Chinese miners rejecting transactions from the US?

[BitcoinHodler]

this is never going to happen i don't care what anybody else says but it is not possible because people all over the world are going to be screwed if  mining pools start doing that because you have no way of knowing where transactions originate from. i may send a tx from my country but the first node that sends it to the miner may be an american and so on.

[ivanst776]

I don't think that the chinese miners can identify that a transaction is from US, if yes how can they do it?

As far as I know when a transaction is being made its IP is not public (at least most of the time).

With Trump as president I don't think that he will make restriction or affect the bitcoin industry.

[Carlsen]

A chinese miner is not the chinese government.
I think a chinese miner will still do what's best for his income, and that would be to mine new blocks, no matter where the transactions stored in it originates.
If the chinese government would really want to make some kind of payback against import restrictions from the US under trump, I think they would have way bigger opportunities than to intervene into bitcoin.
Imagine Trumps face when he reads that China wants to ban bitcoin transactions originating in US. Maybe he would even ask "What's a bitcoin??".

[deisik]

Can we stop arguing about something that never happened before and - as I see it - has very slim chance of happening.
Because this thread become another battlefield for people who think that China controls bitcoin and why it is bad for everyone else.

I wan't to know:

1. Is it possible to reject only US transactions?

That's what I want to find out myself. Personally, I'm inclined to think that many such transactions are coming from publicly available services like web wallets, exchanges, mixers and similar services, therefore it shouldn't be very difficult to spot and reject (postpone) a lot of such transactions since their wallet addresses are pretty well known (and miners should know these addresses better than anyone else)...

The lower level is ip addresses, but I'm not sure if they can be of great help since they can be spoofed (or how this process is correctly called)

2. Why Chinese miners would want to risk it? After general public would learn that they done something like that it a huge shitstorm would start, effectively destroying Bitcoin price

The miners themselves won't quite like this idea obviously, but they might not have choice

[clickerz]

I don't think that the chinese miners can identify that a transaction is from US, if yes how can they do it?

As far as I know when a transaction is being made its IP is not public (at least most of the time).

With Trump as president I don't think that he will make restriction or affect the bitcoin industry.

It also bothers me, how can they know it is originating from US. Can they really reject transactions? Though this is more on technical issue and i am not an expert on this, I leave this to those who are knowledagle enough to explain.

[DimensionZ]

I understand the basic know-how of Bitcoin and I can't figure out how the Chinese miners would distinguish between incoming transactions from the USA and other countries for example. Could someone explain to me in layman's terms how this scenario would pan out? Like the Chinese pools are going to be checking the IP addresses or what?

[deisik]

Are you intending that the Chinese miners already have control of more than 51% of the Bitcoin hashing power? If they already have so much of the mining power in hand what's already stopping them from creating their own fork of Bitcoin blockchain, mining that and reversing transactions on the blockchain? They could also then currently have the power to prevent confirmations of transactions. I honestly don't think that's possible unless all the chinese miners come to a consensus of doing so and that they have about 51% of the hash power with them

Yes, it is almost certain that the Chinese miners already have more than 51% of the Bitcoin hashing power. Even if they didn't thanks to some miracle, the Chinese government could readily help them get there. On the other hand, neither Chinese miners nor Chinese powers are dumb to kill Bitcoin if they could continue to use it for their own aims and ends. And the miners may not have to come to a consensus since it is not up to them decide. No one should be delusional about it. The miners in China will do whatever they are told by the authorities. But then again, the Chinese authorities are not fools, and they may not necessarily want to get rid of Bitcoin...

If they can outright use it as a weapon. Or argument, if you please

Also would be nice to know what's a way to counter this type of an attack?

I'm also interested in hearing viable ways of getting out such a pickle if it should happen. Making a hard fork doesn't quite look as a real workaround, at least so far

[ivanst776]

I don't think that the chinese miners can identify that a transaction is from US, if yes how can they do it?

As far as I know when a transaction is being made its IP is not public (at least most of the time).

With Trump as president I don't think that he will make restriction or affect the bitcoin industry.

It also bothers me, how can they know it is originating from US. Can they really reject transactions? Though this is more on technical issue and i am not an expert on this, I leave this to those who are knowledagle enough to explain.

There is always a way to hide your real IP even when making bitcoin transaction (it the IP is stored anywhere which I doubt)

For example I can use web wallets like coinbase or xapo and they do not store my IP when making a transaction and making this IP public.

I'm not aware about the hardware wallets how the IP is stored and how will it be shown on blockchain.info which I saw a map showing where the transaction is from.

[BTCLovingDude]

I don't think that the chinese miners can identify that a transaction is from US, if yes how can they do it?

As far as I know when a transaction is being made its IP is not public (at least most of the time).

