Bitcoin should be decentralized even further

[Abiky]

China having most of the Bitcoin's hashrate is a bad idea for its decentralization. Since Bitmain is one of the largest ASIC mining hardware manufacturers in the world, it is one where it holds the majority of the pioneer cryptocurrency's hashrate.

As a result of this, due to Bitcoin's mining becoming more centralized each day, it is getting harder to reach consensus among the miners, especially with the acceptance of scalable solutions like SegWit. Since miners are mostly in for the profit, they don't care much about expanding Bitcoin's transaction capacity, but rather prefer for the same to keep increasing in transaction fees, so they could earn more money per block mined.

That is why, in my own opinion, Bitcoin's mining scheme should be decentralized even further to prevent big mining companies from taking over the important decisions of Bitcoin, and give the power back to average every day people. Perhaps a switch to a new mining algorithm which would be more resistant to ASIC will be the most viable solution to this problem.

What do you think? 

[1715156798]

1715156798

[iluvpie60]

People can create their own pools and join together. More people should do this. We shouldn't be joining into a huge pool unless they align with progress of increasing block size and segwit.

[European Central Bank]

People can create their own pools and join together. More people should do this. We shouldn't be joining into a huge pool unless they align with progress of increasing block size and segwit.

i wouldn't say pools are necessarily the problem. if something bad was developing with one pool then the miners can switch easily enough.

the problem is the quantity of miners in a small number of hands. bitmain makes most of the machines and also owns farms of their own. bitfury mines for itself as well.

but even if you go back to cpu mining, there are pockets that are deeper than everyone else who'll create cpu farms instead. 

[Wind_FURY]

OP, that is very easy to say but maybe very hard to implement in practice. You will start a war with the miners that could end up very badly on the chain with the upgraded POW algorithm. The miners have reached a level where it has money and power as shown in the scaling debate. You do not want to mess with them. A compromise to the compromise would be a better proposal.

[Sadlife]

I think that is one of the reasons why Segwot is having hardships to get implemented because of Chinese owning most of the hashrate this chinese miners is preventing bitcoin to innovate because jihan wants bitcoin all for himself.
I hope people should join up and made their own pool to fight against this.

[White sugar]

Where can you find cheap slave work to produce cheap ASICs, and cheap electricity?

Things can't be totally decentralized in the world, and Bitcoin is no different. Sadly for us China has a great advantage related to Bitcoin mining

[Pursuer]

People can create their own pools and join together. More people should do this. We shouldn't be joining into a huge pool unless they align with progress of increasing block size and segwit.

the problem is not pools, it is mining power/equipment. it is not easy to invest in mining equipment when the manufacturer is also in China and also you needing a cheap electricity (although I think that is no longer the case with nearly $2000 price) and also it may not be allowed in some countries to do so.

[mrcash02]

How to forbid people to create big mine businesses as it's decentralized? The decentralization allows people to create businesses strong enough to control the decentralized world... If there is someway to forbid/don't allow this, it's because it's not 100% decentralized...

To say the truth, I never saw anything really decentralized, Bitcoin is the first thing I'm seeing, it's a experiment for the world history to test if it really works or not.

[RoommateAgreement]

How to forbid people to create big mine businesses as it's decentralized? The decentralization allows people to create businesses strong enough to control the decentralized world... If there is someway to forbid/don't allow this, it's because it's not 100% decentralized...

To say the truth, I never saw anything really decentralized, Bitcoin is the first thing I'm seeing, it's a experiment for the world history to test if it really works or not.

you don't have to forbid it to prevent centralization.
it can be the other way too, like having mining power coming from other places. for example i know that Georgia has started to show a lot of mining power lately and has been becoming big.
imagine if we had mining farms coming from a couple more countries in the world, that would automatically spread things. and it is like this now but the others are small compared to mining farms in China and they need to get bigger.

[pooya87]

we are moving towards that day. it won't be easy since mining bitcoin is not a simple low risk job, there are a lot of things apart from costs that they need to consider.

here is what i mean we are headed that way:

[mrcash02]

How to forbid people to create big mine businesses as it's decentralized? The decentralization allows people to create businesses strong enough to control the decentralized world... If there is someway to forbid/don't allow this, it's because it's not 100% decentralized...

To say the truth, I never saw anything really decentralized, Bitcoin is the first thing I'm seeing, it's a experiment for the world history to test if it really works or not.

you don't have to forbid it to prevent centralization.
it can be the other way too, like having mining power coming from other places. for example i know that Georgia has started to show a lot of mining power lately and has been becoming big.
imagine if we had mining farms coming from a couple more countries in the world, that would automatically spread things. and it is like this now but the others are small compared to mining farms in China and they need to get bigger.

Hmm, that is good. If every country has interest in starting a business like that, the decentralization can work well.

But there is still the possibility of all or most mine businesses continue without reach to a consensus to solve the issues that must be solved soon as possible. If they want only profit, things will continue like now, they won't be worring very much about the functionality and the impasse continues.

[ekoice]

I think that is one of the reasons why Segwot is having hardships to get implemented because of Chinese owning most of the hashrate this chinese miners is preventing bitcoin to innovate because jihan wants bitcoin all for himself.
I hope people should join up and made their own pool to fight against this.

Definitely,the miners have an upper hand today and they dont want to loose their profits by any means.thats why segwit has not been implemented so far.
     Its very difficult for people to join to form pools and fight against such gigantic pools.Any way,its tim e for the miners to fill up their pockets and they are doing it vigorously.

[Wind_FURY]

What does everyone think of Barry Silbert's proposal of Segwit with a 2mb blocksize? Would that be a start for the big blockers to start listening and start cooperating?

