20 confirmations would be less secure then a 0/unconfirmed TX as it is now.
That's complete BULLSHIT, 20 confirmation in a fast block system, would be vastly more secure than a 0/unconfirmed TX in a slow block system. The vast majority of double spend attack are by using 0 confirmation because there's no cost to try double spend a 0 confirmation. With 20 confirmation, the attack difficulty/cost is immediately skyrocketing, because then it requires actual mining power to attack. |
|
|
|
No, you can't mine at zero cost (electricity??). The W stands for work  work costs I haven't been a miner. (OK, I switched on setgenerate option once or twice for an hour just for fun on my PC) I am not a miner. I will not mine. No expenses  Correct. No mining, no POW expenses. But as soon as you try to mine (for a 51% attack), expenses are involved. The security model provided by POW is that it is more profitable to use your mining power to support the network than it is to use the mining power to attack the network. Ok, that really explains why all these PoW altcoins being 51% attacked to death, and all these PoS altcoin never attacked. Because PoW has a laughable and failed security model. It's just a matter of time Bitcoin will be attacked by a well funded and determined attacker. PoW security is a joke. |
|
|
|
fiat
The price in fiat is too volatile.
It is too hard/expensive to exchange fiat for bitcoins.
It is too hard/expensive to exchange bitcoins for fiat.
Governments regulating the process of going back and forth from fiat to bitcoin.
Merchants driving down the price by immediately converting their bitcoins to fiat.
Fraud on the fiat/bitcoin exchanges.
Miners are cashing out their bitcoins for fiat to pay for electricity.
Can you think of any solutions to this problem?
I know the solution to one of these problems: "Miners are cashing out their bitcoins for fiat to pay for electricity." PoW mining uses electricity, PoS mining does not. Problem solved. |
|
|
|
It's funny to see people thinking up ridiculous ideas, just to try to solve PoW weaknesses, instead of just fade out PoW and use a better solution that already exists in many other eco-systems.
No need to insult me just because I have an idea that you probably already thought of and put it aside because you thought it is ridiculous. I am not trying to solve the proof of work weakness, I am trying to solve the enormous usage of electricity and spending of money acquiring more hardware without making much difference in the end. If you limit to IP address, then web hosting company will all become part time miners, since they own millions of IP address per company. This actually hurts the individual miner, because residential cable in many countries, will give one IP address per hundreds of residential clients. Most college dorms also do the same thing.
I think web hosting companies have better things to do, but even if they do, they will limit the number of customers that can connect to the internet(because they are using the IP address that is supposed to be used by one of their customers). I have an unique IP address at the moment for my mobile connection, and it's not in one of the private ranges. But you are partly right, and that's one of the challenges that comes with this idea. Not really, you do realize that IP address can be shared right? Web hosting company usually assign 1 IP address per hundreds of customers if they are on shared hosting plan. It's similar to how some residential broadband assigns 1 IP address per hundreds of customers. Web hosting company owns millions of unique IP address per company, because it's a product they sell, they charge an annual fee for an unique website IP address. Now if you restrict mining by IP, they could also use these millions of IP to mine Bitcoin, since it's already sitting there, and using them won't affect their website hosting business at all. Web hosting is a razor margin business, huge amount of competition, if they could earn extra money from the IP address they already own, they will, since their competitors will do it too. Btw, "enormous usage of electricity and spending of money acquiring more hardware" is one of the core weakness of PoW. |
|
|
|
|
It's funny to see people thinking up ridiculous ideas, just to try to solve PoW weaknesses, instead of just fade out PoW and use a better solution that already exists in many other eco-systems.
If you limit to IP address, then web hosting company will all become part time miners, since they own millions of IP address per company. This actually hurts the individual miner, because residential broadband in many countries, will give one IP address per hundreds of residential clients. Most college dorms also do the same thing.
|
|
|
|
The only way to avoid this expense, is to fade out PoW mining altogether, and change to a PoS system.
Which comes with its own set of problems and is not ready to be a real replacement for PoW as it is implemented now in several coins. Until PoS is improved, a PoW/S combination that lowers the mining expense while keeping a similar level of security would be beneficial though. Yes, a hybrid system probably is required for some time to eventually fade out PoW |
|
|
|
....
