Bitcoin's value is decentralization

[Gabriel Beal]

This blog post I found, http://paulbohm.com/bitcoin-decentralization/, is really well done.  It did two things for me.  It introduced me to the Byzantine General's Problem (which I now see is well known in the bitcoin community) and it argues really convincingly about what bitcoin's central strength is.

[giszmo]

Yes. Agree. Spread the word.
My concern are pools, hence the text in my signature

[Gabriel Beal]

Yes, I think solo mining is cool.  Whenever I eventually finish building my mining rig, I'll be going solo.  I can handle the variance.

[bcearl]

Mining for good pools is as profitable as solo mining. Anything else would be a flaw in the system.

A big mining pool could have its own secret mining software, which could hash a little quicker. But that doesn't matter, the 50 % are not magical.