Admit it, you are a Union Organizer. You don't want to increase productivity, but you want to be paid more so you try to convince others to go on strike. You can be replaced.
That's an ad-hominem, not an argument. Try harder. Haha, I'm not the only one who noticed that ex-cbeast loves to use ad-hominems... Oh shit, is that cbeast? No wonder. |
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Did you or anyone you know do anything fun with Phin's (one time) million dollars worth of BTC?
Imaginary BTC isn't fungible with the real thing. Scarcity in terms of space in blocks for transactions to be confirmed is necessary to cultivate a healthy transaction fee market. This argument presumes the value of the transactions will justify exorbitant fees. No it really doesn't, it just says there's a market, a set of variables and that the former will bitchslap the latter into place. I think
That remains to be demonstrated. So Bruno is full of shit? You don't have any outstanding debts to anyone? That's good to hear. |
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I kinda thought most Bitcoin online business owners would look like this  But really they look like this  So I missed it by a couple of years. |
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OP has not responded since his initial question. Something tells me the first 2 or 3 pages may have contained the answer to his question.
Or maybe he's more of a listener than a talker. lol |
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I like to think that independent miners would keep running to secure the network but simple economics might keep that from happening. I see a possibility that large mining farms have so concentrated the mining power that if they were to all shut down one could switch on just long enough to do some damage. The concept of logical self interest isn't all encompassing and can't for tell every possible motivation for an attack.
I doubt that any hashrate drop will be so disruptive as to create any attack risk. Even if it drops by half you would still need a massive 150 PH/s to do a 51% and where would it come from? I'm sure the network will be fine, diff drops, some miners switch off, perhaps exchange rate goes up a bit if coins are mined 10-20% slower until next adjustment, in other words it should be able to balance itself out. I think he does make a valid point. As it stands right now (prior to the massive price drop) both bitmain and SP are having trouble selling their equipment, as evidenced by their massive discounts, group buys, expanding into reversible payment methods, ect. The current selloff and any potential future selloff will only exaggerate this. This will result in someone potentially being able to purchase a large amount of the network hashrate very cheaply with the possibility of being able to potentially attack the network. Yes, that scenario is exactly what I'm talking about. I worry less about an attack when the price is stable and profitable for miners. When it becomes unprofitable and dropping or stabilizes at an unprofitable price point that creates an opportunity to exploit the weakness of the network. At some point in the future I expect businesses like BitPay to take over mining in a big way. When this happens the network will be more centralized between a few businesses but safer because their profit will really exist in their primary business model. Mining, for them, will only be a sidebar necessary to secure their business investment. They will have no incentive to do anything but keep the network safe. Today the network is unstable because it's controlled by large pools/farms that have no other method of funding the mining operation except the mining. When they switch-off then anyone with enough power can switch-on and ultimately control the network. It would only take a small window of opportunity to do this. Services like bitpay probably should get into the mining business (if they are not already). Doing so would greatly reduce their risk of being the victim of double spend attacks and would allow them to even accept 0 fee transactions.
I would however make a counter point to your concern, that is similar to a recent argument as to why PoW is superior to PoS. If someone were to buy up a lot of mining equipment cheaply and were to attack the network then they would lose out on their investment on the mining equipment (this may not matter if it was cheap enough) but also on future mining revenue. As it stands now miners will only be able to make roughly 1% (it is probably closer to 0.75%) of the total revenue they would mine over the course of their useful life. This percentage is probably lower when the difficulty has recently taken a huge drop. I think it is fair to say that any major attack on the network would likely be discovered within 48 hours of it starting, so an attacker would potentially lose out on ~98% of their potential mining revenue by attacking the network (this assumes that an attack were to cause confidence in bitcoin to be wiped out and have it's value go to essentially zero). What if they want the value to go to zero? The current thinking is one dimensional. There are more reasons to attack the network than just to double spend and profit is only one reason for action. A government, a competitor (Visa/MasterCard) or several of them working together could kill Bitcoin easly and spend almost nothing to do it. They wouldn't even need the resources they threw at Silk Road. If I were going to attempt to destroy Bitcoin I would use your mining equipment to do it. I would host mining equipment somewhere electricty is cheap then get people to ship me their equipment. I would run it honestly until the farm was a large percentage of the network and execute my plan. Miners switching off just speeds up that process. |
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Fine to speculate but make sure you get out by 2012. Mayan calendar confirms the world will end.