Have you figured out the devaluation plan on BTSX yet, or do you want me to IM you the link? Sure, pm me the info if you can't post it. |
|
|
|
when the attack happens and your coins are worthless maybe you will change opinion I think just the contrary, when Bitcoin PoW is attacked, and your Bitcoins are worthless, maybe you will change opinion. Because PoW network are PROVEN to be easily attacked, it's just a matter of time, that a well funded and determined attacker will attack Bitcoin PoW network. On the other hand, no PoS network has been successfully attacked in reality, so I will believe it when I see it. Even without any attack, if there's no inflow of capital, Bitcoin's price will go toward zero due to the PoW expense. Basically constant inflow of capital is required, to support the Bitcoin price. |
|
|
|
Proof of Work, It says it all right there. A proof that fair work has been done. If you dig a ditch you can proof the work has been done but you will have a hard time exchanging it, Bitcoin takes care of this. If you used a shovel or a digger is irrelevant its a matter what is the best economic choice. Miners purpose is to mine and thats it just like a gold miner is mining to sell to have a functional business and just keeps a small amount for the lean times. A miner invest in machinery and a lot of other thins and not in gold/bitcoin, another investor will do that. Bitcoin is a commodity, it is modern Gold the currency aspect of it is just a added bonus just like gold is legal tender (depending on jurisdiction). Money is not something you buy like a ripple cost nothing to produce and millions are given to the banks for free, and you can buy some, lol. That system sound familiar. Why would anyone pay for something which cost nothing to produce, is not scarce as it can be copied endlessly and it does not matter when its started. Increase the market cap by 100B with the push of a button from $ 40 000 000 to $ 140 000 000 is literately worse scam than the the FED. Zero transparency, corporate centralized at least 92% of available still to be sold at any price which is dreamed up. Oh yeh give it to me baby a dream come true.  Its amazing how many people struggle with the word work. Satoshi is so far ahead its not funny in due time even the slowest one will catch up. 1. even when Bitcoin coin supply is zero, PoW is still needed in order to secure the network, therefore PoW has nothing to do with cost of producing Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not gold, PoW miners are not real miners. Real mining is required to extract gold, PoW mining is NOT required to produce Bitcoin, a PoS mining network could do the same thing, with nearly zero cost. 2. PoW's work is useless and meaningless work, there's no value in it. PoW extracts value from the Bitcoin eco-system, because Bitcoin eco-system is where the value is at, not the PoW network. 3. PoS can secure the network better than PoW, it's a proven concept as many PoW altcoins fall victim to 51% attack, and PoS altcoin are all secure and not attacked. 4. PoS re-invest in the community and eco-system, PoW extracts value out of the eco-system, and into the pockets of the mining interest group (miners/pools/hardware vendor/electric company). This is again a proven concept, as PoS eco-systems are rising to the top of coinmarketcap. Do you really consider PoS networks more secure than PoW? even when you can attack the network at zero cost with PoS? I dont know if post is troll or not Go attack one and show me then? Until you could show me how you could attack one in reality, the fact is still many PoW network has been attacked to death, and ZERO PoS network has been successfully attacked. |
|
|
|
Proof of Work, It says it all right there. A proof that fair work has been done. If you dig a ditch you can proof the work has been done but you will have a hard time exchanging it, Bitcoin takes care of this. If you used a shovel or a digger is irrelevant its a matter what is the best economic choice. Miners purpose is to mine and thats it just like a gold miner is mining to sell to have a functional business and just keeps a small amount for the lean times. A miner invest in machinery and a lot of other thins and not in gold/bitcoin, another investor will do that. Bitcoin is a commodity, it is modern Gold the currency aspect of it is just a added bonus just like gold is legal tender (depending on jurisdiction). Money is not something you buy like a ripple cost nothing to produce and millions are given to the banks for free, and you can buy some, lol. That system sound familiar. Why would anyone pay for something which cost nothing to produce, is not scarce as it can be copied endlessly and it does not matter when its started. Increase the market cap by 100B with the push of a button from $ 40 000 000 to $ 140 000 000 is literately worse scam than the the FED. Zero transparency, corporate centralized at least 92% of available still to be sold at any price which is dreamed up. Oh yeh give it to me baby a dream come true. Its amazing how many people struggle with the word work. Satoshi is so far ahead its not funny in due time even the slowest one will catch up. 1. even when Bitcoin coin supply is zero, PoW is still needed in order to secure the network, therefore PoW has nothing to do with cost of producing Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not gold, PoW miners are not real miners. Real mining is required to extract gold, PoW mining is NOT required to produce Bitcoin, a PoS mining network could do the same thing, with nearly zero cost. 2. PoW's work is useless and meaningless work, there's no value in it. PoW extracts value from the Bitcoin eco-system, because Bitcoin eco-system is where the value is at, not the PoW network. 3. PoS can secure the network better than PoW, it's a proven concept as many PoW altcoins fall victim to 51% attack, and PoS altcoin are all secure and not attacked. 4. PoS re-invest in the community and eco-system, PoW extracts value out of the eco-system, and into the pockets of the mining interest group (miners/pools/hardware vendor/electric company). This is again a proven concept, as PoS eco-systems are rising to the top of coinmarketcap. Satoshi is smart and a visionary, but he is not God, he can not foresee everything and solve all problems, otherwise we'd already have Bitcoin core 1.0 five years ago. |
|
|
|
ASIC is not the problem, GPU mining would have ended up exactly the same given enough time. Mega GPU mining farms will inevitable rise.
