.

they wont be using LN in conjunction with bitcoin either as it still require a open and close fee..

lets imagine it from a developed countries view

imagine 2009-2013 you could use a new payment system that only cost (converting minimum wage) 75cents which compared to remittance services was cheap...
(it was in real terms only 1cent or less... but imagine from the eyes of a country where it feels like 6 minutes of minimum wage(75cents converted))

then in 2014-2016 fees went up and up and were costing many HOURS of minimum wage(US feel of tens of dollars))..

promises were made of new features that would bring prices down offering 75% discounts.. yet
prices went up.. delays, excuses. back peddling consensus agreements on innovation, planting in trojan code to make bitcoin compatible with other non blokchain networks.. but still no on chain innovation to bring prices down to only a few minutes of labour again.
2018 the fee is the equivalent to a few hours labour. AFTER discount if you use the new feature. but 4 times more again without the discount by staying with the old way of transacting

now your getting told to only expect to have to lock your funds up into a co-signed address with someone else and pay the fee premium to get into this non-blockchain service network and pay the fee premium to get out aswell as needing the co-signer to agree.. to get your funds out the service network.

so. you end up using a different altcoin that cheaper

..
this is why 3rd world and developing countries are just moving away from bitcoin and either developing their own affordable payment networks or just using ones that have not been hijacked into being premium purely just to twist peoples arms into thinking the only way of the future is offchain networks.

(i know expect replies from the usual crew of people to not defend bitcoins principles of 2009-2013. but instead defend a group of devs who think non-blockchain, unaudited, permissioned(co-signed) networks requiring locking up funds is best(facepalm))

"one lone voice cant change the chains policy"(facepalm)
under consensus 65% voices said no to a restaurant chan updating the menu. infact the waiter in the chain should not have added dessert without the chain.

but i guess you now admit core own the chain........ and no longer just a waiter within the chain.

the dessert is on the table.. it never was before august 2017. but now its on the table the waiters are already dishing it out

those that didnt want the dessert had no choice. they now end up paying for it. but the waiter strips it off the plate trashes it and just gives you what you think is what you want. but now you are not given the full meal that every full paying customer should get.

again the now set full menu meal includes a dessert. you as a customer never got the chance to say dont offer dessert in august 2017(consensus)  it was mandatoryily changed(consensus bypassed, bilateral split UASF)

you are told the new full menu is compatible with the old menu as the new waiters strip the dessert off the plate..but you still pay the new full price but dont get to see the full menu any more. if you dont like it go f**k off to a new restaurant

play your silly games all you want. core changed the menu and those not wanting a new menu get a wishy washy scrubbed off version of the menu. but still pay the full price. they cant even give the dessert to others(relay) that may want the dessert. as its been stripped off the plate. thus others no longer see you as a equal peer as you dont hold a main+dessert

again it wasnt a consensus event.
if you cared about bitcoin security where no software should have the ability to do that. you would understand the issue. but your too deep in doing what they want to care about bitcoin.

again no choice no way of voting that the menu should stay the same(consensus).. it just became a upgrade your tastebuds to eat the dessert and be a full peer.. of go to a different restaurant

anyway doomad. you are protecting devs not bitcoin security. so no point in talking technical to you. hense i dont.. you might have notice i actually bothered to ELI-5 many things. but even that passed over your core defense cap
no point circling the same topic with you because you are just blind to th bitcoin security issues of "inflght upgrades"(consensus bypasses).

best bet is you go learn some romantic poetry instead and become a core romantic
you have had ample opportunity to learn whats really going on, now i think you havnt bothered more because your not interested in the network security. but only interested in core friendship

end of debate

you forgot your dessert analogy didnt you
people didnt ask for dessert they were happy with their main meal... but the dessert arrived at the table anyway, they were just told to not see or hand it around. and to only touch the main meal plate the waiter handed them stripped of the dessert

though the people with only the main meal pay more for their meal even if they cant be involved in having a full valid meal+dessert.

