[ANN] Bitcoin PoW Upgrade Initiative

[nemgun]

merely preparing and testing is a form of pre-emption because it is enough to scare the hell out of miners so they do not attack in the first place.

Or they prepare counter-measures to whatever is (publicly) tested, because they are too belligerent to back down, tail between legs. I seriously doubt your scenario.

We already see Jihan opening up and looking for a compromise by the mere mention of a PoW change.

Or buying time.


I pretty sure you don't get it.

Bitmain et al don't care about their infrastructure, or negotiating, I'm convinced you've never dealt with sufficiently pathological characters to understand this.

Forget their words, or rhetorical actions, and look strictly at what their primary mode of behaviour adds up to. They will do or say anything in order to get what they want; the destruction of this currency and it's economy.


Decisive, strike-first and belligerent evasive action is probably the only thing that can save the value in the Bitcoin network as it is today, and if you can't see that, and some surprise move that nobody (except apparently me) anticipated sends things into even more of a tailspin, then you and everyone else who are saying "let's talk and pro-crastinate on our options for another 9 months" will get everything you deserve.

To put it another way, imagine that those directing Bitmain's actions have a planned killer blow to land. Do you think they're going to announce it 6 months in advance on a public forum? We must act, we're being forced into an "eat or be eaten" situation, and you can't see it.

Do you really believe that they can produce a Equihash, Keccak, or ETHhath asic in 6 months?

We should also be prepared with a secret backup HF algo tested and ready to go in the event they do indeed decide to attack with a secret ASIC, this should alleviate your concerns. If your concern is that they will fund gpu farms to attack , than we should be pushing for a Equihash and /or Ethhash merge mine option to protect ourselves.

Talking about merged mining, what would happen to the other coins who have merged mining with bitcoin ? and counter party assets ?

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[BitUsher]

Talking about merged mining, what would happen to the other coins who have merged mining with bitcoin ? and counter party assets ?

Their security would increase with ours and they would contribute more to bitcoin testing and development

We saw this happen when Dogecoin started merge mining with litecoin.

[Mashuri]

Carlton is on the right track. If we're going to do the "nuclear option" (change POW), then we must assume the worst. Assume the adversary has ulterior motives, like to destroy bitcoin. Assume the adversary is extremely well funded, like from a large government. Assume the adversary has anticipated POW changes and has CPU/GPU/FPGA farms along with massive botnets standing by. It is not unreasonable to assume our current adversaries have this level of resources at their disposal. Given these assumptions, perhaps there should be some "fallback" contingency plans in case a POW change proves ineffective. Would allowing only trusted mining pools be an acceptable level of existence, at least until a better trustless system can be developed?

[Lernerz]

Whats about "SpreadX11" from SpreadCoin?

[muyuu]

Why are these new sockpuppets posting here directly? Have they removed the post count prevention mechanism?

[Carlton Banks]

Do you really believe that they can produce a Equihash, Keccak, or ETHhath asic in 6 months?

Do you really believe that alternative attacks won't get used by an exasperated opponent?


Imagine a group of "concerned nation states" collaborate on issuing an international arrest warrant for the Bitcoin devs for "conspiracy to launder money", or "conspiracy to fund terrorist organisations"? How long do you think that would take to draw up, in the event, 6 months?

What are you going to say if that happens? "No-onnnnnnne could possssssssibly have predicted that!" Again, except me, apparently.


This ceased to be a computing problem a long time ago, we wouldn't be in this situation if solving computing problems was all we needed to overcome this situation. The $ 5 wrench is poised to get cracked over Bitcoin's soft head, and the inability to take in this particular big picture could be the difference between a deft sidestep and the absolute end of the Bitcoin project.


If we sit on our hands taking the moral high ground, predators will predate. Are you understanding what I'm saying to you, or what?

[BitUsher]

If we sit on our hands taking the moral high ground, predators will predate. Are you understanding what I'm saying to you, or what?

