AsicBoost Probably the reason Segwit is being blocked.

[mr.mister]

I found this very interesting article about why some miners and mining pools may be blocking segwit.


http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-new-controversy-asicboost-allegations-explained/



I would love to start mining using AsicBoost. Hell!

[1715276784]

1715276784

[ebliever]

I found this very interesting article about why some miners and mining pools may be blocking segwit.


http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-new-controversy-asicboost-allegations-explained/



I would love to start mining using AsicBoost. Hell!

Looks like you can - check out this link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/63yo27/some_circumstantial_evidence_supporting_the_claim/dfy5o65/

Down in the comments where earonesty says "And... one more miner using ASICBOOST". People are doing it apparently.

[mr.mister]

Does AsicBoost now sort of explain why the Chinese have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into mining?

[ebliever]

No. They dominate the production processes for making ASICs in the first place, and since every day counts when it comes to earning back the cost of mining equipment, sheer proximity matters. It makes sense they would end up dominating mining itself, since they also have cheap labor and cheap electricity and cool temperatures in certain areas (Himalayas, inner Mongolia etc.)

[panju1]

No. They dominate the production processes for making ASICs in the first place, and since every day counts when it comes to earning back the cost of mining equipment, sheer proximity matters. It makes sense they would end up dominating mining itself, since they also have cheap labor and cheap electricity and cool temperatures in certain areas (Himalayas, inner Mongolia etc.)

This won't help if the Chinese government cracks down on Bitcoin. They can mine all the bitcoins they want, but they won't be able to convert it into ready cash to pay their bills.

[Sadlife]

Yep i guess some miners can mine through the use of this exploit.
But a core dev said that this may harm the bitcoin network cause this mathematical trick is skipping some steps in mining blocks that's why BU miners has empty blocks sometimes.

[jonald_fyookball]

The biggest problem is actually lazy miners...30% of them aren't signaling ANY upgrade. 

[Killerpotleaf]

Yep i guess some miners can mine through the use of this exploit.
But a core dev said that this may harm the bitcoin network cause this mathematical trick is skipping some steps in mining blocks that's why BU miners has empty blocks sometimes.

thats more or less totally incorrect.

but OK

[FiendCoin]

The biggest problem is actually lazy miners...30% of them aren't signaling ANY upgrade. 

That shit is a real problem. Its like, IDK, hmm... maybe they don't want anything to change?

[jonald_fyookball]

The biggest problem is actually lazy miners...30% of them aren't signaling ANY upgrade. 

That shit is a real problem. Its like, IDK, hmm... maybe they don't want anything to change?

Maybe.  Seems foolish to me.  How can Bitcoin continue if it never scales beyond 3 TPS?

[franky1]

1. (to address posts above) 30% of pools abstaining is really due to being smart and knowing nodes DO matter so no point flagging for something that a node wont fully validate/handle even if node can 'hotpotato game' a stripped block
solution: finally do a proper node+pool consensus and need 1 merkle. and while at it, go dynamic. = community happy

2. asicboost is not a harm its an efficiency gain. like ATI's openCL was. and the resulting hash is not fake but a valid hash that works and checks out. (ATI did not attack bitcoin in the GPU mining era, for analogy comparison)

3. mining hardware and asicboost predates segwit.. meaning miners didnt create an attack, segwit 'going soft' 2merkle tricks just isnt compatible
(a yet to be active bitcoin code failing due to ATI opencL incompatibility wouldnt of been blamed as a ATI openCL attack, for analogy comparison)
solution: segwit finally do a proper node+pool consensus and need 1 merkle. and while at it, go dynamic. = community happy

4. again miners hardware software efficiency 2015. segwit anyonecanspend backdoor exploit AFTER that. segwit code release october 2016.  feb-march 2017 gmax finds a flaw in segwit and goes full wetard to blame miners(facepalm illogic).

