Deleted

[kingcolex]

.

[jonald_fyookball]

Apparently the Bitcoin subreddits are talking about this as a huge focus and it isn't being brought up here. Rumor has it that Bitmain has threatened a 51% attack if the BU fork happens, this has now started for a push for a new algorithm debate.I haven't found all the information​ but this seems like it could be the worst outcome, split coin and changed algorithm could only devalue Bitcoin more and more.

Pretty sure this is FUD.

I doubt miners would waste their resources on such a convoluted scheme (attack a chain and then turn around and mine on the opposite chain), especially since they need all the resources they can get to show strong hashpower majority on the new chain. 




 
 

[yhlsqj]

Apparently the Bitcoin subreddits are talking about this as a huge focus and it isn't being brought up here. Rumor has it that Bitmain has threatened a 51% attack if the BU fork happens, this has now started for a push for a new algorithm debate.I haven't found all the information​ but this seems like it could be the worst outcome, split coin and changed algorithm could only devalue Bitcoin more and more.

Pretty sure this is FUD.

I doubt miners would waste their resources on such a convoluted scheme (attack a chain and then turn around and mine on the opposite chain), especially since they need all the resources they can get to show strong hashpower majority on the new chain. 
 

Yeah, 51% attacking costs much energy, power and time, it is not worth to try this non-sense on impair bitcoin. Future fork will be a long fight, not easy to make the consensus on SW or BU.

[RoommateAgreement]

well if BU or any other different thing forks with a small portion of the hashrate and separates itself from the network that way, yes that 51% is something to worry about and they would deserve to be under attack if they do that.

but if it forks with majority, which is what i understand the aim is, there will be no 51% attack because the remaining hashrate that is not accepting BU or any other proposal is not going to be big enough.

[Carlton Banks]

Too simplistic gentlemen


And it's being discussed here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833391.0


I am strongly in favour of switching the PoW hashing algorithm to Keccak, CuckooCycle, Equihash, or whatever has the best balance of proven hash algorithm & difficulty  to develop an ASIC. And I think it should be done before any BU hardfork, any miners unhappy with that should've thought realistically that this day would come.


ASICs begone. The CPU mining revolution will be beautiful, Satoshi warned against the development of sole-purpose SHA256 hashing ASIC processors, and today we can see why.



All Bitcoiners will mine BTC with their regular PC again. Let's do it.

[hv_]

Too simplistic gentlemen


And it's being discussed here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833391.0


I am strongly in favour of switching the PoW hashing algorithm to Keccak, CuckooCache, Equihash, or whatever has the best balance of proven hash algorithm & difficulty  to develop an ASIC. And I think it should be done before any BU hardfork, any miners unhappy with that should've thought realistically that this day would come.


ASICs begone. The CPU mining revolution will be beautiful, Satoshi warned against the development of sole-purpose SHA256 hashing ASIC processors, and today we can see why.



All Bitcoiners will mine BTC with their regular PC again. Let's do it.

It will be CBANKS altcoin - just do it mate and post in the alt section!

[Amph]

Apparently the Bitcoin subreddits are talking about this as a huge focus and it isn't being brought up here. Rumor has it that Bitmain has threatened a 51% attack if the BU fork happens, this has now started for a push for a new algorithm debate.I haven't found all the information​ but this seems like it could be the worst outcome, split coin and changed algorithm could only devalue Bitcoin more and more.

Pretty sure this is FUD.

I doubt miners would waste their resources on such a convoluted scheme (attack a chain and then turn around and mine on the opposite chain), especially since they need all the resources they can get to show strong hashpower majority on the new chain.  




 
 

it does kinda make sense if a faork could cause the value to die very quickly, and miners want to preserve their profit, if they can't they will do their last move

while i agree that this is the usaul FUD, it might hold some true in it

Too simplistic gentlemen


And it's being discussed here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833391.0


I am strongly in favour of switching the PoW hashing algorithm to Keccak, CuckooCycle, Equihash, or whatever has the best balance of proven hash algorithm & difficulty  to develop an ASIC. And I think it should be done before any BU hardfork, any miners unhappy with that should've thought realistically that this day would come.


ASICs begone. The CPU mining revolution will be beautiful, Satoshi warned against the development of sole-purpose SHA256 hashing ASIC processors, and today we can see why.



All Bitcoiners will mine BTC with their regular PC again. Let's do it.

that's awful, pc bot net would simply ruin the minign experience more than any asic, with random dude running aws instances and mining everything

better to do it gpu only not cpu, but this is like saying fuck off to million of dollars invested in mining by chinese, i don't think they will ever agree

[AngryDwarf]

but this is like saying fuck off to million of dollars invested in mining by chinese, i don't think they will ever agree

And segwit supporting BitFury won't be too happy either.

[Carlton Banks]

but this is like saying fuck off to million of dollars invested in mining by chinese, i don't think they will ever agree

And segwit supporting BitFury won't be too happy either.

It makes no difference, the ASIC miners should have seen this coming.

If they don't do what the majority of users want, and choose a foolish hard fork instead, then that's just a risk of the business they're in. I won't be crying for them, the miners have behaved like a cartel.

And if Bitfury really wanted to be responsible to the Bitcoin network, they could have sold chips or miners to the public, which they only ever did with their early 55nm mining ASIC chips. They have themselves to blame, their strategy could have been much better.

[pooya87]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833391.0

what the hell is up with this new fascination to "change bitcoin"?!!!

ever since this stupid block size debate has started, i keep seeing everyone trying to add lots of changes to bitcoin and change what has been working so far and is still working perfectly and will continue to work!
started with classic which was shitloads of change and then xt and then BU and segwit!
and now this!!!

if you are so unhappy then start a new altcoin and apply the changes, whatever they are in that altcoin and leave bitcoin alone.
this is what litecoin and half the rest of them did and are still doing.

