Indeed. Back when the maxblocksize was big enough that one could pretty well count on any given transaction being included in the next block or so, they were reliable enough for a great many business use cases. Now with chronic backlog and RBF, they are nothing but an invitation to scammery.

While we can ignore for the time being India's 40:1 advantage over China in cheapest known electric rates (only in order to allow you an arguing point), what makes Saudi Arabia such a PITA for Bitcion mining, in your estimation?

OK, let's address each one, shall we?

First, what is 'Gavin's competing technology' and in what manner is it 'hurting Bitcoin'? In what way does such 'hurt' rise to the level of 'sabotage'?

Second, do you believe that Hearn has some sort of responsibility to work on things other than what he desires? Further, what value do you think the term 'rage quit' brings to the discussion? Assuming he legitimately arrived at a personal determination that the weakly-defined governance model -- or any other characteristic -- rendered Bitcoin to be destined for failure, what would you expect him to do - lie to the world at large about what he believes that prospects are? In what way are his comments 'sabotage'?

If your idea of 'sabotage' is synonymous with your definition of 'not supporting', you might expect that others find your communiques puzzling at best.

Sorry - if you google the words in the leaf of the URL, you can get past the paywall.

Summary:
China - 0.11 USD/kWh
Saudi Arabia - 0.07 USD/kWh (call it close to a ~1/3 discount w/respect to China?)
United States - 0.18 USD/kWh (call it close to a ~1/3 premium w/respect to China?)

Wikipedia shows results that are not conflicting, though in stating it as a range, it is hard to make any firm declarations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing
though clearly, the bottom of China's range (0.04 USD/kWh) is well in excess of the bottom of other districts' range (e.g., India at 0.001 USD/kWh).

Yes, being close to the assembly houses, those being close to the PCBA stuffers, and those being close to the semiconductor fabs are an advantage. But not an insurmountable one.

I'm just trying to point out that the insistence upon power costs being an intractable barrier to entry in the Bitcoin mining space is nothing but a canard.

I say that, if you think that Gavin and Hearn were trying to sabotage Bitcoin, it only goes to show how effective control over a semi-public communication channel can be in spreading disinformation.

I'm getting awfully weary of this assertion being bandied about as gospel. All y'all need to check your facts. If cheap-ass electricity was an all-encomapssing criteria for miners, the bulk of hash power would be in Saudi Arabia.


<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/477995/global-prices-of-electricity-by-select-country/"><img src="http://www.statista.com/graphic/1/477995/global-prices-of-electricity-by-select-country.jpg" alt="Statistic: Electricity prices by country in 2015 (in U.S. dollars per kilowatt hour)* | Statista" style="width: 100%; height: auto !important; max-width:1000px;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"/></a><br />Find more statistics at <a href="https://www.statista.com">Statista</a>

For that matter, how do you know it isn't?

Do you still have no idea how Bitcoin works? If 'China'* has 51% of the mining power, that means that 100% - 51% = 49% of it exists elsewhere. If any of that 49% finds a hash to a block containing the transaction that 'China' 'denied' in a timely manner, that particular transaction becomes part of the blockchain record.

*Exactly how does one obtain monolithic control in a nation with over a billion people? Who would make the decision to 'deny'? What does that decision making process look like, and which agencies are involved? How would such a decision be communicated? How would it be enforced? How would non-Chinese transactions be identified?

Yes, let's compare. Anyone who put $10,000 into bitcoin before 2013 now has bitcoin in value exceeding the entire market cap of your baby crap coin.

When you've amassed that much increase in value, you can come back to taunt me. I'll even congratulate you (as if).

Until that day, good day to you, sir!

Sorry, mang. We regularly -- since 2011 at least -- get people charging in here, just having discovered Bitcoin, lecturing us on how it can't possibly work, based upon their extensive three hours of study.

Well, we're still here, and Bitcoin has gone from sideshow novelty to a market cap equivalent to a mid-sized company stock. All with no help from central planning. Years in the field, and working better than ever.

Rather than expend the energy to rebut each of your points, I'll just suggest you read a little, and ask some questions. It's not like you've raised any points that have not been discussed (and dispatched) ad nauseum.

