Bitcoin - What if governments restrict or block electricity supply for mining?

[Kakmakr]

Most governments are fighting a War on Drugs and they use clever tactics to detect "Weed" farms. If you have a very high electrical usage, then you are flagged as a possible "Weed" farm.

I have heard about Bitcoin miners being identified as possible "Weed" farmers, because their electrical usage was above the normal average.

This got me thinking. If governments wants to target Bitcoin farmers, they just have to implement the same kind of tactics as they have done with "Weed" farmers. <Obviously this will only work for medium to large operations>

How effective can this strategy be, if they want to target the big Bitcoin farmers? How can you mask your operation as a counter measure for this strategy?

I know this will never shutdown Bitcoin mining completely, but it can reduce the total hashing power. <Strength of the network>

Let's discuss.

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[Fazlurkhan.kz]

That step by the government will slow down the complete bitcoin network and making transactions would take really long. But as people have great minds they will surely come up with places to mine bitcoin where it would be harder to track them and block the electricity. This will also give more work to the small miners allowing them to make more out of their mining.

[mocacinno]

That step by the government will slow down the complete bitcoin network and making transactions would take really long. But as people have great minds they will surely come up with places to mine bitcoin where it would be harder to track them and block the electricity. This will also give more work to the small miners allowing them to make more out of their mining.

making and broadcasting transactions will always be fast... A valid transaction will usually be broadcasted to all nodes within seconds (given that the unspent outputs used in the transaction are in the UTXO sets off all nodes, no dust outputs, fee over the default minimum relay fee,...).
Confirmation times might be *slightly* slower in this doomsday scenario where more and more farms are being closed by the governement, however, every 2016 blocks there is a difficulty retarget, so every ~2 weeks the network should adjust itself so the average time between 2 blocks is once again ~10 minutes.

So basically, as long as the chinese governement (where, i believe, the majority of the farms are located) doesn't close more than 10% of the mining farms in a 2 week period, the effects would be more or less neglectible.
Offcourse, if they decided to attack all mining farms and completely close them in less than 2 weeks, the time between blocks might double or tripple untill 2016 blocks have been mined, at which point the situation will normalise.

Now, back on topic, i always believed that the power companies located weed farms by taking the difference between the sum of the electricity used by a certain block and the sum of electricity billed to the family's/companies using power in this block... As long as you don't steal your power, chances of getting caught running a mining (or weed) farm are not that high (at least, this is what i heared, i could be wrong).

An last, but not least, my personal opinion: I wouldn't care if ALL governement around the world slowly started to crack down on big mining farms... Push mining back towards the home user that is running 1 S9 and uses the excess heat to warm his house during the winter while helping the networks security... True decentralisation . Offcourse, ALL governements have to be in it, if (for example) all governements close mining farms except china, we'll see even more centralisation as we have right now (which would be bad)

[Pursuer]

you need to be running a mining "Farm" to be using a lot of electricity to begin to raise some flags. otherwise I doubt having a couple of ASICs as an individual and mining bitcoin is not using that much electricity more than having your gaming PC on and playing call of duty

and if some day the government did start to pull some shenanigans on mining farms they will simply relocate to a new area with a new government that doesn't pull the same shenanigans...

[Kakmakr]

That step by the government will slow down the complete bitcoin network and making transactions would take really long. But as people have great minds they will surely come up with places to mine bitcoin where it would be harder to track them and block the electricity. This will also give more work to the small miners allowing them to make more out of their mining.

Ok, relocation to another country should not be the default answer for this problem. We already see Chinese Bitcoin farmers moving to more Bitcoin friendly countries, but that would centralize Bitcoin mining in a way. 

That step by the government will slow down the complete bitcoin network and making transactions would take really long. But as people have great minds they will surely come up with places to mine bitcoin where it would be harder to track them and block the electricity. This will also give more work to the small miners allowing them to make more out of their mining.

making and broadcasting transactions will always be fast... A valid transaction will usually be broadcasted to all nodes within seconds.
Confirmation times might be *slightly* slower in this doomsday scenario where more and more farms are being closed by the governement, however, every 2016 blocks there is a difficulty retarget, so every ~2 weeks the network should adjust itself so the average time between 2 blocks is once again ~10 minutes.