With Trump as president I don't think that he will make restriction or affect the bitcoin industry.

It also bothers me, how can they know it is originating from US. Can they really reject transactions? Though this is more on technical issue and i am not an expert on this, I leave this to those who are knowledagle enough to explain.

There is always a way to hide your real IP even when making bitcoin transaction (it the IP is stored anywhere which I doubt)

For example I can use web wallets like coinbase or xapo and they do not store my IP when making a transaction and making this IP public.

even if you use a bitcoin full node the miners still have no way of knowing your IP because first of all your IP is not stored with the transaction and second of all you are not connecting to the miner to push the tx to them directly you instead connect to peers (other nodes) and after seconds everyone are broadcasting the same tx (memepool) and there would be no IP

[deisik]

The entire topic is based on the predication that those contributing the offending hashrate:

a) are not only all residing in the same borders, but also colluding
b) would willingly act as a hive mind and follow instructions from their government
c) are willing to accept the consequences of an attack which could put their financial future in jeopardy

Many would view this as unlikely, to put it mildly.  Even one of those conditions would be a bit of a stretch, but all three?  Take off the tinfoil hat, please

The first entry in your list of terms is entirely your invention, not my idea. China in its geographical borders, mainland and Hong-Kong, has enough hashing power by itself. The second and third entries in the list implicitly assume that the Chinese miners might have choice or influence. I don't think that China is like North Korea, but I don't think either that they won't do what the authorities tell them to do if they don't want to be penalized or made into criminals. All what is required is to pass just one law regulating Bitcoin payments in China. Given the level of Trump's hostility toward China, you can rest assured that such a law won't take long to get accepted should such a need arise. Mining is not like your online business which is not particularly limited by borders or jurisdictions, it has physical presence, and that you can't possibly deny...

Besides that, the Chinese mining pools may in fact be already operating under government control or even directly created by them

[DimensionZ]

This topic is bordering on science fiction  How can the Chinese miners and pools filter out USA traffic and deny foreign transactions? Is this even possible to segregate an entire country or continent from the Blockchain?

[franky1]

This topic is bordering on science fiction  How can the Chinese miners and pools filter out USA traffic and deny foreign transactions? Is this even possible to segregate an entire country or continent from the Blockchain?

its not possible
once a transaction relays to another node, and then another its not possible to then know the origin of the tx.. so a pool cannot decide to accpt or deny based on geographic origin.

the op lacks research and understanding and is just trying to sell his racial mindset. not any real technical details

[calkob]

I've been telling people around the forum for many months already that the Chinese miners have over 90% of hashing power under their control, but most people were refusing to accept this truth. Given the nature of the political regime in Beijing, Chinese miners controlling Bitcoin mining basically means that it is the Chinese authorities which are essentially controlling it. Now that Donald Trump, the president-elect of the US, is going to impose hefty tariffs on the Chinese exports, what could the Chinese government retaliate with, for example, through exerting their control over Chinese miners? What immediately comes to mind is the rejection of all or most Bitcoin transactions that stem from the US...

So how likely is this, and what are the remedies, if any?

You really do put a lot of faith in the idea that Bitcoin would even play a role in current world politics,    get your head out of the bitcoin world man, its really not that important yet, its only an $11billion market cap, if the Chinese destroyed it tomorrow which is a load of crap anyway (why would they do that) the american government wouldn't bat an eyelid and most Americans would prob say, "whats bitcoin"  if they even heard about it on the news.......   lol

[talkbitcoin]

again with the Chinese?
i swear to god everyday it seems like there is a new thing around here that concerns Chinese, and each time it is worse than the last. particularly this time with all the false information about how bitcoin works

this always raises the question that why nobody cared when one mining pool ~3 years ago in USA had 60+% of the hashrate. those days nobody said USA is controlling bitcoin or USA is going to ban all the IPs which is really dump by the way!

[uneng]

I've been telling people around the forum for many months already that the Chinese miners have over 90% of hashing power under their control, but most people were refusing to accept this truth. Given the nature of the political regime in Beijing, Chinese miners controlling Bitcoin mining basically means that it is the Chinese authorities which are essentially controlling it. Now that Donald Trump, the president-elect of the US, is going to impose hefty tariffs on the Chinese exports, what could the Chinese government retaliate with, for example, through exerting their control over Chinese miners? What immediately comes to mind is the rejection of all or most Bitcoin transactions that stem from the US...

So how likely is this, and what are the remedies, if any?

Is it really happen?
But the miners don't have to follow what their government wants. Bitcoin is a descentralized currency, it wasn't make to follow the government rules and desires. If it's really happen, there isn't much to do, as they have much power in their hands to mine bitcoins.
I just think Trump shouldn't retreat to please the chineses. And if the "trump" of chineses is the cheap electricity because their nuclear power plants, the another countries should stop them!