Other than that - welcome to the monetary alternative. Hope you enjoy it.

OK then - guess we're done here.

Meanwhile, the entire market cap of your beloved ZEIT (that's what you're thinking is better than Bitcoin, right?) can scarcely buy your average house 'round these parts.

No, I don't attack you. I ridicule your infantile flights of fancy.


'China' (as if it is some monolithic entity) may find a way to affect Bitcoin. As of yet, all China has done to it is host the largest exchanges, and supply the hash power that secures it.

I ridicule because you seem to think that some fictional character writes for ZeroHedge.

I ridicule because the ZeroHedge article that started your silly rant implies Bloomberg is the source of the news, but Bloomberg has not published any article claiming so.

I ridicule you for going 'chicken little'.

If China gets nefarious at some time in the future, that might be something to discuss. Until then, you sound like a frightened little girl.

Well, let us see...

Your initial rant was hinged upon a now-debunked fake news report...

So far, we have no evidence that the Chinese government is messing with Bitcoin...

If any one country was able to amass the bulk of mining power, I should be concerned that it is not my country? You know - rather than, oh, I don't know -- the most populous country on the planet?

Bitcoin-user-not-affected-meme.png

What coin do you advocate as better? (This oughta be good)

Russia: 1447 tonnes
China: 1800 tonnes
USA: 8133 tonnes

So it would seem that the US has sufficient reserves in proportion to money supply - at least as a ratio comparable to other actors. Whether or not any real currency should be fiat is another discussion entirely.

Of course, China's 1800 is just what they are admitting to. Speculation is that they may hold up to double that amount.

And nobody has seen USA's gold for over half-century. Is it still there?

Yes, much as some users will shill for scammers by selling their sig space, some 'news' organs will shill for scammers by running paid content.

Almost makes you sick, doesn't it?

Well, not every node requires 146 connections. While I commend that user on his beneficial fanout, it is little wonder that his meager 20Mb/s upload rate is a limitation. While I've not seen a survey, I would assume 'a handful of up connections and a balanced number of down connections' might be a more pervasive usage model. Maybe divide by ten?

Well, no, Carlton. I would advocate that every transaction be validated at least once by each client. Upon initial download.

I would be more than happy to trust that data on local storage had not been meddled with. Heck, we've got the world's best cryptographers, right? We could secure data-at-rest with some sort of hash or something to ensure that nobody de-installed the drive, modified the data, and reinstalled it since the last time we ran the node. If that were a worry.

I am just pointing out that -- with the current Core implementation -- we do indeed need to trust in the goodness of others. For validation of older transactions. We are decidedly not operating in a trustless manner. I am heartened to learn that -- on this point at least -- you agree.

I understand your request for a citation. Seems implausible, right? I agree that the burden of proof - as far as 'according to GM' is concerned - is on me. A cursory check does not turn up a quote. I will continue to look. However, you point out the issue yourself:

"only a few last blocks are verified at startup, but they were validated before they were written, so everything gets validated. Doesn't it?"

If one is starting up a new node, and only the newest blocks are verified, you are not verifying the older blocks. You are trusting others to have done the verification of the earlier blocks. Ergo, Core does not validate all transactions.

To some this may be an acceptable risk. However, it is most certainly not operating in a trustless mode.

IOW to answer your question - to wit: "Doesn't it?", the answer is: 'no, it doesn't'.

According to Gregory Maxwell, even Core does not validate all transactions.

I would point out that this is totally counter to the concept of Bitcoin being a trustless currency, but The Devs^tm have spoken.

You don't. A 51% attack is a 51% attack, no matter the block size. What are you trying to get at? Are you trying to assert that your absurd hypothetical is somehow unique to the large block case?


Way to completely avoid the point. No rational producer produces for no profit. Another (even more) absurd hypothetical.

Ah - got it. Yes, generally FT is a reputable news source - at least as far as mainstream news sources go. Yet Kaminsky writes under their banner from time to time.

I don't get it either. Maybe the editors have such little understanding of the uppity new thing called fintech that they don't know how much (or how little) value appears under their masthead?