How about the 50 from the duplicate generation in blocks 91812 and 91842? |
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The longest chain wins. If two different blocks are broadcast from opposite sides of the network in less than the propagation delay, some nodes will have one block, and the rest will have the other. At this point, neither block is more or less valid than the other. We'll call the last agreed block "A", and the new ones "B" and "X". -> A -> X (main)
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\-> B (side)
Nodes will start working on the next block to follow the one they have. It is this next block that decides which branch will be the main branch. The successor to block B will be block C, and the successor to X will be Y. If block C is found before block Y, the nodes that had previously considered block X to be correct will roll their copy of the chain back to the branch point, and promote the side chain to the main chain, including the new block C. When this happens, all transactions that were in block X, but not blocks B or C, will be put back into the pool to get processed next. -> A -> X (side)
\
\-> B -> C (main)
This is rare. Even more rare is for the situation to go onto a second or third round. The split will not be even, and will get even more lopsided as the rounds progress. |
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Slashdot. Terribly written story about 2 weeks ago. Apparently I had missed the previous story a couple of months prior. If I had seen it earlier I'd be fake-rich now.
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I did too. But I'm mining anyway.
I don't meant to suggest that mining is a bad idea for everyone. If you think of it as an entertainment expense, like gambling, or if you like the idea and want to be a part of it even knowing that you probably won't get your money back, then sure, do it.
But these forums are FULL of people that think they are going to get rich mining. These people are almost certainly wrong, and they need to hear what the situation really is before they spend money that they need for something important.
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As an expert in the anti-spam field (seriously), I can tell you the idea of applying Bitcoins in some manner to allow email senders to give email recipients some value in exchange for paying attention to their advertising messages is worth pursuing. Marketers spend a huge amount on deliverability consultants and services, trying to get their messages delivered. If someone wanted to try using Bitcoins in this manner, I'd say go for it. It might just work.
It won't make spam go away, but it might improve marketers chances of getting messages delivered.
It would actually be pretty easy to do. The only new part would be a mechanism to let a potential sender ask the recipient's server for the price of filtering bypass. I suppose we could resurrect finger for this. Or, add a new SMTP command (or bring back an old one). After that, it is just a milter. The problem is that no one is going to pay to send mail because of people like me. I'm going to set my server to accept the coins, and then I'm going to filter it anyway. |
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If we assume the difficulty will grow by 30% every 2 weeks (both of these estimates are very conservative, by the way), 700 Mhash/sec worth of hashing power will probably find about 1.95 blocks between now and the end of time.
You'll have to plug in what you think a bitcoin will be worth to find out if this is a good idea or not.
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I'm late to the party guys...
Anyhow, I got my first upgrade card in today. I got an xfx 6870 which is currently running @ 265Mhash.
I'm using guiminer and when it first starts mining, it's at around 325 but then drops down. I had the overdrive settings cranked up, but my system hung twice ( temps were only 60c ) so i'm not really sure why it hung but i dont want to leave it and think it's mining only to find out that it's hung up...
Anybody have problems w\ their 6870s like that? I'm using flags -v -w128 -f 1
overdrive : 67c , 96% activity, 45% fan speed
The fan @ 70% sounds like a server on boot up lol.
I picked up a pair of them a while back. One is doing 263.75 Mhash/sec at the stock clock speed. If I overclock it, it crashes. The other though, can run all day overclocked to the stock BIOS limit of 1000 MHz, and it turns in right around 300 Mhash/sec. 6870 is an excellent card, if you get a good deal on it. When I was doing my shopping spreadsheet, it was worth 1.71 Mhash/sec per dollar. The next closest was the 5850 at 1.52 Mhash/sec per dollar. |
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Someone correct me if I am wrong (I have not read this entire thread), but the fallacy here is that AfterBurner is equating the size of the Bitcoin 'society' with the size of the Bitcoin mining 'society'. Bitcoin mining will from here on out always be a niche enterprise within the Bitcoin 'society', dominated by those with the time and expertise to compete for mined Bitcoins. Everyone else is a speculator, entrepreneur, or trader. The number of people using Bitcoin outside of mining will be a much larger and limitless number of people. Hence, the total size of the Bitcoin 'society' is potentially many times larger than the size of the Bitcoin mining 'society'. I don't see a problem here.
That is the charitable interpretation, yes. See my other posts in this thread for less polite theories. |
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It would only take 17 hours at 6 blocks an hour to hit the 100 block level. I mean its not very probable that something like that could happen, but it's possible.
If the network was split 50/50, then each half would generate blocks half as fast. So it would take 34 hours. For an "Egypt splits off from the rest of the network" scenario, it would probably split something like "less than 5% generated in Egypt, 95% rest of the world" in which case it would take 17/.05 = over two weeks for the blocks generated in Egypt to mature. No place with enough computing power to run 100 blocks in a reasonable time at then-current difficulty will ever be disconnected. |
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Focus on the exact things what I say:
1. THE EXPONENTIAL GROW in NUMBER OF MEMBERS (in time scale) IS REQUIRED FOR ANY SOCIETY TO SURVIVE IN THE EARLIER STAGES OF IT's DEVELOPING.
2. 10 000 MINERS & TRADERS SPREAD WORLD-WIDE IS NOT THE SOCIETY FOR THE CURRENCY.
3. CURRENT DIFFICULTY ALGORITHM DOES NOT ALLOW FOR NUMBER OF MEMBERS TO GROW EXPONENTIALLY.
4. WE OBSERVE substituted data (network power = exp ( exp (t)), average mtgox trade volume = const (t~1.6months)), that freezing process has been already started.