[deisik]

You really do put a lot of faith in the idea that Bitcoin would even play a role in current world politics,    get your head out of the bitcoin world man, its really not that important yet, its only an $11billion market cap, if the Chinese destroyed it tomorrow which is a load of crap anyway (why would they do that) the american government wouldn't bat an eyelid and most Americans would prob say, "whats bitcoin"  if they even heard about it on the news.......   lol

I sincerely hope that Bitcoin won't become a tool in the international politics. I myself reiterated it a few times that Bitcoin is negligible at worst and marginal at best, at least, for the present, but this alone still doesn't exclude the possibility of China manipulating Bitcoin this way or another. We already heard rumors about the Chinese authorities going to set up capital flow barriers preventing Bitcoin from leaving China. These rumors seem to have not been confirmed, but why would they even care if Bitcoin is thus insignificant? If transactions cannot be traced to the country of origin by any means possible (which I doubt), then it's fine, and we can safely forget about the Chinese miners discriminately raising fees as part of the future tariff wars...

But as I understand the matter, it is still possible to distinguish transactions by the wallet address of the source, right?

the op lacks research and understanding and is just trying to sell his racial mindset. not any real technical details

I ask you to refrain from making personal attacks in the future lest you get banned. I said nothing which could be construed as what you call a "racial mindset", let alone "selling" it. You may want to leave this thread

[franky1]

you singled out the chinese.. rather than any particular pool.
you have no shown proof that a nation has done this. or a particular pool that might have done this.

if you however mentioned a pool by name, rather then talking about a nation. then you would sound more rational in your theories

[OnkelPaul]

I won't go into personal attacks as I don't think that is helpful, but perhaps you can see that the wording of this topic can cause aggressive reactions easily.
The topic "Chinese miners rejecting transactions originating in the US" is worded as a factual statement when your post actually just raises a concern that *if* chinese miners started rejecting such transactions *then* american bitcoin users might be experiencing difficulties.
The reactions might have been much milder had you written the topic as a question, something along the lines of "Could chinese miners cause trouble by rejecting transactions originating in the US?".

Apart from the topic, it is actually not really clear what percentage of the global hashing power is controlled by chinese miners, and which of those could possibly be coerced by the chinese government to refuse to mine such transactions (if they can reliably be identified as originating from the U.S.A. at all). Pools might not get away with such a change - as a pool miner, you can switch pools relatively quickly if you don't like their behavior, making the pool irrelevant in a short time. Operators of actual mining hardware within China would be more susceptible to such a coercion, but even though they control quite some mining power, they would most likely only cause some delays in transaction processing.

So unless we have hard evidence that a significant percentage of miners implement policies that discriminate against some group of bitcoin users, I would file this concern under "What If?". There are probably a dozen "What If" posts each week on BCT, and it just does not make sense to act on them. One should probably look at the more realistic scenarios and think about possible workarounds, but worrying about the rather unlikely cases won't help much.

Onkel Paul

[CyberKuro]

You really do put a lot of faith in the idea that Bitcoin would even play a role in current world politics,    get your head out of the bitcoin world man, its really not that important yet, its only an $11billion market cap, if the Chinese destroyed it tomorrow which is a load of crap anyway (why would they do that) the american government wouldn't bat an eyelid and most Americans would prob say, "whats bitcoin"  if they even heard about it on the news.......   lol

I sincerely hope that Bitcoin won't become a tool in the international politics. I myself reiterated it a few times that Bitcoin is negligible at worst and marginal at best, at least, for the present, but this alone still doesn't exclude the possibility of China manipulating Bitcoin this way or another. We already heard rumors about the Chinese authorities going to set up capital flow barriers preventing Bitcoin from leaving China. These rumors seem to have not been confirmed, but why would they even care if Bitcoin is thus insignificant? If transactions cannot be traced to the country of origin by any means possible (which I doubt), then it's fine, and we can safely forget about the Chinese miners discriminately raising fees as part of the future tariff wars...

But as I understand the matter, it is still possible to distinguish transactions by the wallet address of the source, right?

Yeah, we hope so. Bitcoin should not be involved in current world politics within US and China which could affect bitcoin stability and price fall down. I don't think it's a good move and doubt China government would do such thing to ban US bitcoin transaction. Nothing to do about it that could damage to US as they see it just digital currency not their dollar. Just hope those problems not happen in anyway and any time.

[krishna1]

its looks like a little cold war era is producing under chaina and us. they both are not like swran enemys but nither are good friends. all we can yes is they do control the most portion of bitcoin mining we already have the proof