Mining Enforcement (idea)

[dubiousfrog]

So the Bitcoin arms race is a problem. Everyone wants to have more hashes per second in order to maximize their profits, this in turn increases the overall network hashing power, which in turn solves blocks faster, which in turn triggers the difficulty setting to rise.

-- This continues to push avg. people out of the mining world --

It seems to me that one solution, apart from abandoning BTC for something like Litecoin, could be to limit the amount of hashing power any single person/entity can wield while mining. There are probably a number of problems with this simple idea, let's talk about it!

Some of my thoughts:

A. Require a miner to "register" and provide some form of I.D, maybe even just a dedicated IP address that they mine on, something which says "This guy, he's a unique guy in our system". This guy would then be allowed to mine, but with a restriction that his IP or somehow his ID would be only allowed a certain maximum hashes per second.

Lot's of problems with (A)... certainly. it's not as distributed or anonymous, the guy could just like fake multiple IPs or IDs, etc...

B. ? ? ?

C. Profit

[DennisD7]

I don't know man, I just don't see the real problem here.

Gold was also once much easier to mine, and now only big companies can make it profitable. It just happens that we are part of the gold rush right now, in a few years we will have fond memories about these ancient and crazy days.

Regulating who gets to mine seems to be the opposite of what Bitcoin is all about.

[Gabi]

This continues to push avg. people out of the mining world

Bullshit!

Now you can mine just by plugging an usb device in a computer, and this push the avg people out? Actually it make it much easier for the avg people to mine!

Your "suggestions": NO

[dubiousfrog]

well you know, there is nothing stopping you from mining bitcoin with your CPU... When the large companies come online fully, and more join them, those USB's will become futile.

think it all the way through, the arms race just means bigger weapons, until the average person cannot afford a weapon large enough to combat the large corporations / nations armed forces.

--

I agree that regulation does seem counter to bitcoin, but if it was somehow computationally regulated. =??

[Trongersoll]

So the Bitcoin arms race is a problem. Everyone wants to have more hashes per second in order to maximize their profits, this in turn increases the overall network hashing power, which in turn solves blocks faster, which in turn triggers the difficulty setting to rise.

-- This continues to push avg. people out of the mining world --

It seems to me that one solution, apart from abandoning BTC for something like Litecoin, could be to limit the amount of hashing power any single person/entity can wield while mining. There are probably a number of problems with this simple idea, let's talk about it!

Some of my thoughts:

A. Require a miner to "register" and provide some form of I.D, maybe even just a dedicated IP address that they mine on, something which says "This guy, he's a unique guy in our system". This guy would then be allowed to mine, but with a restriction that his IP or somehow his ID would be only allowed a certain maximum hashes per second.

Lot's of problems with (A)... certainly. it's not as distributed or anonymous, the guy could just like fake multiple IPs or IDs, etc...

B. ? ? ?

C. Profit

actually, what you are saying is a problem isn't for the community at large. Next you'll want to limit the number of miners under your scheme because every new miner decreases the payout to the rest. There are only so many bitcoins being made and everyone wants a bigger piece of the pie. The only way to do that is to take some from everyone else.

if nothing else, this would be extremely difficult to impliment. Do you know what your IP address is, do you know what it will be if you reboot your machine. Most ISPs issue IPs dymanically. If you aren't a business, a fixed IP address is rare. And, hackers would have a field day trying to break whatever system you came up with.

[tesselate]

IF this were even remotely possible, it seems wrong to punish those who got there first by innovating in a new market. Not to mention, Bitcoin is still in its infancy. There are many more coins to be mined, and its anyones guess as to who is going to come out with the most coins.

[cet]

So the Bitcoin arms race is a problem. Everyone wants to have more hashes per second in order to maximize their profits, this in turn increases the overall network hashing power, which in turn solves blocks faster, which in turn triggers the difficulty setting to rise.

-- This continues to push avg. people out of the mining world --

It seems to me that one solution, apart from abandoning BTC for something like Litecoin, could be to limit the amount of hashing power any single person/entity can wield while mining. There are probably a number of problems with this simple idea, let's talk about it!

