At what point do we stop kidding ourselves? Bye Bye mining farms.

[ajareselde]

100 MW  of power is nothing globally. If you are worried about effects on environment, just consider how many households are still using
old type lightbulbs, where most of the energy is converted to heat. And thats only one example which globally wastes more power than whole bitcoin network.

cheers

[mrkubanftw]

I rarely see discussion on the impact of bitcoin. No, not financially, not from an economic standpoint.

How about the eco-system?

Our network hashrate for bitcoin alone (there are also many alts out there) is 177,943,954.
-snip-

Where did you get this number from?


This might seem like a lot of power to you, but it actually isn't. Couldn't you say the same for everyone wasting power playing games or contributing to projects online?
There are a lot of projects out there that work similarly to Bitcoin (e.g. you can donate processing power). Can you really say that energy is being wasted when it is used for operating the network?

At least hardware is becoming more and more efficient, especially compared to the first ASICs.

You are correct. I got mine off of the same place. No idea why i pulled that number though.

So 88MW is more along the lines of 160MW.

[mrkubanftw]

Again you are all making a classical mistake under the assumption that added hashrate equals more network security. It DOES NOT. Individual nodes do. You know the individual miners that started this whole thing with GPU's.

Consider Farms will expand until they can no longer. Large mining farms start buying out other mining farms (Free market you keep raving about). A monopoly is possible. Don't you dare say its not. The second its not profitable some people wont mine at all. Others will for fun but their hashrate will be outweighed by the large farms that will consolidate over time.

What happens when the majority of network hashrate is owned by one farm? Your security is fucking gone and the largest farm really is the central bank now isn't it? They can manipulate the network at will REGARDLESS of overall hashrate. What matters is who owns what % of OVERALL hashrate. More hashrate does not equal more security. It means nothing.

How are you guys blind to this.

It's called a 51% attack.  Yes, its possible.

What's your proposal?  Mine less?? huh?

I'm aware. As should everyone here who's ever joined a pool. I see it on the horizon than I see it just possible. But that me man. My proposal? I don't have one. I'm looking to the people on this one. We probably have the least amount of nodes we ever did. At least in the past we had every person in the usa with an ATI video card running nodes. Now its down to who can afford asic's for basically fun, and large farms.

[Bit_Happy]

So you are telling me that the entire Bitcoin network doesn't even use a much power as a single Nimitz class aircraft carrier traveling at full speed.

And for that we get monetary freedom?

What a bargain.

Yes, the military and their various War Pigs use much more power than the Bitcoin network.
Three cheers for monetary freedom! 

[mrkubanftw]

So you are telling me that the entire Bitcoin network doesn't even use a much power as a single Nimitz class aircraft carrier traveling at full speed.

And for that we get monetary freedom?

What a bargain.

Yes, the military and their various War Pigs use much more power than the Bitcoin network.
Three cheers for monetary freedom! 

Monetary freedom followed by bankruptcy once a 51% attack occurs.

[jonald_fyookball]

Again you are all making a classical mistake under the assumption that added hashrate equals more network security. It DOES NOT. Individual nodes do. You know the individual miners that started this whole thing with GPU's.

Consider Farms will expand until they can no longer. Large mining farms start buying out other mining farms (Free market you keep raving about). A monopoly is possible. Don't you dare say its not. The second its not profitable some people wont mine at all. Others will for fun but their hashrate will be outweighed by the large farms that will consolidate over time.

What happens when the majority of network hashrate is owned by one farm? Your security is fucking gone and the largest farm really is the central bank now isn't it? They can manipulate the network at will REGARDLESS of overall hashrate. What matters is who owns what % of OVERALL hashrate. More hashrate does not equal more security. It means nothing.

How are you guys blind to this.

It's called a 51% attack.  Yes, its possible.

What's your proposal?  Mine less?? huh?

I'm aware. As should everyone here who's ever joined a pool. I see it on the horizon than I see it just possible. But that me man. My proposal? I don't have one. I'm looking to the people on this one. We probably have the least amount of nodes we ever did. At least in the past we had every person in the usa with an ATI video card running nodes. Now its down to who can afford asic's for basically fun, and large farms.

Gavin blogged about some ideas on stopping 51% attacks but  I think his ideas were far from water tight.

[mrkubanftw]

Again you are all making a classical mistake under the assumption that added hashrate equals more network security. It DOES NOT. Individual nodes do. You know the individual miners that started this whole thing with GPU's.