[dinofelis]

To say the truth, I never saw anything really decentralized, Bitcoin is the first thing I'm seeing, it's a experiment for the world history to test if it really works or not.

Bitcoin has never really been decentralized, until recently.  Bitcoin was centralized, first in Satoshi's hands.  Then in Core's hands.  These were the deciding entities over bitcoin, until recently.  With the advent of several pools, and their own ideas of self interest, and Core being over-confident in their central power (Vitalik style), the central line of command has been put into doubt.   This is why Core cannot impose its modifications any more in an evident way, in the same way that Vitalik could impose his "rewinding" of the DAO onto the ethereum ecosystem (be it with a split of a minority of non-sheep).

However, economies of scale make that the central authority is potentially formed by a cartel of mining pools, eventually with some Core devs, like what happened on Litecoin: from the moment that "important people" can "sit in a room and come to an agreement" the system is obviously centralized.  From the moment there is a charismatic "leader" that can motivate people to change something, the system is obviously centralized, in the same way that states are politically centralized, that the banking system is centralized, and that most other systems are centralized with "leadership".

I know of a few truly decentralized systems: science, and evolutionary biology.  No central authority/leader/cartel/... can change the rules of science or the contents of science.  No central authority/leader/cartel/.... can change the rules of evolutionary biology.

And there used to be an old, decentralized internet discussion system: usenet.

Bitcoin is close to that, but no cigar.  We are maybe witnessing a short period, right now, where bitcoin IS decentralized, when core lost its central power, and miners don't have it yet completely.

[Nagadota]

The good thing is that people can start moving out of Antpool once they realise just how much of their revenues Antpool is robbing from them. 

The bad thing is that people like an extremely steady stream of income and some people can't handle significant variance.

However, as people's margins of profits get tighter, pools will become more competitive with the fees they take and people will start moving to pools with less than 1% fees like Kanopool.  Fortunately, a block every ten minutes is good enough for a pool with 1% of the hashrate to mine 1.44 blocks per day on average, so eventually people will stop conforming to whichever pool is biggest at the time.

[dinofelis]

The good thing is that people can start moving out of Antpool once they realise just how much of their revenues Antpool is robbing from them. 

The bad thing is that people like an extremely steady stream of income and some people can't handle significant variance.

However, as people's margins of profits get tighter, pools will become more competitive with the fees they take and people will start moving to pools with less than 1% fees like Kanopool.  Fortunately, a block every ten minutes is good enough for a pool with 1% of the hashrate to mine 1.44 blocks per day on average, so eventually people will stop conforming to whichever pool is biggest at the time.

Indeed, it is bitcoin's 10 minute block rate that determines grossly the number of pools that will share the market.

If you want an income stability of less than 10% standard deviation per month, then the pool you adhere to should mine on average about 100 blocks per month (if you mine 100 blocks on average, then Poisson statistics give you a 10% standard deviation on that realisation).
In one month, there are 4000 blocks to be mined more or less, so this means that there will be of the order of 40 pools at most that can offer you a 10% variation per month.  (note that 10% standard deviation will give you sometimes a variation of 30% or so).

Knowing that a market never gives uniform shares, but rather power law shares, the current pool distribution doesn't seem too remote from what a normal market would do, with 5 market leaders having in total the majority share, and about 20 pools having almost all of the market.
The orders of magnitude are in agreement with what is to be expected with 10 minute blocks.

[dinofelis]

I think the best solution isn't only change algorithm once, but change/update algorithm regularly every few years to prevent company from creating new ASIC. But, i think this won't happen.

Indeed.  But that's not bitcoin any more.  This is a new cryptocurrency, that needs a central hard fork policy.  Ethereum, DASH and monero are such central hard forking currencies.  Bitcoin has no central hard forking tradition and hence has no mechanism in place to "change the constitution", but of course nobody stops anyone from making an alt coin forking off bitcoin.

[RoommateAgreement]

I think the best solution isn't only change algorithm once, but change/update algorithm regularly every few years to prevent company from creating new ASIC. But, i think this won't happen.

Indeed.  But that's not bitcoin any more.  This is a new cryptocurrency, that needs a central hard fork policy.  Ethereum, DASH and monero are such central hard forking currencies.  Bitcoin has no central hard forking tradition and hence has no mechanism in place to "change the constitution", but of course nobody stops anyone from making an alt coin forking off bitcoin.

it has already happened a couple of times actually!
there is one active one currently in altcoins that has forked from bitcoin, the name is even similar it was "bitcoin something that i forgot"
and the funny thing is that they all fail to exist for any meaningful time.

[7788bitcoin]

This is not a worry as we are actually moving towards decentralization.

This is because the current China-centralized mining pools was caused by the extremely fast evolution of mining ASIC. China has the factories and they are able to make these ASIC fast. It was more profitable to use the ASIC they made to mine bitcoin than selling the ASIC.

Therefore, manufacturers = miners => more China miners


However, as the best technology is now being used to make ASIC, the increase in hashing power for given unit of energy is slowing down, it gradually turns out that selling ASIC might be more profitable than using them for mining.

Therefore, manufacturers  =/= miners => buyers from all over the world => decentralization.

[deisik]

As a result of this, due to Bitcoin's mining becoming more centralized each day, it is getting harder to reach consensus among the miners, especially with the acceptance of scalable solutions like SegWit. Since miners are mostly in for the profit, they don't care much about expanding Bitcoin's transaction capacity, but rather prefer for the same to keep increasing in transaction fees, so they could earn more money per block mined

I certainly agree with the essence of your post

But I still should point it out that Bitcoin mining becoming more centralized actually makes it easier to reach a consensus, though likely not the consensus that you personally may be hoping and looking for. In other words, miners can force their agenda through their monopolistic position even if the whole world is against them. Other than that, miners are vitally interested in preserving the current status quo, so all talks about hard forks are aimed only at distracting out attention from the real issue

[dinofelis]

I think the best solution isn't only change algorithm once, but change/update algorithm regularly every few years to prevent company from creating new ASIC. But, i think this won't happen.