5. In this DANGER situation we MUST RESEARCH the function = number of real (living) people in bitcoin society (t) more accurately.
6. According that research results, We should be ready to change DIFFICULTY ALGORITHM.
This is just as wrong now as it was when you said it the first 30 times. The current difficulty system does indeed allow everyone to participate. And I do mean everyone. How many more times are you going to whine that you learned about bitcoin too late to get a ton of free coins? |
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kjj:
I think he is saying that if you can buy 1 btc for $0.25 from A and sell 1 btc for $9 to B, people will buy like crazy from A until A has raised the price to $9.
Unless he was saying that more miners = higher difficulty = higher costs, in a very difficult to understand way? That's basically what he is saying, he claims that 32 times marginal electricity cost is unsustainable. For instance:Today: $0.25 * 32 = $8 each bitcoin (unsustainable) In 64 days: $25 * 32 = $800 each bitcoin (unsustainable) In 64 days: $25 * 1 = $25 each bitcoin (fair) If this is true, $8 today is a steal. He is arguing that the price in the long term will equal costs to produce a bitcoin, which is obvious. As long as it's crazy low price sale on bitcoins (mining) more people will continue to mine until the marginal electricity costs equals price. That said, I think the conclusion is false. He is assuming that difficulty will continue to increase, but that's not necessary the case. And if it is people might end up losing money. It's not set in stone that price will follow the costs of producing bitcoins, in fact it's quite the opposite! Difficulty follows price. Hence we might see the price of bitcoin falling below price of producing. At that point I think it's fair to assume the difficulty trend will change and possibly reverse until price and costs reach equal. Price determines costs, NOT the other way around. But he is right that they should eventually be equal. Difficulty and price chase after each other. It isn't a system with one free variable and one bound; the two form a feedback system. Google "lotka volterra". |
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Notice how there are wild swings in the 1 day estimate after the difficulty increases? Basically, those aren't real. They show up because the estimation formula doesn't have enough data to smooth out short term variance.
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kjj:
I think he is saying that if you can buy 1 btc for $0.25 from A and sell 1 btc for $9 to B, people will buy like crazy from A until A has raised the price to $9.
No, he said that more miners = lower bitcoin exchange rate. Unless he was saying that more miners = higher difficulty = higher costs, in a very difficult to understand way? The two are more or less equivalent. It doesn't matter much if the cost of production rises or the value of exchange falls. Over time, the spreads will tend to fall. The only time spreads don't fall is when production is limited in some way. Dollars are limited, in a way, so they maintain value above the cost of production. What picollo7 refuses to acknowledge is that BTC production is also limited, and so they can maintain a value above their cost of production. I've been trying to lead him by the nose to this understanding, but he's refused my efforts. |
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Just thought I'd say, the difficulty jumped 78 percent. I predicted 75 percent. Not bad eh? XD Ugh, you BTC flag wavers are TOUCHY! It’s simple economics. If you can make a BTC worth 9 bucks for 25 cents, and the barriers to entry are very little, then other producers will keep entering the marketplace until the price equals cost, ie perfect competition. If you don't even understand this there isn't any point in talking further.
It doesn't matter how many "producers" are in the marketplace because whether there's one or one thousand, bitcoins are added to the supply at the same rate. 50 BTC/block, 6 blocks/hour. This is not true in the short run. If you understand how the system works, the difficulty is ALWAYS lagging growth. Currently, we produce about 13.33 blocks per hour. bitcoinwatch.com Besides, you are missing the point. Please go back and read if you wish to usefully contribute. It's funny that you mention the short run where in your very first post you said you wanted to look at the long run. It's you who is missing the point. Could you explain this? It’s simple economics. If you can make a BTC worth 9 bucks for 25 cents, and the barriers to entry are very little, then other producers will keep entering the marketplace until the price equals cost, ie perfect competition. You say that other producers entering the marketplace will cause the price to go down. Either you mean it will decrease the demand or you mean it will increase the supply. But regardless of how many producers are in the marketplace, bitcoins will be created at the same rate. Adding more producers does not cause the supply to increase and price to lower!Nope, I’m looking at the next two months. That’s short run. I don’t say other producers entering the market place will cause it to go down. Again, missed the point, go back and read.  |
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The problem with bitcoins from a banking perspective is that it is difficult to create Bitcoin credits. With ordinary money creating credits is not only easy, it's a must.
Why? Interest and loans and a banking system existed under more or less fixed supply non-fiat money systems for hundreds of years. Yes, loans, but I mean credits as in money created out of thin air. Today when banks create a loan they only need to have 10% of that loan as real assets to back it up. The rest, the 90%, is thin air. Bitcoins cannot be created out of thin air, only through massive comping resources. That's not how fractional reserve works at all... Sadly, that really is how it works. Except that it is actually 100% that is created out of thin air, not 90%. But then the bank can borrow money (from depositors, other banks, or the fed) until they have sufficient reserves. |
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You don't need a new currency to do this. Just a being the third party and assuming the rollback risk in a transaction is all that is necessary. Think Visa.
This doesn't solve any of the problems that the new currency tries to solve. Specifically a merchant would be constantly changing his prices to try to track the changes in BTC <-> dollar value. There is already a currency that automatically adjusts to changes in the dollar/BTC exchange rate. We call it the dollar. All you are doing is moving the conversion from the seller to the buyer. Oh, and adding another layer of complication, exchanges, and fees. |
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You don't need a new currency to do this. Just a being the third party and assuming the rollback risk in a transaction is all that is necessary. Think Visa.
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Yeah, I'm only getting a combined 200Mhs, which apparently isn't much these days.
That's actually really, really good for those cards. My two old 4850s only give me 65 to 78 Mhash/sec each. |
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