So basically, as long as the chinese governement (where, i believe, the majority of the farms are located) doesn't close more than 10% of the mining farms in a 2 week period, the effects would be more or less neglectible.
Offcourse, if they decided to attack all mining farms and completely close them in less than 2 weeks, the time between blocks might double or tripple untill 2016 blocks have been mined, at which point the situation will normalise.

Now, back on topic, i always believed that the power companies located weed farms by taking the difference between the sum of the electricity used by a certain block and the sum of electricity billed to the family's/companies using power in this block... As long as you don't steal your power, chances of getting caught running a mining (or weed) farm are not that high (at least, this is what i heared, i could be wrong).

Ok, the protocol will balance out the difficulty, but it does not solve the problem that we might be losing a lot of hashing power. The very thing that strengthens the network.

Do you have any suggestions on how Bitcoin mining operations can be masked to make it more difficult for them to detect it? <Example : Running the Bitcoin mining operation on the same business premises where high electricity usage will not raise the red flag?>

[davis196]

I`m sure that, in the future,we will have mining farms that will produce their own electricity and they will be independent from the electricity network.Solar panels and wind turbines will become cheaper and easier to install.The mining farms will have to load batteries with the energy produced by the sun and wind,because of the inconsistency(there`s no wind and sun 24/7  ),but the cost of the batteries will be lower, as well.
I`ve never seen the police in my country to  discover weed farms by tracking the electricity consumption.

[mocacinno]

Ok, the protocol will balance out the difficulty, but it does not solve the problem that we might be losing a lot of hashing power. The very thing that strengthens the network.

Do you have any suggestions on how Bitcoin mining operations can be masked to make it more difficult for them to detect it? <Example : Running the Bitcoin mining operation on the same business premises where high electricity usage will not raise the red flag?>

As usual, i was still editing my previous post while you were already replying to it (my fault, i should stop re-editing posts i already made)...

Basically: it's hard to answer the problem about the strenght of the network, but my best guess would be that if you push out the mining farms, the difficulty will indeed decrease, but as long as one entity doesn't controll >50% of the networks hashrate, it shouldn't matter that much if the hashrate decreases (so the difficulty decreases).
I remember back in ~2015, one of the bigger mining farms was rumoured to have >50% of the hashrate, and even then, it wasn't catastropic... It wasn't in their own monetary intrest to do a 51% attack anyways.
I also belief that if you push out the mining farms, ASIC development might slow down, but i don't think it will stop altogether... So a couple of years after the mining farms have been put out of business, more efficient ASICs will be distributed in smaller amounts to the home miners, so the antique ASIC's that are gathering dust in the old ASIC farm's warehouse won't be able to do a 51% attack, since they'll be outdated and, if turned on, won't controll >50% of the networks hashrate.

This is just my personal belief tough... Anything can happen...

As for masking your mining farm: i don't really think it's a good idear to start hiding mining farms... It sounds fishy thus gives bitcoin mining (and bitcoin) a bad rep with the general public. If you do everything legally and out in the open, i think it gives us, as a community, a better image... And the better our public image, the more people will adapt (also: my personal opinion)

[Pursuer]

I remember back in ~2015, one of the bigger mining farms was rumoured to have >50% of the hashrate, and even then, it wasn't catastropic...

it wasn't a mining farm it was a mining pool called Ghash and it was lots of individual miners (and also their own hashrate) that were connected to that pool, when the article about the risk of 51% attack was published and these individual miners saw the possible threat drama they simply switched to other pools and their total hashrate dropped.

[mocacinno]

I remember back in ~2015, one of the bigger mining farms was rumoured to have >50% of the hashrate, and even then, it wasn't catastropic...

it wasn't a mining farm it was a mining pool called Ghash and it was lots of individual miners (and also their own hashrate) that were connected to that pool, when the article about the risk of 51% attack was published and these individual miners saw the possible threat drama they simply switched to other pools and their total hashrate dropped.