Indeed.  But that's not bitcoin any more.  This is a new cryptocurrency, that needs a central hard fork policy.  Ethereum, DASH and monero are such central hard forking currencies.  Bitcoin has no central hard forking tradition and hence has no mechanism in place to "change the constitution", but of course nobody stops anyone from making an alt coin forking off bitcoin.

it has already happened a couple of times actually!
there is one active one currently in altcoins that has forked from bitcoin, the name is even similar it was "bitcoin something that i forgot"
and the funny thing is that they all fail to exist for any meaningful time.

I'm not aware of any, but of course there are so many alt coins...
I know that there are some alt coins that have a mechanism to obtain coins if somehow they prove bitcoin ownership ; that's half a fork, I'd say.

In fact, the notion of forking becomes somewhat vague if one also includes the possibility to exclude bitcoin addresses, and to allow for a new genesis block.  Because then, any block chain like thing can be considered to be a fork of any other block chain like thing that existed at the moment of its creation of course.

Nevertheless, a "bitcoin change of proof of work", or a "bitcoin change to proof of stake" would in fact be nothing else but the creation of an alt coin ; that could, or couldn't, have a success in the market, depending on how the "double coin owners" vote in the market.  Most probably, the "difficulty" in assigning this alt coin the name of bitcoin would be that the old chain wouldn't simply disappear: miners having SHA-256 mining hardware wouldn't see any reason to change their expensive equipment into door steps voluntary.

[Xester]

China having most of the Bitcoin's hashrate is a bad idea for its decentralization. Since Bitmain is one of the largest ASIC mining hardware manufacturers in the world, it is one where it holds the majority of the pioneer cryptocurrency's hashrate.

As a result of this, due to Bitcoin's mining becoming more centralized each day, it is getting harder to reach consensus among the miners, especially with the acceptance of scalable solutions like SegWit. Since miners are mostly in for the profit, they don't care much about expanding Bitcoin's transaction capacity, but rather prefer for the same to keep increasing in transaction fees, so they could earn more money per block mined.

That is why, in my own opinion, Bitcoin's mining scheme should be decentralized even further to prevent big mining companies from taking over the important decisions of Bitcoin, and give the power back to average every day people. Perhaps a switch to a new mining algorithm which would be more resistant to ASIC will be the most viable solution to this problem.

What do you think? 

Well I do agree with that but first and foremost before any decentralization could come in hand I think Satoshi had already placed a standard or guidelines for miners to follow so at this point of time we will not have problems with the fees and slow confirmation. Though bitcoin is decentralized there are a lot of movements to make bitcoins under a centralized control.

[Agrello]

So many people are looking at china and are anxious that they have a greater control in terms of mining and pools. Though not many people realise that even with supercomputers such is the case, they overshadow USA in such things:
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/fastest-supercomputer-sunway-taihulight/

So i am not at all surprised that that is the case with Bitcoin.

It would be nice if a pool could not gain more than 10% control of the network, though in time when Bitcoin becomes more popular it will start spreading into businesses, peoples wallets and similar which should help. Because of its immense power now, Bitcoin will be going through many attacks of people trying to gain control of its network.

[bartolo]

The question of decentralization is not so much about a country but a company, Bitmain. There are other companies that could establish themselves in China and compete with them. Anyway, with the rise of bitcoin price may be companies in other parts of the world that could consider investing in bitcoin mining and in this way the mining power would be more distributed.

[Sniper44]

So many people are looking at china and are anxious that they have a greater control in terms of mining and pools. Though not many people realise that even with supercomputers such is the case, they overshadow USA in such things:
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/fastest-supercomputer-sunway-taihulight/

So i am not at all surprised that that is the case with Bitcoin.

It would be nice if a pool could not gain more than 10% control of the network, though in time when Bitcoin becomes more popular it will start spreading into businesses, peoples wallets and similar which should help. Because of its immense power now, Bitcoin will be going through many attacks of people trying to gain control of its network.

i am not sure what you are trying to say with the supercomputer news, do you think someone is going to use a supercomputer to mine bitcoin? is that it, i don't think it is even possible and if it was it would be waste of resources! and a supercomputer is not something you can buy at a computer shop it usually is only one!

also the pools are not the problem, if miners aren't happy with a pool they will simply switch to another or start a new one and gather around in that new pool.
the problem is the farms and the fact that manufacturing of ASICs is also in China.

[stompix]

That is why, in my own opinion, Bitcoin's mining scheme should be decentralized even further to prevent big mining companies from taking over the important decisions of Bitcoin, and give the power back to average every day people. Perhaps a switch to a new mining algorithm which would be more resistant to ASIC will be the most viable solution to this problem.

What do you think? 

Change SHA-256 Mining Algorithm with other Algorithm which other algorithm that can't be mined with ASIC is great idea, but i'm sure this is controversial topic and current miners won't agree.
But, certain group will work together with CPU/GPU manufacture for cheaper CPU/GPU price by buy lots of them or even try make another ASIC with new algorithm and once more they will have power in bitcoin mining.

I think the best solution isn't only change algorithm once, but change/update algorithm regularly every few years to prevent company from creating new ASIC. But, i think this won't happen.