[Carlton Banks]

if you are so unhappy then start a new altcoin and apply the changes, whatever they are in that altcoin and leave bitcoin alone.

You could make the argument that's exactly what's happening.


But what difference does the name of the currency make if Bitcoin Core devs accept that changing the PoW is the only way to get rid of miners behaving badly? Who will patch Bitcoin Core when Bitcoin "Respawn" is the only codebase with active developers?


Don't forget: the return of CPU mining would be a healthy return to a fully decentralised Bitcoin network.

[AngryDwarf]

but this is like saying fuck off to million of dollars invested in mining by chinese, i don't think they will ever agree

And segwit supporting BitFury won't be too happy either.

It makes no difference, the ASIC miners should have seen this coming.

If they don't do what the majority of users want, and choose a foolish hard fork instead, then that's just a risk of the business they're in. I won't be crying for them, the miners have behaved like a cartel.

And if Bitfury really wanted to be responsible to the Bitcoin network, they could have sold chips or miners to the public, which they only ever did with their early 55nm mining ASIC chips. They have themselves to blame, their strategy could have been much better.

The only thing a POW change will achieve is a temporary reset to a level playing field.
People start building their own mining farms.
Normal users will have little chance of solving a block on their own, so they join a mining pool.
The economics of low electricity cost and real estate space gives some farms an advantage.
It becomes economically viable to design a specialised computer to be more efficient at the task at hand.
A new mining oligarchy forms as a result.

[Carlton Banks]

The only thing a POW change will achieve is a temporary reset to a level playing field.

That's right, but with how well known Bitcoin is known now compared to 2009, a temporary period of decentralised mining will exist.


Could that last long enough before 3D printing of ASIC chips is possible? Maybe not, but I doubt it would take one more PoW change until we got to that point, and then the game changes completely.


To paraphrase:

"The tree of decentralised cryptocurrency must occasionally be watered with the blood of ASIC mining tyrants"

[AngryDwarf]

That's right, but with how well known Bitcoin is known now compared to 2009, a temporary period of decentralised mining will exist.

Early bitcoin usage was a small user base oligarchy.

Could that last long enough before 3D printing of ASIC chips is possible? Maybe not, but I doubt it would take one more PoW change until we got to that point, and then the game changes completely.

Difficulty will increase, and people will still point their miners at mining pools.

To paraphrase:

"The tree of decentralised cryptocurrency must occasionally be watered with the blood of ASIC mining tyrants"

Perhaps you should consider another proof-of-whatever consensus, as spilling the blood of block builders who confirm your transactions in the ledger because you can't force an unwanted software change on them is like cutting your nose off to spite your face. Or perhaps consider making changes to the software design that they are happy to accept. One mans tyrant is another mans protector of freedom.

[kiklo]

The only thing a POW change will achieve is a temporary reset to a level playing field.

That's right, but with how well known Bitcoin is known now compared to 2009, a temporary period of decentralised mining will exist.


Could that last long enough before 3D printing of ASIC chips is possible? Maybe not, but I doubt it would take one more PoW change until we got to that point, and then the game changes completely.


To paraphrase:

"The tree of decentralised cryptocurrency must occasionally be watered with the blood of ASIC mining tyrants"

Thomas Jefferson just rolled over in his grave.

Fact is the Miners will not agree with segwit because it is designed to bankrupt them by moving almost all transactions offline.
This will bankrupt the miners and put them out of business.

This new PoW proposal, at least is admitting their goal is to put the ASICS guys out of work.
You can bet any hard fork with a new PoW is going to have Segwit already activated so LN can be used immediately.
(Funny Core is not afraid of this Hard Fork.)  

Blockstream/segwit/LN supporters are dirty as can be, but at least they are consistently dirty.  

Funny thing is , you also are putting the less than 30% mining pools that supported segwit out of business.
They have no choice now but to join BTU, or be discarded with the other asics miners by your new PoW Algo.

Nice.



 

FYI:
CB , you just done a better job at convincing the ASICS miners to Join BTU than anyone before you.  

[Carlton Banks]

That's right, but with how well known Bitcoin is known now compared to 2009, a temporary period of decentralised mining will exist.

Early bitcoin usage was a small user base oligarchy.

That's my point, it won't be now, as millions of Bitcoin users would mine instead of only Satoshi, Hal and Ray Dillinger (as it was in 2009).

Difficulty will increase, and people will still point their miners at mining pools.

And mining was still less centralised when pools first came about than it is today. Besides, using tree-chains instead of linear chains could solve that problem, either for a p2pool share-chain or for the actual blockchain itself. This is about cutting out the cancer, not the full course of chemo, which comes later.

One mans tyrant is another mans protector of freedom.

The current miners are only protecting themselves.

Out. They will be gone.

[dinofelis]

Too simplistic gentlemen


And it's being discussed here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833391.0


I am strongly in favour of switching the PoW hashing algorithm to Keccak, CuckooCycle, Equihash, or whatever has the best balance of proven hash algorithm & difficulty  to develop an ASIC. And I think it should be done before any BU hardfork, any miners unhappy with that should've thought realistically that this day would come.


ASICs begone. The CPU mining revolution will be beautiful, Satoshi warned against the development of sole-purpose SHA256 hashing ASIC processors, and today we can see why.



All Bitcoiners will mine BTC with their regular PC again. Let's do it.

Every single PoW algorithm has a threshold over which special hardware becomes beneficial.  Economies of scale.  SHA-256 was a particularly poor choice in that respect.  Scrypt didn't hold out much longer.   Cryptonote is holding out, but also has a threshold.  Hell, if you can do it with a computer, made of silicon, of course you can do it with special-purpose silicon !

