Huh ?
It's just a greedy race for money.
If I had a 60GH asic today; I would earn 30 BTC a day i.e. $10,000 a month.
Now wonder why everyone wants one.
What, exactly, is your definition of greed? Is wanting money a bad thing? Money is certainly the main incentive for INDIVIDUALS to invest in ASICs, but as a COMMUNITY, the reason we should support investments into ASICs is to further protect the network. Thanks for your answers... So, are we as a community then responsible for bailing out failing MINER enterprises?
What? This made no sense. I think you should read a bit more. Yes, it made sense. It just feels like and attacker an community have different objectives (No, doh!) BUt consider this scenario... The attacker has enough resources to build a network of the BTC size. To get it this 1% to take over, it compromises a "legit" mining operation. The owners of the operation do not have enough money to address the issue. It seems like bail out is needed, or some sort of insurance... Yes, this would be a risk. This is also why lots of people start making an outcry when a single pool holds a large percentage of total hashing power. If the single pool controlled more than 50% of the total hashing power, it would indeed become a central point of failure. But, at this point, an attacker would have to compromise the top 5 pools to have > 51% of the total hashing power (see the chart here: http://bitcoincharts.com/), which would undoubtedly be an extremely difficult thing to do. On top of that, as soon as members of the pool knew it was compromised, they'd simply switch to a different pool, leaving the attacker without the hashing power he needs to continue carrying out the attack. |
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Another interesting thing to think about is what would happen to consumer-level debts denominated in USD if the USD did indeed collapse? If USD was worthless, then I could buy it up by the bucketloads and pay off my house quickly. Or, would the banks attempt to convert the loans into something else (even though I don't think that would be contractually possible)?
Great question. In essence, as your post alludes, hyperinflation ($$$ collapse) is debt default by the back door. Exactly. And I'm looking forward to it, because I've got a house that is worth less than I owe on it, plus some nice-sized student loans. |
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All of our equipment is burn tested after final assembly/testing for ~24 hours on a live pool (In this case, EMC). After the burn-in, it's taken off the rack, packed and shipped the same day. We do this for both the singles and the mini rig and the singles PSU's (we've had a few of those go bad, so now we burn those in as well).
We are not mining with any ASIC equipment at the present time. You can be sure there would be a big announcement if we had turned up the ASICs on a live pool.
Thanks for the information. |
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Thanks for your answers... So, are we as a community then responsible for bailing out failing MINER enterprises?
No, but we as a community are responsible for making sure a malicious entity doesn't take over the network. |
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A malicious entity could engineer and produce their own ASIC, build enough of them that they have 90% of the overall hashpower, then put them online. From that point on, until the Bitcoin community could produce their own ASIC to compete, the malicious entity could do whatever they like, including reversing all blocks mined by others and never including transactions in their blocks.
So, by having our own ASICs, we will increase difficulty a great deal, and the difficulty of a malicious entity pulling off such an attack would greatly increase (along with the cost of doing so).
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Another interesting thing to think about is what would happen to consumer-level debts denominated in USD if the USD did indeed collapse? If USD was worthless, then I could buy it up by the bucketloads and pay off my house quickly. Or, would the banks attempt to convert the loans into something else (even though I don't think that would be contractually possible)?
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While i do see some logic to BFL testing their equipment in a real world scenario before they ship them to customers, I also know the hashrate should be A LOT higher then it is already. We are only 30% higher then we were in 2011 so either a small portion of them are being tested at a time or we simply have more miners.
The part that really confuses me is how the total hashrate bounces up and down by as much as 30-40% in a 12 hour period. For what its worth, im a GPU miner and ive went from 1gh to 2.4gh in the past few weeks. I know the GPU end is near, but i dont see any risk in buying video cards when i had tons of free PCI-e slots. When GPU mining is crushed, ill sell my machines as gaming rigs on craigslist.
It's because the hashrate is only an estimate based on the number of blocks solved in a given time period. There is a LOT of variance in those shorter time periods. They specifically stated they do not mine while testing because they do not want their units to attempt to send corrupt or otherwise bad information to the rest of the Bitcoin network.
There is zero risk of this happening - either a hash is correct or it is not. Any node can instantly determine this with certainty and refuse to acknowledge a bad one. I was waiting for someone to confirm my suspicions on that. Thanks. |
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But, as a percentage of total transactions using each currency, Bitcoin illicit goods trading takes the cake.
Evidence, to back up this hand-waving? I'm too lazy, sorry. It'll just have to stay at hand-waving. But I will say that known silk road traffic adds up to a significant percentage of overall Bitcoin transactions, and likely that alone as a percentage exceeds the percentage of illicit goods trading done in USD.  |
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Just wanted to say I had the privilege of meeting Kluge IRL last week to settle up a deposit I had with him. I've dealt with a number of deposit-takers on this board and Kluge is clearly at the top of the list in terms of both honesty & communication.
