[ANN][DASH] Dash (dash.org) | First Self-Funding Self-Governing Crypto Currency

[UdjinM6]

....

Bitcoin's halving is around the corner and there is a concern that this will create mempool transaction problems on Bitcoin's network on a larger scale then previously witnessed
...

Why is the halving expected to increase Bitcoin traffic / mempool size?
...

Some predict that after halving and no price increase some miners could turn their machines off and hashrate could drop because of that more or less significantly. That would be ok but bitcoin difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks so miners who are still mining would have more work to be done to solve a block than it should be for a hashrate like that for quite a long time (normally 2016 is 2 weeks and with lower hashrate this timeframe grows). This would mean larger time between blocks which in its turn would mean more transactions waiting in line to get into the block which could lead for confirmation problems which could decrease the price which will make it unprofitable for more miners which will turn their miners off and there you go - "death spiral".

However some say that that's not going to happen because either price would increase thanks to increased scarcity or because of press covering halving event or simply because miners rent their electricity ahead of a time and a) they have no choice but to mine because they already payed and b) they have made million $$ investments into mining and should have foreseen this situation already.

I have no idea who is correct, so I'll just grab some popcorn and prepare for fireworks

[ddink7]

....

Bitcoin's halving is around the corner and there is a concern that this will create mempool transaction problems on Bitcoin's network on a larger scale then previously witnessed
...

Why is the halving expected to increase Bitcoin traffic / mempool size?
...

Some predict that after halving and no price increase some miners could turn their machines off and hashrate could drop because of that more or less significantly. That would be ok but bitcoin difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks so miners who are still mining would have more work to be done to solve a block than it should be for a hashrate like that for quite a long time (normally 2016 is 2 weeks and with lower hashrate this timeframe grows). This would mean larger time between blocks which in its turn would mean more transactions waiting in line to get into the block which could lead for confirmation problems which could decrease the price which will make it unprofitable for more miners which will turn their miners off and there you go - "death spiral".

However some say that that's not going to happen because either price would increase thanks to increased scarcity or because of press covering halving event or simply because miners rent their electricity ahead of a time and a) they have no choice but to mine because they already payed and b) they have made million $$ investments into mining and should have foreseen this situation already.

I have no idea who is correct, so I'll just grab some popcorn and prepare for fireworks

Cool, makes sense. Thanks!

I have thought about the halving as well, and I just don't see a significant drop in network hash rate. Since the mining ASICs have already been purchased, their cost was recognized up-front. Now the only cost to keep them running is the cost of electricity. I foresee only the oldest and most energy-inefficient miners dropping off the network. Everybody else should (in theory) continue running their miners, as long as the expected reward exceeds the expected electrical costs.

I predict a 10-20% reduction in hashpower...with a slower growth in hashrate unless higher prices come into play.

[eduffield]

....

Bitcoin's halving is around the corner and there is a concern that this will create mempool transaction problems on Bitcoin's network on a larger scale then previously witnessed
...

Why is the halving expected to increase Bitcoin traffic / mempool size?
...

Some predict that after halving and no price increase some miners could turn their machines off and hashrate could drop because of that more or less significantly. That would be ok but bitcoin difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks so miners who are still mining would have more work to be done to solve a block than it should be for a hashrate like that for quite a long time (normally 2016 is 2 weeks and with lower hashrate this timeframe grows). This would mean larger time between blocks which in its turn would mean more transactions waiting in line to get into the block which could lead for confirmation problems which could decrease the price which will make it unprofitable for more miners which will turn their miners off and there you go - "death spiral".

I've been thinking about this problem too recently. Actual size usage of blocks is somewhere ~800kb, which means we could see throughput of ~400kb per block for up to a month after the halving. The reason for this is pretty simple, if the profitability of the network drops 50% in one moment, 50% of the miners should drop off. Also, the difficulty only readjusts every 2 weeks, which will take 4 weeks with 50% of the miners. If we're using ~800kb in transactions, doesn't that mean we'll start added 400kb to the blocklog... every 10 minutes? What happens after 30 days of that? A 1.72GB mempool

It's worth noting, miners didn't drop off last time. But the climate is completely different now. I have no idea what happens next, in either case it's sure to be entertaining.  

[UdjinM6]

On another note here is what Adam Back proposed on twitter few hours ago:

Halvening: if miners were concerned they can softfork difficulty down 50% pre and release at halvening. Harmless just speeds blocks for week

https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/717023841529114625

Not sure if he is serious or what... 

[afbitcoins]

Why does the electrum client need a network of nodes? Isn't that exactly what masternodes already provide ?

[eduffield]

On another note here is what Adam Back proposed on twitter few hours ago:

Halvening: if miners were concerned they can softfork difficulty down 50% pre and release at halvening. Harmless just speeds blocks for week

https://twitter.com/adam3us/status/717023841529114625

Not sure if he is serious or what... 