Your memory is better than mine, thanks for the correction
But even so, there was a point where this pool *could* have executed a 51% attack using their miner's hardware (without them knowing), but (obviously) they didn't... My main point is that even if a pool/farm controlls >50% of the hashrate, it is seldom in their own best intrest to attack the network. Those pools/farms are heavily invested in BTC, and an attack (and the following price drops because of the bad press) would probably hurt them a lot more than the BTC they would have stolen by remining some of the last blocks.

[Kakmakr]

Ok, the protocol will balance out the difficulty, but it does not solve the problem that we might be losing a lot of hashing power. The very thing that strengthens the network.

Do you have any suggestions on how Bitcoin mining operations can be masked to make it more difficult for them to detect it? <Example : Running the Bitcoin mining operation on the same business premises where high electricity usage will not raise the red flag?>

As usual, i was still editing my previous post while you were already replying to it (my fault, i should stop re-editing posts i already made)...

Basically: it's hard to answer the problem about the strenght of the network, but my best guess would be that if you push out the mining farms, the difficulty will indeed decrease, but as long as one entity doesn't controll >50% of the networks hashrate, it shouldn't matter that much if the hashrate decreases (so the difficulty decreases).
I remember back in ~2015, one of the bigger mining farms was rumoured to have >50% of the hashrate, and even then, it wasn't catastropic... It wasn't in their own monetary intrest to do a 51% attack anyways.
I also belief that if you push out the mining farms, ASIC development might slow down, but i don't think it will stop altogether... So a couple of years after the mining farms have been put out of business, more efficient ASICs will be distributed in smaller amounts to the home miners, so the antique ASIC's that are gathering dust in the old ASIC farm's warehouse won't be able to do a 51% attack, since they'll be outdated and, if turned on, won't controll >50% of the networks hashrate.

This is just my personal belief tough... Anything can happen...

As for masking your mining farm: i don't really think it's a good idear to start hiding mining farms... It sounds fishy thus gives bitcoin mining (and bitcoin) a bad rep with the general public. If you do everything legally and out in the open, i think it gives us, as a community, a better image... And the better our public image, the more people will adapt (also: my personal opinion)

Unfortunately not everyone can relocate to other Bitcoin friendly countries, so they are forced to change tactics to mask their operations. Weed farming was illegal in most countries and things changed over time. Why do we have to shutdown mining operations, when most governments are banning Crypto currencies, because they want to protect their own reserve currencies and/or protect their monopoly on money creation?

A year or two from now, they might change their minds and then you lost valuable time and money, because their policies and decision making was wrong or even rushed due to a lack of information or even based on misinformation.

I might sound a bit anti-government there, but I think most of these governments are making rushed decisions based on poor advice given to the policy makers. <Bankers with hidden agendas>

Some of these mining operations just need to survive, until the storm has past. Until then, they have to hide their operations.  

[Jonsnowstark]

If this will happen, the transaction confirmation will be affected. So i bet mining farms will make sure they will not be affected by such move by goveenment. Some might relocate to places where there is no manipulation. I've seen some development of making green electricity or renewable energy possible projects that are eyed by some mining farms.

[stompix]

How effective can this strategy be, if they want to target the big Bitcoin farmers? How can you mask your operation as a counter measure for this strategy?

I know this will never shutdown Bitcoin mining completely, but it can reduce the total hashing power. <Strength of the network>

Let's discuss.

If they are that keen on going after bitcoin miners no farm that is connected to the grid will remain hidden.
They can monitor your electricity usage even hourly and there is nobody that is normally using the same power as 5 S9 or more at 3am.

So the only way to do this would be to go in more isolated places and use solar and wind but that will be just to costly, imagine the size of the batteries you have to charge each day to keep mining non-stop.

But it will never happen...

If this will happen, the transaction confirmation will be affected. So i bet mining farms will make sure they will not be affected by such move by goveenment. Some might relocate to places where there is no manipulation. I've seen some development of making green electricity or renewable energy possible projects that are eyed by some mining farms.

