Bitcoin algorithm change

[ajareselde]

Would it be even remotely possible to force the change in sha256 bitcoin algorith to something else that asic and fpga devices couldnt compute?

We started off with a bitcoin that anyone could use and now were forced to buy stuff we dont really want.

I realise that there are some ppl that allready invested in asic and fpga, but ton off ppl are unsatisfied with this.

Do U think btc should move away from sha256 and let "normal" people the chance ?

[FreeMoney]

It's like a beautiful castle was built and everyone wants a job as a janitor.

You aren't forced to provide hashes to help secure the network, if you don't want to do it in the most efficient way, then do it at a loss or don't do it.

[Stephen Gornick]

Do U think btc should move away from sha256 and let "normal" people the chance ?

Why stop there?  Shouldn't we just change the block reward subsidy and stick with 50 BTC per block while we are at it?  

</snark>

Day 3: Anger and vitriol from GPU miners who are still "underwater" on their GPUs purchased in 2012.
Day 4: Anger and vitriol from FPGA miners who somehow didn't realize that "much more efficient" doesn't protect against a revenue drop of 50%

[Akka]

I personally think that's a really good thing.

It really is time that Bitcoin steps away from mining (print free money) thing to attract new users.

It's time that the Community grows because of the awesome possibility BTC provides. And I personally think, that ASICs and reward halving appearing at nearly the same time will force this development.

With this Bitcoiners will have to find ways to use BTC to make money and not just create them.

I really look forward to the next month to come.

[Foxpup]

Would it be even remotely possible to force the change in sha256 bitcoin algorith to something else that asic and fpga devices couldnt compute?

No. For one thing, ASICs and FPGAs can be constructed for any computable function, ie, anything a CPU can do, an ASIC can be constructed to do it more efficiently. It's just a question of whether it's worth the development cost.

We started off with a bitcoin that anyone could use attack and now were attackers are forced to buy stuff we they dont really want.

This is the second thing. The purpose of mining is not to allow "anyone" to create free money by burning spare CPU cycles all day. The purpose of mining is to secure the network from attack. Nothing more. One of the larget threats is posed by mining botnets, and such botnets will have access to a lot of powerful CPUs and some decent GPUs, but almost certainly no suitable FPGAs or ASICs. Litecoin and other "CPU-friendly" coins are ipso facto botnet-friendly, and there is a very real danger that an attacker with a reasonably sized botnet could pull off a 51% attack against Litecoin. On the other hand, by requiring specialised hardware to mine efficiently, Bitcoin also requires specialised hardware to attack efficiently, making it much more secure against attackers using conventional hardware.

[kangasbros]

Just start your own cryptocurrency, and stop talking about this. The point has been revisited over 9000 times, and everyone is tired hearing about it.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Would it be even remotely possible to force the change in sha256 bitcoin algorith to something else that asic and fpga devices couldnt compute?

No. Even if SHA256 was hacked I doubt bitcoiners would come to any consensus regarding a new algo.

[wabber]

We started off with a bitcoin that anyone could use and now were forced to buy stuff we dont really want.

Mining bitcoins doesn't equal using bitcoins. Anyone can still start using bitcoins in a few minutes. Download a lightweight client create your wallet and you are done.

[giszmo]

I seriously hope we will get to proof of stake with a virtually vanishing transaction fee. Mining does not serve the purpose to make some people rich. It *only* exists to secure our all money of the future and I would be very sad if we ever had to defend bitcoin against claims about it consuming 10% of all energy produced by humanity just because it turned into the dominant currency before block subsidies dropped enough or before we turned away from proof of energy wasted.

[sippsnapp]

Would it be even remotely possible to force the change in sha256 bitcoin algorith to something else that asic and fpga devices couldnt compute?

No. For one thing, ASICs and FPGAs can be constructed for any computable function, ie, anything a CPU can do, an ASIC can be constructed to do it more efficiently. It's just a question of whether it's worth the development cost.