However, the economies of scale to work out the chip, make prototypes, and put it on a board are such that only from a certain level of performance-over-CPU this becomes interesting.  So on chains that will not go to the moon, CPU/GPU mining may hold out with a sufficiently sophisticated hash function.  From the moment you hope to go to very high prices, and hence, very high block rewards, this investment will always become useful.

Point is, however, why try to get consensus over that with bitcoin ?  If you want that, there are several alt coins *doing that already*. 

You would have to modify bitcoin so profoundly that it is easier just to switch to another crypto that is already up and running than to find any form of consensus over such a profound modification.   In fact, you can do it on your own, and publish a hard fork for bitcoin using such a function.  But your alt coin will not take off.  Better buy an existing one in the market.

[dinofelis]

Perhaps you should consider another proof-of-whatever consensus

This.

[AngryDwarf]

Cryptonote is holding out, but also has a threshold.  Hell, if you can do it with a computer, made of silicon, of course you can do it with special-purpose silicon !

Monero will be fully mined in 2018, then having a forever reducing inflation in money supply called the tail of emission. At the moment, it makes little economic sense to invest in the design and manufacture of specialised silicon for Monero. Bitcoin on the other hand will not be fully mined until around 2140, so the economic sense of producing specialised silicon exists.

[Carlton Banks]

However, the economies of scale to work out the chip, make prototypes, and put it on a board are such that only from a certain level of performance-over-CPU this becomes interesting.  So on chains that will not go to the moon, CPU/GPU mining may hold out with a sufficiently sophisticated hash function.  From the moment you hope to go to very high prices, and hence, very high block rewards, this investment will always become useful.

Point is, however, why try to get consensus over that with bitcoin ?  If you want that, there are several alt coins *doing that already*.  

Well, there's quadrillions of SHA256 hashes already protecting Bitcoin's holders, that's one reason.

The altcoins *doing that already* don't have the breadth and depth of developer talent that Bitcoin has. 2 major developers at Bitcoin Core (Peter Todd and Luke Dashjr) have already expressed support for a PoW change, when you look at the present situation it's not a case of if, but when a BU hardfork happens. More Bitcoin devs will follow their lead.

The other reason I've already stated; miners have started to try to push the users around. Segwit ready nodes are the majority of the Bitcoin network, have been for several weeks and it continues to rise.

[-ck]

You miss the point if you think changing the proof of work will fix the problem. The problem is not what the proof of work algorithm is, the problem is simply that work can be pooled. Anything can be made into an ASIC given enough financial incentive, and any type of work can be pooled. What really is needed is to make it impossible to pool work. Find a solution for that and you have progress.

[Carlton Banks]

It's well known that Bitcoin PoW can be pooled.


And the solution to pooling is tree-based blockchains instead of linear based blockchains. This is about buying time to implement that solution, not solving it altogether.

[talkbitcoin]

and how do you think miners will react to this talking about POW change and practically killing their investment?
and i am not just talking about mining farms, pools or whatever but i am talking about the whole 100% of the hashrate including all the individuals that have invested in buying an ASIC,... to mine bitcoin?

[Carlton Banks]

It's well known that Bitcoin PoW can be pooled.


And the solution to pooling is tree-based blockchains instead of linear based blockchains. This is about buying time to implement that solution, not solving it altogether.

Do we even know that this can be done? I much rather see it proven before making a huge game changing decision, rather than just changing algorithm pissing off the industry and botnets making it rich during the beginning of a change.

Peter Todd and Sergio Lerner have independently developed tree-chain proof of concepts, but hard implementations even for testing aren't available as far as I know (and you could predict that some alternative cryptocoin would have implemented it by now if that were the case)

The principles are sound though. Basically, instead of having a main chain, with everyone working only on the next block, there are multiple strands to the chain. Similar to the side-chain idea, but without a main-chain > sub-chain hierarchy. Every separate strand of the chain is equal.

Done that way, the system can be designed to mainatain a balance of the number of chain-strands needed to serve the amount of mining demand. Pooled mining becomes pointless, as difficulty on each strand is kept low enough to allow anyone to mine a whole block to themself.

[rico666]

You miss the point if you think changing the proof of work will fix the problem. The problem is not what the proof of work algorithm is, the problem is simply that work can be pooled. Anything can be made into an ASIC given enough financial incentive, and any type of work can be pooled. What really is needed is to make it impossible to pool work. Find a solution for that and you have progress.

While formally you are 100% right, changing the PoW would "reset the system" for a while. Also, I believe any ASIC vendor would refrain from doing a Keccak (or whatever) ASIC if he knew there might be a change again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical) - don't worry about the link I'm an atheist, it's just to demonstrate how I see a PoW change.

It actually may give us "normalization time" until a true solution as you point out might be found.


Rico

[AngryDwarf]

People will just re-program their FPGA's. There's quite a few of them around mining different crypto currency algorithms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array

[BurtW]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833391.0

what the hell is up with this new fascination to "change bitcoin"?!!!

ever since this stupid block size debate has started, i keep seeing everyone trying to add lots of changes to bitcoin and change what has been working so far and is still working perfectly and will continue to work!
started with classic which was shitloads of change and then xt and then BU and segwit!
and now this!!!

if you are so unhappy then start a new altcoin and apply the changes, whatever they are in that altcoin and leave bitcoin alone.
this is what litecoin and half the rest of them did and are still doing.

You must not have been here very long.  As long as I can remember there have been proposals to change Bitcoin.  They come and then they go.  None of these proposed changes (BU, Segwit, change PoW, etc.) will ever happen.  It is just so much bluster, FUD, and opinion.  It give people something to talk about.  Meanwhile Bitcoin just keeps on keeping on and it will continue to do so as all these posting battles rage on.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin at this point and has no need to change - so it won't. 