Green energy and renewable energy sources are more expensive than traditional sources without subsidies from the government. If they were indeed cheaper the would be no gas coal and nuclear plants working anymore.

you need to be running a mining "Farm" to be using a lot of electricity to begin to raise some flags. otherwise I doubt having a couple of ASICs as an individual and mining bitcoin is not using that much electricity more than having your gaming PC on and playing call of duty

An s9 eats around 1000kwh a month almost the same as a household in India a year and two times the average household in France and Uk per month.
A couple of them in a country like Italy and you're going to consume more than all your neighbors.

[seizetehday5]

I am not sure on how you would mask your operation but this is what I do know. As long as your operation isn't illegal it is more or less illegal to deny you service because of your charges. And if one companies decides to go that way, no doubt you will find another to take you on but I would still argue it is on the verge of being illegal despite the fact you can deny service to anybody.

[MCVXYZ]

There is a one simple answer-Miners will move to another country or they will just create/use cloud minings. Its obvious,they paid thousand of dollars for miners to get funds and I don't think that they will surrender easily,therefore it will be groundless action from governments because everyone has right to use electricity,No matter how much if itsn't the threat to community's interests.In another situation, of course it would not be difficult for special investigative authorities to discover mining farms,but In the legal sense we are  very far from it(I mean technologically developed countries) because this process needs  many legislative initiatives and new, court precedentes.

[bitart]

I`m sure that, in the future,we will have mining farms that will produce their own electricity and they will be independent from the electricity network.Solar panels and wind turbines will become cheaper and easier to install.The mining farms will have to load batteries with the energy produced by the sun and wind,because of the inconsistency(there`s no wind and sun 24/7  ),but the cost of the batteries will be lower, as well.
I`ve never seen the police in my country to  discover weed farms by tracking the electricity consumption.

This was my first idea as well, when I saw the title of the topic. But it's not electricity that's the nr.1 problem if it's blocked.
What happens if the government forces the internet service providers to block the protocols that miners are using to send and receive data from/to bitcoin nodes or to the network?
I know that it's possible to mask/hide/encrypt the traffic, but this is an easier method to find and ban the people using miners and the solar/wind power won't help if they check the internet usage...

[dothebeats]

Why would they shut down such if the farms would be abiding by the rules? Also, if you are running a mining farm in your household, why not upgrade your service type into a business one so as to remove all the red flags and suspicions against your operations? If in case there would be a shortage in power (which rarely happens), they could just simply cut off your supply or impose special rates on you or something similar along that line. Besides, if they go on crackdown mode against bitcoin farmers, it would be a loss of revenue for the electric companies, and if there isn't anything stated in the law that it's illegal to mine cryptocurrencies, it will never happen.

I`m sure that, in the future,we will have mining farms that will produce their own electricity and they will be independent from the electricity network.Solar panels and wind turbines will become cheaper and easier to install.The mining farms will have to load batteries with the energy produced by the sun and wind,because of the inconsistency(there`s no wind and sun 24/7  ),but the cost of the batteries will be lower, as well.
I`ve never seen the police in my country to  discover weed farms by tracking the electricity consumption.

For a massive mining farm, you'll need tons of solar panels to achieve a 24/7 mining operation. Imagine the needed capital for that to happen, though it still is viable in the long run I must say. Mining farms in China often use wind power and hydroelectric power to generate electricity and run their miners. If power providers won't be cooperative with you, it's best to move places and take your business somewhere else.

[pitiflin]

Most governments are fighting a War on Drugs and they use clever tactics to detect "Weed" farms. If you have a very high electrical usage, then you are flagged as a possible "Weed" farm.

I have heard about Bitcoin miners being identified as possible "Weed" farmers, because their electrical usage was above the normal average.

This got me thinking. If governments wants to target Bitcoin farmers, they just have to implement the same kind of tactics as they have done with "Weed" farmers. <Obviously this will only work for medium to large operations>

How effective can this strategy be, if they want to target the big Bitcoin farmers? How can you mask your operation as a counter measure for this strategy?

