To stop centralization, you need to cap the Difficulty, not the Blocksize !!!

[Amph]

Pools are not centralizing Bitcoin, because they compete with each other and miners are free to choose with which pool they want to mine.

The problems created by excessive block sizes are far more serious, because this leads to a reduction in the number of all full nodes, not just miners. This would reduce the overall security of the network and make surveillance / blocking of nodes much easier.

ya.ya.yo!

let's say there are 0 full nodes only minners, how does this impact security? only total hashing power determines the level of security no?

aside from the sybil attack there are no other problem about security if there are zero full node, miners are more important

it's probably the reason why there are zero incentive for them, to run one

 

No problem about security other than arbitrarily double spending, issuing 100,000,000 coins for themselves, etc, etc. You realise ONE node has the ability to totally rewrite the protocol.

Mining is without doubt second to nodes in terms of importance:
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/

wut? you're talking about an hypothetical scenario of a 51% attack, i'm talking about miners as a many pool and farm, not a single entity that dictate everything

your scenario will not happen unless bitcoin is already dead, miners have no reason to double spend at all,

and no, nodes are not more important than miners, without miners no more coins will be issued, and we will not have bitcoin at all

1 thing, it's not the decentralization aspect that keeps the bitcoin network safe, is the reward itself, that prevent it from being unsecure

[brg444]

Pools are not centralizing Bitcoin, because they compete with each other and miners are free to choose with which pool they want to mine.

The problems created by excessive block sizes are far more serious, because this leads to a reduction in the number of all full nodes, not just miners. This would reduce the overall security of the network and make surveillance / blocking of nodes much easier.

ya.ya.yo!

let's say there are 0 full nodes only minners, how does this impact security? only total hashing power determines the level of security no?

aside from the sybil attack there are no other problem about security if there are zero full node, miners are more important

it's probably the reason why there are zero incentive for them, to run one

 

No problem about security other than arbitrarily double spending, issuing 100,000,000 coins for themselves, etc, etc. You realise ONE node has the ability to totally rewrite the protocol.

Mining is without doubt second to nodes in terms of importance:
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/measuring-decentralization/

wut? you're talking about an hypothetical scenario of a 51% attack, i'm talking about miners as a many pool and farm, not a single entity that dictate everything

your scenario will not happen unless bitcoin is already dead, miners have no reason to double spend at all,

and no, nodes are not more important than miners, without miners no more coins will be issued, and we will not have bitcoin at all

1 thing, it's not the decentralization aspect that keeps the bitcoin network safe, is the reward itself, that prevent it from being unsecure

 

I'm not sure what you are talking about either but we were considering a scenario with 1 node in which case that one node is free to change the protocol rules at will.

And yes, anyone with a brain will understand nodes are more important than miners: they're the one who run the P2P protocol. Security is pretty much useless without a big enough distribution of nodes so that the rules of the game can't be modified.

If there's only two nodes running the system it doesn't matter if there's a quadrillion miners "securing" it, the rules can be changed at will which makes the whole system worthless.

[jonald_fyookball]

Capping the difficulty would screw the issuance schedule... this is non sense

For once we agree.

[GermanGiant]

Capping the difficulty would screw the issuance schedule... this is non sense

For once we agree.

For the wrong cause...

[ajareselde]

Capping the difficulty would screw the issuance schedule... this is non sense

For once we agree.

For the wrong cause...

they're right tho, you can't mess around with difficulty directly, it should be sort of sacred like the max amount of bitcoins.
Touch one of the pillars of bitcoin, and it will all come tumbling down.

cheers

[franky1]

the solution to it is not capping the difficulty or keeping the blocksize low..

if you really want to help decentralisation. its simple.. when a pool solves a block, it cant submit a new block for atleast 2 blocks.. thus giving the opportunity for other pools to solve.

that way for every 3 blocks there are 3 different pools that solved it. rather then just 1 solving all 3 blocks

[GermanGiant]

when a pool solves a block, it cant submit a new block for atleast 2 blocks..

This is not possible, because the pool will change its mining address to hide identity.

