Where did you come up with $1 billion? I can buy a CoinTerra TerraMiner IV which gets 2 TH/s for $5999. Thats $3000 for 1 THs. At that rate, I can get 60 PH/s (the entire current bitcoin network) for 180 million. And arguably, it would be much cheaper for a bulk order and working directly with core component manufacturers. Even if it was a cool billion, that's not much for a government. Heck, the freakin state of illinois just decided to spend 100 million on a library for Obama. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/18/Illinois-Taxpayers-to-Give-100-Million-for-Obama-LibraryThis is true in theory, but not practice. Mining gear is usually obsolete by the time it ships. By the time you get your gear it will be inadequate. But, if money is no problem, then why not hire your own scientists and develop the next generation ASICs and build a secret fab to produce them? You could build it at the South Pole and import exotic animals for your tropical undergound zoo. You might have to kick out the Nazis first. |
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The kind of attack that concerns me is someone spending $100m or so on new hardware, not part of any pool, and thus gain over 51% percent. They then private mine empty blocks until they have a chain say 3 hours long. Then they publish it. At which point, all the transactions in those blocks, some of which had 18 confirmations, suddenly have zero confirmations. They all become vulnerable to double-spend attacks by their original senders. The attacker continues mining blocks, now including any double-spends. They do this once a day, at random times, from different IP addresses, for the next six months.
(Instead of empty blocks, they can fill them with artificial transactions. They can mix in real transactions to make the bad ones harder to detect. It can probably be done for cheaper than $100m; but $100m would be cheap enough for a government or bank.)
Abandoning Bitcoin to a spin-off would be one solution. A bit extreme, though. Lots of people would still lose out because of lost transactions. People who bought coins for fiat and then didn't get their coins because that transaction happened after the spin-off took its snapshot.
Mining hashrate is still growing. I don't think you can 51% attack for less than a billion and your rewards at this point wouldn't be nearly enough to cover even a million. Anyone willing to throw away money like that would probably be discovered. Sacrificing bitcoins for pump and dump spinoffs is just a bad idea unless it is a complete overhaul of Bitcoin and the legacy system was still supported. |
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I'm not sure what you mean. Is the train running toward BTC or away from it? Is it going to Tokyo or Texas? Can Dorian ride with us? If so, can he pay for his ticket over time? He's a little "cash-strapped" right now.
Is the train going "to da moon?" I've come to love that phrase. Let's join Enron's shareholders on "da moon." Let's have a pity party in two years on "da moon." Can we pay Buzz Aldrin in BTC to lecture us on "da moon?"
If you want that train, you'll need to talk with Ozzy Osborne. |
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Can Proof of Stake guarantee that it won't be permanently controlled by a cabal of global bankers?
Proof of Work can. PoW is an open universe where organizations can form to compete for mining shares. If a pool does anything suspicious, miners can move out. Blockchain watchdogs will keep pools honest because they are known. There are no anonymous mining pools, nor can there be. Any electronic circuit can be traced. Changing pools will not cause people to lose faith in the integrity of the network. If a rare attack that reverses a transaction is successful, engineers can trace the problem and correct it.
Does PoS have the same safeguards? If not, as soon as it is shown that a transaction is reversed, it will kill the currency because it will show that the bad actors are in a position of power and it is not traceable because there are not enough circuits to trace. That's not something anyone wants to risk.
Actually, there is a solution to making PoS resistant to conspiracy. Require every address to be linked to an person with verifiable ID. I am okay with that.
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The train has slowed down for the few stragglers to run and jump aboard. Don't say we didn't try!
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BIG BOYS wanna shake out the weak and earlier investors.
$130-170 /USD = BTC
Hate to break it to you, but the early adopters were shaken out at $1, then $31, then $250, then $1100. Good luck shaking out any more early adopters. |
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I suppose that bureaucrats in about 4 years will declare our current Proof-of-Work scheme contrary the public good, e.g. Article 19 of the Energy Charter Treaty which urges energy efficiency.
I doubt such a government would survive their civil war. |
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Reminds me of the 1980's cable access shows. Fun times. I suggest keeping the talent but pitching the format. Interviews are always good and can be prerecorded. She's great at the desk, but needs more camera angles. Have her use props, not comedy sketches to make a point. Use cgi if you have the budget. She's a peach, but if she wants to be funny, she'll have to be edgy and I don't think you'll want that. Clever suits her personality better.
Hell, how about adding an up-skirt cam, but she's always wearing pants/slacks? I was thinking Sarah Silverman, Kristen Schaal, or Maria Bamford edgy. If you want to go Amy Schumer, you will need Amy. I don't think anyone else can do what she does.  |
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Reminds me of the 1980's cable access shows. Fun times. I suggest keeping the talent but pitching the format. Interviews are always good and can be prerecorded. She's great at the desk, but needs more camera angles. Have her use props, not comedy sketches to make a point. Use cgi if you have the budget. She's a peach, but if she wants to be funny, she'll have to be edgy and I don't think you'll want that. Clever suits her personality better.
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Ok, now I have to be that guy.
Actually bitcoin does have at least two qualities of a ponzi scheme:
1. Early investors who gradually change back to fiat are basically earning money off the last round of investors.
2. Investors heavily advertise it because they know that the more new investors join, the more they gain.
That describes stocks, classic cars, art, baseball cards, or anything collectible. |
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Remember, when you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.
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You're sooo smart.
OK, so maybe you are an alt. That's no excuse for playing Captain Hindsight. |
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Poking @dat double top
It's a Bitcoin ritual. |
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It looks like April 15th is the start of a new China rally. Volume is up.
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There is only one flow it can take in the Bitcoin economy and that is from the sucker to the scammer.
The best definition of free market capitalism, ever. |
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Can't believe people still quote mt gox prices. Quiz question: if the coins traded for 1200 USD, but mysteriously vanished from the exchange - how much were they truly worth?
That chart ends when it went out of sync with the other exchanges, but MtGox was the only exchange that goes back to the dollar parity. Your question is a good one though. All the quoted exchanges except (to some degree) localbitcoins follow the MtGox model. This isn't good. It is almost inevitable that another exchange loses all the funds. If you're going to trade your bitcoins publicly, you shouldn't be asking for privacy. Until a better method is created to trade securely and decentralized, we need centralized licensed brokerages. |
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 Meh, we've seen these before. |
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Basically Texas says crypto is not money transmission.
FTFY |
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Instead, there should be a Goat Award for Cryptonomics.
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This feels like a Mexican standoff and everyone has itchy trigger fingers.
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