today
rather than give in and do a better job with only 6 month old inactivated segwit software,
rather than give in and finally do a real full bitcoin network upgrade of 1merkle and keep all diverse nodes on level playingfield of a peer network
gmax wants to double down.
mandatory activation, remove pool efficiency but keep his 2 merkle TIER network control agenda

issue with gmax plan:
some outsider can start building a 600k blockheight chain privately using the asicboost. to get better chainwork.. then in a few years when bitcoin moves to a 1 merkle, they plop in their chain and take over, due to bitcoin being less efficient than the outsider during the 2merkle period.

solution. do a full proper node+pool consensus, go dynamic, keep the community happy and just let pools use the most efficient hashing methods ther are.

dont break the pools kneecaps just to force segwit tier network in.

P.S segwit using the anyonecanspend opcode backdoor exploit (AKA 'going soft') and suggesting that blockstream can add more backdoors (aka 'even easier to go soft') is allowing more risks of outsiders using those backdoors to slide in their own trojans undetectable to native nodes.
(if people take off their dev devotion hats, they will see it)

[Alex.BTC]

coindesk is a well known Blockstream mouthpiece.

[Amph]

Does AsicBoost now sort of explain why the Chinese have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into mining?

it doesn't make sense for all fo them to get access to asicboost, otherwise you know the result would be no advantage

if everyone can have the same boost it mean that everyone is earning the same as before, therefore is presumable to think that only few big miners can have access to it to make it worth

The biggest problem is actually lazy miners...30% of them aren't signaling ANY upgrade. 

it make sense, because they have no access to asicboost, and going against segwit is not giving anything for them, and probably still waiting for better solution

[Andre_Goldman]

That's a very important topic.

I am totally pro to open-hardware initiative. At Free Software Foundation, chapter Europe we try to push 'open-v' The World's First Open Source RISC-V-based 32-bit μC for general use.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/onchip/open-v

Now imagine when we're talking about cryptographic arena.

Regards to not trust hidden functions in the hardware. I really liked that interview with Richard Stallman about draw the line between open software and hardware video jump to 6 minutes something

https://youtu.be/jUibaPTXSHk?t=6m19s

lets move on a lite bit ...

==Background==

The general idea of this attack is that SHA2-256 is a merkle damgard hash
function which consumes 64 bytes of data at a time.

The Bitcoin mining process repeatedly hashes an 80-byte 'block header' while
incriminating a 32-bit nonce which is at the end of this header data. This
means that the processing of the header involves two runs of the compression
function run-- one that consumes the first 64 bytes of the header and a
second which processes the remaining 16 bytes and padding.

The initial 'message expansion' operations in each step of the SHA2-256
function operate exclusively on that step's 64-bytes of input with no
influence from prior data that entered the hash.

Because of this if a miner is able to prepare a block header with
multiple distinct first 64-byte chunks but identical 16-byte
second chunks they can reuse the computation of the initial
expansion for multiple trials. This reduces power consumption.

There are two broad ways of making use of this attack. The obvious
way is to try candidates with different version numbers.  Beyond
upsetting the soft-fork detection logic in Bitcoin nodes this has
little negative effect but it is highly conspicuous and easily
blocked.

The other method is based on the fact that the merkle root
committing to the transactions is contained in the first 64-bytes
except for the last 4 bytes of it.  If the miner finds multiple
candidate root values which have the same final 32-bit then they
can use the attack.

To find multiple roots with the same trailing 32-bits the miner can
use efficient collision finding mechanism which will find a match
with as little as 2^16 candidate roots expected, 2^24 operations to
find a 4-way hit, though low memory approaches require more
computation.

An obvious way to generate different candidates is to grind the
coinbase extra-nonce but for non-empty blocks each attempt will
require 13 or so additional sha2 runs which is very inefficient.

This inefficiency can be avoided by computing a sqrt number of
candidates of the left side of the hash tree (e.g. using extra
nonce grinding) then an additional sqrt number of candidates of
the right  side of the tree using transaction permutation or
substitution of a small number of transactions.  All combinations
of the left and right side are then combined with only a single
hashing operation virtually eliminating all tree related
overhead.