There is no algo that is ASIC resistant.
No matter how you try to modify it no matter what combination you use (I think there was a coin which combined 5 of them) there will always be an asic that would trash whatever mining power you can get from your videocard.

[dinofelis]

There is no algo that is ASIC resistant.
No matter how you try to modify it no matter what combination you use (I think there was a coin which combined 5 of them) there will always be an asic that would trash whatever mining power you can get from your videocard.

The idea is to change algorithms regularly as hard forks, without people knowing in advance what it will be.  You won't invest in hardware development if every year, another algorithm is chosen, rendering your hardware useless.

That said, the problem with asics is the problem that PoW is used for *consensus*.  That PoW is used for coin creation, is not a problem.  The real problem is that PoW decides on consensus, and hence also on protocol.  If one flips to non-remunerated proof of stake, with PoW only used for coin creation, but not for consensus, then the fact that PoW is in the hands of some would be much, much less problematic.

[nizamcc]

These companies are not just taking all the decisions, but they have also been covering too much hash rate that is not at all a good part here. Such companies having huge hash rates are now taking advantage of the price that they are getting for their mining work and pies that they get from their mining. I don't think that small miners may be getting fair shares for all their efforts they put in mining through buying these expensive hardware from the same companies.

[deisik]

That is why, in my own opinion, Bitcoin's mining scheme should be decentralized even further to prevent big mining companies from taking over the important decisions of Bitcoin, and give the power back to average every day people. Perhaps a switch to a new mining algorithm which would be more resistant to ASIC will be the most viable solution to this problem.

What do you think? 

Change SHA-256 Mining Algorithm with other Algorithm which other algorithm that can't be mined with ASIC is great idea, but i'm sure this is controversial topic and current miners won't agree.
But, certain group will work together with CPU/GPU manufacture for cheaper CPU/GPU price by buy lots of them or even try make another ASIC with new algorithm and once more they will have power in bitcoin mining.

I think the best solution isn't only change algorithm once, but change/update algorithm regularly every few years to prevent company from creating new ASIC. But, i think this won't happen

There is no algo that is ASIC resistant.
No matter how you try to modify it no matter what combination you use (I think there was a coin which combined 5 of them) there will always be an asic that would trash whatever mining power you can get from your videocard.

I terribly disagree with that

First of all, you are confusing the algo with its implementation in hardware. Obviously, these are two entirely different things. Not every algo can be implemented in hardware due to limitations imposed by physical laws, as simple as it gets. Thereby, your claim as such goes straight out the window just on this account alone. Further, I think you can easily come up with a lot of algos that would prohibit parallel execution, which is what asics are all about. And what follows next is the crux of the matter. We already reached physical limits in certain fields. For example, we can't make bigger CPU chips and keep their frequency at the same level for the simple fact that the speed of light is finite. And this is where physical laws make your claim as invalid conceptually. So you are twice wrong, and this is certainly not the case where two wrongs offset each other

[Agrello]

So many people are looking at china and are anxious that they have a greater control in terms of mining and pools. Though not many people realise that even with supercomputers such is the case, they overshadow USA in such things:
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/fastest-supercomputer-sunway-taihulight/

So i am not at all surprised that that is the case with Bitcoin.

It would be nice if a pool could not gain more than 10% control of the network, though in time when Bitcoin becomes more popular it will start spreading into businesses, peoples wallets and similar which should help. Because of its immense power now, Bitcoin will be going through many attacks of people trying to gain control of its network.

i am not sure what you are trying to say with the supercomputer news, do you think someone is going to use a supercomputer to mine bitcoin? is that it, i don't think it is even possible and if it was it would be waste of resources! and a supercomputer is not something you can buy at a computer shop it usually is only one!

also the pools are not the problem, if miners aren't happy with a pool they will simply switch to another or start a new one and gather around in that new pool.
the problem is the farms and the fact that manufacturing of ASICs is also in China.

My point is that people always say "ah we should watch out, China has control" not realising something more important such as the most powerful supercomputers are also in the hands of China. So if they have the most powerful supercomputer, having the most powerful group of miners should not be so surprising.

Also China produces most of the worlds products. Why again is the fact that they also produce miners of a surprise again? This is how it has been for a long time. They worked hard to catch up with the rest of the world, and now they are slowly surpassing everyone on many levels. Though none of this is a expression on my behalf that the mining power should be centralised, just a acceptance of where China has reached.

[btcdevil]

So many people are looking at china and are anxious that they have a greater control in terms of mining and pools. Though not many people realise that even with supercomputers such is the case, they overshadow USA in such things:
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/fastest-supercomputer-sunway-taihulight/

So i am not at all surprised that that is the case with Bitcoin.

It would be nice if a pool could not gain more than 10% control of the network, though in time when Bitcoin becomes more popular it will start spreading into businesses, peoples wallets and similar which should help. Because of its immense power now, Bitcoin will be going through many attacks of people trying to gain control of its network.

i am not sure what you are trying to say with the supercomputer news, do you think someone is going to use a supercomputer to mine bitcoin? is that it, i don't think it is even possible and if it was it would be waste of resources! and a supercomputer is not something you can buy at a computer shop it usually is only one!

also the pools are not the problem, if miners aren't happy with a pool they will simply switch to another or start a new one and gather around in that new pool.
the problem is the farms and the fact that manufacturing of ASICs is also in China.

My point is that people always say "ah we should watch out, China has control" not realising something more important such as the most powerful supercomputers are also in the hands of China. So if they have the most powerful supercomputer, having the most powerful group of miners should not be so surprising.