[Carlton Banks]

People will just re-program their FPGA's. There's quite a few of them around mining different crypto currency algorithms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array

Yep, except

• FPGA's are general purpose processing chips, available to anyone, not just monopolistic manufacturing specialist as is the case with ASICs
• With the right choice of hashing algorithm, FPGAs don't really improve hashes per watt of electricity anyway

[pooya87]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833391.0

what the hell is up with this new fascination to "change bitcoin"?!!!

ever since this stupid block size debate has started, i keep seeing everyone trying to add lots of changes to bitcoin and change what has been working so far and is still working perfectly and will continue to work!
started with classic which was shitloads of change and then xt and then BU and segwit!
and now this!!!

if you are so unhappy then start a new altcoin and apply the changes, whatever they are in that altcoin and leave bitcoin alone.
this is what litecoin and half the rest of them did and are still doing.

You must not have been here very long.  As long as I can remember there have been proposals to change Bitcoin.  They come and then they go.  None of these proposed changes (BU, Segwit, change PoW, etc.) will ever happen.  It is just so much bluster, FUD, and opinion.  It give people something to talk about.  Meanwhile Bitcoin just keeps on keeping on and it will continue to do so as all these posting battles rage on.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin at this point and has no need to change - so it won't. 

I liked your answer since this is mostly what i believe too.

and no i haven't been "exactly here" very long, only since 2014 and for the most part of it i never cared about things like this, and never even get involved in the arguments.
i only "use" bitcoin as a currency and trade sometimes.
but lately it seemed (at least to me) that the fascination has grown!

[Carlton Banks]

You must not have been here very long.  As long as I can remember there have been proposals to change Bitcoin.  They come and then they go.  None of these proposed changes (BU, Segwit, change PoW, etc.) will ever happen.

You must not have been here very long either.

Every change proposed and implemented to Bitcoin has been accepted up to Segwit, BIP is an abbrevation for Bitcoin Improvement Program, and how many BIPs have been implemented in version 14 of Bitcoin, Burt? More than a dozen, right?


What you're really saying is "hard forks aren't the original design". Thanks for enlightening us (except we knew that already).

Who's going to continue the bugfix maintenance fork of Bitcoin Core version 14, you? If the Core Bitcoin devs propose a hard fork, and it gains sufficient support, you can kiss your immutability dynamics goodbye, son

[BurtW]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833391.0

what the hell is up with this new fascination to "change bitcoin"?!!!

ever since this stupid block size debate has started, i keep seeing everyone trying to add lots of changes to bitcoin and change what has been working so far and is still working perfectly and will continue to work!
started with classic which was shitloads of change and then xt and then BU and segwit!
and now this!!!

if you are so unhappy then start a new altcoin and apply the changes, whatever they are in that altcoin and leave bitcoin alone.
this is what litecoin and half the rest of them did and are still doing.

You must not have been here very long.  As long as I can remember there have been proposals to change Bitcoin.  They come and then they go.  None of these proposed changes (BU, Segwit, change PoW, etc.) will ever happen.  It is just so much bluster, FUD, and opinion.  It give people something to talk about.  Meanwhile Bitcoin just keeps on keeping on and it will continue to do so as all these posting battles rage on.

Bitcoin is Bitcoin at this point and has no need to change - so it won't. 

I liked your answer since this is mostly what i believe too.

and no i haven't been "exactly here" very long, only since 2014 and for the most part of it i never cared about things like this, and never even get involved in the arguments.
i only "use" bitcoin as a currency and trade sometimes.
but lately it seemed (at least to me) that the fascination has grown!

Yes, the level of the "we must change Bitcoin" bluster is extremely high right now.  I think it is all part of the grieving process.  Many are grieving the fact that Bitcoin cannot and will never become whatever their personal idea is of what they wanted it to become.  Bitcoin is what it is and that is not what many here thought, believed or hoped it would become.  Hopefully, eventually, they will get through the steps in the grieving process and this will all die down.

[BurtW]

You must not have been here very long.  As long as I can remember there have been proposals to change Bitcoin.  They come and then they go.  None of these proposed changes (BU, Segwit, change PoW, etc.) will ever happen.

You must not have been here very long either.

Every change proposed and implemented to Bitcoin has been accepted up to Segwit, BIP is an abbrevation for Bitcoin Improvement Program, and how many BIPs have been implemented in version 14 of Bitcoin, Burt? More than a dozen, right?


What you're really saying is "hard forks aren't the original design". Thanks for enlightening us (except we knew that already).

Who's going to continue the bugfix maintenance fork of Bitcoin Core version 14, you? If the Core Bitcoin devs propose a hard fork, and it gains sufficient support, you can kiss your immutability dynamics goodbye, son

Carlton,

All I am saying is that in my opinion, despite your hundreds of posts, none of the major changes you are proposing are going to happen.  Sorry.  On the up side, none of the changes you hate with a burning passion are going to happen either.

I could be wrong.  All of this posturing/posting from all sides could have some effect.  But I do not think so.

[Carlton Banks]

You're already wrong, or else the Bitcoin network would still be running version 0.1


Feel free to make any coherent arguments

[rico666]

I could be wrong.  All of this posturing/posting from all sides could have some effect.  But I do not think so.

Great - so "we" have no voice and the decisions are being made by someone else somewhere else?
Hey! I have a great idea: Let's just abandon Bitcoin altogether - no?

Rico

[dinofelis]

Carlton,

All I am saying is that in my opinion, despite your hundreds of posts, none of the major changes you are proposing are going to happen.  Sorry.  On the up side, none of the changes you hate with a burning passion are going to happen either.