Consider Farms will expand until they can no longer. Large mining farms start buying out other mining farms (Free market you keep raving about). A monopoly is possible. Don't you dare say its not. The second its not profitable some people wont mine at all. Others will for fun but their hashrate will be outweighed by the large farms that will consolidate over time.

What happens when the majority of network hashrate is owned by one farm? Your security is fucking gone and the largest farm really is the central bank now isn't it? They can manipulate the network at will REGARDLESS of overall hashrate. What matters is who owns what % of OVERALL hashrate. More hashrate does not equal more security. It means nothing.

How are you guys blind to this.

It's called a 51% attack.  Yes, its possible.

What's your proposal?  Mine less?? huh?

I'm aware. As should everyone here who's ever joined a pool. I see it on the horizon than I see it just possible. But that me man. My proposal? I don't have one. I'm looking to the people on this one. We probably have the least amount of nodes we ever did. At least in the past we had every person in the usa with an ATI video card running nodes. Now its down to who can afford asic's for basically fun, and large farms.

Gavin blogged about some ideas on stopping 51% attacks but  I think his ideas were far from water tight.

I do recall this! But its been a while.

[mrkubanftw]

Again you are all making a classical mistake under the assumption that added hashrate equals more network security. It DOES NOT. Individual nodes do. You know the individual miners that started this whole thing with GPU's.

Consider Farms will expand until they can no longer. Large mining farms start buying out other mining farms (Free market you keep raving about). A monopoly is possible. Don't you dare say its not. The second its not profitable some people wont mine at all. Others will for fun but their hashrate will be outweighed by the large farms that will consolidate over time.

What happens when the majority of network hashrate is owned by one farm? Your security is fucking gone and the largest farm really is the central bank now isn't it? They can manipulate the network at will REGARDLESS of overall hashrate. What matters is who owns what % of OVERALL hashrate. More hashrate does not equal more security. It means nothing.

How are you guys blind to this.

It's called a 51% attack.  Yes, its possible.

What's your proposal?  Mine less?? huh?

I'm aware. As should everyone here who's ever joined a pool. I see it on the horizon than I see it just possible. But that me man. My proposal? I don't have one. I'm looking to the people on this one. We probably have the least amount of nodes we ever did. At least in the past we had every person in the usa with an ATI video card running nodes. Now its down to who can afford asic's for basically fun, and large farms.

Gavin blogged about some ideas on stopping 51% attacks but  I think his ideas were far from water tight.

This was an interesting read. Not sure how legit it is but a good read.

What matters here is the probability that an attacker will eventually exceed the main chain if he starts from $N$ blocks back. There is a 'magic threshold' at 50% in the sense that at 50% hashpower, this probability is 100% regardless of $N$. You're correct that for every $N$, the probability approaches 100% as hashpower approaches 50%, so an attacker with even 40% of hashpower is extremely dangerous. But below 50%, the probability drops off exponentially with $N$, so in the presence of a sub-50%-attacker you can be safe by simply requiring many (perhaps tens of thousands) confirmations.

[mrkubanftw]

So you are telling me that the entire Bitcoin network doesn't even use a much power as a single Nimitz class aircraft carrier traveling at full speed.

And for that we get monetary freedom?

What a bargain.

Yes, the military and their various War Pigs use much more power than the Bitcoin network.
Three cheers for monetary freedom! 

Monetary freedom followed by bankruptcy once a 51% attack occurs.

51% seems like an issue we shouldn't worry too much about. The whole network is pretty spread apart now, sure some are pretty large but not 50% large.

You are correct. They are not. The 51% shouldn't be an issue unless any one miner company creates an extremely efficient miner, which knc claims to have done. They literally state on their website 1/10th the energy consumption of today's hardware. Again when the block reward halves, some companies will deem that the time to get out is now. When they do that they will sell there power slowly, or they will simply shut down. That open hashrate will distribute back to the network. That is more likely the time when we are going to see a majority share. A company buy out.. or a company that creates state of the art technology that gives them the hardware edge.

[mrkubanftw]

Again you are all making a classical mistake under the assumption that added hashrate equals more network security. It DOES NOT. Individual nodes do. You know the individual miners that started this whole thing with GPU's.

Consider Farms will expand until they can no longer. Large mining farms start buying out other mining farms (Free market you keep raving about). A monopoly is possible. Don't you dare say its not. The second its not profitable some people wont mine at all. Others will for fun but their hashrate will be outweighed by the large farms that will consolidate over time.

What happens when the majority of network hashrate is owned by one farm? Your security is fucking gone and the largest farm really is the central bank now isn't it? They can manipulate the network at will REGARDLESS of overall hashrate. What matters is who owns what % of OVERALL hashrate. More hashrate does not equal more security. It means nothing.

