Suppose a solo miner setup two mining rigs; is there any advantage whatsoever possible to forming a pool with them?  Is there any advantage whatsoever possible to keeping them not pooled?

Couldn't a secret collaboration just not report their combined hash rate?

Can mining pools be collaborating behind the scenes?  If so then would this be detectable?

To me it feels like the recent situation was handled very well indeed; it's hard to image it being handled even better.  We risk being spoiled.  Will every future situation be handled as well?  Imagine Bitcoin in the future; the future when Gavin et al own private topical islands and have retired.  Even if they can be called out of retirement, it could delay responsiveness.

I couldn't agree more; each entity with a dependency on Bitcoin really ought to put some effort into formalizing their contingency plans.  Just because a fresh/capable dev team is active today is no guarantee for the future.  Strategic investments aimed at keeping the dev team renewed is a key part of such a plan.  Scrambling to engage properly skilled developers in an emergency is likely to delay the resolution and risks getting a less than great resolution.

Or does Bitcoin reach such a mature state that development literally comes to the end?  Can it ever be considered mature/robust enough to tolerate any and all problems automatically?

Traditional currencies go through phases too.  Once not so long ago there were no US dollars.  Although it is effectively the default global currency for now, just like many other currencies it could eventually be demonetized http://dollardaze.org/blog/?page_id=00017 and be added to the list of historic currencies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_currencies especially if Bitcoin does exceedingly well.

I gather you are not referring to Coinbase https://coinbase.com/ specifically but rather the database of Bitcoins, right?  Does the coin database (is this the block chain?) grow without limit or is there some sort of truncation eventually?

"... a miner's proceeds ..." -- If I understand then you mean the miners will continue to mine even after the last of the 21,000,000 Bitcoins are mined.  They will "mine" not for new coins anymore but instead just for the, um, confirmation/validation/encryption of the new blocks of transactions.  Neat.  So, as long as new transactions continue to flow the miners can still make a living.

Hmm, two miners (unintentionally or deliberately) creating divergent block chains force entities to make a choice; the majority win.  Entities should always desire to be on the winning side otherwise they risk becoming the victims of double spends.

In the earlier moments of a hard fork (who's job is it to be watchful and broadcast the alert?), it might not be clear at all which side will become the winning side.  Entities (at least those in the know) would be wise to wait (for how long?  what if a paid service is life critical?) for the situation to settle down.  Hmm.  It feels like waiting is not acting with authority.

In theory there might not be a central authority per se but in practice continuity of support can potentially provide quicker and higher quality results reducing the risks to the Bitcoin community.

Unfortunately I get the following error when I attempt to register for the Bitcoin Foundation forum;

"The administrator is currently not accepting new membership registrations."


Your responses are keenly on topic and thorough despite a newbie's unschooled groping.

Someday over the rainbow when the last of the 21,000,000 coins is mined then where will the authority come from?

I certainly appreciate your responses.

It seems to me, the time to resolve and the quality of the resolution are improved by having unencumbered communications between vested parties.

Apparently Mt. Gox can dictate to the miners despite the developers.  Is this desirable?  If another entity attempted to dictate to the miners contrary to Mt. Gox then the majority would win, right?

To me it looks like the viability of Bitcoin depends on the availability of lead decision makers to act freely -- how do we detect if a lead decision maker is under duress?  How does decision making reliably transition?

Just like there is a Continuity of government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_of_government, it seems to me there ought to be a Continuity of support (or whatever it should be called) for the Bitcoin capabilities.