Also China produces most of the worlds products. Why again is the fact that they also produce miners of a surprise again? This is how it has been for a long time. They worked hard to catch up with the rest of the world, and now they are slowly surpassing everyone on many levels. Though none of this is a expression on my behalf that the mining power should be centralised, just a acceptance of where China has reached.

This is what world think but no one knows that the miner owner by outsider of china and they are. Controlling it they are just set the miner setup in china for low cost in maintenance

[alexsamudra]

If it is necessary to be in decentralized what may make it wider and better for the future.

[soul-impact]

If it is necessary to be in decentralized what may make it wider and better for the future.

 think bitcoin needs to be decentralized, it has an impact on the development and existence of bitcoin, currently, bitcoin is being accepted by governments, which is one of the first steps to bitcoin decentralization.

[ASHLIUSZ]

So many people are looking at china and are anxious that they have a greater control in terms of mining and pools. Though not many people realise that even with supercomputers such is the case, they overshadow USA in such things:
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/fastest-supercomputer-sunway-taihulight/

So i am not at all surprised that that is the case with Bitcoin.

It would be nice if a pool could not gain more than 10% control of the network, though in time when Bitcoin becomes more popular it will start spreading into businesses, peoples wallets and similar which should help. Because of its immense power now, Bitcoin will be going through many attacks of people trying to gain control of its network.

i am not sure what you are trying to say with the supercomputer news, do you think someone is going to use a supercomputer to mine bitcoin? is that it, i don't think it is even possible and if it was it would be waste of resources! and a supercomputer is not something you can buy at a computer shop it usually is only one!

also the pools are not the problem, if miners aren't happy with a pool they will simply switch to another or start a new one and gather around in that new pool.
the problem is the farms and the fact that manufacturing of ASICs is also in China.

My point is that people always say "ah we should watch out, China has control" not realising something more important such as the most powerful supercomputers are also in the hands of China. So if they have the most powerful supercomputer, having the most powerful group of miners should not be so surprising.

Also China produces most of the worlds products. Why again is the fact that they also produce miners of a surprise again? This is how it has been for a long time. They worked hard to catch up with the rest of the world, and now they are slowly surpassing everyone on many levels. Though none of this is a expression on my behalf that the mining power should be centralised, just a acceptance of where China has reached.

This is what world think but no one knows that the miner owner by outsider of china and they are. Controlling it they are just set the miner setup in china for low cost in maintenance

Doesn't look surprising that China holding majority of miners, but the controllability is not anymore in the hands of Chinese miners and exchanges which are the key factors for the circulation of bitcoin among the entire population. Due to advancement and ease of availabilities for equipments China holds a good user base for bitcoin and mining.

[DooMAD]

I'm still not convinced by the supposed "threat" from China, but if I were, I'd be paying much closer attention to geopolitics.  The US and many other Western nations are currently looking inwards, becoming increasingly isolationist and, to a certain extent, navel gazing.  It's almost as though the West has declared war on globalism.  While these countries retreat from the global stage, China, on the other hand, are embracing these ideals and expanding rapidly, with massive investment in infrastructure in not just their own country, but also other parts of world.  This is going to pay off in future.   

China is only going to get comparatively more wealthy as time goes by, because the West has come down with a severe case of the stupids.

And coming back to the subject of Bitcoin, anyone talking about a change of algorithm needs to consider the following:  If you're soiling yourself over the damage a "regular" hard fork might cause (as per the usual narrative in this scaling debate), you should be excreting an order of magnitude more over the damage a change of algo might do if you lack support from the mining community and force their hand.  You can keep repeating your new-found mantra that nodes are the real economic power, but that's all conjecture until you pull the trigger and find out for certain.  The simple fact is, no one has attempted that before and you can't make any guarantees about the outcome.

How brave are you feeling?

What does everyone think of Barry Silbert's proposal of Segwit with a 2mb blocksize? Would that be a start for the big blockers to start listening and start cooperating?

Static limits suck, get behind this instead.   

[iamTom123]

OP, that is very easy to say but maybe very hard to implement in practice. You will start a war with the miners that could end up very badly on the chain with the upgraded POW algorithm. The miners have reached a level where it has money and power as shown in the scaling debate. You do not want to mess with them. A compromise to the compromise would be a better proposal.

You are telling the real situation now with Bitcoin. The miners are now getting to be too powerful and touching them and their earnings can have many repercussions. Sad that it has become this way but we have to find a very acceptable solution to the problem. Now we could not let things go on this way as it is actually Bitcoin itself that will suffer in the long run.

I am interested to know what you mean by "compromise to the compromise"... please explain more.

[stompix]

That is why, in my own opinion, Bitcoin's mining scheme should be decentralized even further to prevent big mining companies from taking over the important decisions of Bitcoin, and give the power back to average every day people. Perhaps a switch to a new mining algorithm which would be more resistant to ASIC will be the most viable solution to this problem.

What do you think?  

Change SHA-256 Mining Algorithm with other Algorithm which other algorithm that can't be mined with ASIC is great idea, but i'm sure this is controversial topic and current miners won't agree.
But, certain group will work together with CPU/GPU manufacture for cheaper CPU/GPU price by buy lots of them or even try make another ASIC with new algorithm and once more they will have power in bitcoin mining.

I think the best solution isn't only change algorithm once, but change/update algorithm regularly every few years to prevent company from creating new ASIC. But, i think this won't happen

There is no algo that is ASIC resistant.
No matter how you try to modify it no matter what combination you use (I think there was a coin which combined 5 of them) there will always be an asic that would trash whatever mining power you can get from your videocard.

