total bitcoin or one bitcoin?
one bitcoin will never reach 1 million $, let's focus on the 10k $

While I've seen 51% and Bad-actor/rational-actor type scenarios being discussed ad nauseam, and in-depth, my searches for any sort of unpacking of the following scenarios have been fruitless:

1) "Stealth" code changes, that could get slipped in via an update, to modify network operation in some unforeseen, but yet-to-conceive exploitable way.
How huge a social-engineering effort would this take?
Do the huge-pool-guys vet every line of code themselves?
Does anyone log- and track stats on how quickly updates propagate throughout the network?

2) Someone like the World Bank establishing their own, incompatible network.
...coupled with an international media- and marketing campaign, backed by much more finance than the Bitcoin network, perhaps even offering lucrative-by-comparison shares in their new venture, to current Bitcoin players.
Once the mainstream is persuaded by the resilience and power of crypto-currency technology, it seems natural that they would adopt it... on their terms... doesn't it? What would the first ripples of this look like? Which banks are the key stakeholders? Is Bitcoin leading the pack to bank-adoption?

3) Computer intelligence optimizing ("cracking") the protocol
...potentially silently taking control of the network (without anyone noticing) only to wield its power at some opportune watershed moment. Yes, I know, Sci-fi...The moment we have all been waiting for... with it's plausibility-spectrum all the way from "impossible" and "maybe in 100 years", to "an AI (or CI as I like to call it) will be algorithmically cheap enough to run on a smartphone", all the way to, "the *insert multinational organization* is already run by an AI." (eg. http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/how_the_robots_will_take_over/)

Sure, on the surface, the latter two scenarios are very hypothetical and unlikely... yet, if Bitcoin *is* the biggest hedge against global economic stability, doesn't that in fact highlight their relevance?...

But here are the stats that are within arms length, and I'd like to see... (shouldn't be hard to compile, even collect as part of the protocol...)

4) Isn't it perhaps most relevant how each GH is powered, and how easily that power can be removed by tactical means
...to diminish the network hashrate as part of a global co-ordinated multi-faceted strike, the GH taken out only to come back up to a network (and world?) beyond its recognition? Eg. How stable is the US national grid? Compared to those of other countries? What proportions of what countries' power grids run the internet? What is the minimum number of power stations that needs to get taken out? What is the minimum fire power required and the cost thereof? Or actually, how many steel poles (of neglible cost) of what length would be needed to short out said power supplies?

5) Add to that security. Who holds this metric: How secure is each GH?
ie. How many layers of security? How agile is its management? How rapidly can the system be secured and restored to a previous point in time?

Any links welcome... particularly to a Wiki or new https://blockchain.info/pools pages monitoring metrics relevant to any- or all of the above. I'm fairly certain the intelligence agencies of the world keep tabs on the above, but shouldn't it be out in the open? How better to guard against it than having it in the public domain?

I suppose, in the spirit of Bitcoin, I have to post a wallet address here. If it reaches 10BTC (my living expenses are cheap), I will dedicate one month to compiling the best sources of the above information, as professionally as I can, and post it here. 1EfnAXe2dyuKiVXfGyoSBMSKqvzzQcfr3L

1) "Stealth" code changes, that could get slipped in via an update, to modify network operation in some unforeseen, but yet-to-conceive exploitable way.
How huge a social-engineering effort would this take?
Do the huge-pool-guys vet every line of code themselves?
Does anyone log- and track stats on how quickly updates propagate throughout the network?

2) Someone like the World Bank establishing their own, incompatible network.

3) Computer intelligence optimizing ("cracking") the protocol

4) Isn't it perhaps most relevant how each GH is powered, and how easily that power can be removed by tactical means

5) Add to that security. Who holds this metric: How secure is each GH?

I recall they've said before that they've stored it on a USB so you're not getting at it if it's offline.

This usually happens locally on your browser except if you are creating your private keys through a malicious web page... You have to worry about the code the web page is serving you and not about your isp...

I am less concerned about creating a "famous" transaction, and more interested in getting this specific job done.  
I also am interested in trying something new, and pushing the boundaries of the upcoming peer-to-peer decentralized economy that Blockchain technologies will bring on.