How are you guys blind to this.

It's called a 51% attack.  Yes, its possible.

What's your proposal?  Mine less?? huh?

I'm aware. As should everyone here who's ever joined a pool. I see it on the horizon than I see it just possible. But that me man. My proposal? I don't have one. I'm looking to the people on this one. We probably have the least amount of nodes we ever did. At least in the past we had every person in the usa with an ATI video card running nodes. Now its down to who can afford asic's for basically fun, and large farms.

Gavin blogged about some ideas on stopping 51% attacks but  I think his ideas were far from water tight.

Here is Gavin's blog I believe you were talking about.

http://gavintech.blogspot.com/2012/05/neutralizing-51-attack.html

[Lauda]

-snip-

You are correct. I got mine off of the same place. No idea why i pulled that number though.

So 88MW is more along the lines of 160MW.

That's quite interesting. I've never had a problem with it and it has always shown me the correct information.
However I do not agree with you on the point where governments are going to take action vs farms. You're free to spend your energy in any way you want as long as you're paying for it, right?

More hashrate does increase the security if we consider the possibility of a 51%. To be more specific, more distributed hashrate (not concentrated) increases the security. I haven't seen a good proposal to solve the issue of a potential 51% attack so far.

I'm still waiting for that "Bitcoin should use PoS like Peercoin" post. 

[Acidyo]

WE ARE NOT COMPARING CURRENT BANKING SYSTEMS TO BITCOIN. FOR THE FOURTH TIME. READ COMMENTS IF YOU PLAN ON CONTRIBUTING TO THIS DISCUSSION.

Lol I think we see that.

Hashing power will continue to rise over the years, as more people buy the junk from the industrial companies, and the industrial companies continue to break through with tech.

[mrkubanftw]

-snip-

You are correct. I got mine off of the same place. No idea why i pulled that number though.

So 88MW is more along the lines of 160MW.

That's quite interesting. I've never had a problem with it and it has always shown me the correct information.
However I do not agree with you on the point where governments are going to take action vs farms. You're free to spend your energy in any way you want as long as you're paying for it, right?

More hashrate does increase the security if we consider the possibility of a 51%. To be more specific, more distributed hashrate (not concentrated) increases the security. I haven't seen a good proposal to solve the issue of a potential 51% attack so far.

I'm still waiting for that "Bitcoin should use PoS like Peercoin" post. 

I agree with you that more hash-rate would increase security in a decentralized aspect. Although this is not the behavior we are seeing. We are seeing asic companies actively centralizing the network by creating farms and mining on their own hardware. Counteracting the very purpose of bitcoin (decentralized network).

[johnyj]

A cryptocurrency that cost nothing to make will eventually worth nothing, because it is voluntarily participated. Why should I pay 200 dollar for something that cost nothing to make??? Suppose that you can generate 1 bitcoin today with a cost of 1 dollar, then everyone will immediately go to generate coin and sell it on market for $199 of profit right away, that will drag the price down to 1 dollar

This is the big difference between bitcoin and fiat money, which can hold its value without any cost, because average people are not allowed to produce fiat money but forced to use it

And you need huge amount of resource to ensure the security of the network, that is the mining cost. Anyone can make a fake bitcoin with just coding, but they can not fake hash power, so the hash power will prevent anyone from attacking the system and modify the transaction. In fact the huge energy cost is just a byproduct of the large hash power, it has to be there to ensure the security of the network when millions of funds are transferred in the network

In fact, the huge cost in electricity is not a must, suppose that someone invented a quantum miner, with only 100w of power it can solve a block average 120 minutes, then the network will be very green with 12 such miner. However, he might need to spend billions of dollars to produce such a miner, and the wealth invested might be much higher than electricity cost of ASIC miners, so the cost still stays high

[jbrnt]

That means with bitcoins total hash-rate of 177,943,954 GH/s that its energy consumption would be around 88,971,977 Watts or 88.9 Megawatts of power.
Does this seem responsible? We are basically polluting on a massive scale to make pennies on the dollar.
You have to assume at some point governments will come together to put this to an end?

No, it is not responsible as human beings to waste electricity. Bitcoin is an experiment to revolutionise the global monetary system. It has the potential to save millions of people's life-savings, help overseas workers save fee remitting money home. Innovations do not come without costs. The electricity used are costs of technological advancement.

I would be safe to say that the global gaming industry (PC/console/mobile) uses more energy than Bitcoin does. Are they also irresponsible playing too much games and using more electricity than needed? Will governments come together and put an end to this?  