I terribly disagree with that

First of all, you are confusing the algo with its implementation in hardware. Obviously, these are two entirely different things. Not every algo can be implemented in hardware due to limitations imposed by physical laws, as simple as it gets. Thereby, your claim as such goes straight out the window just on this account alone. Further, I think you can easily come up with a lot of algos that would prohibit parallel execution, which is what asics are all about. And what follows next is the crux of the matter. We already reached physical limits in certain fields. For example, we can't make bigger CPU chips and keep their frequency at the same level for the simple fact that the speed of light is finite. And this is where physical laws make your claim as invalid conceptually. So you are twice wrong, and this is certainly not the case where two wrongs offset each other

Deisik the 5 liners trikes again... with a load of BS.
No matter what you what type o algo you're using you can create a chip that does that and that alone better than the average computer.
Probably on planet  4linesofbs that is true but here on earth we use common sense.

For example, we can't make bigger CPU chips and keep their frequency at the same level for the simple fact that the speed of light is finite.

I will nominate this to the stupidity of the year awards.
You have no clue what clockrate is and .. speed of light is finite? Are you high or what?

PS.
I beg you to try and answer in less than 4 lines.
Are you allowed?

[deisik]

That is why, in my own opinion, Bitcoin's mining scheme should be decentralized even further to prevent big mining companies from taking over the important decisions of Bitcoin, and give the power back to average every day people. Perhaps a switch to a new mining algorithm which would be more resistant to ASIC will be the most viable solution to this problem.

What do you think? 

Change SHA-256 Mining Algorithm with other Algorithm which other algorithm that can't be mined with ASIC is great idea, but i'm sure this is controversial topic and current miners won't agree.
But, certain group will work together with CPU/GPU manufacture for cheaper CPU/GPU price by buy lots of them or even try make another ASIC with new algorithm and once more they will have power in bitcoin mining.

I think the best solution isn't only change algorithm once, but change/update algorithm regularly every few years to prevent company from creating new ASIC. But, i think this won't happen

There is no algo that is ASIC resistant.
No matter how you try to modify it no matter what combination you use (I think there was a coin which combined 5 of them) there will always be an asic that would trash whatever mining power you can get from your videocard.

I terribly disagree with that

First of all, you are confusing the algo with its implementation in hardware. Obviously, these are two entirely different things. Not every algo can be implemented in hardware due to limitations imposed by physical laws, as simple as it gets. Thereby, your claim as such goes straight out the window just on this account alone. Further, I think you can easily come up with a lot of algos that would prohibit parallel execution, which is what asics are all about. And what follows next is the crux of the matter. We already reached physical limits in certain fields. For example, we can't make bigger CPU chips and keep their frequency at the same level for the simple fact that the speed of light is finite. And this is where physical laws make your claim as invalid conceptually. So you are twice wrong, and this is certainly not the case where two wrongs offset each other

Deisik the 5 liners trikes again... with a load of BS.
No matter what you what type o algo you're using you can create a chip that does that and that alone better than the average computer.
Probably on planet  4linesofbs that is true but here on earth we use common sense.

For example, we can't make bigger CPU chips and keep their frequency at the same level for the simple fact that the speed of light is finite.

I will nominate this to the stupidity of the year awards.
You have no clue what clockrate is and .. speed of light is finite? Are you high or what?

PS.
I beg you to try and answer in less than 4 lines.
Are you allowed?

You are not in the position to ask me of anything

I hope that brings you peace of mind at last. You should also keep in mind that your "nominations" may be interesting only to the trolls of your rank (the lowest rank among forum trolls bordering on outright spamming). I'm not high, it is just you who is as dense and thickheaded as they come. Raising CPU frequency above certain limit is meaningless since the signal wouldn't be able to reach the other end of the chip when another signal is already coming in (which would end in an indeterminate state). This is the absolute physical limit imposed on the size of the chip and the frequency it is clocked at. This example was to show you how physical limits can quickly put an end to your wild fantasies and sick imagination. It is even truer with respect to algos. Since Dino is hellbent on algos and such things, I think he can explain it to you even better than me, probably with some formulas

[stompix]

You are not in the position to ask me of anything

I hope that brings you peace of mind at last. You should also keep in mind that your "nominations" may be interesting only to the trolls of your rank, other than that, I don't think anyone is interested in that. I'm not high, it is just you who is as dense and thickheaded as they come. Raising CPU frequency above certain limit is meaningless since the signal would be able to reach the other end of the chip, this is the absolute physical limit imposed on the size of the chip and its frequency. This example was to show you how physical limits can put an end to your wild fantasies. it is even truer with respect to algos. Since Dino is hellbent on algos and mathematics overall, I think he can explain it to you even better than me, likely with some formulas

Do the world a favor... go to wikipedia and search clock rate or cpu frequency .

Raising the limit is not meaningless at all.
Ever heard of overclocking? Is overclocking meaningless?
Another Darwin award. Congratulations!!!!!!

You have no clue what that "signal" is and how cpus work.
The problem is not about reaching the other end of the chip the problem is the time between pulses.
But that is to technical for a 12 year old  trying to post 4 liners over and over again.

And again, the whole debate is a joke
So what if a cpu has reached maximum speed? Anyone could simply build a miner with 1000 chips that will run at half the power needed by 1000 computers.
And again specialized miners will win.

[deisik]

You are not in the position to ask me of anything

I hope that brings you peace of mind at last. You should also keep in mind that your "nominations" may be interesting only to the trolls of your rank, other than that, I don't think anyone is interested in that. I'm not high, it is just you who is as dense and thickheaded as they come. Raising CPU frequency above certain limit is meaningless since the signal would be able to reach the other end of the chip, this is the absolute physical limit imposed on the size of the chip and its frequency. This example was to show you how physical limits can put an end to your wild fantasies. it is even truer with respect to algos. Since Dino is hellbent on algos and mathematics overall, I think he can explain it to you even better than me, likely with some formulas

Do the world a favor... go to wikipedia and search clock rate or cpu frequency .