I could be wrong.  All of this posturing/posting from all sides could have some effect.  But I do not think so.

I am exactly of your opinion.

[ImHash]

What are you guys talking about? I hope you realize that what you're doing is heresy if bitcoin was a religion imo any 51% attack is the action of a m*ron individual, having 51% or even more of the total hash power means that you could mine more than others and a network safe/secure/with community support will cause the price of what you now are mining more than others to increase. unless you are mentally re*arded and not capable to think about the future consequences of your actions.

[BurtW]

You're already wrong, or else the Bitcoin network would still be running version 0.1


Feel free to make any coherent arguments

Major changes, specifically Segwit, BU, the "poison pill" proposal being yelled about, and any change to the PoW algorithm that breaks current mining operations will never be implemented.

You know all the arguments against all these things.  You have seen them all many, many times.  I am not going to waste my time or your time repeating them here.

I am just going to sit back, watch my Bitcoins appreciate over time, and watch all these major proposals never happen.

Many small improvements have been made, can be made, and will be made.  Not the point.  The point is all this continual bluster over major fundamental changes that I believe will never happen.

No need to argue about it.  Time will tell.

[Carlton Banks]

This wouldn't stop people like Bitmain though, let's say this happens with a new algorithm and they are able to create an asic, they just don't tell anyone and split there machines across each of chains. Sure they'll make difficulty increase but they are still going to be able to Target these other chains. If it is cpu bound then we have tons of cpu servers popping up and server rooms focusing on it and still able to spread the hash upon different chains. It seems to me the idea is that yes they wouldn't be able to get the full block but someone could most likely still dominate most chains, making this all a moot point.

I'm not sure if you understand exactly why Bitmain have such a monopoly.

ASICs are proprietary technology, i.e. Bitfury & Bitmain's designs are a trade secret.


General purpose computers (like CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs) are freely available to anyone. Sure, those with better access to cheap electricity, warehouse space and the money to pay for those still have a competitive advantage, but there are diminshing returns while any economic activity scales-up. A combination of ASIC resitant PoW and changing the blockchain from linear to a tree would stop miners leveraging the advantages that monopolised ASICs give them.



@Burt that's a hell of a lot of words and sentences to say "because". Try and fit some actual content into your posts please, you're wasting space in the debate if you're going to take up that much space to say "No need to argue"

[BurtW]

Great - so "we" have no voice and the decisions are being made by someone else somewhere else?

Correct - if by "we" you mean the user that are not miners with a boatload of hashing power.  Nothing you say matters.  Nothing I say matters.  Nothing Carlton says matters.  Nothing said here on bitcointalk.org or reddit matters.  The decision will be made by the miners.  If they all agree that raising the block size will make them more money - they will do it (they won't).  If they all agree Segwit will make them more money - they will do it (they won't).  If they all agree changing the PoW algorithm will make them more money - the will do it (it will not, they won't)

Hey! I have a great idea: Let's just abandon Bitcoin altogether - no?

Your choice.

[Carlton Banks]

"The decision will be made by the miners"


That's right Burt, but not nuanced enough


If we change PoW, we change who the miners are. Don't you like that idea? I do

[BurtW]

@Burt that's a hell of a lot of words and sentences to say "because". Try and fit some actual content into your posts please, you're wasting space in the debate if you're going to take up that much space to say "No need to argue"

In this thread you have made many many posts proposing a change to the PoW algorithm that will never happen.  So who is posting a lot of words to no end?  Who is it again that is wasting space arguing the same points over and over on dozens of threads?  There is no need to argue.  Bitcoin is what it is.  You can accept that or not.  You are the one wasting your time and "wasting space" arguing with the BU crowd.  Don't you ever just get tired of it all?  Especially when it is all so totally pointless?  Just buy some BTC, watch it appreciate over time, hold it till you need the value back, and relax.

[BurtW]

If we change PoW, we change who the miners are. Don't you like that idea? I do

We all like ideas that are never, ever, ever going to happen.

[Carlton Banks]

Burt, you keep saying "it'll never happen". Explain why, instead of repeating-repeating-repeating like a brainwashing propagandist

[BurtW]

Burt, you keep saying "it'll never happen". Explain why, instead of repeating-repeating-repeating like a brainwashing propagandist

Don't need or want to.  I have already expressed that it is my opinion.  My opinion it just that and it does not matter one bit.  If any of this shit happens I will be wrong and you can come back and gloat all you want.  Later dude.

[jonald_fyookball]

Burt, you keep saying "it'll never happen". Explain why, instead of repeating-repeating-repeating like a brainwashing propagandist

Don't need or want to.  I have already expressed that it is my opinion.  My opinion it just that and it does not matter one bit.  If any of this shit happens I will be wrong and you can come back and gloat all you want.  Later dude.

Carlton is loony.  Not sure why he thinks something 10x as radical would get consensus when the community couldn't even agree on a 2mb block. lolz.

[Carlton Banks]

So no reasoning against what I'm propounding, and refusing to explain what reasoning lies behind saying "because" over and over again?

......except "people didn't want x, therefore people will never choose y"? Curious arguing, gentlemen

[franky1]

If we change PoW, we change who the miners are. Don't you like that idea? I do

if PoW changes.. then it is just backdating security of bitcoin temporarily and in a few months the pools will be back where they are at the top but this time with a new asic/machine to make block creation more efficient than 'solo mining'.