funny, flip flops you make
compatible no need to upgrade
concensus need to upgrade

just accept it.. consensus bypassed.
and yes its old news but you keep meandering topics to bring it up

yes
check out the usual group you chat to. lauda, achowe, carlton. they love their 'conservative' 'ad-homs' 'compatible' over use.
even doomad had joined in with "conservative" "compatible" repetition. doomad even gets mad if i myself dont use certain buzzwords
it kinda became a strange thing i noticed and picked up on.
much like a certain mindset loves to scream bcash, china, lambo, fomo. you start to see what crowd people circle in by their use of language

as for your 'gas lighting'. seems you have picked up a new word recently. reading your posts for months it wasnt there. then recently its been used multiple times in the last month.. so its something i noticed


correct it did not.
you can malleate a transaction now. by using legacy. so it didnt solve malleation for the network.

there are multiple ways to malleate a tx. segwit solved one that was needed to make BTC "compatible" with LN
due to how LN monitors a TX by its TXID but only for segwit transactions

and yes devs want to re introduce things that make malleation possible again for segwit tx formats.

segwits true purpose was not a network solution. it was a make a tx format thats compatible with LN. al other half promises were wishy washy PR stuff to try coaxing people to adopt and wave a flag of devotion


a transaction that has 2 inputs and 2 outputs
some call it vin   vout
some call it sender   receiver
some call it spending   paying


ask your chums. a few know a few dont. and one in particular doesnt like it when im being subtle but give him no input

i feel their debate is that bch is a chain originating from satoshis genesis.. which it is (unlike other coins that come to life at block 0)
i feel their debate is that bch is a chain that wants to scale the blockchain. not push people into non blockchain networks.

to me though. drama aside what matters for a coins longevity and popularity is all about where you can spend the funds in the most amount of merchants and services

seeing coinbase, bitpay and many exchanges adopt litecoin bch eth... seeing the dip in transactions btc is losing the sole player status of popularity.
though its not swung over to another coin being more popular. many people are seeing using litecoin and other altcoins as being faster and cheaper than btc.
which needs sorting. btc cant just rely on "store of value coz store of value". nor can it rely on LN, which other coins will equally use.

and yes even litecoins and other coins will also use LN. so the btc devs have really stepped on their own foot by stepping back from evolving the btc network....
(yea i know you want to throw the buzzword of the year "conservative", im expecting that standard script word to replace deliberate delay)

standard thief /scammer tactic

steal less than the travel costs of victim visiting the thief/scammer to get slapped with a wet fish
steal less than the legal costs of taking the thief to court

=
get away with it.

its even why american cops get away with border collections theft. they can wrap people in legal costs of thousands of dollars and years of time. just to make people not want to collect their innocents funds back that get taken by crocked cops

same goes for banks. why do you think they only insure holdings for under $100k(varies per country).
if they hold/freeze money under that amount... they just get the insurance to pay out if you bother to try starting a legal dispute. but hope you just dont bother.

if the insurance pays out. their premium moves up slightly. but they still have the real "frozen" money to pay the premium so they still profit

take MTGox. 4 years on and ......
.. yep add on loads of legal costs, delay for years to cut down on claimants willing to keep up the fight. and then give out pennies on the dollar... eventually

so i hope you now realise why trusting agencies/third parties/authorities is bad and why bitcoin stored on your own personal private key is best

no they didnt
imagine it this way.
50exahash...
thats 50,000,000,000,000mhash
thats ~10,000,000,000,000 CPU  
thats ~333,000,000,000 GPU
thats ~3,600,000 asics

though bitcoin is "CPU/GPU resistant" some think.. have you actually costed out the cost of GPU/CPU mining bitcoin

you would blame intel / AMD that you need to buy 1 trillion PC's just to have a 10% slice of the hashrate pie
you would blame AMD/nvidia that you need to buy 33billion GPU just to have a 10% slice of the hashrate pie

you only need 360,000 ASICS to have 10% of hashrate pie. and right now an asic is ~$500 each
its far cheaper to mine due to asics than with a PC's