With this final optimization finding a 4-way collision with a
moderate amount of memory requires ~2^24 hashing operations
instead of the >2^28 operations that would be require for
extra-nonce  grinding which would substantially erode the
benefit of the attack.

It is this final optimization which this proposal blocks

from:
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-April/013996.html

edit: fix typo

[jonald_fyookball]

it make sense, because they have no access to asicboost, and going against segwit is not giving anything for them, and probably still waiting for better solution

My understanding from the recent discussions is that you cannot use asicboost at the pool level without it being publicly known or obvious

[Xester]

I found this very interesting article about why some miners and mining pools may be blocking segwit.


http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-new-controversy-asicboost-allegations-explained/



I would love to start mining using AsicBoost. Hell!

They are blocking the segwit but on what expense. Anyway here is the reason why the bitcoin holders and exchanges favors core developers segregated witness or segwit because of this statement on that article you posted : "The assertion is that Bitmain is not only blocking a technical solution favored by the Core developers (through its support of alternative development teams), but doing so because it would enhance its profitability at the expense of users."

Further bitmain expresses the they are not yet using that system ever since. Hope this is true.

[kelsey]

No. They dominate the production processes for making ASICs in the first place, and since every day counts when it comes to earning back the cost of mining equipment, sheer proximity matters. It makes sense they would end up dominating mining itself, since they also have cheap labor and cheap electricity and cool temperatures in certain areas (Himalayas, inner Mongolia etc.)

This won't help if the Chinese government cracks down on Bitcoin. They can mine all the bitcoins they want, but they won't be able to convert it into ready cash to pay their bills.

really  you do know you can just send bitcoin across boarder, hell it makes for an easier way to send money from china os (ie get around the 50k limits on everyone).

[mr.mister]

it make sense, because they have no access to asicboost, and going against segwit is not giving anything for them, and probably still waiting for better solution

My understanding from the recent discussions is that you cannot use asicboost at the pool level without it being publicly known or obvious

No, asicboost is being used covertly by some miners, and that is the problem, the overt way of using it is not a problem for the network.

[ebliever]

coindesk is a well known Blockstream mouthpiece.

That is to say, the vast majority of people support Core as the most open and reasonable method for improving Bitcoin. Since Blockstream has some devs helping Core, biased people can complain that most of the bitcoin community is a "Blockstream mouthpiece" but that gets a bit silly.

https://coin.dance/poli

[Alex.BTC]

coindesk is a well known Blockstream mouthpiece.

That is to say, the vast majority of people support Core as the most open and reasonable method for improving Bitcoin. Since Blockstream has some devs helping Core, biased people can complain that most of the bitcoin community is a "Blockstream mouthpiece" but that gets a bit silly.

That is so fucking retarded, that wasn't even what I said. If you have no proper come back, the don't quote me and pretend you had one.

Vast majority of people have no idea what's going on, 1/3 of the nodes don't even vote or upgrade properly.

But some of us know what is going on, and we're calling Blockstream/Core out on their bullshits.

[jonald_fyookball]

coindesk is a well known Blockstream mouthpiece.

partially agree.

They have investor ties... but even Coindesk still publishes big block articles (they recently did one on bcoin)
and many of the articles have a neutral stance. 

Even they have to go against Blockstream/Core if they want to remain credible.  That's how insane things are. 

[Alex.BTC]

coindesk is a well known Blockstream mouthpiece.

partially agree.

They have investor ties... but even Coindesk still publishes big block articles (they recently did one on bcoin)
and many of the articles have a neutral stance.  

Even they have to go against Blockstream/Core if they want to remain credible.  That's how insane things are.  

With Blockstream/Core fucking up left right and center, Coindesk had to put on an act from time to time to pretend they're not totally bias.