Religious wars aside, the amount I am proposing translates to about $68.

And if someone in San Francisco wants to help, but that's too cheap to make it worth their while, tell me that!

Actually, that's about the price he is currently paying due to credit card fees, it's just hidden so he doesn't know he's paying it.

I followed the sidechains AMA.  Nothing new in that story at all, and nothing whatsoever which would support much of what you've been saying.

I will say that I'll expect sidechains impact on alts to be one of 'separating the wheat from the chaff.'  I believe that a fair number of alts were created to address some legitimate and valid needs that the the designers felt important.  Probably a majority of alts were created as pump-n-dump scams.

Alts which were created for the right reasons probably largely lamented the fact that they could not let Bitcoin do the heavy lifting as the actual value component.  These should be absolutely delighted to switch to a sidechain implementation.

OTOH, I foresee howls of rage and despair from those alts which are pump-n-dump scams designed with the hopes of making some early adopters rich.  I suspect that a fair amount of the negativity toward sidechains is from this corner right now because I can see no other legitimate complaint against sidechains.  This from a risk perspective, economic perspective, philosophical perspective, or any other rational perspective.  At least not one that is based on any skin-deep understanding of things.  (Actually, I take that back; those desperate to destroy Bitcoin as an empowering technology for individuals will also be quite alarmed by sidechains.)

Armory likes to use it

LOL!  OK.  And you know this with enough confidence to state it as a fact how again?

That's a bad thing?!?

If that's so then why in the fuck would they have even associated in the first place?  Work on your critical thinking skills a bit will ya?

Thank God!

Well, the 'clued in guys' who associated themselves under 'blockstream' just happen to be among the most productive and thoughtful of the Bitcoin developers and maintainers.  I've personally paid pretty close attention off-and-on for some time now since I have a fair bit riding on Bitcoin (and have not yet diversified into any alts.)  I've seen Maxwell be uniformally out in front when it comes to trying to protect the goals of the Bitcoin project which are important to me (openness, decentralization, etc.)  When I was watching the deltas it was pretty clear to me that ~sipa was what we in the biz would call the 'principle architect' of the Bitcoin.  Adding bluematt, Back, Frie-whatever, etc into the mix makes this group clearly the tip of the codebase spear in my opinion.

It's a fair bet that some of these old timers have giant hoards of Bitcoin.  By your own logic it makes little sense that they have anything but a powerful financial incentive to foster the health of Bitcoin itself.  Since I personally believe that sidechains are by far the best hope of doing this (and benefit the world's masses in the process) I am not at all surprised and am very heartened that they have organized to achieve this effort.

As far as I'm concerned Hearn, who absolutely _has_ made some very valuable contributions to Bitcoin, has always been in direct opposition to many of the aspects of Bitcoin that appealed to me.  To his credit he has been relatively open about these things (debatable on some of them though.)  Discriminating against arbitrary users via mining consolidation, consolidation of blockchain maint to a small number of large entities, Red-listing, mainstream passport use for individual identities, etc.  I've developed a sense that Hearn has Andresen's ear in a fairly big way and significantly through the medium of the Bitcoin Foundation which also seems to align with Hearn's direction for Bitcoin.  When Gavin went to the Council on Foreign Relations (some of the most wealthy and influential people in the world) and refused to either commit to openness or even debrief on the conversations he may have had, this further damaged whatever credibility he had (to me.)

When Gavin champion an exponential growth rate for Bitcoin the first thing I thought was 'Ya, that figures.'


Aside from the fact that 'that don't make no kinda sense', nobody has ever really considered storage capacity (indicated by your use of the term 'shrinking') to be a factor in much of anything.  At worst one might need to physically deliver media in order to get a node operational, but that's doable.  Access to the local data for 'old school' full verification modes of operation is a somewhat different matter, but it's likely to be a solvable problem.  Both of these assume some simbalance of reasonable system growth at least.  If TPS limits were lifted completely all bets are off, but that's not what Gavin is suggesting here (for the next decade or so at least.)