More ASICs in different hands=greater hashpower=a stronger Bitcoin network=good for Bitcoin
I have heard enough whining about how Bitcoin should stay a small-time CPU mining network where everyone can particpate with a laptop, good luck with that until you get 51%ed by a botnet.
The BTC network will be stronger if more ppl mine, but I think the hashing power will mainly stay with the *same* ppl. Hashing power is not really a good indicator of how many ppl mine BTC. How much they invest in it might be slightly better, and I would wager that investments (CAPEX - CAPital EXPenditure) will stay rather stable. The same group of ppl that are the biggest miners now will invest in ASICs to protect their share of the network (and thus their revenue in BTC, since BTC are released at a fixed rate, a fixed % of the network directly results in the same % of the BTC released yearly). Cheap ASICs might actually prove beneficial, given they will help the average Joe stay current and cost half what a good GPU does (and use 1/10 the power). But that also depends on whether the "average average Joe" does on the BTC network and whether he's inclined to buy a dedicated miner. And with difficulty rises, the BTC/USD exchange rate will go up. There is currently sth that looks like a 1 to 1 correlation between the two, so you should be worried if difficulty went DOWN. I don't worry about the price that much, the percentage of BTCs I own remain the same. It's true that with the increase of difficulty the mining business becomes more and more professional and controlled by fewer and fewer people, but that's when capitalism comes into play, people invent all kinds of fancy ways to fund/benefit from the mining operation, shares, bonds, etc. Yeah theoretically the operators can still screw you and get away but let's face it, if a cooperative mining operation is not subjected to the rule of law then so are the solo miners, in that case who can stop government agents from breaking into your house and taking away your miner? Besides, if BTC really become that successful with a huge userbase then maybe everyone can run a CPU miner whenever the CPU is idle and form a P2P pool of some sort, it's entirely up to the common users to decide if they want their transactions to be processed by some powerful centralized entities or entities controlled by "us". That's the beauty of Bitcoin:you can fight back under the rules and without using violence, but you are not forced to. I think had Bitcoin gone more-or-less CPU-mining exclusive, the network would have already been dysfunctional for long, if the good guys try to stay weak then the bad guys will take over(botnets can easily arrange 100Ks CPUs), but after it grows to a certain stage(like where we are right now) we need to get serious with the decentralization. You think it's "controlled" by less and less ppl? The way I see it is, if the userbase is stable, it will always be the same percentage of ppl mining the lion's share of BTC and they will invest roughly with the same proportions at each technological jump. So, in essence, the ecosystem is rather stable. The danger comes from the newcomers who can alter the "balance of power", but, as long as BTC mining remains a niche operation, we're quite safe for now. You just have to follow the technological trend, but I don't see a rise in average capital expenditure per miner and I think the BTC/USD exchange will keep on rising 1:1 with difficulty in the foreseeable future (BTC aren't a commodity yet). I don't think the number of miners will remain stable, not every GPU miner will run an ASIC, many will just drop out. Malicious newcomers are always a possible threat, but as long as the total mining power is great enough, only enitities like governments/big banking cartels are able to carry it out. The key is to make the network so powerful that those entities can not perform any meaningful attack on the network, without drawing serious attention from the public(e.g., sucking out a whole city's electricity supply). And if entities like NSA can spend billions of taxypayers' money to attack a civilian network run partially by American citizens and get away with it, then such governments with such arbitrary power can just break into miners' houses and take away their rigs, which are far easier to be done. I do agree that the price is somehow correlated with the mining difficulty, a bitcoin is, after all, a proof to the network investors/users of the miners' commitment to and effort made to secure the payment network, which is what people pay them for doing. Time will tell but I don't think things are as bleak as everyone assumes. The closer you get to the mountain, the more paths you see. I bet the everyday Joe will be able to buy a cheap USB ASIC before long. (I don't mean the overpriced ASICMiner Mini USB! 2BTC for 300MH/s, really?!) I apologize if I somehow sound pessimistic, it's just my habit to present the worst case, and see how things will work out under such conditions. The starting point was just how things are better with the present path than the somehow CPU-mining exclusive path. About the ASICMiner USB miner overpricing, the current price may be outrageous, but I do think it should be encouraged if ASIC mining manufacturers decide to "check" the commitment of each buyer to the Bitcoin network, fixing the price in BTCs is just one way to do it, they should explore other options. |
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More ASICs in different hands=greater hashpower=a stronger Bitcoin network=good for Bitcoin
I have heard enough whining about how Bitcoin should stay a small-time CPU mining network where everyone can particpate with a laptop, good luck with that until you get 51%ed by a botnet.