At this point we should be seeing articles like:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-core-runs-trolling-campaigns-says-lightning-network-developer/
Bitcoin Core Runs “Trolling Campaigns”, Says Lightning Network Developer

But you'll never see those on Coindesk.

You also won't see theses, articles of Blockstream's enemy-of-the-week defending themselves:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitmain-never-used-asicboost-production-says-jihan-wu/
“Bitmain Has Never Used AsicBoost in Production”, Says Jihan Wu

Bcoin supports SegWit, and as of a week ago you started hearing more sane voices out there, even from individuals in Blockstream/Core, they probably realized their old plans had no chance, and with the deadline looming, they're moving to plan B to find a way to launch SegWit as soon as possible.

[centralbanksequalsbombs]

1. (to address posts above) 30% of pools abstaining is really due to being smart and knowing nodes DO matter so no point flagging for something that a node wont fully validate/handle even if node can 'hotpotato game' a stripped block
solution: finally do a proper node+pool consensus and need 1 merkle. and while at it, go dynamic. = community happy

2. asicboost is not a harm its an efficiency gain. like ATI's openCL was. and the resulting hash is not fake but a valid hash that works and checks out. (ATI did not attack bitcoin in the GPU mining era, for analogy comparison)

3. mining hardware and asicboost predates segwit.. meaning miners didnt create an attack, segwit 'going soft' 2merkle tricks just isnt compatible
(a yet to be active bitcoin code failing due to ATI opencL incompatibility wouldnt of been blamed as a ATI openCL attack, for analogy comparison)
solution: segwit finally do a proper node+pool consensus and need 1 merkle. and while at it, go dynamic. = community happy

4. again miners hardware software efficiency 2015. segwit anyonecanspend backdoor exploit AFTER that. segwit code release october 2016.  feb-march 2017 gmax finds a flaw in segwit and goes full wetard to blame miners(facepalm illogic).

today
rather than give in and do a better job with only 6 month old inactivated segwit software,
rather than give in and finally do a real full bitcoin network upgrade of 1merkle and keep all diverse nodes on level playingfield of a peer network
gmax wants to double down.
mandatory activation, remove pool efficiency but keep his 2 merkle TIER network control agenda

issue with gmax plan:
some outsider can start building a 600k blockheight chain privately using the asicboost. to get better chainwork.. then in a few years when bitcoin moves to a 1 merkle, they plop in their chain and take over, due to bitcoin being less efficient than the outsider during the 2merkle period.

solution. do a full proper node+pool consensus, go dynamic, keep the community happy and just let pools use the most efficient hashing methods ther are.

dont break the pools kneecaps just to force segwit tier network in.

P.S segwit using the anyonecanspend opcode backdoor exploit (AKA 'going soft') and suggesting that blockstream can add more backdoors (aka 'even easier to go soft') is allowing more risks of outsiders using those backdoors to slide in their own trojans undetectable to native nodes.
(if people take off their dev devotion hats, they will see it)

The last part that says:
"P.S segwit using the anyonecanspend opcode backdoor exploit (AKA 'going soft') and suggesting that blockstream can add more backdoors (aka 'even easier to go soft') is allowing more risks of outsiders using those backdoors to slide in their own trojans undetectable to native nodes.
(if people take off their dev devotion hats, they will see it)"

Sounds like something that CIA, Ethereum foundation, elite hackers, and central banks would love to see. 

[alani123]

I don't see why any party would use such cryptic technology to block a solution on bitcoin's hottest issues. Would the creators risk the reputation of the technology by only providing access to it to people looking to divide bitcoin's progress? And if yes, what what's to gain out of something like that?

[franky1]

coindesk is a well known Blockstream mouthpiece.

partially agree.