Litecoin just isn't as far down the path as bitcoin, it will have the same issue at some point.  If you wanted, you could be on the front of the wave for trying to map litecoin code to fpga and then cleanup on the resulting advantage that would give you in mining.

For Bitcoin - consider that at some point it's possible that the function for statement of work could change and then everyone who's invested in asic will end up holding worthless hardware. 

/cet

[dubiousfrog]

good points on all those last three replies...

cet: I agree, if fpga mining happens on Litecoin, then litecoin will have failed and its path will converge with the path that Bitcoin is on now, eg: arms race of doom.

Trongersoll: Yep, each new miner would dilute the communities potential earnings, this already happens anyway though, except that in a new potential system the community would get an equal share potential, irregardless of how much resources they have.. evening the playing field so to speak.


maybe the idea is pretty bad, but I want to hear others thoughts / ideas... maybe it sounds like no one thinks it's a problem but me :S -- that's a valid potential

[Trongersoll]

Trongersoll: Yep, each new miner would dilute the communities potential earnings, this already happens anyway though, except that in a new potential system the community would get an equal share potential, irregardless of how much resources they have.. evening the playing field so to speak.

Ooooh! Communism at it's best! um... I'll pass. The average person would invest the least possible to get their share. and, then pretend to be someone else to get another share.

[Bacon9504A]

dubiousfrog, bad idea...

[cet]

the problem here is that no one would want a mining restriction applied to them personally, and we don't see any way that you could tell the difference between a person pool mining and a company doing the same thing.  The possible solutions are all worse than the initial problem.

/cet

[dubiousfrog]

Right. maybe it is a bad idea.

One of the things that's troubled me about the btc network is we have an ever increasing difficulty, which in turn requires an ever increasing amount of resources, to perform what should be a simple task of multiple 3rd party transaction / blockchain verification.

I understand how the system works, in theory the difficulty would drop if everyone agreed to just mine with less hashrate,.. but individual greed and potential to rake in serious profit would prevent everyone from doing that, so the only other option appears to be to just ignore the problem and continue... using super computers to do the work that a netbook should be able to handle (cpu)

[greyhawk]

using super computers to do the work that a netbook should be able to handle (cpu)

Actually the load can be handled by an NES. No, really, it's been done.

[Trongersoll]

just remember, increased hashrate drives increased difficulty, not the other way around. When people can't afford to upgrade their equipment, the difficulty will stop increasing. Bitcoin is a currency, a money, so yes, the rich get richer and the poor struggle. That is a problem that Bitcoin was not designed to solve.

Basically, the greater the risk, the greater the reward, or loss. That is how it is in any money making endeavor. The people thowing fiat money at bitcoin are making a gamble that they will come out ahead. They could lose it all just as easily, like any investment. there are no guarantees.

[odolvlobo]

-- This continues to push avg. people out of the mining world --

I think that not only is this simply not a problem, but also that it is not really true. Please support your claim.

Regarding your proposed solution, registration is not feasible.

I think the problem that you are discussing is the inefficiency of "proof of work". There are many discussions on alternatives methods. There are even alt-coins based on alternative methods. Look up "proof of stake", for example.

[dubiousfrog]

"Due to the Tragedy of the Commons effect, attempts at monopoly become increasingly likely over time." - reading from https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake

very interesting, thanks for the tip about proof of stake, I hadn't heard about it. The monopoly incentive is what i've been stressin' about lately, gonna need to do more reading though before I can understand

[dubiousfrog]

"At the time of writing, an entrepreneur could achieve monopoly over proof-of-work by investing at most 10 million USD in computing hardware. The actual investment necessary might be less than this because other miners will exit as difficulty increases"

... that's what i've been thinking about, it becomes impossible for the little guys to compete so they just give up / drop out of the mining community, which then just makes it easier for the governments/big companies to undermine BTC through some attack [potentially]