HSM is probably one of the most notable one, but I think MCUs are generally not as guarded though I wouldn't doubt if they aren't willing to release schematics on these. These are deterministic (similar design and components are on every device), but given the obscure nature of it, you wouldn't know if any backdoors are already in the chip if you have zero access to the internals.

Hardware wallets are generally tamperproof which means that it would be difficult to exactly inspect each and every component in the device. Let's say you know exactly which components are on the device, which isn't quite difficult (a quick visual scan will do, xray can be used if you really want to be sure), then I don't see how this still wouldn't require the user trusting the manufacturer.

FWIW, hierarchical deterministic wallets like Bitcoin Core requires a new backup given a password change. Certain activities to the wallet will result in a refresh of the HD seed and thereby requiring a new backup. Mnemonics are designed to make it easier for people to write them down and read them.

Not saying that I agree with him but there are merits to this arguments. It's not a matter of inspecting the entire PCB with your naked eye or reading the codes. There's no way of knowing what exactly each chip is for and the entire design and layout of PCB, because certain components are designed to be a blackbox for security. In fact, it would be difficult to tell if your firmware is indeed flashed to the one that you've uploaded to the device.

I think the issue is less about reinventing the wheel and more about knowing what you're doing and guarding against potential attack vectors. If you thoroughly understand and guard against what's potentially a threat, then I don't see how it would be bad since majority of them are a direct result of human error. Not trusting BIP39 is okay, or using GPG to encrypt every single WIF private key is fine too, but it's just a less efficient way and one that doesn't make much sense given the alternatives that we have.

This is not true. The fee market and the demand curve will always have a point of saturation where additional fees and demands doesn't increase the total revenue. Lightning network is absolutely needed to offload some of it on the second layer while still maintaining on-chain settlement.

The cost is related of the revenue of Bitcoin mining, and thereby if your revenue of the miner drops, then the cost to attain X% of the hashrate decreases proportionally. The simple logical way of thinking is that miners won't mine at a loss and a drop in revenue equates to either a scaledown in operation or a slower growth. Even if your efficiency of ASIC gets ridiculously high, the cost of them would be a key factor in whether Bitcoin gets attacked or not.

In addition, we go through this so-called renewal of ASICs when newer ASICs are released. Miners will not purchase them unless it makes sense, ROI is better than the current ASICs and that all of the scrap and cost overheads are accounted for.

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Block size increase, increased in demand for blockspace, etc. These are the key factors to consider. If Bitcoin doesn't go mainstream by the time coinbase rewards goes to negligible, then it would be an issue.

Storage is important but so is the usage. You'd have to be sure to use your keys only in sanitized environment, and preferably separate from each other in the case of multisig or it'll negate the benefits. Extending your seed phrase would ensure that the adversary won't directly gain access to your wallet but it doesn't mean that you won't be susceptible to extortion or a $5 wrench attack. A good way to keep backups would be either in a safe or if you know what you're doing, hidden with steganography.

You don't have to use IPV4 at all, and you can just portforward and point Bitcoin Core at the IPV6 address. Tor will also solve the problem with inbound connections without any issues, you just need an additional network layer ontop of the IPV4 that you have.

Most blockchain explorers offer a public API for users to query but that'll mean that you would have to trust their information to be accurate. If that fits your purpose, then you can try to use those: BlockCypher, SoChain for example. Caveat is that since you're not able to run your own node and verify the data, there is no way of knowing if they are accurate.

Yeah, it's fine.
Ethereum works quite differently from Bitcoin. With Bitcoin, the message signing function is solely used for the message signing/verification purpose. It is very different from signing a transaction, you cannot just sign a transaction using the transaction ID. It's just common sense for people to not sign messages with content that they don't fully understand.

Transactions have a signature that ensures that the inputs can be spent and is valid. You should not sign any transactions that you cannot trust; but the way that the signature is generated is quite different. Bitcoin signed message has a very specific syntax, so long as you are using the message signing function (not transaction signing) then it would be fine.