The BTC network will be stronger if more ppl mine, but I think the hashing power will mainly stay with the *same* ppl. Hashing power is not really a good indicator of how many ppl mine BTC. How much they invest in it might be slightly better, and I would wager that investments (CAPEX - CAPital EXPenditure) will stay rather stable. The same group of ppl that are the biggest miners now will invest in ASICs to protect their share of the network (and thus their revenue in BTC, since BTC are released at a fixed rate, a fixed % of the network directly results in the same % of the BTC released yearly). Cheap ASICs might actually prove beneficial, given they will help the average Joe stay current and cost half what a good GPU does (and use 1/10 the power). But that also depends on whether the "average average Joe" does on the BTC network and whether he's inclined to buy a dedicated miner. And with difficulty rises, the BTC/USD exchange rate will go up. There is currently sth that looks like a 1 to 1 correlation between the two, so you should be worried if difficulty went DOWN. I don't worry about the price that much, the percentage of BTCs I own remain the same. It's true that with the increase of difficulty the mining business becomes more and more professional and controlled by fewer and fewer people, but that's when capitalism comes into play, people invent all kinds of fancy ways to fund/benefit from the mining operation, shares, bonds, etc. Yeah theoretically the operators can still screw you and get away but let's face it, if a cooperative mining operation is not subjected to the rule of law then so are the solo miners, in that case who can stop government agents from breaking into your house and taking away your miner? Besides, if BTC really become that successful with a huge userbase then maybe everyone can run a CPU miner whenever the CPU is idle and form a P2P pool of some sort, it's entirely up to the common users to decide if they want their transactions to be processed by some powerful centralized entities or entities controlled by "us". That's the beauty of Bitcoin:you can fight back under the rules and without using violence, but you are not forced to. I think had Bitcoin gone more-or-less CPU-mining exclusive, the network would have already been dysfunctional for long, if the good guys try to stay weak then the bad guys will take over(botnets can easily arrange 100Ks CPUs), but after it grows to a certain stage(like where we are right now) we need to get serious with the decentralization. You think it's "controlled" by less and less ppl? The way I see it is, if the userbase is stable, it will always be the same percentage of ppl mining the lion's share of BTC and they will invest roughly with the same proportions at each technological jump. So, in essence, the ecosystem is rather stable. The danger comes from the newcomers who can alter the "balance of power", but, as long as BTC mining remains a niche operation, we're quite safe for now. You just have to follow the technological trend, but I don't see a rise in average capital expenditure per miner and I think the BTC/USD exchange will keep on rising 1:1 with difficulty in the foreseeable future (BTC aren't a commodity yet). I don't think the number of miners will remain stable, not every GPU miner will run an ASIC, many will just drop out. Malicious newcomers are always a possible threat, but as long as the total mining power is great enough, only enitities like governments/big banking cartels are able to carry it out. The key is to make the network so powerful that those entities can not perform any meaningful attack on the network, without drawing serious attention from the public(e.g., sucking out a whole city's electricity supply). And if entities like NSA can spend billions of taxypayers' money to attack a civilian network run partially by American citizens and get away with it, then such governments with such arbitrary power can just break into miners' houses and take away their rigs, which are far easier to be done. I do agree that the price is somehow correlated with the mining difficulty, a bitcoin is, after all, a proof to the network investors/users of the miners' commitment to and effort made to secure the payment network, which is what people pay them for doing. |
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The problem may be, that the size of blockchain - O(n^2) - determines the complexity of transaction validation, so some naive implementation either require O(n^2) of fast memory, or slow search through the blockchain. Then, if the amount of transactions is O(n^2) and the blockchain size is O(n^2) too, it may end in something nasty as O(n^4) time complexity.