I sincerely hope he doesn't leave Bitcoin for good - this community needs a lot more Kluges and a lot less Pirates.
+1. In my book, people who put forth their best effort to make things right after a wrong are held highly compared to people who have never been put in that position, at least with regards to integrity and trustworthiness. |
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I would prefer he actually say it than just assume it. I'm not asking for a specific on how or when just a simple "and repay stolen BTC" would be enough.
He also said he doesn't want to spread misinformation before anything is 100% assured. I'm certain he's trying his hardest to get the site back operational and to pay back all that was lost. He's simply covering his ass just a little (since we all know how people can get on these forums). So basically I need the help of the community to get bitfloor up and running but I don't feel comfortable giving you even the slightest hint at if we plan to paying the stolen bitcoin back. I'm ok with him not being specific to how much or how long or any of those kind of details a simple "make right what was lost" would be enough. There is a difference between not trying to spread misinformation and avoiding something altogether. The response from the community should be we don't feel comfortable supporting you until you have made it clear accounts will be repaid. I just saw this, and thought you might like to see this as well. I am not sure why he tells the media about it, and not us, but it's still a mention of the information we were looking for either way. "Given the amount of money involved it will take time to solve these problems and find ways to pay people back," he said, adding that most of the currency traders who used Bitfloor were sticking with him. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19633980 |
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They've mentioned multiple times that they use their own algorithm for checking to make sure the miners are working. They compute known hashes, and compare the results of the computations with the known numbers to be sure they match up. They specifically stated they do not mine while testing because they do not want their units to attempt to send corrupt or otherwise bad information to the rest of the Bitcoin network. Was that before or after they got busted mining with their FPGA's on EclipseMC? Don't know, didn't hear about that either. Source? |
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When the first FPGA I saw came out, it was 400MHs and around $600. There was zero competition. To a certain extent, making a chip is making a chip so the fact that these are $149 is amazing. But with 2 more companies breathing down their necks with similar ASICs, tada, it's $149. I'm just saying if those 2 competing companies weren't out there, charging $400 instead of $149 for something that runs at 3500MH/s would be perfectly acceptable to most people so they would. In fact, they could probably get $800.
However you want to phrase it, BFL has always been at the forefront of disruptive product announcement. You have your cause - effect on pricing backward. I've read all of your posts here and it's baseless, wrong and speculative all the way. Did you even take economics in school? With no competition, you can charge the moon. That's cause and effect. If they really get 3500MH/s and let's say a 5830 costs about $115 and typically reaches 320MH/s overclocked, they could charge $1000 and it would still pay off about 20% faster, not counting electricity which is also a huge difference. But lets say the chips cost $75 to make. Well, some other company comes in and says we don't need a $925 profit. We'll sell them for $700. Then the 3rd company comes in and says we'll sell them for $500 because that's still $325 profit. Suddenly everyone just has a bottom line contest and it ends up at $149. Or one cheats and mines with them to drive the profits up so they can lower the cost and their products are the ones that take off instead of their competition. But like I said, if all they had to compete with were GPUs and their ASICs were the only ones, they could and would charge A LOT of money. And what exactly is wrong with my mysterious, giant leap of a connection that they made a product to sell to people to make money and mining with that product for a very short period of time would make a lot of money so they're probably doing it, as they do want to make money. Also, 1 person close to them already confirmed that they're mining with an undisclosed about of hardware at the moment. Then there's the fact that you really can't send out a product like this without running it for at least a couple hours to make sure it works. Don't want to give your company a bad reputation for like 10% of their products failing in the first week when customers get them. It's a 1st generation experimental product you know. So where's my break in logic you're talking about? They've mentioned multiple times that they use their own algorithm for checking to make sure the miners are working. They compute known hashes, and compare the results of the computations with the known numbers to be sure they match up. They specifically stated they do not mine while testing because they do not want their units to attempt to send corrupt or otherwise bad information to the rest of the Bitcoin network. Josh told me that the owner of Butterflylabs has a buissness history of keeping stuff secret and silent.
And he certain doesnt have any experience with posting on a forum or maintaining websites.
Thats why (untill now) stuff has seem so shady and all I guess.
Seriously? The president of BFL got extradited from Italy and sentenced to 26 months in federal prison for mail fraud stemming from a large internet Ponzi scheme. That's a little more than "keeping stuff secret and silent". Where's the source for that? Haven't heard about that before... |
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I'd like one more please!
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... As the deflationary rate increases, the number of potentially good investments decreases, and the number of investments made decreases as a result.
Correct, once the economy has reached it's optimal size, only new innovation causes price deflation (or economic growth) the effect you describe ensures the economy scales appropriately to prevent boom bust bubbles. And I would argue that the economy hasn't reached its optimal size in that case - it is undersized, because of the deflationary nature of the currency discouraging investment to the point where it never reaches that optimal size. |
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It's always fascinated me how some people think they deserve things from other people for doing nothing.