No and yes. Nothing would happen if you sign a transaction ID using the message signing tool**, though there is really no reason why you should be doing so. Using the signed message tool for Bitcoin Core would guarantee an invalid signature if used. The transaction data isn't just the transaction hash and since the message prepends "Bitcoin Signed Message:", it wouldn't be valid for a transaction signature regardless.

I recommend including more details like the purpose and for whom, just to ensure that it can't be reused or otherwise misconstrued.

** I'm not familiar about the implementation of Ethereum's wallet but it is not an issue with Bitcoin wallets to my knowledge because the message signing is distinctively different from transaction signing.

Depends, we've seen loads of stuff happening on the computing clusters of quite a few university as well. Cost is only going to get cheaper, until the point where someone with malicious intentions have access to it. Besides, it would be a matter of time, and that is unless you think Bitcoin won't survive for that long.

Government sponsored attacks are not uncommon, just look at the APTs out there for example, and I wouldn't have a doubt that these gets stolen by a semi-big country to evade sanctions.

This is accurate. However, we aren't talking about these Bitcoin addresses in this scenario. Change address is quite commonly used now but P2PK and address reuse was quite prominent previously.  Counting P2PK keys and address reuse, we are looking at more than a million or two Bitcoins, and they aren't necessarily going to be moved before this happens.

Bitcoin-qt at that time used to mine block rewards to P2PK addresses, but transaction between wallets uses addresses.
Legacy to Bech32 and Bech32m didn't gain traction earlier on because many exchanges either didn't recognize these addresses or were still generating legacy addresses. The general reluctance would probably be gone once they realize it's either getting your coins stolen or transfer to a new address.
FWIW, BHT algorithm lowers the complexity for collision finding, which can be dangerous if and only if it is feasible. Finding pre-image of SHA256 would be tougher and isn't a concern, specifically relating to mining. The speedup from doing so is not high enough, complexity should still be around 2^80, IIRC.

Do you have a firewall at your router or your computer? Check if you've correctly portforwarded your port by going to canyouseeme.org and checking if port 8333 is reachable. If it is, then check what network your inbound peers are reaching you by looking at getnetworkinfo in your Bitcoin Core console/RPC.

This is okay, if the case is that the rest of the population doesn't have to fork out extra for electricity in the few months. I don't have any problem with them trying to save costs, but it is obvious that the grid cannot support both the miners and the local population. This is at best, a pro-business move and definitely not prioritizing the local community. As seen in the graph depicted in RIOT's company presentation, Texans are in effect paying for Riot to not use their electricity. I fail to see how this would be fair for the locals, and given that the effect of the unreliable grid has never been solved despite Texas's 2021 blackout, and even up to now.


I'm not exactly sure about the situation in other countries, but perhaps I’ll do some research on it. Regardless, I'll focus on Texas since we are on the topic. The situation in Texas is quite unique, because they refuse to follow the national grid's standards and thereby inducing extremely unreliable power plants, and frequent blowouts. In addition, this also ensures that the other states cannot feed extra power into their grid and thereby having an extremely unreliable grid at the expense of a lower operating cost.

To my knowledge, the situation of having extremely volatile grid, huge subsidies (they pay 5 times less than normal households   ) for heavy industrial users and an unstable grid seems to be localized to Texas. I'm not too sure if renewable is the problem, Texas should in theory have the highest amount of solar energy in July, and I'm sure that the price wouldn't spike by a factor of 5 if the solar energy should be peaking.

I'm not really taking an issue to it, or being negative for the sake of it. I think that there should be a clear line drawn between taking the position of pro-business and ensuring the welfare of your community. Is the community benefiting proportionally from having Riot over here? A good question to answer would be: Is Riot in Texas because of cheap electricity, good climate, fair prices, or is it something else? Do the combined usage of all 27 Bitcoin mines in Texas and the general population fall within the 44% of the renewable energy production? The corporate presentation tells a very interesting story.

A few articles out there: https://time.com/6590155/bitcoin-mining-noise-texas/, and even the Texas Tribune article criticizes them!