They have investor ties... but even Coindesk still publishes big block articles (they recently did one on bcoin)
and many of the articles have a neutral stance. 

bcoin -> purse

Coindesk =DCG
purse.. guess what
http://dcg.co/portfolio/#p
purse = DCG

[franky1]

I don't see why any party would use such cryptic technology to block a solution on bitcoin's hottest issues. Would the creators risk the reputation of the technology by only providing access to it to people looking to divide bitcoin's progress? And if yes, what what's to gain out of something like that?

the issue is actually that blockstream by using the 'going soft' 2merkle backdoor (anyoncanspend opcode exploit), shot themselves in the foot. and gmax only realised it last month. now he is waving fingers at every direction but its own. still refusing to back down and fix his own flaws

segit is not even active, so instead of trying to ENDLESSLY push it through in every way possible under its current 2merkle approach right upto end of 2018

they shoud just rewrite it as a proper full node consensus 1merkle, then use that oppertunity to include other community requested features such as a LOWER maxTXsigop limit and also dynamic blocks (3birds, one stone) for an even playing field PEER network acceptance.


and not waste april 2017-late 2018* trying to push the no guarantee  '2merkle tier network segwit' half gesture

*http://www.uasf.co/

Can BIP148 be cancelled?

Yes. In the event that the economic majority does not support BIP148, users should remove software that enforces BIP148. A flag day activation for SegWit would be the next logical steps and require coordination of the community, most likely towards the end of 2018.

[HostFat]

http://www.mit.edu/~jlrubin//public/pdfs/Asicboost.pdf
https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2017/04/10/the-relation-between-segwit-and-asicboost-covert-and-overt/

[vapourminer]

http://www.mit.edu/~jlrubin//public/pdfs/Asicboost.pdf

thanks for the link. good read. helps a lot in understanding this mess.

[XbladeX]

http://www.mit.edu/~jlrubin//public/pdfs/Asicboost.pdf

thanks for the link. good read. helps a lot in understanding this mess.

So we are going revisit 50% area soon i believe.
http://coinmarketcap.com/charts/#btc-percentage

when ETH miners will get more $$$ bitmain BTC miners they will rethink strategy : )
Innovation or stagnation... Greed of missing $$$ will force changes.
New people to crypto seeing stagnating BTC vs innovating alts won't give a fuck to BTC to much.
If BTC will be lucky will be reserve currency for alts.

Ethereum is great becouse they threaten miners with POS so Bitmain won't move there.
If they will go for ETH=Vitalik will move to POS to fuck them up ^^ so Vitalik keeps bitmain in best chess move.
Same time people will see that BTC is "bad" becouse of mining centralization ruining it.
And at some point changes will be forced but i don't know how much market cap have to lose BTC 40%? 50%? 60%? 80%?
Greed is greed Jihad is nicely trashing BTC ^^ ...

There is nice bullshit of BTC maximalists that BTC will use everything that is best in alts but... life shows that they are TRULY wrong,
BTC cannot be everything for everybody.
If I would listen to those people i would NEVER make money in crypto.
Anyway i sold most of alts for BTC - if you want get some money don't follow MOB.

[squatz1]

It's horrid to have to think that someone who says they support the Bitcoin community, in this case Jihan is the same person who is just blocking the best solution out their based on the pure motive of greed and eyes of profits. I do understand it though, as money is usually the motive for many decisions being made when it comes to big decisions in the world.

This would also be the reason that they'd be losing around 30 percent in the leg up they have on everybody else so I guess that would mean 30 percent less profit and such?

Segwit does have its own problems but I really see it as the only viable solution that would really be following what Satoshi would've wanted. As I do highly doubt Satoshi would've wanted a centralized system run by King Ver.

[GreenBits]

It's horrid to have to think that someone who says they support the Bitcoin community, in this case Jihan is the same person who is just blocking the best solution out their based on the pure motive of greed and eyes of profits. I do understand it though, as money is usually the motive for many decisions being made when it comes to big decisions in the world.

This would also be the reason that they'd be losing around 30 percent in the leg up they have on everybody else so I guess that would mean 30 percent less profit and such?

Segwit does have its own problems but I really see it as the only viable solution that would really be following what Satoshi would've wanted. As I do highly doubt Satoshi would've wanted a centralized system run by King Ver.