Raising the limit is not meaningless at all.
Ever heard of overclocking? Is overclocking meaningless?
Another Darwin award. Congratulations!!!!!!

How long ago did you finish school?

And did you finish it at all? I guess it is you who should read the Wikipedia article about CPU clock rates. Then you might (purely hypothetically) learn why there is an ultimate limit on these frequencies and the size of the chip. Since you make references to overclocking (which is neither here nor there in regard to my point), it is as clear as day that you don't have a slightest clue what I'm talking about. Maybe, a quote from the article mentioned above will help you somehow (emphasis added):

Typically a crystal oscillator produces a fixed sine wave - the frequency reference signal. Electronic circuitry translates that into a square wave at the same frequency for digital electronics applications. The clock distribution network inside the CPU carries that clock signal to all the parts that need it

Now think about that it takes a finite amount of time till this signal reaches all these parts of the chip, and you may finally see the light (and how its speed limit is applicable here). This is the theoretical limit imposed by the laws of nature which you can't escape unless you somehow manage to change these laws themselves

[stompix]

Well is clear that you did not attend school.
Or you just took plums picking classes.

Raising CPU frequency above certain limit is meaningless since the signal would be able to reach the other end of the chip, this is the absolute physical limit imposed on the size of the chip and its frequency.

This is the number 1 stupidity you have written (today).
Until you go back and make clear what the hell where you thinking when you were saying the signal is not reaching the end of the chip ))))))) , lol the signal is not reaching the end. Should we give the poor signal a bit of water? Maybe he is thirsty!!!

Deisik... cut the crap.
You know shit about a cpu, you haven't worked once with one you haven't even once seen a scheme on how it works or at least an animation of it.

....

the signal would be able to reach the other end of the chip

hilarious

But wait there is more... you link the wiki page. Good boy. And what do we have here:

After each clock pulse, the signal lines inside the CPU need time to settle to their new state. That is, every signal line must finish transitioning from 0 to 1, or from 1 to 0.

You understand 4liner?
The computing power in not about the speed the pulse travels in the chip but on the frequency of those pulses.
That's why we have frequency!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

priceless...
I heard bitmain is hiring , maybe you can share your expertise with them. I'm sure they will be amazed by your knowledge.

[Abiky]

OP, that is very easy to say but maybe very hard to implement in practice. You will start a war with the miners that could end up very badly on the chain with the upgraded POW algorithm. The miners have reached a level where it has money and power as shown in the scaling debate. You do not want to mess with them. A compromise to the compromise would be a better proposal.

I guess you're right, mate. It wouldn't make any sense to argue about the current issues and implement a different mining algorithm, since miners are in control of the security and stability of the network. A loss of hashrate, would make the Bitcoin network less robust than what it is nowadays, so it would be best if the pioneer cryptocurrency stays as is.

In the end, I think that the market will decide which cryptocurrency would take the lead in handling mainstream payments. Bitcoin would be left as digital gold or store of value, while an alternative cryptocurrency like Dash would take its place as digital cash. As of today, Bitcoin's market share has declined a lot, and I believe that it will continue to do so in the upcoming years. Just my thoughts. 

[deisik]

After each clock pulse, the signal lines inside the CPU need time to settle to their new state. That is, every signal line must finish transitioning from 0 to 1, or from 1 to 0.

You understand 4liner?
The computing power in not about the speed the pulse travels in the chip but on the frequency of those pulses.
That's why we have frequency!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't make a complete fool of yourself

The quote you posted is irrelevant. Even if the time it takes for the signal lines to settle to their new state would be equal to zero, that wouldn't change a thing. As I already said, you simply can't understand what I'm telling you due to your density. But I can give you a hint why you can't clock a CPU chip at however high the frequency. A CPU is not a simple wire which you could clock at infinite frequency (i.e. as high as the metric of time-space itself allows), it doesn't just transmit some data. It is a processing unit, after all, not a transmitting wire. Now try to draw a distinction between these two

[stompix]

Yeah yeah yeah...
Again for lines of nothing ... good job.

So if we get the frequency to 100Thz it would mean the signal will not reach the end of the chip?

Come , entertain us more.
Or we could move the the project and development or to the mining area but ... your post are not counted there and you don;t get payed for your 4 liners so I guess you will decline it again.

But I can give you a hint why you can't clock a CPU chip at however high frequency.

Probably in paki english or in hindi this sentence makes sense but in this part of the world it simple means you're illiterate.

A CPU is not a simple wire which you could clock at infinite frequency (i.e. as high as the metric of time-space itself allows), it doesn't just transmit some data

Of course not infinite but you can clock it far more than current speeds. 10Ghz is nothing if there would be an use for it.
As for the metric of time and space... you remember what this discussion was about?

It was about creating an ASIC.
So, what does your blabbering about how cpu signal cant reach the end of the cpu )) has to do with my point of view?
Nothing.

I will repeat again and again.

There is no algo ASIC proof.