I'd like to focus and discuss more about this, specifically relating to Texas. I found that the data were well substantiated and that the information relating to Texas was objectively presented with. Relating to the demand response programme, I found that the site actually mentioned what ERCOT does and what works and what doesn't. Compared to Texas Tribune, I found that the links to the different sources were more diversed and substantiated, for eg. NYT, which includes filing to the SEC, stating the obvious business opportunities by exploiting the business opportunities on the fluctuating electricity prices. Do let me know if there are any inaccuracies or outrageous claims that are false.

For one, I certainly hope that most of the governments out there are not like this. This sets a bad precedent; miners are there to mine 24/7, and to take advantage of price spikes for locals to pay them to stop mining.

I find that too much of the argument seems to surround the need for Bitcoin miners to make money, for them to operate in areas that are otherwise not ideal (Texas weather is extremely hot ). I'm more concerned about the welfare of the people: https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-mining-texas-energy-grid/, which in the face of climate change should be our priority. Unfortunately, we can't get a bigger picture if both Riot and The Blockchain Council are willing to sue and challenge EIA from being transparent and accountable for their energy usage. Arguments are essentially moot, but I'd be more than willing to change my viewpoint if they are transparent about it in the face of criticism.

FWIW, I respect the business aspect of things. I didn’t dispute that it is a great business opportunity. I’m not a big fan of the way that this business opportunity is being presented. It doesn’t sit well with me and its a hill that I’m willing to die on.

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I think that the general Bitcoin community seems to be quite myopic and dismissive of the various impact of Bitcoin mining. No doubt, Bitcoin mining has its benefits, and we have discussed it many times; revialitizing local economy, making use of energy surplus, so on and so forth. These are great, but I hope that we can also acknowledge the other side of the story, which is the impact on the locals and the environment.

Not that I currently know of. Loads of altcoins has their own difficulty adjustment, DGW (Dark Gravity Wave) and Digishield are prominent ones, and AFAIK there were different tradeoffs as well. The algorithms are generally designed for specific goals and has different tradeoffs. It wouldn't be applicable to Bitcoin because we don't have huge fluctuations in hashrates. No such thing as less worse, because they are all not good enough if you've got a network that is stable.

This isn't some petty theft, and definitely not just FTX scamming customer of their funds. Stealing over 2 million Bitcoins is a big deal and I'm sure that there would be a way to launder it and ensure that these can be cleaned in the future. I'm guessing that the attack would likely be state-sponsored if it ever happens though, for the fact that they would have first-movers advantage.

There is a whole other issue about fungibility as well. Should we still allow hackers access to those Bitcoin, or condemn governments for attempting to censor it? This would be like Ethereum V Ethereum Classic again and hopefully we won't have to reach that stage.

That's interesting but the are a few flaws with what Texas is doing. They do use excess energy, but they won't necessary only use excess "green" energy. Though Texas is one of the bigger renewable energy producers in the US, it doesn't actually mean that they are fully carbon neutral; power plants that operates on non-renewables still very much alive and in operation. Power plants that aren't being used are depreciating assets and is a burden to the local economy.

Now, the whole issue about why miners still setup their plants in Texas has to do less with how good their electricity infrastructure is (hint: not very), nor how good the weather is. Texas is actively providing tax breaks for miners to come and setup plants and thereby making it more attractive for them despite the extremely hot weather.

I had a brief look about the entire programme, and this system seems to function by making Riot an effective shareholder of the electricity. Riot has an agreement to purchase the electricity at a heavily discounted pricing, and with a clause that requires them to stop the operations to prevent excessive strain on the grid. Now, this means that essentially Riot is gambling that the general public should require more electricity during hotter, or colder months and thereby allowing them to sell them at a premium to recoup the profit. I'm a bit unclear about your last sentence, but the 30 million that they received can be seen as a subsidy for them, that is paid for by Texans during those months.

The average prices that they are paying as a part of the contract is 3.5c/kwh, but they are given subsidies under the two schemes. The losses that RIOT has racked up has gone through the roof in the past few fiscal years, and the primary reason why their balance sheet looks better right now is because of the existence of this scheme.

I think this scheme would be far from effective if the electricity bills doesn't surge from $30/MWH to $210/MWH during the periods of high electricity usage. This inefficiency also means that the state is not ready nor good enough to handle the surge in the electricity for those periods and thereby paying companies to shut down.