Yeah, the suck in this is that we were mislead as an entire community, for the benefit of a few. We could have moves towards a compromise in a more informed manner if there wasn't someone putting up noise for the sake of distraction. And it severely undercuts the argument against segwit, given the ethical implications of this farce. We've lost time and trust, and gained nothing.

[alyssa85]

It's horrid to have to think that someone who says they support the Bitcoin community, in this case Jihan is the same person who is just blocking the best solution out their based on the pure motive of greed and eyes of profits. I do understand it though, as money is usually the motive for many decisions being made when it comes to big decisions in the world.

This would also be the reason that they'd be losing around 30 percent in the leg up they have on everybody else so I guess that would mean 30 percent less profit and such?

Segwit does have its own problems but I really see it as the only viable solution that would really be following what Satoshi would've wanted. As I do highly doubt Satoshi would've wanted a centralized system run by King Ver.

The "best solution" is in the eye of the beholder.

If Core really believe their solution is best, then they should invest in some mining pools in order to get them over the activation threshold. If they arn't prepared to put their money on the line like that, chances are, segwit is not the best solution.

[kiklo]

It's horrid to have to think that someone who says they support the Bitcoin community, in this case Jihan is the same person who is just blocking the best solution out their based on the pure motive of greed and eyes of profits. I do understand it though, as money is usually the motive for many decisions being made when it comes to big decisions in the world.

This would also be the reason that they'd be losing around 30 percent in the leg up they have on everybody else so I guess that would mean 30 percent less profit and such?

Segwit does have its own problems but I really see it as the only viable solution that would really be following what Satoshi would've wanted. As I do highly doubt Satoshi would've wanted a centralized system run by King Ver.

Satoshi would have just increase the blocksize not write some over complicated Trojan to screw BTC onchain transactions , where offchain is only thing that works.  
It is way too early in BTC development for the shenanigans that are happening to it.
If offchain was a direction Satoshi wanted, he would have just use FIAT banks and ignored crypto.

I mean really, if you have to go offchain for the majority of transactions, what the hell was the point to even starting Bitcoin.
Satoshi is rolling over in his grave, because of segwit.  


 

[-ck]

If Core really believe their solution is best, then they should invest in some mining pools in order to get them over the activation threshold. If they arn't prepared to put their money on the line like that, chances are, segwit is not the best solution.

Surely you must be kidding. The bitcoin mining network is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. How exactly does a team of predominantly volunteers, with a small group of paid coders only, fund taking control of enough hardware to direct power with such a network? 27% of the mining network has voluntarily signalled segwit so far, the funds to control something like 800PH of hashrate to bring the value to 95% would be astronomical. You're not understanding how the system works...

[HostFat]

Surely you must be kidding. The bitcoin mining network is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. How exactly does a team of predominantly volunteers, with a small group of paid coders only, fund taking control of enough hardware to direct power with such a network?

And this is the reason that there are now other implementations, with other devs.

If Core devs can't find deliver an implementation that reach consensus, some one else can do it.

[franky1]

Surely you must be kidding. The bitcoin mining network is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

lol
lets say we just think about:
600peta = ~44,000 S9 antminers(42857.14285714286 more precisely if your not factoring in slight hash variance)

now the antminer are retail $2k.. but manufactured at ~$500


$21,428,571(more precise asiccount) cost to make 600peta (~44k asics)
now using simple numbers (yep im gonna round them and not be as precise so dont knit pick, and just read the concept)

if blockstream started a manufactring company using its $70m
they could have made lets say 132,000 asics ($64m)

sold just 44,000 at $2k ($88m money back in pocket($94m including unspend $6m) AND kept 88,000 rigs for themselves..
Yep they could have 1.2Exahash running and now have $94m cash.

rinse and repeat
make 132,000 asics. sell 44,000 at retail.
keep 88,000(176k asics combined total) and then have another $88m($182m combined in pocket) (2.4exa)

rinse and repeat