I know this will never shutdown Bitcoin mining completely, but it can reduce the total hashing power. <Strength of the network> 

Yeah no. Why would the govt. do that? Just to prove a point? This may potentially reduce their revenue from electricity department. Because they are already spending millions and millions of dollars for electricity through various means,then the whole money and energy would be wasted. Only china hates bitcoin that much,and it would be pretty much impossible to red flag mining/weed farms because there are so many industries in china for literally producing everything possible. I can tell you one thing and that is government won't target bitcoin miners. They have bigger fish to frry.

[eternalgloom]

For a massive mining farm, you'll need tons of solar panels to achieve a 24/7 mining operation. Imagine the needed capital for that to happen, though it still is viable in the long run I must say. Mining farms in China often use wind power and hydroelectric power to generate electricity and run their miners. If power providers won't be cooperative with you, it's best to move places and take your business somewhere else.

I actually do think that solar would be a viable option for the large scale mining farms, even for the smaller scale farms it could be doable since solar is rapidly getting cheaper every year.
A decent solar installation capable of running a couple of miners would only cost you around 10K, just giving ballpark numbers here.

A regular household can easily afford solar, at least in most western countries.

[ronnis.gomes]

Many countries may ban bitcoin mining, but I do not believe all countries will make this decision.
With all certainty there will be countries that will be alongside blockchain technology and the crypto market and which will empower mining.

[Meysa_richa]

Such a move can be very detrimental to bitcoin miners, and I also believe that there must be a solution, or we might be able to find another way to replace electricity from the government and we can create our own electricity with solar power or in other ways.

[jmlona]

IF governments were to adopt such a strategy it would not be the end of bitcoin, it could easily be moved to a different method such as POS or even the difficulty could just be scaled down so that it can be mined with lower electricity usage.

[FrueGreads]

I don't really think that will ever happen. Even China, that shutdown exchanges and banned ICOs, did nothing against mining. A lot of fud circulated the media at that time, but nothing happened. So far, most developed countries are actually friendly enough, and although they are trying to regulate bitcoin, they are not really trying to kill it.

If they did, I think the only solution would be for real decentralization to occur, and for people all around the world to start mining BTC. Now that more companies are getting into the mining space, maybe equipment will get less expensive, and more powerful.

[aryaadikariyansyahsuwarto]

it's really true, in my country also bitcoin started hunted by the government, even not impossible later bitcoin will be prohibited in my country. it's because of the negative impact of people who commit criminals by carrying the name of bitcoin, bitcoin looks bad and leads to the bad (crime). I hope for bitcoin users, use bitcoin with good things, because if we do that, the government in any country will surely allow the circulation of bitcoin, because from the good thing it will have an impact on the good as well.

[Cikyazi]

I can hardly imagine how governments could confirm to what end electricity is being used by specific ppl or entities.  I would imagine that any concerted effort to restrict electricity for miners would just make them move into the shade or decentralize mining altogether.

[RamonBTC]

If renewable energy is possible for this operation then most bitcoin farmers must consider, then this concern of yours would be answered. I don’t know much about how the government will react to bitcoin miners who transfer from each country because of restrictions.

In our country we do have freedom to choose on our privacy to hide or not because their is no threat or reason to be anonymous as it isn’t illegal. No taxation is implemented and electric company doesn’t impose higher bill but just the standard.

[hieu81]

Most governments are fighting a War on Drugs and they use clever tactics to detect "Weed" farms. If you have a very high electrical usage, then you are flagged as a possible "Weed" farm.

I have heard about Bitcoin miners being identified as possible "Weed" farmers, because their electrical usage was above the normal average.

This got me thinking. If governments wants to target Bitcoin farmers, they just have to implement the same kind of tactics as they have done with "Weed" farmers. <Obviously this will only work for medium to large operations>

How effective can this strategy be, if they want to target the big Bitcoin farmers? How can you mask your operation as a counter measure for this strategy?

I know this will never shutdown Bitcoin mining completely, but it can reduce the total hashing power. <Strength of the network>

Let's discuss.

Energy is the problem of all the nations of the world! To develop, Bitcoin and altcoin need to reduce power consumption!
Many countries will ban the use of electricity for digital money mining!