And, yes, I know about hashing, patricia trees, etc. But I point out that the storage is just one piece of rather complex build.
The transaction fee is in place to prevent exactly the O(n^2) worst case scenario I think. For any real usage of the network you are not going to send transactions to everyone in the world. And even if no fee is charged you definitely won't go to O(n^2) transactions/block where n is the world population, there will only be 2.1*10^16 satoshis ever in existence, which is much smaller than 10^20. |
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If they don't release the source code of Ripple server, there is no guarantee that the network runs the way they told you, it could just be another centralized e-cash, opencoin can withdraw at anytime and the network will stop to function.
If they do release the source code, then the Ripple framework would be infinitely replicable, anyone can just go and create their own Ripple network and release their own XRP, this could potentially mean that XRP has no value at all because it doesn't require a backup by computational power.
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Yeah, the main problem I see with Ripple is that it's probably a lot more centralized than it appears, even ignoring the issues with XRP distribution and source availability.
AFAICT, Ripple requires that your UNL:
- Contain entities that won't cooperate to defraud you.
- Contain entities that themselves have good UNLs, and the entities in their UNLs must have good UNLs, etc.
- Form a "good network". A UNL containing just your friends wouldn't form a good network because you wouldn't be linked well-enough to the rest of Ripple. Your section of the network might get into a situation where its idea of history will never converge with the rest of the network's idea of history.
As a result, I believe that Ripple can really only be used reliably and securely if everyone has pretty much the same UNL. It's probably OK to remove or add a handful of nodes to your UNL, but at least a big portion of it probably needs to remain the same between users. So this ends up being a distributed system, but not a decentralized one. Whoever decides who's on the canonical UNL has a lot of power over the network. Also, people generally can't be "full nodes" in Ripple and participate in the consensus process because full nodes need to be online all the time and in someone's UNL.
Despite this, I wouldn't be surprised to see Ripple grow over the next few years. A lot of people think that it's decentralized and safe, and if they use the default centralized Ripple configuration it probably will be safe and stable in the short-term, and it'll be a lot cheaper to transact using Ripple than with Bitcoin. But it won't actually be as decentralized or as robust as Bitcoin, and legal issues may bring the whole thing down eventually.
It sounds quite familar....I seem to recall a thing called bank.  Oh, there's difference, banks need to operate by the law. |
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With Ripple, as the server source code has not being released and it is still proprietary, OpenCoin Inc can change the rules and spend your money.
If they don't release the source code of Ripple server, there is no guarantee that the network runs the way they told you, it could just be another centralized e-cash, opencoin can withdraw at anytime and the network will stop to function. If they do release the source code, then the Ripple framework would be infinitely replicable, anyone can just go and create their own Ripple network and release their own XRP, this could potentially mean that XRP has no value at all because it doesn't require a backup by computational power. |
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More ASICs in different hands=greater hashpower=a stronger Bitcoin network=good for Bitcoin
I have heard enough whining about how Bitcoin should stay a small-time CPU mining network where everyone can particpate with a laptop, good luck with that until you get 51%ed by a botnet.