[rebuilder]

when a pool solves a block, it cant submit a new block for atleast 2 blocks..

This is not possible, because the pool will change its mining address to hide identity.

This. If you can solve the identity verification problem required to do what franky1 is proposing, you've also made Bitcoin obsolete.

[GermanGiant]

when a pool solves a block, it cant submit a new block for atleast 2 blocks..

This is not possible, because the pool will change its mining address to hide identity.

This. If you can solve the identity verification problem required to do what franky1 is proposing, you've also made Bitcoin obsolete.

Anonymity at its best.

[RoadTrain]

I think most miners are mining because they just want profit, so if we increase the difficulty greatly or make bitcoin price fall down, so those miners will get out from mining industry & bitcoin mining will become less centralized

Or quite the contrary - it will become more centralized. You know, the 'home miners' will be the first to get out, because they are the least cost-effective, and only large mining farms with bleeding-edge hardware and cheap electricity will stay...

[mallard]

If we capped the difficulty too low, wouldn't we end up with a lot more than 1 block every 10 minutes? I thought that's why the difficulty moved around.

[oblivi]

If the difficulty is capped you would basically limit the mining market and the development of it, it would be a regulation that stagnates free competition for mining. This alone could have disasterous consequences. Think about your proposition again and try later, because this one simply doesn't compute.

[odolvlobo]

No. If difficulty is capped, block reward needs to be adjusted accordingly, so that all bitcoins do not get mined faster. Lowering block reward in capping difficulty will de-incentivize big hash power, wich is resource hungry. So, mining will be back to small machines again, if we can take down the difficulty and lower the block reward.

Capping the difficulty does not affect hash power. The amount a miner earns is determined by their fraction of the total hash power. Big or small, a miner will still increase their earnings by increasing their hash power.

[RoadTrain]

If you cap the difficulty, you cap the security of the main chain, you cap the cost of a 51% attack.

[neoneros]

By capping you only hurt the system even more, the big miners have not just one machine churning on the blocks, but a vast array of miners all working, if the cap is installed all they have to do is make smaller clusters and gain even more control.

If you want to cap, you should make it a lottery as to which miner, regardless it's hashing power will get a reward, so there is no certain ROI for the big mining rigs, just the basement miners will be happy enough to set up a rig and maybe never get a reward but still contribute to a decentralised world of wonder! But the mathematics will probably prove me wrong there too, because chances for a big mining rig to win the reward will still be greater than the hobby miners..

[WhatTheGox]

I see, there are people saying that increasing block size will increase centralization. This is true. But, the heart of bitcoin, i.e. mining, is already centralized. And this is due to pool mining. I hear, miners will decide with their hash power that which BIP will win. But, this is practically pool owners are chosing, not an average miner. If you want to stop this centralization, break the pools. This requires capping the difficulty, not the blocksize.

But the higher the difficulty goes the more seure the networks becomes because of the technology rush. 

I think a big problem with bitcoin is the average joe cannot mine succesfully like before though.

[odolvlobo]

I think a big problem with bitcoin is the average joe cannot mine succesfully like before though.

That is a myth. The "average joe" has never been able to make a decent (if any) profit from mining. Even when CPU mining dominated, people generally mined at a loss.

[killerjoegreece]

wont the diff have to be capped at a very low number to do that?

[GermanGiant]

I think a big problem with bitcoin is the average joe cannot mine succesfully like before though.

That is a myth. The "average joe" has never been able to make a decent (if any) profit from mining. Even when CPU mining dominated, people generally mined at a loss.

How come CPU mining be unprofitable for those who mined then and sold later ?

[odolvlobo]

I think a big problem with bitcoin is the average joe cannot mine succesfully like before though.

That is a myth. The "average joe" has never been able to make a decent (if any) profit from mining. Even when CPU mining dominated, people generally mined at a loss.

How come CPU mining be unprofitable for those who mined then and sold later ?

Before bitcoins had value, miners spent money mining worthless bitcoins. Once bitcoins had value, the value of the mined bitcoins were still less than the cost to mine them.

Holding bitcoins has been very profitable for some people, including the miners that mined at a loss.