We started off with a bitcoin that anyone could use attack and now were attackers are forced to buy stuff we they dont really want.

This is the second thing. The purpose of mining is not to allow "anyone" to create free money by burning spare CPU cycles all day. The purpose of mining is to secure the network from attack. Nothing more. One of the larget threats is posed by mining botnets, and such botnets will have access to a lot of powerful CPUs and some decent GPUs, but almost certainly no suitable FPGAs or ASICs. Litecoin and other "CPU-friendly" coins are ipso facto botnet-friendly, and there is a very real danger that an attacker with a reasonably sized botnet could pull off a 51% attack against Litecoin. On the other hand, by requiring specialised hardware to mine efficiently, Bitcoin also requires specialised hardware to attack efficiently, making it much more secure against attackers using conventional hardware.

It doesent change a bit on a 51% attack, now we dont need to fear botnets but people with decent pockets full of playmoney, just my thought.

What i find annoying is that its even possible to build specialized hardware that has such a difference in performance over the existing hardware. I like to compare that to the invention of automated mining equipment from mining with a shovel.

So this just leads to the thought it should have been a requirement right from the start to use specialized mining boards, this would have avoided botminers and a promt rise effectivity as now by asic vendors claimed. Am i wrong??

EDIT:
So my conclusion is, probably it was the wrong algo right from the start that allowed effective cpu/gpu mining.

[giszmo]

Ever bought some usb stick at the corner with some gimmick? Bitcoin mining could just be such a gimmick if production prices drop due to mass adoption, so for sure you will get cheap bitcoin mining equipment at every corner later next year if you don't change the protocol.

Changing the protocol in ever shorter intervals to stop that trend is totally pointless as with the current $ rates >=2 companies built ASICS with a 1 year time to develop for customers buying them for a ~1 year life span. Changing the protocol in 2 years intervals would stop these businesses. With $100/Ƀ this 2 years might be just 1 year. FPGA have much shorter development cycles and aren't in every home neither. Should we agree on a new algorithm every 3 months?

Also changing the protocol should happen at a schedule so it is no hurting any product currently being developed. Rendering the investment of the most passionate Bitcoin miners worthless is very crazy. Rendering the development costs of the most passionate Bitcoin mining gear producers worthless would be a very sad thing. Rendering the brands of mining companies worthless is a damage I would take to get to proof of stake.

I say let it happen.

[Gabi]

now were forced to buy stuff we dont really want

Uuhhhh the GPU/FPGA cockroaches wich cry because their investment is suddenly useless. "you" do not want, WE want asics

but ton off ppl are unsatisfied with this

No. The "ton of ppl" are the GPU/FPGA ppl who spent tons of money thinking "yay now i become super rich" and now are "i don't became super rich"

So no, bitcoin algorithm is FINE.

[Morblias]

Reading the OP the whole way down to the signature, where you advertise ASICs, gave me a good laugh.

Yes, I think you should make a change, to a different currency that fits your ideals better. Bitcoin fits mine perfectly and I like it just the way it is. That's why I'm here.

If you really want people to think your currency is a joke, let them spend large amounts of money developing specialized hardware for it, then change it so their work is pointless.

Exactly. If you don't like ASICs, switch to a different crypto currency and see how shitty they are compared to bitcoin.

[sippsnapp]

Reading the OP the whole way down to the signature, where you advertise ASICs, gave me a good laugh.

Yes, I think you should make a change, to a different currency that fits your ideals better. Bitcoin fits mine perfectly and I like it just the way it is. That's why I'm here.

If you really want people to think your currency is a joke, let them spend large amounts of money developing specialized hardware for it, then change it so their work is pointless.

Exactly. If you don't like ASICs, switch to a different crypto currency and see how shitty they are compared to bitcoin.

Beside the current state that bitcoin is the market leader in crypto currencies - if not the basis for crypto currencies ,the cards are shuffled again.