[bitllionaire]

And what are your proposals to have a secure blockchain and network?

[Lauda]

And what are your proposals to have a secure blockchain and network?

How about you actually read the thread before posting?

I'm aware. As should everyone here who's ever joined a pool. I see it on the horizon than I see it just possible. But that me man. My proposal? I don't have one. I'm looking to the people on this one. We probably have the least amount of nodes we ever did. At least in the past we had every person in the usa with an ATI video card running nodes. Now its down to who can afford asic's for basically fun, and large farms.

I agree with you that more hash-rate would increase security in a decentralized aspect. Although this is not the behavior we are seeing. We are seeing asic companies actively centralizing the network by creating farms and mining on their own hardware. Counteracting the very purpose of bitcoin (decentralized network).

Well this is something that one should get used to. Humans are flawed. They are greedy and are going to abuse just about anything that they can.
It's unfortunate to see this happen but not much can be done to prevent an ASIC company to mine with new hardware before releasing it, right?

[mrkubanftw]

That means with bitcoins total hash-rate of 177,943,954 GH/s that its energy consumption would be around 88,971,977 Watts or 88.9 Megawatts of power.
Does this seem responsible? We are basically polluting on a massive scale to make pennies on the dollar.
You have to assume at some point governments will come together to put this to an end?

No, it is not responsible as human beings to waste electricity. Bitcoin is an experiment to revolutionise the global monetary system. It has the potential to save millions of people's life-savings, help overseas workers save fee remitting money home. Innovations do not come without costs. The electricity used are costs of technological advancement.

I would be safe to say that the global gaming industry (PC/console/mobile) uses more energy than Bitcoin does. Are they also irresponsible playing too much games and using more electricity than needed? Will governments come together and put an end to this?  

Haha well you are missing a huge part of what gaming is and who that market belongs to

Three biggest names in gaming?

1)Steam

2)Microsoft

3)SOA


All three operate and pay taxes in america.

Well this is something that one should get used to. Humans are flawed. They are greedy and are going to abuse just about anything that they can.
It's unfortunate to see this happen but not much can be done to prevent an ASIC company to mine with new hardware before releasing it, right?

I mean I agree. And believing in free market I cant even disagree with what they are doing. I just see it as harmful in the long run. But perhaps i'm just too paranoid.

[jbrnt]

That means with bitcoins total hash-rate of 177,943,954 GH/s that its energy consumption would be around 88,971,977 Watts or 88.9 Megawatts of power.
Does this seem responsible? We are basically polluting on a massive scale to make pennies on the dollar.
You have to assume at some point governments will come together to put this to an end?

No, it is not responsible as human beings to waste electricity. Bitcoin is an experiment to revolutionise the global monetary system. It has the potential to save millions of people's life-savings, help overseas workers save fee remitting money home. Innovations do not come without costs. The electricity used are costs of technological advancement.

I would be safe to say that the global gaming industry (PC/console/mobile) uses more energy than Bitcoin does. Are they also irresponsible playing too much games and using more electricity than needed? Will governments come together and put an end to this?  

Haha well you are missing a huge part of what gaming is and who that market belongs to
Three biggest names in gaming?
1)Steam
2)Microsoft
3)SOA
All three operate and pay taxes in america.

This is exactly my point. Governments do not care about who is responsible for using more electricity and "pollution on a massive scale".

[mrkubanftw]

That means with bitcoins total hash-rate of 177,943,954 GH/s that its energy consumption would be around 88,971,977 Watts or 88.9 Megawatts of power.
Does this seem responsible? We are basically polluting on a massive scale to make pennies on the dollar.
You have to assume at some point governments will come together to put this to an end?

No, it is not responsible as human beings to waste electricity. Bitcoin is an experiment to revolutionise the global monetary system. It has the potential to save millions of people's life-savings, help overseas workers save fee remitting money home. Innovations do not come without costs. The electricity used are costs of technological advancement.

I would be safe to say that the global gaming industry (PC/console/mobile) uses more energy than Bitcoin does. Are they also irresponsible playing too much games and using more electricity than needed? Will governments come together and put an end to this?  

Haha well you are missing a huge part of what gaming is and who that market belongs to
Three biggest names in gaming?
1)Steam
2)Microsoft
3)SOA
All three operate and pay taxes in america.

This is exactly my point. Governments do not care about who is responsible for using more electricity and "pollution on a massive scale".

True but you are missing my point. They (the government) are getting paid for it. Twice. Taxes in america dude.

Whereas they are not with bitcoin. Unless people are claiming mining on their tax returns now?