Cross currency miner hopping

[Mad7Scientist]

When happens when there is a new cryptocurrency which has a real easy mining difficulty. Then a bunch of bitcoin miners jump over there to mine causing that difficulty period to end very quickly and the new difficulty level to be very high. Then all the miners leave the alternate currency because the difficulty level it too high.

So could this happen?

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[dinker]

it's already happening to at least one of the pool.

[sd]

When happens when there is a new cryptocurrency which has a real easy mining difficulty. Then a bunch of bitcoin miners jump over there to mine causing that difficulty period to end very quickly and the new difficulty level to be very high. Then all the miners leave the alternate currency because the difficulty level it too high.

So could this happen?

That what happened to namecoin. What happens is you get very long delays until the next difficultly adjustment. Namecoin is projected to adjust its difficulty just after Christmas.

http://dot-bit.org/tools/nextDifficulty.php

This is the main argument for a smoother difficulty adjustment system than BitCoin currently uses, however the difficulty of BitCoin doesn't swing too much so it's not much of a problem.

[joulesbeef]

HUH? um yeah IT IS happening, and it is one of the reasons why all the alt currencies are copping the solidcoin diff algorythm.

People hop onto the alt currencies when it makes monetary sense to do so and then hop away when they dont think it makes monetary sense to stay

however the difficulty of BitCoin doesn't swing too much so it's not much of a problem.

actually it is thoughts like this that are a huge problem.

"the diff never swings much, so no worries folks just keep chugging ahead"

had the same thing happened to BTC that happened to solidcoin, BTC would be dead.it would take 90 days for the diff to right it self. Generated blocks wouldnt even confirm in that 90 days.


Yall can bitch about coinhunters attitude and things he has done, but he isnt wrong on the difficulty problem. If for what ever reason a large percentage of BTC miners stopped, BTC would be screwed. And waiting til you are screwed to fix a problem, or just saying "it aint a problem thbat will ever happen to BTC" Isnt a solution.

[sd]

Yall can bitch about coinhunters attitude and things he has done, but he isnt wrong on the difficulty problem. If for what ever reason a large percentage of BTC miners stopped, BTC would be screwed. And waiting til you are screwed to fix a problem, or just saying "it aint a problem thbat will ever happen to BTC" Isnt a solution.

Coinhunter made the mistake of using an asymmetric difficulty adjustment. This is open to gaming.

Adjusting the difficulty faster than BitCoin currently does is a good idea just don't do it asymmetrically.

[joulesbeef]

fair enough, but can you expand on the "gaming part". Coinhunter said something simular when I talked about changing his system, however I never asked him to expand and really dont have a clue about how it would be gamed, so fill me in,.

[Isepick]

I may be wrong, but I think you can mess with the timestamps, drop the difficulty *really* low, and then outrun the main blockchain, orphaning everyone else's blocks that were generated in that timeframe.

[Spacy]

I may be wrong, but I think you can mess with the timestamps, drop the difficulty *really* low, and then outrun the main blockchain, orphaning everyone else's blocks that were generated in that timeframe.

Other nodes don't accept your blocks if you mined/solved at a wrong difficulty (I hope) 

[sd]

Other nodes don't accept your blocks if you mined/solved at a wrong difficulty (I hope) 

True so don't do that. Disconnect from the network and generate your own blockchain while working the difficulty down by reducing the hashpower in your network. Then when it's adjusted to a very low difficulty throw all your hashpower at that blockchain. If the difficulty increases far slower than it decreases you could well outpace the main chain. Then just connect to the live network again and everyone's chains get dumped in favor of your longer one and you have a shedload of coins. And all transactions made since you initially disconnected just got revoked.

The more hashpower you have the easier this attack is but it should work with just a small fraction of the total network hashpower. It all depends how asymmetric the difficulty adjustments are.