....
put it this way. pools can only collate transactions and make a hash of that blocks collection of transactions..
(they are not in control of programming the rules of the network, they collate the data to meet rules. not create rules)

if software devs made is so every 3.6million blocks had a unique IP and device ID (utopia of everyone has a chance)
3.6 million people just need 1 ASIC costing them $500.. but
...but would require 92500 GPU's costing each of the 3.6million people $18,500,000 per person ($200 per gpu)

asics didnt cause the problem.

also to note: even with PoS. people are now syndicating 'stake' into pools. thus hobby stakers have the same solo vs pool screams.

much easier method of calculation bitcoin
average hashrate is 50exahash always running
thats 50,000,000terahash
thats ~3571429 asics (14thash each)
thats ~4642857kw/h (each asic uses 1.3kw/h)
thats ~4642857143w/h
thats ~16714152mj  the actual mining power of bitcoin mining in total per hour
thats ~2785692mj per block (/6)
thats ~222855mj per btc  (/12.5)
thats ~34mj per $1 (/6400)

the important part
thats ~4642857kw/h (each asic uses 1.3kw/h)

~4,642,857kw/h
=111,428,571kwh a day
=40,671,428,571kwh a year
=40.67twh a year
real funny thing.
international currency(BTC) using ONLY the electric of a small country...

however
a national currency like USD uses EVEN MORE electric than international currency(BTC)
meaning USD wastes even more than denmark

(v   note sarcasm attitute, but factual data  v)
must kill USD as its only national not international but wastes more electric
(^  note sarcasm attitute, but factual data  ^)

come on.. wheres the racist folks about "china"
oh wait. china does 6000TWH per year.. so that doesnt suite the narrative that "50% of mining is china" (20thw a year)
..as thats only 0.33% of china's production

funny part is that the PoS lovers are not actually environmentalists. thy are infact people that dont want to pay for resources to get more coin, they just want free coin for no extra work.

it costs nothing extra/new for a PoS user to create blocks.
call it what it is...most yuppies understand. Proof of Lambo
if you have money/lambo you can create more money without having to spend more

just imagine if gold mining changed from a proof of work(diesel from excavators) costing the miner $1000 an ounce diesel burn. and turned it into PoS("i own a lambo gimme coin") costing nothing per coin but just waving THE SAME lambo's pinkslip/logbook every time.

yep those with a lambo get richer but the security level of the PoS chain does not toughen/get stronger. it just gives funds more often to those that just own more lambo's that they earned simply by owning lambo's

environmentally bitcoin is not doing any damage. as bitcoin miners are buying up EXCESS electric thats burned anyway, even if not used

here is few lessons to all the hobby miners trying to scream "eco friendly" as a ploy to try swaying others to consider PoS
1. the gap between electricity production vs demand.. and the actual math of PoW electric used shows that mining does not exceed the excess gap. so most farms are just paying for the gap that would have gone to waste. (its like buying out of date but still edible food to prevent it going to landfill)

2. PoS if enabled wont give local guy in his basement hobby miner a chance to earn coin mining a PoS. instead it will be the rich guys with lots of coin, gaining mor coin. and increasing their chances of getting more coin.. without increasing the chains security

3. if you think that anti-PoW = fair funds for small guys, you would be wrong. what will happen is people will syndicate(join stake) essentially pool funds together and one person then creates the blocks on the pools behalf. thus becoming the same 'pooled' scenario. but at zero actual cost and zero increase of difficulty

2013 spike was due to ASIC entering the economy in october 2013. yes after a certain level tipped into speculative FOMO to push it higher. but the trigger was asics

2017 spike was due to VC buy-up of coin to pay out reward tranches to certain groups due to segwit contracts due in november 2017. yes after a certain level tipped into speculative FOMO to push it higher. but the trigger was VC tranches needing paying

there is no correlation / trend / pattern
remember. charts dont tell you much
remember a trend anal is not a technical analyst.