Yeah, but that's years away, my trusty old 286 tells me it's only 1915 I didn't know you were an old fart. The next question you'll get is, "what's a 286"?  Hey, less of the old. Back when I thought I could make a fortune from patching the millennium bug, a 286 machine was the only guinea pig I could find that actually had it. Even by then it was 3 generations old, and most of the world was on Win95/Pentiums. Anyway, patch was so unbelievably trivial, and actual number of affected machines still likely to be in service at end of 1999 so small, that I abandoned that endeavour. That's good. I'm glad you're not old. Old people are so dumb and refuse to accept new technology. That's why I promised myself on my 60th birthday I'd never have a friend over 40. lol |
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Crypto Holders  Fiat Holders  |
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Fine to speculate but make sure you get out by 2012. Mayan calendar confirms the world will end.
Yeah, but that's years away, my trusty old 286 tells me it's only 1915 I didn't know you were an old fart. The next question you'll get is, "what's a 286"? |
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CRYPTO HOLDER  Fiat Holder  |
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I like to think that independent miners would keep running to secure the network but simple economics might keep that from happening. I see a possibility that large mining farms have so concentrated the mining power that if they were to all shut down one could switch on just long enough to do some damage. The concept of logical self interest isn't all encompassing and can't for tell every possible motivation for an attack.
I doubt that any hashrate drop will be so disruptive as to create any attack risk. Even if it drops by half you would still need a massive 150 PH/s to do a 51% and where would it come from? I'm sure the network will be fine, diff drops, some miners switch off, perhaps exchange rate goes up a bit if coins are mined 10-20% slower until next adjustment, in other words it should be able to balance itself out. I think he does make a valid point. As it stands right now (prior to the massive price drop) both bitmain and SP are having trouble selling their equipment, as evidenced by their massive discounts, group buys, expanding into reversible payment methods, ect. The current selloff and any potential future selloff will only exaggerate this. This will result in someone potentially being able to purchase a large amount of the network hashrate very cheaply with the possibility of being able to potentially attack the network. Yes, that scenario is exactly what I'm talking about. I worry less about an attack when the price is stable and profitable for miners. When it becomes unprofitable and dropping or stabilizes at an unprofitable price point that creates an opportunity to exploit the weakness of the network. At some point in the future I expect businesses like BitPay to take over mining in a big way. When this happens the network will be more centralized between a few businesses but safer because their profit will really exist in their primary business model. Mining, for them, will only be a sidebar necessary to secure their business investment. They will have no incentive to do anything but keep the network safe. Today the network is unstable because it's controlled by large pools/farms that have no other method of funding the mining operation except the mining. When they switch-off then anyone with enough power can switch-on and ultimately control the network. It would only take a small window of opportunity to do this. |
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Fiat Holder  |
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Wouldn't this question get more traction if you asked it in the Dev & Nerd section?
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I like to think that independent miners would keep running to secure the network but simple economics might keep that from happening. I see a possibility that large mining farms have so concentrated the mining power that if they were to all shut down one could switch on just long enough to do some damage. The concept of logical self interest isn't all encompassing and can't for tell every possible motivation for an attack.
I doubt that any hashrate drop will be so disruptive as to create any attack risk. Even if it drops by half you would still need a massive 150 PH/s to do a 51% and where would it come from? I'm sure the network will be fine, diff drops, some miners switch off, perhaps exchange rate goes up a bit if coins are mined 10-20% slower until next adjustment, in other words it should be able to balance itself out. Let's hope. |
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I like to think that independent miners would keep running to secure the network but simple economics might keep that from happening. I see a possibility that large mining farms have so concentrated the mining power that if they were to all shut down one could switch on just long enough to do some damage. The concept of logical self interest isn't all encompassing and can't for tell every possible motivation for an attack.
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Thanks for answering. You're not really expecting it to have a massive effect then? I would think if the price stabilized below $200 it would force small time miners to switch off. Large farms might have an incentive to keep mining and hold the coin for a better payoff in the future. I would think small miners would be forced to shut down. They're less likely to afford being able to mine at a loss for three months.