EG if it went to a 1node 1 vote.. pools will simply make an asic/machine that acts like several clustered nodes syndicated together.

end result is just a couple months of drama until things are in the same position as now.

edit: (couple seconds running scenarios in my head)
infact less than a couple months. because the time it would take to get majority node acceptance of a new mining algo/difficulty/hashing rule..
pools would have the time to design the efficient solution to be ontop right when it activates.. thus solving nothing

[pedrog]

If we change PoW, we change who the miners are. Don't you like that idea? I do

if PoW changes.. then it is just backdating security of bitcoin temporarily and in a few months the pools will be back where they are at the top but this time with a new asic/machine to make block creation more efficient than 'solo mining'.

EG if it went to a 1node 1 vote.. pools will simply make an asic/machine that acts like several clustered nodes syndicated together.

end result is just a couple months of drama until things are in the same position as now.

edit: (couple seconds running scenarios in my head)
infact less than a couple months. because the time it would take to get majority node acceptance of a new mining algo/difficulty/hashing rule..
pools would have the time to design the efficient solution to be ontop right when it activates.. thus solving nothing

I don't think it's that simple, this may cause irreparable damage to bitcoin, plus who will trust the chain that is not backed by millions of dollars in hardware and development?

[bitbunnny]

This could be just another cathastrophic annoucement made for creating panic among users but with no real background. And the result could be like with ETF, so nothing worth mentioning.
I simply don't think miners would go for it and waist their time.

[dinofelis]

So no reasoning against what I'm propounding, and refusing to explain what reasoning lies behind saying "because" over and over again?

I told you already: because ANY hard fork that is not 95% consensus will make 2 coins, of which the one "leaving" is the alt coin, and because the large majority of miners wants to keep 1MB blocks and transaction scarcity, because the fees are needed to pay for the PoW in the future.

Miners have to follow the market in a hard fork, at least, if the PoW algorithm is the same so that they have the right hardware.  But for that to happen, a hard fork is needed first.  Now, the thing going for bitcoin is its brand name, so nobody is going to fork off without being able to get the brand name ; and miners are not going to help him.  For the current miners, status quo is best, so they will keep with status quo and keep the brand name as long as they can.  Any forking, with alternative mining, with PoS or whatever, will be an alt coin without the reassuring security and continuity of what the current miners are continuing to make.  Most users will keep using the old system, and the "real" bitcoin.  

So it is essentially impossible to hardfork and get the bitcoin brand name without the current miners.  Yes, you can create your alt coin and see what it does in the market.  For a PoS fork, you ONLY have to write new code.  For an alternative PoW fork, you have to have sufficient PoW in the new algorithm available to garantee the security of your altcoin if it pretends to be a bitcoin fork, which is near to impossible.

This is why it won't happen, until bitcoin's brand name is essentially eroded.  However, when that is the case, why forking, and not using another crypto that has the features you want all together ?  

[Bergmann_Christoph]

Too simplistic gentlemen


And it's being discussed here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1833391.0


I am strongly in favour of switching the PoW hashing algorithm to Keccak, CuckooCycle, Equihash, or whatever has the best balance of proven hash algorithm & difficulty  to develop an ASIC. And I think it should be done before any BU hardfork, any miners unhappy with that should've thought realistically that this day would come.


ASICs begone. The CPU mining revolution will be beautiful, Satoshi warned against the development of sole-purpose SHA256 hashing ASIC processors, and today we can see why.



All Bitcoiners will mine BTC with their regular PC again. Let's do it.

Do it! You'll have fun with being broken by Ethereum-Miners, China government supercomputers, NSA supercomputers, Botnets. If you want a way for Bitcoin to fall in the hands of government, then a PoW change is a nice idea.

[iamnotback]

Fact is the Miners will not agree with segwit because it is designed to bankrupt them by moving almost all transactions offline.
This will bankrupt the miners and put them out of business.

This new PoW proposal, at least is admitting their goal is to put the ASICS guys out of work.
You can bet any hard fork with a new PoW is going to have Segwit already activated so LN can be used immediately.
(Funny Core is not afraid of this Hard Fork.)  

Blockstream/segwit/LN supporters are dirty as can be, but at least they are consistently dirty.  

Funny thing is , you also are putting the less than 30% mining pools that supported segwit out of business.
They have no choice now but to join BTU, or be discarded with the other asics miners by your new PoW Algo.

I figured that is why they won't prioritize malleability fix and why they need unlimited block sizes. But unlimited block sizes is a power vacuum that awards a mining cartel.

Also changing the PoW algorithm means someone might secretly have an ASIC advantage already, or someone might get one before everyone else and use it to attack the network.

I don't think the token holders will agree to a PoW algorithm change. Core will be defeating themselves.

Thus we have a standoff. Neither side can compromise because there is no compromise that works for both sides. Core wants massive scaling but with centralized LN hubs for their bankster friends. BTU wants limited scaling at what ever their mining cartel can handle on chain. Neither are decentralized.

It is a clusterfuck. I bought ETH. LTC and XMR are other options.

[iamnotback]

"The decision will be made by the miners"


That's right Burt, but not nuanced enough

Incorrect.

If we refuse to buy BTU tokens which appear in their blocks, then their mining power is useless if they can't sell their mined tokens. We the token holders can choose to honor 1MB limit protocol.

However, given many users can't get their transactions into 1MB, I would say BTU might win. But I have no confidence in BTU's technical competence, thus I may not want their tokens.

The miners can split between those who honor only 1MB blocks and those who honor larger blocks. Thus the coinbase minted in the BTU protocol are not spendable (do not exist) on the BTC protocol blockchain.

But there is an issue of difficulty attacks:

What I suspect will happen is that we'll eventually get a block larger than 1 MB in the blockchain and Core will adapt their codebase to permit its users track the most-work chain.  In other words, there will likely be no split--just an anticlimactic network upgrade to larger blocks.  In such a case, who wins the bet?  Or is the bet only valid in the case where there is a persistent split?