[deisik]

~bullshit skipped~

If you try to clock your chip above certain frequency (even if all settling delays are brought to naught), it will just stop working and will stay in an erratic state. Basically, instead of useful info you will receive just random noise since you won't be able to get the results from one register at one side of the chip required by another register at the other side of the chip before the next tick. Thus the maximum frequency is limited, as I have already said, by the speed of light and size of the chip (I hope you understand what signal propagation is fundamentally limited by). You also ask what this has to do with ASIC's? No problem, I can easily explain to you. If there are physical limits preventing you from doing something, you won't be able to overcome them, no matter how hard you might try. So this has obviously nothing to do with ASIC's, since ASIC's won't be able to overcome these limits either. As simple as it gets

Other than that, you seem to be from a very backward place (but I understand your butthurt)

[stompix]

~bullshit skipped~

If you try to clock your chip above certain limits (even if all settling delays are brought to naught), it will just stop working and will stay in an erratic state. Basically, instead of useful info you will receive just random noise since you won't be able to get the results from one register at one side of the chip required by another register at the other side of the chip. Thus the maximum frequency is limited, as I have already said, by the speed of light and size of the chip. You also ask what this has to do with ASIC's? No problem, I can easily explain to you. If there are physical limits preventing you from doing something, you won't be able to overcome them, no matter how hard you might try. So this has obviously nothing to do with ASIC's, since ASIC's won't be able to overcome these limits either. As simple as it gets

Other than that, you seem to be from a very backward place

Again showing you have no clue.
The noise is not because you can't get the "result" it's no result it's a damn pulse, the noise is because there are too many pulses that wait in the line for the oscillator.


But since in the technically field you fail like all the Paki posters let's simplify this for you.

You design an algo that can be mined only by a computer.
What stops a company to design a miner with dual triple or 1000 processors and the equal amount of ram ?
Nothing.

And in terms of processing power/electricity consumption the daily usage computers will get trashed.
Because you need to power things that are not needed by a miner.
Because you're wasting thousands of resources on the OS.

There is no algo that can't be mined by an improved miner that will consume only a minuscule amount of the electricity the usual desktop or gpu array eats up.

So there is no algo for which you can't design an ASIC.

[deisik]

~bullshit skipped~

If you try to clock your chip above certain limits (even if all settling delays are brought to naught), it will just stop working and will stay in an erratic state. Basically, instead of useful info you will receive just random noise since you won't be able to get the results from one register at one side of the chip required by another register at the other side of the chip. Thus the maximum frequency is limited, as I have already said, by the speed of light and size of the chip. You also ask what this has to do with ASIC's? No problem, I can easily explain to you. If there are physical limits preventing you from doing something, you won't be able to overcome them, no matter how hard you might try. So this has obviously nothing to do with ASIC's, since ASIC's won't be able to overcome these limits either. As simple as it gets

Other than that, you seem to be from a very backward place

Again showing you have no clue.
The noise is not because you can't get the "result" it's no result it's a damn pulse, the noise is because there are too many pulses that wait in the line for the oscillator

You may want to read again what I wrote

What I tell you is a fundamental limit which you can't even theoretically overcome. You will never come close to that limit in practice because "there are too many pulses that wait in the line for the oscillator" or something to that tune. But it doesn't mean that this limit is not there. The whole point is that it is always there, and you can't possibly overcome it. At least, not in this Universe. The same pertains to ASIC's, so if some physical process (which can be used for mining) requires a sort of synchronization (like the Planck time, which is the minimum theoretically possible length of time between two events in a causal chain) due to the nature of the world around us, you won't be able to "design a miner with dual triple or 1000 processors". Are really that dense or what?

[stompix]

Oh really?
Throw your phone on the ground and count the chips.

Then come back and tell me how many chips are in an S9. You cant' develop a miner with 1000 chips?

You really want to make a full of yourself , do you?

[infer]

Many people believe that the UASF can solve the problems because bitcoin users can directly decide what they want to do with the Bitcoin, not just the miner. It will take a lot of time to make it become true. First of all, we need to confirm all pending transaction first

[szpalata]

Many people believe that the UASF can solve the problems because bitcoin users can directly decide what they want to do with the Bitcoin, not just the miner. It will take a lot of time to make it become true. First of all, we need to confirm all pending transaction first

Well that's a futuristic solution we are looking at what can be done now and whether they will be accepted by the entire community without any discrepancies and opinionated nonsense.

[Abiky]

Many people believe that the UASF can solve the problems because bitcoin users can directly decide what they want to do with the Bitcoin, not just the miner. It will take a lot of time to make it become true. First of all, we need to confirm all pending transaction first

Yes. I believe that UASF is the way to go, instead of leaving the power only to the miners themselves. Once people become tired of the increasing unconfirmed transactions on the Bitcoin network, they would immediately support UASF, to help Bitcoin scale, as it is up to this date where a solution hasn't been implemented because miners are too greedy and want the fees to rise.

But if UASF fails, then Bitcoin might never scale, leading the path for other altcoins to take the lead. The decline in Bitcoin's market share has a lot to say, since people are switching their views to other alternatives for their daily transactions.

Nevertheless, anything could happen with Bitcoin, so it is best to stay alert and diversify, in case it fails. Just my thoughts. 

[fathur.aza]

I will find something that will make for cheap ASIS, and others.

And many can not be totally decentralized in the world, bitcoin is no different.

[Abiky]

I will find something that will make for cheap ASIS, and others.

And many can not be totally decentralized in the world, bitcoin is no different.

You do have a point there, mate. No matter how hard we try, there would be no such thing as total decentralization. Any kind of cryptocurrency, will face the same issues as Bitcoin.

Thus, it would be important to try to minimize centralization as much as possible to ensure a strong network and good democracy towards the success of a specific blockchain for years to come.

Maybe someday, ASIC costs would become cheaper, greatly maximizing the chances for entry to anyone interested in participating on the security of Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency's network.

I wish that Bitcoin would become great again by allowing anyone to easily mine coins even if they don't have access to an ASIC. Nevertheless, if Bitcoin becomes more adopted by people across the world, it could spread out its hashrate even further to increase mining decentralization. Just my opinion.