Isn't it the other way around? Hobbyists can afford to prop it up. Some can squeeze out extra revenue through rentals, P2P, altcoins etc. A farm facing a $100k power bill might not be able to gamble on hodling. Rich hobbyists maybe. Multimillion dollar farms probably have the reserve capital to ride out a short downswing. I would think that would kill the little guy. Aren't most of the huge farms in places with really cheap electricity? I don't think the mining farms would likely continue to mine if they cannot earn enough to cover their operating costs. If their goal was to buy bitcoin then they would just buy on an exchange. If their goal was to ROI in terms of dollars then they would turn off their farm until the difficulty and price are at levels that would allow them to mine profitable again That seems reasonable but any guess how much, how fast and what impact to the difficulty? great questions and very hard to answer . this 180-210 btc price is not the death number for lots of us. for example my power cost for feb mar apr may = about 400 usd a month or 1600. If I offer the sp20's here on bitcoin talk for 400 bucks and pay the shipping. I get 3200 maybe my shipping is 200. I net 3k now who may buy at 400 each I do not know but I am cheaper then sp tech for underclocked gear not pushed hard. I would need to decide what to do soon. I am debating listing the sp20's on the marketplace. I do not know. I know I can afford to mine until next Jan 2016 no worries even if the coins were worth 25 usd a piece. I would lose about 2200 usd If prize stayed at 25 usd and diff froze. Would I do that no if diff froze I would think I am fighting a losing battle. But if price drops to 25 and stays stable diff would tank a lot. I have to think no major data center could mine at the price of 50 to 75 a coin for more then 2 or 3 months. Right now I will mine and watch. Thank you both for the answers. I'm kind of worried about the possibility that miners will hang on for several months until the possibility of profiting is way out the window and then decide to switch off en masse. With a major drop in hash rate the possibility of concentrating the remaining into a few hands increases and with it the possibility of an attack increases. It's easy to discuss mining (profit and loss) and lose sight of the fact that we're really discussing the security system of the coin. |
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So did anything interesting happen at the Miami Bitcoin conference?
Yes! Matt Carson has a booth set up passing out refunds with no questions asked to all those requesting such. Also, there was a surprise announcement that at the end of the conference there's going to be a surprise announcement. Rumor has that it may have something to do with Pattaya, but that's only a rumor. Meanwhile, at Meze grill... I don't think anyone in this thread has been here long enough to get the Wagner reference Bruno. |
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Thanks for answering. You're not really expecting it to have a massive effect then? I would think if the price stabilized below $200 it would force small time miners to switch off. Large farms might have an incentive to keep mining and hold the coin for a better payoff in the future. I would think small miners would be forced to shut down. They're less likely to afford being able to mine at a loss for three months.
Isn't it the other way around? Hobbyists can afford to prop it up. Some can squeeze out extra revenue through rentals, P2P, altcoins etc. A farm facing a $100k power bill might not be able to gamble on hodling. Rich hobbyists maybe. Multimillion dollar farms probably have the reserve capital to ride out a short downswing. I would think that would kill the little guy. Aren't most of the huge farms in places with really cheap electricity? I don't think the mining farms would likely continue to mine if they cannot earn enough to cover their operating costs. If their goal was to buy bitcoin then they would just buy on an exchange. If their goal was to ROI in terms of dollars then they would turn off their farm until the difficulty and price are at levels that would allow them to mine profitable again That seems reasonable but any guess how much, how fast and what impact to the difficulty? |
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SA Goons really come out of the woodwork during a price drop, don't they? Someone should do a study of the amount of crap posts from new accounts relative to price swings.
If we had some kind of fund where we could go long on idiotic n00b posts, we could stabilise price with it  being "old" on a forum, it doesn't mean that you know everything, grandpa  No dickweed, it means we've heard it all before so jackoffs like you are just wasting their time. I bet I'm one of only a few people on the forum that doesn't already have you on ignore. You couldn't possibly be stupid enough to think you've posted an original thought somewhere that would scare us all away from Bitcoin, could you? |
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