As mentioned in my previous post, my guess the currency has had to be build with an algo optimized for fpga/asic devices or smilar without possible drastical changes in hashpower and energy consumption.
If this was a real mistake i wonder what else might be missed out.

What i wonder right now is, the currently developed cpu/s and gpu/s seem to have a complete different structure than the mining devices required for bitcoin, these cpu`s /gpu`s are widely used and have a purpose, now there is a lot of "energy" invested to create entirely different cpu`s for bitcoin asics, but for what else beside bitcoin can these devices get used. Lets say bitcoin disappears or gets replaced by another algo, for what could these asic devices get used?

If there would be no usage beside bitcoin for these devices, i would consider this another point to think about.

[Boussac]

EDIT:
So my conclusion is, probably it was the wrong algo right from the start that allowed effective cpu/gpu mining.

Why don't you join the litecoin project then (if its still alive) ?
It's a dead end but it makes more sense for you than to hope for the change you are suggesting.
Since we know BIPs (Bitcoin Improvement Proposals), maybe it's time to start reviewing BDP (Bitcoin Deterioration Proposals).

[John (John K.)]

I think the voting results sums the situation up pretty fine.

yes    7 (10.4%)
no    53 (79.1%)
i dont care    7 (10.4%)
Total Voters: 67

[nayrB16]

I only voted yes, because I hope down the road they will use a higher bit hash algorithm such as SHA 512 or if one comes along 1024. Not to undermine ASICS and FPGA's, or upset the decentralized balance of mining but to increase the key space for private keys and bitcoin addresses to make it even harder to brute force someones address, because 40 quadrillion years is to damn short!

[giszmo]

I only voted yes, because I hope down the road they will use a higher bit hash algorithm such as SHA 512 or if one comes along 1024. Not to undermine ASICS and FPGA's, or upset the decentralized balance of mining but to increase the key space for private keys and bitcoin addresses to make it even harder to brute force someones address, because 40 quadrillion years is to damn short!

)

sure, and I hope SHA256 will turn obsolete in a way that rig producers can produce future-save rigs, so fast hardware doesn't turn obsolete at some random we-switch-the-algorithm-day. Maybe SHA512 will also co-exist for a year or so. Why not.

[bittenbob]

Or sign up for an account at Walletbit (www.walletbit.com) and you have a wallet instantly. No downloads or special software needed - just a browser. WalletBit solves the problem of the bloated block chain for new users.

We started off with a bitcoin that anyone could use and now were forced to buy stuff we dont really want.

Mining bitcoins doesn't equal using bitcoins. Anyone can still start using bitcoins in a few minutes. Download a lightweight client create your wallet and you are done.

[JoelKatz]

Would it be even remotely possible to force the change in sha256 bitcoin algorith to something else that asic and fpga devices couldnt compute?

No. For one thing, ASICs and FPGAs can be constructed for any computable function

He didn't say it would have to be something a CPU could do, did he? He just said something an ASIC or FPGA couldn't do. For example, an algorithm that required 1TB of memory could not be computed by a CPU, ASIC, or FPGA. (Without additional hardware that would determine the performance and be the same for all three implementations.)

ie, anything a CPU can do, an ASIC can be constructed to do it more efficiently.

That's not true either. As a silly counter example, consider this algorithm: "Given a sequence of x86 assembly instructions, run them until they return, and tell me what's in the registers". You really think you can make an ASIC that's faster at that task?

It's just a question of whether it's worth the development cost.

Exactly. What matters is not theoretical but practical. Whether it is worth the development cost depends primarily on how big an advantage the ASIC would have over a CPU. If the algorithm were constructed such that CPUs were already nearly-optimal (for example, if it required lots of branches and lots of memory), there would be no cost justification for developing an ASIC. Instead, miners would just use lots of CPUs.

I think if we had it to do over, we'd pick a mining algorithm that requires lots of memory and lots of branches. But I don't think it's at all possible to change things now.