The BTC network will be stronger if more ppl mine, but I think the hashing power will mainly stay with the *same* ppl. Hashing power is not really a good indicator of how many ppl mine BTC. How much they invest in it might be slightly better, and I would wager that investments (CAPEX - CAPital EXPenditure) will stay rather stable. The same group of ppl that are the biggest miners now will invest in ASICs to protect their share of the network (and thus their revenue in BTC, since BTC are released at a fixed rate, a fixed % of the network directly results in the same % of the BTC released yearly). Cheap ASICs might actually prove beneficial, given they will help the average Joe stay current and cost half what a good GPU does (and use 1/10 the power). But that also depends on whether the "average average Joe" does on the BTC network and whether he's inclined to buy a dedicated miner. And with difficulty rises, the BTC/USD exchange rate will go up. There is currently sth that looks like a 1 to 1 correlation between the two, so you should be worried if difficulty went DOWN. I don't worry about the price that much, the percentage of BTCs I own remain the same. It's true that with the increase of difficulty the mining business becomes more and more professional and controlled by fewer and fewer people, but that's when capitalism comes into play, people invent all kinds of fancy ways to fund/benefit from the mining operation, shares, bonds, etc. Yeah theoretically the operators can still screw you and get away but let's face it, if a cooperative mining operation is not subjected to the rule of law then so are the solo miners, in that case who can stop government agents from breaking into your house and taking away your miner? Besides, if BTC really become that successful with a huge userbase then maybe everyone can run a CPU miner whenever the CPU is idle and form a P2P pool of some sort, it's entirely up to the common users to decide if they want their transactions to be processed by some powerful centralized entities or entities controlled by "us". That's the beauty of Bitcoin:you can fight back under the rules and without using violence, but you are not forced to. I think had Bitcoin gone more-or-less CPU-mining exclusive, the network would have already been dysfunctional for long, if the good guys try to stay weak then the bad guys will take over(botnets can easily arrange 100Ks CPUs), but after it grows to a certain stage(like where we are right now) we need to get serious with the decentralization. |
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Hello there. I've been back for a while now if you haven't noticed.  I took over again from Yuhfhrh. You should take some time to come up with a few "my rules" and stick them! You're not a mod until you post'em sticky!  |
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Dollar wins anyday! Because it has an intrinsic security mechanism that is infallible....you can just print more dollars to mitigate the loss!  |
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The thing that I'm beginning to realize is, there may already be so much emotional and financial investment in Bitcoin that it's at a network effect/brand awareness tipping point so that even if there is a competitor that is technically superior, it may not substract from its value. MP3 for example is inferior to other compression algorithms, yet it's still what pretty much everyone uses because everyone uses it. And, if Bitcoin is to be displaced, it can take a long time to push it off its throne.
I'm only a little disappointed so far in that I only see work in the intermediaries (coinbase), nothing really revolutionary like Silk Road. Something that makes use of its properties that conventional currency cannot provide. While enforced monetary scarcity is the main thing going for Bitcoin, I would like to see more "killer apps" providing an underlying value in order to distinguish it more clearly from xyz scamcoins.
Sure, being able to buy gift cards for Burger King with Bitcoins in the US is nice. But let's not kid ourselves, it's only convenient if you already posess Bitcoins and happen to run out of USD. An unlikely scenario.
its more than emotional. its logical. that's the beauty of the mathematics. yes, everyone involved in Bitcoin has a vested interest in maintaining the system. that's a strong feature. if any altchain arises that depends on hashing and threatens Bitcoin, i guarantee you'll see guys like BitcoinExpress attack them. what its gonna take is some system way different than cryptocurrency to displace Bitcoin. i'm never sure what ppl mean when they say killer apps. personally, this thing with Gyft card is huge. we now have an instant conversion mechanism right on our Androids which allows one to preserve the value of their money right up to the point of buying something for fiat. this is almost as good as a Bitcoin credit card just b/c its in digitized form. once we get a fully functional cc for Android and iPhone its to the moon. The emotional investment side is actually also palpable. Real geeks are usually in for more than materialistic reason, the core development team consists of people from Google/Red Hat/SGI, all respectable jobs, yet moon-light enthusiastically on this project for free, people like them are unlikely to take alt-coins seriously, I think. This dictates that Bitcoin will have by far the strongest development team, the second-in-line, LTC, hasn't seen its source code improved for 10 months already, not to say other alt-coins. |
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I don't know, on one hand, it feels kinda sad that one can never stop a granny from buying foolishly. On the other, maybe the implication is that with the downfall of gold they will finally realize that PM's mojo is no more?