It's absurd to think that there is not a single miner who will continue operating under the old network rules -- and that's all that it takes to create a persistent split.

It's seemingly this very lack of critical thought that leads to BU not being able to make even minor changes to the client without introducing bugs and vulnerabilities.

Alright: how about a small side bet for us little fish?  I bet you 1 BTC that--should the most-work blockchain include a single block larger than 1 MB--that no minority chain will make it beyond 2100 blocks (~2 weeks and the length of a difficulty adjustment) without either a difficulty reset or a change in the proof-of-work algorithm.

BTU appears to be ready to actually attack we the token holders. Fucking amazing. Very careless. Happy I hedged by selling some BTC.

[dinofelis]

None of all this is going to happen.  Miners want small blocks and a fighting fee market.  The cartel you are talking about with large blocks only sets in with such incredibly large blocks, that they are out of the question in the next few years ; if you want a mining cartel, the telephone between mining pool bosses is a much more useful device than multi-GB blocks that saturate small miner's network links and most of the user nodes.

Bitcoin is already centralized, or on the brink of being cartel-centralized.  Come on.  5 guys have more than 50% of hash rate under their control.  10 guys, more than 75%.  The only thing that keeps bitcoin still "decentralized" over these guys, is their mutual understanding that they shouldn't show public agreement ; and maybe their egos.  This is why they fight or mimick to fight.

I love that mining pool that dedicated 75% of its hash rate to BU, when BU said that they would fork at 75% hash rate.  Giving 75% to BU is the perfect move to do if you want status quo.  BU rises, you lower ; BU lowers, you rise. 

Miners want status quo.  All of them.  So they mimick divergence in opinion, which makes you believe bitcoin is still decentralized over 10 guys that can't agree.

[Amph]

but this is like saying fuck off to million of dollars invested in mining by chinese, i don't think they will ever agree

And segwit supporting BitFury won't be too happy either.

It makes no difference, the ASIC miners should have seen this coming.

If they don't do what the majority of users want, and choose a foolish hard fork instead, then that's just a risk of the business they're in. I won't be crying for them, the miners have behaved like a cartel.

And if Bitfury really wanted to be responsible to the Bitcoin network, they could have sold chips or miners to the public, which they only ever did with their early 55nm mining ASIC chips. They have themselves to blame, their strategy could have been much better.

The only thing a POW change will achieve is a temporary reset to a level playing field.
People start building their own mining farms.
Normal users will have little chance of solving a block on their own, so they join a mining pool.
The economics of low electricity cost and real estate space gives some farms an advantage.
It becomes economically viable to design a specialised computer to be more efficient at the task at hand.
A new mining oligarchy forms as a result.

this new algo, have the potential to be anti-asic, in the sense that the cost of asic would be too high to develop one tooe arly with current bitcoin value, therefore could put a layer for gpu mining again and a better distribution

unless chinese have already plenty of gpu to mine this with, they will probably be left behind here, not to mention that resetting the network is dangerous, for 51% anyway....

[Carlton Banks]

If any of you can explain why 95% of users of Bitcoin would not (given enough time) accept a fork where they can:

• Take back control from ASIC miners
• Become the new miners, with their regular CPUs
• Activate Segwit

....then I'd be interested to hear it. Keep it short gentlemen, it's almost as if you believe writing dozens of paragraphs saying "it's not gonna happen... it's not gonna happen... it's not gonna happen... it's not gonna happen..." is a substitute for an actual reason Who are you trying to convince, us, or yourselves

[kiklo]

Take back control from ASIC miners
Destroy BTC Security During Switch, leaving it at the Mercy of Botnets (Causing a Market crash)

Become the new miners, with their regular CPUs
Destroy BTC Security During Switch, leaving it at the Mercy of Botnets (Causing a Market crash)

Activate Segwit
Giving Future Control of BTC directly to Blockstream/Bankers/LN Permanently


 


FYI:
#1 reason not to Switch BTC's PoW is because you Segwit Paid Shills want everyone too. 

[dinofelis]

If any of you can explain why 95% of users of Bitcoin would not (given enough time) accept a fork where they can:

• Take back control from ASIC miners
• Become the new miners, with their regular CPUs
• Activate Segwit

....then I'd be interested to hear it. Keep it short gentlemen, it's almost as if you believe writing dozens of paragraphs saying "it's not gonna happen... it's not gonna happen... it's not gonna happen... it's not gonna happen..." is a substitute for an actual reason Who are you trying to convince, us, or yourselves

By far the simplest thing to do would be to implement Proof of Stake.  No more miners.  Bitcoin's holders certifying their transactions by themselves.  If there's something able to "save bitcoin", it would be a passage to Proof of Stake.  It has problems too, but at the moment, less than Proof of Work.  Proof of work was good to distribute coins.  But bitcoin is sufficiently distributed right now, and proof of work is not distributing it any more, and is the MOST HORRIBLE WAY thinkable to cryptographically secure a ledger.  Proof of work is OK to burn seigniorage.  To waste "unfair gains".  

To switch to Proof of stake, there ONLY needs to be written the code.  It is secure from the start, because only stake holders can cryptographically SIGN blocks.  No "attackers" can do anything.  Much, much, much less insecure than PoW.  So just any dev team could write the code to have a PoS bitcoin fork.  No need for miners of the new kind.  No fall of bitcoin security.  PoS is intrinsically secure and nodes take back the power they left to miners in PoW.

But it will not happen.  Because in order to do so, you have to LAUNCH AN ALT COIN.  And the bitcoin brand name is the only thing that gives bitcoin value.  So if "switching to an alt coin" was what bitcoin users need to do, THEY ALREADY CAN DO SO, alt coins exist.

