Cobra's open letter to the Bitcoin community to change the mining algorithm

[Wind_FURY]

URL to the open letter, https://medium.com/@CobraBitcoin/an-open-letter-to-the-bitcoin-community-to-change-the-proof-of-work-algorithm-12a6545c20d0

I want to emphasize that the blog post was made by "the" Cobra, the co-owner of bitcoin.org and bitcointalk.org.

If this "movement" gathers more and more momentum, I believe we might be split as a community once again like how the scaling debate has split us in the past.

It's a big move. Bitcoiners should tread carefully.

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[MadGamer]

What I want to know is how this guy who I believe no one know his face or real name ended being the co owner of Bitcointalk and Bitcoin.org If they were both controlled by Satoshi and Sirius then given to Theymos? There are more trustworthy people (e.g Core developers)

[Herbert2020]

i am afraid changing PoW algorithm is not going to change anything in the long term. as long as bitcoin is being mined, it is going to be mined by some equipment. it is called ASICs that are designed to mine the current algorithms. if you change that, there is nothing stopping the same people to change their ASICs to mine the new algorithm.
unless you can physically restrict one person from having more than 1% of hashrate, in the end there will always be someone who is willing to invest more and have more mining equipment and have more hashrate.

in my opinion, the only way to fight that is to get more miners with more hashrate to join the network to reduce their (for example bitmain's) percentage of hashrate.

[d57heinz]

i am afraid changing PoW algorithm is not going to change anything in the long term. as long as bitcoin is being mined, it is going to be mined by some equipment. it is called ASICs that are designed to mine the current algorithms. if you change that, there is nothing stopping the same people to change their ASICs to mine the new algorithm.
unless you can physically restrict one person from having more than 1% of hashrate, in the end there will always be someone who is willing to invest more and have more mining equipment and have more hashrate.

in my opinion, the only way to fight that is to get more miners with more hashrate to join the network to reduce their (for example bitmain's) percentage of hashrate.

Exactly right look at Etheruem. They laid claim it was asic resistant. Well nothing is asic proof given it’s value increases enough.  Most are just cost prohibited. Don’t be fooled by this bs. Just another alt trying to leach into btc name. If the price increases enough asic is made bottom line end of story. Be done with now and move along.  So tired of the “debates” taking way longer than necessary. Do your homework people.  Once you do that debate isn’t necessary.

BR

[Pursuer]

this has been discussed before and nobody wants this to happen because the eventuality of it is going to be the same. I believe it was LukeJr who first talked about this (the biggest one that made a lot of noise anyways) and it was before SegWit activation and was saying it to force SegWit activation, possibly to scare miners into adopting it!

long story short, this will never happen for bitcoin. you can create another altcoin like the 20-30 alts that have been created so far but bitcoin will not make this change.

[onefinecoin]

Out of all the problems out there that bitcoin is facing, all the PR other altcoins are stealing away from BTC, this guys worried about changing the POW. What if BITMAIN dominates the other ALGO aswell ? we keep forking ?

I wont be surprised if he suggests we move to POS instead.

[r01k]

Totally unrealistic. You can't just show up at this stage of the game and ask to rewrite basic rules. Let alone the billions at stake invested in mining on PoW.

[The Demon Slick]

i am afraid changing PoW algorithm is not going to change anything in the long term. as long as bitcoin is being mined, it is going to be mined by some equipment. it is called ASICs that are designed to mine the current algorithms. if you change that, there is nothing stopping the same people to change their ASICs to mine the new algorithm.
unless you can physically restrict one person from having more than 1% of hashrate, in the end there will always be someone who is willing to invest more and have more mining equipment and have more hashrate.

in my opinion, the only way to fight that is to get more miners with more hashrate to join the network to reduce their (for example bitmain's) percentage of hashrate.

Exactly right look at Etheruem. They laid claim it was asic resistant. Well nothing is asic proof given it’s value increases enough.  Most are just cost prohibited. Don’t be fooled by this bs. Just another alt trying to leach into btc name. If the price increases enough asic is made bottom line end of story. Be done with now and move along.  So tired of the “debates” taking way longer than necessary. Do your homework people.  Once you do that debate isn’t necessary.

BR

This. The free market is already correcting the problem. As more manufacturers step up to the plate, competition increases, bitmains grip will fade. Look at ebang teaming with samsung for a 10nm machine. What else will happen this year that we can't even guess at? Things are already in motion. The invisible hand is moving slowly to fix things. All we have to do is sit back and watch it unfold.

[Pursuer]

Out of all the problems out there that bitcoin is facing, all the PR other altcoins are stealing away from BTC, this guys worried about changing the POW. What if BITMAIN dominates the other ALGO aswell ? we keep forking ?

I wont be surprised if he suggests we move to POS instead.

PoS is the worst way of distributing new coins in my opinion. it may seem good but in fact it is a rich gets richer for doing practically nothing scheme. basically the same Bitmain will have a lot of bitcoin which then they stake and earn a lot of new coins on their massive amount! they can simply sell all their equipment and farms and buy a tiny server instead and turn the rest of the money into bitcoin which they stake.... back to first step again.
and I consider that 100% unfair and will leave bitcoin behind if that happens some day.

[Kprawn]

You know we took years to get some scaling solution on the table and this even lead to a small percentage of people splitting

and creating their own coins. {Bitcoin Crash & Bitcoin Gold} ... Some people even gave up and left the scene, because all the

fighting were getting ridiculous. Can you imagine what would happen if a major change like this is submitted? We should

rather focus on perfecting the Lightning Network now.   