[Kakmakr]

I don't really think that will ever happen. Even China, that shutdown exchanges and banned ICOs, did nothing against mining. A lot of fud circulated the media at that time, but nothing happened. So far, most developed countries are actually friendly enough, and although they are trying to regulate bitcoin, they are not really trying to kill it.

If they did, I think the only solution would be for real decentralization to occur, and for people all around the world to start mining BTC. Now that more companies are getting into the mining space, maybe equipment will get less expensive, and more powerful.

The Chinese government is very cunning, because the mining operations consume some of their surpluss energy/electricity and they generate some income from that, so whilst this is the scenario, they would not need to shut it down. This is not the case with many other countries, where there are a shortage of energy supply.

In countries with a shortage of energy supply, governments might react differently.

[gobingo]

If it is done by the government it will be very harmful to the miner bitcoin, and the government should never do that, and we the miners must find a solution to get their own electricity flow so as not to depend on the government.

[Bren Briones]

That might be far from happening my friend. If they do it, not only thr bitcoin farmers would be affected but the citizens as well and I think that would be a problem to any goverment. Granting it could happend, you just need to go to DIY stores, buy some electric generator and continue farming.

[bolbau]

if only individuals are doing bitcoin mining, I do not think it will be detected as excessive power consumption. but for a group of people doing bitcoin mining in one place, obviously it will be suspicious. but I think it can still be solved by making a small company or asking for legality in writing related to the use of electricity. because the miners also pay the fee and not a steal or use it for free.

[Snaic]

This happened approximately in China, when the miners there began to prohibit the use of cheap electric power there for the production of bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. After that, many miners immediately began to look for other places abroad with suitable conditions for the addition of bitcoin. Some moved to the province of Quebec in Canada, where there is cheap electricity and a pretty cool climate. Some were looking for this opportunity in Russia and Belarus. Belarus has a very suitable climate and preferential legislation with respect to the crypto currency. So the output can always be found.

[squatz1]

This would be very hard to do, it's not easy to pick out who is mining and who is just using a lot of power in their homes. So they'd have to develop some sort of system that could diffrentiate people that are just using a lot of power and people who are just using a lot of power. This is something that power companies couldn't do to find marijuana growers so I wouldn't think they could do it in crypto.

It'd be horrible if they could do it, but I doubt it could be done effectively.

[HaXX0R1337]

This got me thinking. If governments wants to target Bitcoin farmers, they just have to implement the same kind of tactics as they have done with "Weed" farmers. <Obviously this will only work for medium to large operations>

I did not know that weed farming require a large amount of electricity because here in my country it is grown outside in the nature and not inside, there are alternative ways to counter these solutions like solar energy is a good option where you have a lot of sunshine but you need to invest more to control the farm temperature.

[stompix]

IF governments were to adopt such a strategy it would not be the end of bitcoin, it could easily be moved to a different method such as POS or even the difficulty could just be scaled down so that it can be mined with lower electricity usage.

You can't reduce electricity usage by "scaling" down difficulty.
People will add more and more miners as long as there is profit to be made, the only thing that truly dictates how much power all the miners are using is the block reward (+ tx fees) and the price per coin.

This would be very hard to do, it's not easy to pick out who is mining and who is just using a lot of power in their homes. So they'd have to develop some sort of system that could diffrentiate people that are just using a lot of power and people who are just using a lot of power. This is something that power companies couldn't do to find marijuana growers so I wouldn't think they could do it in crypto.

It'd be horrible if they could do it, but I doubt it could be done effectively.

It's pretty simple actually, you check the total kwh consumed a month and you pick up homeowners with more than 2000kwh per month. That's only for two s9 but it is also 6 times the average consumption in Italy.
Then you look at the hourly usage and if that guy is burning the same amount hourly continuously it's definitely a miner.

Marijuana growers have different patterns in consumption from day to night and with improvements (led bulbs) they've started to use less and less energy for a plant cycle. Miners face different problems, once the cost per Thash decreases the difficulty goes up and you need more miners to make the same money and you end up with the same power bill.

[loof99]

I think it will leads to big problem which is very serious problem because there are lots of system will be affected if there will be a energy supply for it.
I think if the government did this then there will be no more mining.