Bitcoin users stick to bitcoin because it is called bitcoin, and that's it.  If it is not called bitcoin, they won't value it.  Making a proof of stake fork of bitcoin,  OR JUST ANY OTHER FORK that doesn't TAKE AWAY the current miners from bitcoin, is NOT GOING TO WORK, simply because as long as a majority of the current miners is going to CONTINUE MINING the way they do, THAT will be bitcoin, and THAT is what bitcoiners will value.

Because if they didn't, they would have switched to an altcoin already.  They didn't (yet).

TL;DR: there's no point in inventing a new altcoin to save bitcoin.  As long as a majority of the current miners continue to make bitcoin's chain like they do now, that's bitcoin.  In as much as bitcoiners want to stay with the brand of bitcoin, they will stick to that.  And in as much as they wanted to switch to an altcoin, they can already, more than choice enough.

[kiklo]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-scaling-voorhees-says-algo-change-absurd-and-reckless

Bitcoin Scaling: Voorhees Says Algo Change “Absurd” And “Reckless”

ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees has hit out at suggestions that changing Bitcoin’s algorithm is an effective way of resolving its scaling problem.

In a tweet on Monday, Voorhees branded the idea as “the most absurd and reckless thing I've heard in the scaling debate.”

“[Threats and blackmail] is [sic] not a legit option. It's the height of foolishness and desperation, the last bastion of a tribe unwilling to put egos down,” he added in response to another poster.

Bitcoin businesses such as ShapeShift, which profits from fees generated by exchanging cryptocurrencies, have a vested interest in block size expansion, which would allow their user base to grow and transact more efficiently.

Bitcoin’s famous names remain heavily divided over changing Bitcoin’s proof-of-work algorithm. Over the weekend, Core developer Peter Todd suggested doing so would be “a good backup plan,” while fellow developer Greg Maxwell stated on Reddit that “no one who works on regularly on core has said anything about POW changes [as far as I know].”

Todd subsequently added that such an action is “a high-risk move” and would be “best to only do that if an attack actually happens,” while reiterating that Bitcoin Unlimited did not constitute an example of such an “attack.”

 

[hv_]

OP should rename this thread:

Do I trust my bitcoin miners at all. Or what security we have from PoW ?


We've learned that only PoW is really safe <-> expensive. If you want different things / less safe  -> go altcoin .

[iamnotback]

None of all this is going to happen.  Miners want small blocks and a fighting fee market.  The cartel you are talking about with large blocks only sets in with such incredibly large blocks, that they are out of the question in the next few years ; if you want a mining cartel, the telephone between mining pool bosses is a much more useful device than multi-GB blocks that saturate small miner's network links and most of the user nodes.

You had a mistake in your concept of propagation through the network. You are thinking a decentralized network is a fully connected mesh topology.

You don't need that much larger blocks to cause an amplification of propagation delay to the smallest miners in order to destroy decentralization and take 51% control. Also it only requires a very small advantage in relative orphan rate in order to slowly accumulate more hashrate than the opposition, so don't require the 100GB blocks you are computing.

Bitcoin is already centralized

Yes in that case they don't need huge blocks to destroy decentralization because it is already destroyed. In that case, they need to be able increase blocks to whatever they think is the level of transaction fees that maximizes their revenue (volume x transaction fees).

In either case, I am showing that big blocks are a cartelization paradigm. I am being thorough. Please don't fault me for being thorough, just because the network is already centralized.

[dinofelis]

None of all this is going to happen.  Miners want small blocks and a fighting fee market.  The cartel you are talking about with large blocks only sets in with such incredibly large blocks, that they are out of the question in the next few years ; if you want a mining cartel, the telephone between mining pool bosses is a much more useful device than multi-GB blocks that saturate small miner's network links and most of the user nodes.

You had a mistake in your concept of propagation through the network. You are thinking a decentralized network is a fully connected mesh topology.

I answered that.  The important mining pools (10-20 of them) should of course mesh together in a fully connected mesh topology.  I took that for granted, as it is quite evident that this should emerge.

You don't need that much larger blocks to cause an amplification of propagation delay to the smallest miners in order to destroy decentralization and take 51% control.

Important miners will upgrade their mutual links from the moment that the cost of the link upgrade diminishes the time lost on mutual orphaned blocks and wasted hash rate.  I don't know how much costs 6 seconds of wasted hash rate for a big mining pool, but I can imagine that that can pay for a better network link to his biggest competitor (who has even more losses during these 6 seconds, and who has also an incentive to upgrade his link to his big competitors).

Bitcoin is already centralized

Yes in that case they don't need huge blocks to destroy decentralization because it is already destroyed. In that case, they need to be able increase blocks to whatever they think is the level of transaction fees that maximizes their revenue (volume x transaction fees).

Look at the hashing distribution over pools: 5 pools have already more than 50%.  10 pools have more than 75%.  For these 5 or 10 pools, it is utterly advantageous to have very good links between them, and as they don't trust each other, have a FULL mesh or an almost full mesh.

In either case, I am showing that big blocks are a cartelization paradigm. I am being thorough. Please don't fault me for being thorough, just because the network is already centralized.

I would say that every notion of rewarded mining is a centralisation paradigm, because pooling together your chances to win reduces risk -> pool formation.

For instance, with 10 minute reward lotteries, if you want to have, say, less than 10% income fluctuation during period T, you need to have at least 100 winning events in time T.  If you put T equal to a week, there are 1000 blocks to win, and you'd need 10% of total hash rate to do so.

So if people want to have only 10% income fluctuation per week, ideally there are at most 10 pools with each 10% of the hash rate.

The system will evolve towards about 10 pools at most.