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Interesting argument, I'll have to take that into consideration. I'm no economist by any means, but it just makes sense to me that the optimal economy would be one in which the money supply does not affect the decision to spend or save (or take on debt).
But would an economy in which the money supply dynamics are fully defined and well known with perfect information for all participants affect someone's willingness to invest negatively? Wouldn't the known money supply dynamic just become the backdrop on which people still evaluate whether they can put capital and labor together to yield more than the sum of those costs? Sure, savings would grow purchasing power over time, but investing would bring in profits that also grow purchasing power over time... Doesn't this even out? It seems to me that the key is perfect money supply information. People are exceptionally conditioned to a generally inflating (at variable rates) money supply right now, so if we get brief periods of deflation (or deflation expectations), of course people hoard because they know the supply is just going to inflate again soon. But again, if the supply dynamics are perfectly well known to everyone, it should just come back to sound business decisions without any of the macro-forecasting shenanigans that pervert investment incentives. Bitcoin is the first feasible monetary system ever proposed that credibly offers perfect information to all participants. That changes (purifies) the calculus quite a bit. Let's continue with the maths then. Say I am looking at a potential investment in a company that has a 95% chance of succeeding, and if it does succeed, it'll grow my investment at an average rate of 7% per year, but if it doesn't succeed, then I lose everything. I might value that investment as a potential 2% growth on my money. Now, say that I know that prices are dropping at a rate of 3% per year (purchasing price increasing, due to deflation in the monetary supply). Why would I invest in said business with my money to make 2% per year, when I could just keep the money in my pocket and make a certain 3% per year? I can know everything about the specifics of the money supply, but that wouldn't change the fact that 3% > 2%, and thus saving instead of investing is the wiser business decision. The question I cannot answer is whether the expected 7% return would have been greater in the inflationary economy vs in the deflationary economy. If that is the case, then perhaps my argument would be nullified. HuH? A business making 2% a year is fine, because that would be 2% a year in a currency that is appreciating in value 3% a year. I invest 100 BTC and I make 2 BTC the first year. Let's say the interest doesn't compound so I make 2 BTC again the next year. That 2 BTC will be worth 3% more than the 2 BTC I made the year before. I don't see the problem. That's only true if the company itself is also growing its productivity at a rate of 3%/year. For example, assume the company sells 10,000 widgets in year 1 at 1 BTC each, thus generating 10,000 BTC in revenues, and assume my payout of that is 2 BTC. The next year, assume that the same company sells the same 10,000 widgets in year 2, but this time, because the purchasing power of BTC went up, buyers are only willing to pay 0.97 BTC per widget (i.e., 3% less than they did the year before, due to the 3% rise in purchasing power). Now, the company only generates 9,700 BTC in revenues, and my payout is reduced to 1.94 BTC. If the company sold 10,300 widgets (an increase of 3%), then they could "keep up" with the deflation and still meet the requisite 10,000 BTC in revenues. Of course, this is a very simplistic example with many factors left out, but it should give you an idea of what I mean... I see what you are saying. In reality, however, only investments that were 'guaranteed' and paid out less than 3% would go out of business. Any business that could potentially reap returns above the 3% savings rate would still get investment, even if in some years it didn't have a 3% return. The reason of course is because of lack of information. Who knows which businesses will have above average returns and which ones will have below average returns? But every business investment is a risk. No business investment can be truly guaranteed - only treasury bonds hold that status, and who knows how much longer that will be. Bitcoins in the pocket, however, are risk free, as long as you can keep them safe. My point is, there WILL BE less investment whenever purchasing power is increasing, however you look at it. Even when looking at higher-yield investments, the potential earnings of those investments would have to be discounted by 3% (or whatever the deflationary rate is), then reevaluated vs the potential risk. An investment with a potential to default of 50%, but potential earnings of 53% might be a good investment in inflationary USD, but a bad investment in deflationary BTC. As the deflationary rate increases, the number of potentially good investments decreases, and the number of investments made decreases as a result. |
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Is $20/min accurate for what it would cost to buy a DDoS of this scale?
It depends. Reading the cloudflare article, it appears as though there are ways to DDOS that are [virtually] free, one of which is DNS reflection. If DNS reflection is used heavily in this case, it might be relatively cheap to keep the DDOS going. My personal suspicion is that it is a ransom (despite bitpay's statement to the contrary), just because the timing is too coincidental with the walletbit DDOS. The DDOS's on both started at the same time. One user in the comments who claims familiarity with botnets says a typical rental rate for one of this size might be $1/second. (he specifically mentions $30/30 seconds). |
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That would be us, yes. Steve is in touch with them on a regular basis. This botnet attacker is just relentless. How does this mesh with the end of the article? What was fun to watch was that while the customer under attack was being targeted by 65Gbps of traffic, not a single packet from that attack made it to their network or affected their operations. In fact, CloudFlare stopped the entire attack without the customer even knowing there was a problem. From the network graph you can see after about 30 minutes the attacker gave up. Perhaps a biased article? |
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