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The thing that I'm beginning to realize is, there may already be so much emotional and financial investment in Bitcoin that it's at a network effect/brand awareness tipping point so that even if there is a competitor that is technically superior, it may not substract from its value. MP3 for example is inferior to other compression algorithms, yet it's still what pretty much everyone uses because everyone uses it.
I'm only a little disappointed so far in that I only see work in the intermediaries (coinbase), nothing really revolutionary like Silk Road. Something that makes use of its properties that conventional currency cannot provide. While enforced monetary scarcity is the main thing going for Bitcoin, I would like to see more "killer apps" providing an underlying value in order to distinguish it more clearly from xyz scamcoins.
Sure, being able to buy gift cards for Burger King with Bitcoins in the US is nice. But let's not kid ourselves, it's only convenient if you already posess Bitcoins and happen to run out of USD. An unlikely scenario.
Rule of thumb: the strongest network survives, the digital currency world is actually much crueler than that of PMs. LTC uses scrypt and is quite sizable so I guess it will be fine as long as it stays "silver", but any attempt at usurpation will probably cause it to eat dirts. Ripple otoh, is something that is infinitely replicable if they eventually open source the whole thing. |
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With all the boring trolls/shills in the forum recently, I kinda start to miss him. At least he can FUD properly.
no he can't. he's a dick. and a stupid one at that. He knew about daily SMA 30! That's some unusual amount of research by a shill's standard, nowadays we only have mouthpieces pumping out monotonic and uncreative bullshit. |
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With all the boring trolls/shills in the forum recently, I kinda start to miss him. At least he can FUD properly.
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It allows the merchants to accept your payment, whether your bank/card issuer sucks or not.
This is painfully obvious for any Chinese who wants to make an oversea online purchase, right now essentially no adequate payment method exists for such demand, because the American/European merchants do not trust(with very good reasons) our banking/payment/legal system etc.
The breakthrough of Bitcoin is exactly the removal of "trust" from the equation.
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A light client has to trust other nodes to not collude to tell it lies, but doesn't have to trust a single node; it can request reports from several random nodes and compare notes. If node A says XXX = 5 BTC and node B says XXX = 10 BTC, ask nodes C, D, E & F to see what they say (by default, the bitcoin client talks to at least 8 randomly chosen peers). If all of the others agree with A, node B is lying to you, and you can safely ignore it forever.
As for bootstrapping a fresh full node, a full blockchain isn't actually required. The reference client is built with both a zero trust methodology and a high degree of paranoia, both great places to start for such a project. However, a full node can be altered to start it's own bootstrapping from 1) an internally hardwired & pre-pruned copy of the blockchain, which it trusts automaticly because it's part of it's own code, 2) from the most recent 'checkpoint' encoded into it's own code (search for the term on the forum) in much the same way that the genesis block is encoded into the clients' codebase now, or both. It's neither necessary, nor particularly helpful, if every new client has to start from the genesis block; eventually clients that start with an internally checkpointed block number from within the past year or so will be much more common. A client that uses both methods can entirely skip years of pruned transactions and hashwork, and still mine against the resulting pruned blockchain.
Non-colluding, so a light client is in some ways like a Ripple that actually works? |
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Think of it as an opposition party to the fiats, it may never get elected to the office, but it must exist and get funded.
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More ASICs in different hands=greater hashpower=a stronger Bitcoin network=good for Bitcoin
I have heard enough whining about how Bitcoin should stay a small-time CPU mining network where everyone can particpate with a laptop, good luck with that until you get 51%ed by a botnet.
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I would not be surprised if CCP sends a few agents to make batch-orders of ASICs from the producers. I have a new conspiracy theory: how many people have known friedcat personally？ It's basically one random guy showing up on the forum and suddenly he creates the world's biggest mining farm, hmmm.... |
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Hi, Raphael and everyone, thanks for the FOK!
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