1). As I understand it, the 10 minutes delay is to create a new block that there's enough/ sufficient time to fill and confirm the transactions (globally). But isn't it quite wasteful to keep adjusting the difficulty level to maintain the 10 minutes delay ?
Why would it be? It's there also to ensure that the supply of Bitcoins would be evenly distributed.
What is so special about the 10 minutes delay? Has there been any study to quantify more accurately the amount of time to reach the nodes globally ?
I believe that Satoshi chose this specific amount of time so that there would be lesser number of orphans blocks. If the intervals of the blocks gets too fast, then there is a higher chance with two or more miner generating a block at the same block height. This would pose as a risk for merchants, I'll explain more below.
2). Let say if we don't have to worry about the trust issue, in theory we only need one, or perhaps two confirmations right ? So for the remaining 51% confirmations is essentially to ensure that there's no cheating could happen. I got that so far...
In theory, you don't need any, if you have no trust issue. Confirmation is just a way to imprint transactions into the Blockchain. Once its included in a block, it is inside the Blockchain and you need immense power to reverse it. There's no such thing as 51% of confirmation.
Anyway, just to elaborate on the point I made before this quote. Imagine that there's two forks at the same block height of 15. One of the blocks has transaction A inside it and the other doesn't. If the difficulty of producing blocks is low, then the fork could potentially grow. If at any point, either of the fork overtakes the other, the slower chain would be orphaned. If transaction A was included in the orphaned chain, it would be back to unconfirmed and anyone can double spend it. With a longer interval, this would have a lesser chance of happening.
3). But what if we could accomplish item#1 and #2 in 5 minutes, 3 minutes or even 30 seconds - shouldn't that be a good thing ? Why make it more difficult, delay until 10 minutes and empowering expensive equipment ? That seems to feed into the endless cycles of who's got bigger and faster mining capability? Understand that it seems to justify the rise in bitcoin price...
Of course, of course. First of all, we are trading something for Bitcoin and in this case, miners are giving up their electricity and investments to try to earn Bitcoins. If everyone were to be able to generate the same amount of Bitcoin as before, there would be zero point of mining. If I can generate 1 coin at 1GH/s my whole life, Bitcoin wouldn't have the value it has today, nothing near it.
Refer to point 2 and 1. If you're having better hardware, you should be receiving more proportionately. Doesn't make sense for anyone to develop miners if you don't get more for having faster miners.
4). What about making the 51st % node (with the longest chain) to be a lucky lottery winner and avoid increasing the difficulty level and eliminate the need for fancy equipment and energy burning all together -wouldn't that be more fair and efficient ways to utilize energy and resources ? At the same time avoiding the centralization of miners all together ??
Honestly, I really don't get what is a 51% node. It doesn't make sense at all.
Regarding the item #4, forgive for being confused about how a Block get confirmed and awarded to a miner...I read somewhere that it would take 51% of nodes to confirm a block, but I think that 51% only applies to forks perhaps ?
If I understand correctly now, the block with longest chain won the rewards after ~ 10 minutes.
Given that you have 2 forks A & B. If you mine a block on fork A such that it becomes longer than fork B, you will get the reward and the other chain is orphaned, vice versa.
I'm still trying to figure that if it is possible that miners to win rewards purely base on randomness- like a lottery, rather than base on how expensive, and high power equipment...essentially leveling the playing field. Wouldn't that eliminate the unfair advantage of large mining companies vs smaller individual miner ? And decentralize the mining portion of blockchain ? I just don't think adjusting the difficulty level is the most sufficient way to confirm blockchain ?
I don't see any reason to make mining a lottery game. Mining should always be based on the amount of power a miner has. If you don't have sufficient amount of money or land, don't mine Bitcoins.
I wish better equipment is just simply buying more tickets - but we all know there's more to it...they essentially force all individual miners out of business - they change the way the lottery being drawn, they have the power to (almost successfully) changing the lottery rules of engagement...I don't think this is just a simple case of buying more tickets in hoping to get a better change of winning at the present time, but to influent the future winning. Specifically in favor for one group of people vs the rest of the population. We could call it what ever we'd like, but in reality, it is just flat out monopoly !
Of course. We are using a "currency", not some game credits. If you have more power, of course you have a higher chance. The mining process is totally dependent on how much hashpower you have or how many hashes can you try.
Isn't it well known that you would get better rates by ordering a bulk of stuff? If you want to have the same advantage as them, get a huge warehouse, loads of electricity and loads of ASICs.
I also know enough to embrace the idea of competition and reward to advance technology and serve the common interests. But competition should not impede progress, as some of us whose have been around long enough to see the effect of VHS vs Beta format or Windows vs Linus...and having to cough up to $300 for a marginal operating software for your PC.
You can still mine Bitcoins, why not? Just get an ASIC.
If there is a higher hashrate overall, the difficulty of anyone executing a 51% attack is harder. I don't see anything bad with helping to secure the network even if it means I can't get free Bitcoins.