Im merely suggesting that your concerns are valid and we should also prepare a secret second backup PoW change if they attack again. There is a great suggestion to protect devs here by forcing  pseudonymous BIP submissions :
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-March/013735.html

We should assume the worse and prepare for it , I just don't agree with you practically that doing so preemptively will lead to better security , in fact I believe it will lead to far less security because few will follow such a HF

[muyuu]

Doing it pre-emptively without getting at least the exchanges on our side, will make us the altcoin in the market.

PoW change needs to be ready but I think activation needs to only happen if/when they get near to a hashrate that allows for a HF. This can be done relatively safely.

Obviously we could discuss the phasing out of this PoW in favour of another one in a situation of calm, maybe with a progressive transition period to allow for miners to adapt. But that's a different situation.

[Carlton Banks]

We should assume the worse and prepare for it , I just don't agree with you practically that doing so preemptively will lead to better security , in fact I believe it will lead to far less security because few will follow such a HF

Did you hear Bitmain's recent announcement about a mining facility that will push their hashrate share up to 80%? Possibly hyperbole, and I'm fully aware too of the temporary nature of hashrate shares, but the status quo is looking decidedly less secure also.


I suspect the remaining well intentioned miners will either accept the BU gruel, and/or accept the inevitable necessity of pre-emptive action. What makes you think Bitmain would honour the 3 difficulty adjustment periods that BU needs to activate it's fork? They've been so incredibly honorable and straight up to now, huh?

[Mashuri]

We should assume the worse and prepare for it , I just don't agree with you practically that doing so preemptively will lead to better security , in fact I believe it will lead to far less security because few will follow such a HF

Did you hear Bitmain's recent announcement about a mining facility that will push their hashrate share up to 80%? Possibly hyperbole, and I'm fully aware too of the temporary nature of hashrate shares, but the status quo is looking decidedly less secure also.


I suspect the remaining well intentioned miners will either accept the BU gruel, and/or accept the inevitable necessity of pre-emptive action. What makes you think Bitmain would honour the 3 difficulty adjustment periods that BU needs to activate it's fork? They've been so incredibly honorable and straight up to now, huh?

BitUsher has a point. A preemptive fork simply won't get enough support. Best to develop contingency plans in secret.

[BitUsher]

We should assume the worse and prepare for it , I just don't agree with you practically that doing so preemptively will lead to better security , in fact I believe it will lead to far less security because few will follow such a HF

Did you hear Bitmain's recent announcement about a mining facility that will push their hashrate share up to 80%? Possibly hyperbole, and I'm fully aware too of the temporary nature of hashrate shares, but the status quo is looking decidedly less secure also.


I suspect the remaining well intentioned miners will either accept the BU gruel, and/or accept the inevitable necessity of pre-emptive action. What makes you think Bitmain would honour the 3 difficulty adjustment periods that BU needs to activate it's fork? They've been so incredibly honorable and straight up to now, huh?

I am assuming the worse, as I previously stated... but rather than react based upon emotion or have second thoughts towards  their intentions , I believe being defensive in this circumstance is far safer and will rally far more behind the HF than doing it preemptively. It is merely a matter of pragmatism with the best position forward.

[Carlton Banks]

I am being pragmatic

Bitmain could pre-emptively hardfork themselves during an unknown 24 hour timeframe, with 75% of the hashrate and a pathological desire to destroy Bitcoin, why do they need to even pretend to be cautious?


We'd have very little useful time available to turn that situation around, but I strongly suspect disenfranchised miners would be only too happy to support the PoW change, once it's potentially too late.

I fail to see how that argument could not convince all who percieve they will lose out in a PoW change situation to support pre-emptive action.

[Cryptorials]

I am being pragmatic

Bitmain could pre-emptively fork themselves during an unknown 24 hour timeframe, with 75% of the hashrate and a pathological desire to destroy Bitcoin, why do they need to even pretend to be cautious?

Its very unreasonable to assume that have a pathological desire to destroy Bitcoin.