PoW concept itself is a doomed concept.
This is exactly what I am not thinking! Just imagine GPU mining farms, even if their are farms, you can let your servers or home computer mine while using them for something else as well. You can buy GPU hardware anywhere and there is no risk that nvidia mine thereself, there is no monopol. I bet we didnīt have the low prices we have right now with GPU mining only. You don't get it, the specific algorithm of PoW mining doesn't matter at all, there will always be an expense associated with it, and it can not cheap in order to secure the network. It doesn't matter whether it's ASIC mining or GPU mining, hundreds of millions of dollars must be spent on PoW mining every year, in order to secure the network. We would have the exact same low price right now, if we were GPU mining, the expense does not change. The only way to avoid this expense, is to fade out PoW mining altogether, and change to a PoS system. |
|
|
|
buying a single mining farm isn't enough to get 50% you would need to buy a whole bunch of mining farms.
you do not simply go and buy a big mining farm with your stolen money, something like that will get lots of headline news on coindesk and the guy will be in jail the next day.
no one cares about the eco-system, everyone only care about profit, doesn't matter if its PoW or PoS.
It won't make news if the deal is done in private, so on the surface ownership of the mega farms is unchanged. Sure everyone cares for profits, but there's a difference, PoW miners aren't stake holders in the eco-system, it's not required. PoS miners are naturally also stake holders of the eco-system, it's the definition of PoS, if they want to mine a PoS system, then they must be stakeholders of the system. If they are stakeholders, then they have to naturally care about the eco-system, otherwise it's their own money to lose. PoW is a business, if the ecosystem doesn't succeed their business is worthless and their capital investment is lost. PoW miners have just as much in stake as PoS miners, except in PoS you can also have a bunch of thieves who stole the money and couldn't care less . PoW is not tied to any one eco-system, the miners will mine the most profitable eco-system, they have no reason to care about whether any eco-system survives, as long as there's at least one eco-system for them to mine at. This phenomenal was very clearly demonstrated with scrypt mining, the biggest pools were the ones with instant switch capability, to mine the most profitable eco-system. The PoW miners could not care less if any specific eco-system survived. All they care about is how to extract value out of the most profitable eco-system, in the most efficient manner. Their "stake" is tied to their hardware investment, not to any crypto eco-system. Their only interest is to extract enough value out of any crypto eco-system, to pay for their hardware, electricity, and profit. |
|
|
|
buying a single mining farm isn't enough to get 50% you would need to buy a whole bunch of mining farms.
you do not simply go and buy a big mining farm with your stolen money, something like that will get lots of headline news on coindesk and the guy will be in jail the next day.
no one cares about the eco-system, everyone only care about profit, doesn't matter if its PoW or PoS.
It won't make news if the deal is done in private, so on the surface ownership of the mega farms is unchanged. Sure everyone cares for profits, but there's a difference, PoW miners aren't stake holders in the eco-system, it's not required. PoS miners are naturally also stake holders of the eco-system, it's the definition of PoS, if they want to mine a PoS system, then they must be stakeholders of the system. If they are stakeholders, then they have to naturally care about the eco-system, otherwise it's their own money to lose. |
|
|
|
Preventing Asic mining after next halving would solve a lot of problems.
Actually we are in a phase of centralising the bitcoin network, from individuals to companies belonging big asic farms.
Satoshi for sure never planned asic mining. 99% of the bitcoin community would benefit when asic mining is prohibited.
Without asic mining we would never have such a bump and dump scenario we have actually. Big asic farm holder selling their bitcoins to be able to pay the electrician and to cut out competition due low efficiency of mining.
ASIC is not the problem, GPU mining would have ended up exactly the same given enough time. Mega GPU mining farms will inevitable rise. PoW concept itself is a doomed concept. |
|
|
|
What is so hard to understand? Bitcoin currently spends $500 million per year on PoW mining, so without inflow of new capital, the price of Bitcoin will perpetually decline, due to value being sucked out of the eco-system by PoW miners.