From a business perspective, I think that this argument is sound because it is wise to be able to exploit both the profitability of mining and the volatility in the electricity prices over that period of time. However, there seems to be a systemic problem if the state has to pay miners (by asking the general population to pay more) to tune down on mining during periods of high demands. It would be quite a big problem if this becomes a commonplace in mining in the future, which might very well be happening with the whole issue about climate change. Exploitation of the locals for corporate profit is unacceptable.

Through my research, I found the following, Riot's corporate presentation which provides the data and the insights into how they operate (https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/_2875cfb5a284d3132d8e7475f28f695f/riotblockchain/db/447/4261/pdf/Riot+Corporate+Presentation+9.6.23.pdf) as well as a critique of the Texas's scheme (https://earthjustice.org/feature/cryptocurrency-mining-texas). For the last link, I've done some preliminary fact-checking and understanding, but DYOR for the links as well.

EDA or their improved DAA are not well implemented and there are many drawbacks to those. It was demostrated that the implementation that BCH used wasn’t good enough for production and it’s only there because the hashrate is low enough to be influenced by swing miners.

My understanding is that these difficulty adjustments with a moving window or a different algorithm like Kimoto Gravity Well has too many drawbacks and should only be considered if the hashrates swings rapidly frequently.

Bitcoin Testnet has such a difficulty adjustment but it introduces a lot of quick blocks being mined simultaneously.

For starters, this isn’t that big of a concern since a huge overnight hit to the hashrate would indicate something far more serious than just a climate event happening, perhaps a nuclear war. If that happens, I’m not sure if mining would continue happening since every country would either be annihilated or imposing martial law. Hence, I don’t think it is worth a hard fork.

This also introduces the possibility of miners trying to game the system by intentionally mining periodically to ensure that they try to get as many low difficulty blocks as possible. Either of this would not be good to Bitcoin.

Correct, it is a non-zero chance. However, they are definitely not equally bad for the economy. If the lawful owner appears and moves the coin, I don’t think users would have an issue with them, since it is still rightfully theirs.

However, if we don’t have any answer for it, then it would be an issue as the impending QC doom comes. Firstly, there would be tons of FUD and the price would fall as a result. After the coins are moved, then there would be even more repercussions, since attackers are feasibly stealing coins from the addresses and essentially inducing a supply side shock to the market. I’d think it is a clear decision to just let them steal if its a small percentage, but if more than 10% (consider that people who has lost their private keys will increase until far in the future), then I have doubts that the market would function as per normal and a good proportion would move to another altcoin that is QC resistant from the start, and thereby having no such issues.

Now, I’m not advocating for, or against burning these coins. I think that more has to be considered before we make the decision as a community, and even then, I’m sure both camps will split the chain when the time comes. I’m just not particularly convinced that either of them would be the clear choice down the road.

I stand corrected. Moe specifically, they should be under the umbrella of hash functions.

You can't. That's why I said it would be impossible to prove P2PK ownership, or P2PKH ownership for that matter. Using seed as a filtering criteria can be very unfair and doesn't exactly allow all of the rightful owner to gain access to their coin.

If you allow all of them to be stolen, when QC becomes widely accessible and cheap enough, then you have close to 1 to 2 million Bitcoins being stolen. This is fairly bad if you consider that this would be around 10% of the entire circulation of Bitcoin. This will crash Bitcoin's economy and destabilize a currency that I presume would be somewhat stable by the time this happens.

Conversely, if you lock them, then this doesn't happen and giving them 10 years or even 20 years notice would be fairly sufficient. Of course this is anti-Bitcoin, but I suspect that lots of people, specifically businesses and larger coin owners would be in support of this. Personally, I'm on the fence and my opinion is that this would depend on what happens in the future.

Actually only two hard forks have happened in Bitcoin, and both of which are a direct result of vulnerabilities that were discovered in Bitcoin. They were done without any resistance because they were especially critical in the circumstances.

I’d argue for Bitcoin to undergo a hard fork in the future, solely because it is necessary for its survival. I don’t think Bitcoin has to remain the same nor maintain the status quo. Resistance against QC is probably one of the key issues that the community has to be accepting of.