[Carlton Banks]

It's profoundly unreasonable to pass off unbacked assertions as any form of reason


I've provided sound reasoning already, refute it.

[BitUsher]

I am being pragmatic

Bitmain could pre-emptively fork themselves during an unknown 24 hour timeframe, with 75% of the hashrate and a pathological desire to destroy Bitcoin, why do they need to even pretend to be cautious?


We'd have very little useful time available to turn that situation around, but I strongly suspect disenfranchised miners would be only too happy to support the PoW change, once it's potentially too late.

I fail to see how that argument could not convince all who percieve they will lose out in a PoW change situation to support pre-emptive action.

Why would it be too late after an attack to HF? A few txs get stolen or blocked?

 By my estimates 95% won't preemptively fork the PoW algo ... do you really think you can convince them all to preemptively HF?

[Mashuri]

I am being pragmatic

Bitmain could pre-emptively fork themselves during an unknown 24 hour timeframe, with 75% of the hashrate and a pathological desire to destroy Bitcoin, why do they need to even pretend to be cautious?

Its very unreasonable to assume that have a pathological desire to destroy Bitcoin.

Is it unreasonable to assume they have a very pragmatic incentive to destroy bitcoin, like state funding and influence?

EDIT: Grammar

[Cryptorials]

It's profoundly unreasonable to pass off unbacked assertions as any form of reason


I've provided sound reasoning already, refute it.

I would if I could find it, but from what I see you've taken some facts, made up a story around them, and then because your story fits the facts you say it must be true. But of course your story fits the fact, you used them to make it up.

I am being pragmatic

Bitmain could pre-emptively fork themselves during an unknown 24 hour timeframe, with 75% of the hashrate and a pathological desire to destroy Bitcoin, why do they need to even pretend to be cautious?

Its very unreasonable to assume that have a pathological desire to destroy Bitcoin.

Is it unreasonable to assume they have a very pragmatic incentive to destroy bitcoin, like state-funding and influence?

No, but its unreasonable to assume that because they have an incentive they must be doing it. You seem to have seen a possibility and jumped from it being possible (but quite unlikely) to saying it must be true.

We all have incentives to rob, murder and rape people all the time. We generally don't do it though, and to assume that people are doing that is not a good thing.

[Carlton Banks]

Why would it be too late after an attack to HF? A few txs get stolen or blocked?

For a similar reason you're giving not to pre-empt it: building support for the new idea. It's possible that too many people will be psychologically impacted by the success of the attack, and consequently do what you're suggesting is wrong with my approach (despite the fact I've made no emotional arguements at all): allow emotions to dictate their decision instead of reason.

If we engage people to support pre-emptive action, a determined mindset would replace a fatalistic reaction. It's about harnessing a positive psychological feedback loop instead of a negative psychological feedback loop.

By my estimates 95% won't preemptively fork the PoW algo ... do you really think you can convince them all to preemptively HF?

Including Bitmain's current hashrate %? Clearly not. A PoW fork only needs to get the support of the miners who don't want to be ruled by a malign majority, although I'm seeing an obvious problem; how to measure that. Setting a block height activation would invite counter measures. Not sure how it could be achieved.

[Carlton Banks]

We all have incentives to rob, murder and rape people all the time. We generally don't do it though, and to assume that people are doing that is not a good thing.

you're one of those people who think crime is as depicted on TV; crime occurs, victim is able to phone the police, and the police turn up just in time to catch the blundering criminal? Grown ups are talking

[Mashuri]

No, but its unreasonable to assume that because they have an incentive they must be doing it. You seem to have seen a possibility and jumped from it being possible (but quite unlikely) to saying it must be true.

We all have incentives to rob, murder and rape people all the time. We generally don't do it though, and to assume that people are doing that is not a good thing.

State involvement creates a strong enough incentive to override all others against (mining revenue, ethics, etc)

This is a reasonable assumption when planning a POW change, since the only reason to do so would be in response to a 51% attack. Why bother otherwise?