If it were not PoW it would be "Bitcoin currently spends $500 million per year on <insert other security mechanism here>" If it did not cost a lot, anyone could pay cheap prices to either destroy Bitcoin or get all of the bitcoins. Proof of Stake systems are proven to be more secure, and cost a lot less (nearly nothing). proof of stake means Mark Karpeles becomes in charge of mining, nope, no problem there... I don't see a problem with that, if his customers didn't have a problem. Apparently, that's not the case though. A lot of PoS altcoin exchanges do mine with their stake, and pay their customer a interest, while securing the network, there's nothing wrong with that. and when the exchange operator steals all their money and runs away with it then what? not only does he have their money he can also 50% attack the network all he wants. How is that a problem with PoS or PoW at all? exchange operator can steal money with both PoW or PoS network. The difference is he needs to steal 51% of the stake to attack a PoS network, but he just need about 10% to buy enough hardware to attack a PoW network. Though I don't think he has any incentive to attack either. he can't just buy 50% of the hash power in hardware, the hardware does not get produced that fast. plus it exposes his physical location making it much more likely the police will come asking questions. with PoS he can just sit at home and anonymously double spend. you never know what people's incentives are, some people just want to watch the world burn.  Hardware does not need to be produced at all, he could just go ahead and buy some big existing mining farm, with a premium price offer. All of them will gladly sell, because PoW miners are profit chasers, they don't care about the eco-system, they have no stake in any eco-system since it's not required to mine, they only care about extracting value out of the eco-system. |
|
|
|
What is so hard to understand? Bitcoin currently spends $500 million per year on PoW mining, so without inflow of new capital, the price of Bitcoin will perpetually decline, due to value being sucked out of the eco-system by PoW miners.
If it were not PoW it would be "Bitcoin currently spends $500 million per year on <insert other security mechanism here>" If it did not cost a lot, anyone could pay cheap prices to either destroy Bitcoin or get all of the bitcoins. Proof of Stake systems are proven to be more secure, and cost a lot less (nearly nothing). proof of stake means Mark Karpeles becomes in charge of mining, nope, no problem there... I don't see a problem with that, if his customers didn't have a problem. Apparently, that's not the case though. A lot of PoS altcoin exchanges do mine with their stake, and pay their customer a interest, while securing the network, there's nothing wrong with that. and when the exchange operator steals all their money and runs away with it then what? not only does he have their money he can also 50% attack the network all he wants. How is that a problem with PoS or PoW at all? exchange operator can steal money with both PoW or PoS network. The difference is he needs to steal 51% of the stake to attack a PoS network, but he just need about 10% to buy enough hardware to attack a PoW network. Though I don't think he has any incentive to attack either. Another difference is a PoS eco-system can form a consensus and block out the attacker's stake, making them useless/worthless, this is a big deterrent to potential attackers. A PoW system can't block out attacker's hardware, since there's no way to distinguish hardware. |
|
|
|
I'm not sure what the right forum for this is, here, or in the Technical forum, but I figure it'll get read more here, so I'm posting here...
My computer (Windows 7 64 bit) was acting strange so I just ran a full virus scan. It detected two viruses and one of them just happened to be in the blockchain. It was detected in Bitcoin\Blocks\blk00129.dat. Those of you running full nodes, especially on Windows, this would be a good time to run a virus scanner. Avast caught this, I can't comment on any others.
Then your virus scanner setting must be wrong, don't scan all files, just executable files. Not a great idea either if you're relying on a virus scanner to keep you safe. Malicious scripts can be run by opening non-executable files as well such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PDF's, etc. Virus scanners will sometimes catch these so should not be omitted from scans. Virus scanners are pretty bad anyways. Making a virus undetectable to any scanner is trivial. I don't even bother installing a virus scanner at all, but rather I monitor my system's services, processes, network connections, etc. If I feel that there is even a remote chance that an application or file is infected, it never leaves its own VM. Virus scanners are not that stupid, DOC PPT XLS COM EXE VBS etc... are all considered "executable files", and will be scanned. But a .DAT file, you can't execute it by default, unless there's some 3rd party program installed that specifically make .DAT file executable. |
|
|
|
What is so hard to understand? Bitcoin currently spends $500 million per year on PoW mining, so without inflow of new capital, the price of Bitcoin will perpetually decline, due to value being sucked out of the eco-system by PoW miners.
If it were not PoW it would be "Bitcoin currently spends $500 million per year on <insert other security mechanism here>" If it did not cost a lot, anyone could pay cheap prices to either destroy Bitcoin or get all of the bitcoins. Proof of Stake systems are proven to be more secure, and cost a lot less (nearly nothing). proof of stake means Mark Karpeles becomes in charge of mining, nope, no problem there... I don't see a problem with that, if his customers didn't have a problem. Apparently, that's not the case though. A lot of PoS altcoin exchanges do mine with their stake, and pay their customer a interest, while securing the network, there's nothing wrong with that. |
|
|
|
What is so hard to understand? Bitcoin currently spends $500 million per year on PoW mining, so without inflow of new capital, the price of Bitcoin will perpetually decline, due to value being sucked out of the eco-system by PoW miners.
The mining system self regulates. If mining becomes unprofitable they switch off and difficulty falls. Who cares what miners spend? Perpetual decline, lol. Miner's spending is eventually reflected in Bitcoin price, as they sell their earned Bitcoin at any opportunity, to cover their expense and hope for ROI. Yes some will unplug if price is low enough, but then Bitcoin stakeholders are hurting too, since the value of their Bitcoin has fallen. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