[xdrpx]

According to the solution prescribed by Cobra, i.e; to use a hybrid PoW + PoS mining algorithm, I believe that PoW might be possible to operate alongside PoS where in PoS miners can vote to validate blocks and maybe simliarly a pool can be created where multiple PoS validators can vote on upcoming proposal kind of like an open Governance (there are popular altcoins out there that already run on PoW + PoS + Open Governance). But a switch to a PoS + PoW scheme at this phase in Bitcoin's lifecycle  is risky and can induce those with a lot of money / stake in Bitcoin to make decisions against the majority and it could tumble down the wrong path.

Also I had a question regarding the current PoW algorithm - What makes it hard to build ASIC's for now with the current PoW algorthm? Won't bigger hardware / ASIC manufacturers still be the only players even with an ease in PoW mining algorithm?

Also, wouldn't it be possible that in the event when one party has a large mining hashpower, a group of mining pools can get together or small - medium individual miners could switch to a single pool to even out the ratio? At the moment Bitmain (BTC.com  + Antpool) compose of 41% hashpower, which is almost close to the 50% ratio. We could plan an event among miners of smaller pools to distribute themselves and move away from the btc.com mining pool and probably move to the more profitable slush pool.

[RawDog]

It's a big move. Bitcoiners should tread carefully.

They hate Jihan and they will do anything to ruin him and the empire he built.  It is typical Blockstream control mentality.

[MadGamer]

They hate Jihan and they will do anything to ruin him and the empire he built.  It is typical Blockstream control mentality.

I don't see Blockstream forking bitcoin and claiming that It's satoshi vision just to control bitcoin, I don't see them spamming the bitcoin network just to prove that we need bigger blocks or opposing SegWit even though It has no downsides (except Jihan miners not being paid as they used to be) . That sadly cannot be said about Roger and Jihan.

[DooMAD]

While we're talking about doing dumb things, please implement this as a UASF, since we need one of those to actually go ahead to provide empirical evidence of how incredibly stupid they are in practice.  Then when it doesn't work, (because it won't) maybe we can put such ridiculous notions to rest.  If you're deliberately trying to brick the hardware of every current miner on the network, not just the ones you claim are a threat, you are the hostile fork.

Surely if people are that desperate to not share a chain with a particular group of miners, they should have forked off years ago?

[franky1]

the same cobra that wanted a total rewrite of the satoshi whitepaper but still wanted the rewrite to be called the satoshi whitepaper

[Wind_FURY]

Bumping the topic. Do you agree with Core developer Lukedash Jr on the "POW change"?

This is why mining decentralisation is so important for #Bitcoin's security, and why we should be seriously considering a PoW change (only with community consensus of course).

https://twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/997730356622233600

PSA: Someone with even a mere 30% hashrate can REVERSE a 6-block confirmation, 1 out of every 8 attempts. And when they fail, it is undetectable.

https://twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/997717910914240512


Plus the topic needs more awareness no matter where your opinion resides. I believe this issue will continue to grow until it will become hard to ignore.

[ladydark]

Definitely its a matter of serious concern.Already we have faced some critical situations in which some big chinese mining pools deliberately supported BCH and tried to make bitcoin transactions get stuck either by shifting hash power to ine BCH or by sending fake transactions.

Some steps must have to be taken to free bitcoin from both bitmain and china.

[DooMAD]

The natural assumption tends to be that changing the algorithm would be favourable to smaller manufactures since it (in theory) levels the playing field, but I'm not convinced of that.  If Bitmain have already achieved ROI for the hardware they've made, while competitors to Bitmain have either only just launched (or are still developing) their hardware, those other manufacturers will take a much bigger hit to their finances than Bitmain will.  Imagine if they're forced to go back to the drawing board, wiping out the funds they've spent on R&D without having the opportunity to recoup those losses with some healthy sales, just because we opted for the nuclear option of an algo change.  Why should they have to suffer for it?  It could conceivably bankrupt some of the potential future competitors and actually reinforce the current dominance of Bitmain.  

As such, I argue that the best course of action is inaction.

[Wind_FURY]

Definitely its a matter of serious concern.Already we have faced some critical situations in which some big chinese mining pools deliberately supported BCH and tried to make bitcoin transactions get stuck either by shifting hash power to ine BCH or by sending fake transactions.

Some steps must have to be taken to free bitcoin from both bitmain and china.

It is not that serious today but it might be if Jihan Wu starts to get ideas to stealthily sabotage the network to give Bitcoin Cash the advantage. I believe it would be good if some Bitcoin developers have a "POW change plan" set up in case something happens.

[NeuroticFish]

It's a big move. Bitcoiners should tread carefully.

There are a couple of things here.
1. Indeed, a change of algo would make Bitcoin safe of BCash movements, especially as they have proven already to be hostile against Bitcoin.
2. A change of algo should also be thought in a way the power consumption is decreased, since there is always bad publicity about this and more power means more expensive mining, which may be a problem when block rewards will get really small.
3. A change in algo may make many big miners angry against Bitcoin and politically it may not be a good move to make them go into BCash boat.
4. A fork is usually advised to be avoided as much as possible since it is perceived as lack of stability.
5. One of Bitcoin's main powers is the huge hash power supporting the blockchain. If that starts again from zero there are many altcoins (including BCash) that will try to claim the crown.

All in all, this needs indeed quite a lot of thinking and all the alternatives weighted well, since if not done properly it may do much more bad than good.
Right now I don't have any idea how this could be done better than we have - with all the problems, I know.