Kidding... I hope?

[eduffield]

Why does the electrum client need a network of nodes? Isn't that exactly what masternodes already provide ?

Electrum uses a centralized service to provide SPV. We'll eventually provide that service in a decentralized way, but that's a later release.

[dEBRUYNE]

....

Bitcoin's halving is around the corner and there is a concern that this will create mempool transaction problems on Bitcoin's network on a larger scale then previously witnessed
...

Why is the halving expected to increase Bitcoin traffic / mempool size?
...

Some predict that after halving and no price increase some miners could turn their machines off and hashrate could drop because of that more or less significantly. That would be ok but bitcoin difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks so miners who are still mining would have more work to be done to solve a block than it should be for a hashrate like that for quite a long time (normally 2016 is 2 weeks and with lower hashrate this timeframe grows). This would mean larger time between blocks which in its turn would mean more transactions waiting in line to get into the block which could lead for confirmation problems which could decrease the price which will make it unprofitable for more miners which will turn their miners off and there you go - "death spiral".

I've been thinking about this problem too recently. Actual size usage of blocks is somewhere ~800kb, which means we could see throughput of ~400kb per block for up to a month after the halving. The reason for this is pretty simple, if the profitability of the network drops 50% in one moment, 50% of the miners should drop off. Also, the difficulty only readjusts every 2 weeks, which will take 4 weeks with 50% of the miners. If we're using ~800kb in transactions, doesn't that mean we'll start added 400kb to the blocklog... every 10 minutes? What happens after 30 days of that? A 1.72GB mempool

It's worth noting, miners didn't drop off last time. But the climate is completely different now. I have no idea what happens next, in either case it's sure to be entertaining.  

[1] That only applies if miners are on average mining break even. With all those Chinese miners who are basically mining for free I presume on average miners are mining with a profit. You are right about the remainder. Worst case scenario the hashrate drops so much that you would need a emergency hardfork to adjust the difficulty.

[2] Not entirely true, the hashrate "ramped up" in the summer, but you can see a decrease from around July 2012 until and somewhat after the halving (which was end november 2012 if I recall correctly).

https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1&timespan=all&scale=1&address=

[Bavaria]

....

Bitcoin's halving is around the corner and there is a concern that this will create mempool transaction problems on Bitcoin's network on a larger scale then previously witnessed
...

Why is the halving expected to increase Bitcoin traffic / mempool size?
...

Some predict that after halving and no price increase some miners could turn their machines off and hashrate could drop because of that more or less significantly. That would be ok but bitcoin difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks so miners who are still mining would have more work to be done to solve a block than it should be for a hashrate like that for quite a long time (normally 2016 is 2 weeks and with lower hashrate this timeframe grows). This would mean larger time between blocks which in its turn would mean more transactions waiting in line to get into the block which could lead for confirmation problems which could decrease the price which will make it unprofitable for more miners which will turn their miners off and there you go - "death spiral".

I've been thinking about this problem too recently. Actual size usage of blocks is somewhere ~800kb, which means we could see throughput of ~400kb per block for up to a month after the halving. The reason for this is pretty simple, if the profitability of the network drops 50% in one moment, 50% of the miners should drop off. Also, the difficulty only readjusts every 2 weeks, which will take 4 weeks with 50% of the miners. If we're using ~800kb in transactions, doesn't that mean we'll start added 400kb to the blocklog... every 10 minutes? What happens after 30 days of that? A 1.72GB mempool

It's worth noting, miners didn't drop off last time. But the climate is completely different now. I have no idea what happens next, in either case it's sure to be entertaining.  

[1] That only applies if miners are on average mining break even. With all those Chinese miners who are basically mining for free I presume on average miners are mining with a profit. You are right about the remainder. Worst case scenario the hashrate drops so much that you would need a emergency hardfork to adjust the difficulty.

[2] Not entirely true, the hashrate "ramped up" in the summer, but you can see a decrease from around July 2012 until and somewhat after the halving (which was end november 2012 if I recall correctly).

https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1&timespan=all&scale=1&address=

How does it come that Chinese miners are mining for free?

[cryptofish82]

[1] That only applies if miners are on average mining break even. With all those Chinese miners who are basically mining for free I presume on average miners are mining with a profit. You are right about the remainder. Worst case scenario the hashrate drops so much that you would need a emergency hardfork to adjust the difficulty.

[2] Not entirely true, the hashrate "ramped up" in the summer, but you can see a decrease from around July 2012 until and somewhat after the halving (which was end november 2012 if I recall correctly).

https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1&timespan=all&scale=1&address=

[2] You shouldn't use logarithmic data when we're looking for a fall on the linear scale. It's even more helpful to use the averaged option as well:

https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?showDataPoints=false&timespan=all&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&scale=0&address=

For example if number 1 happened we would see a fall to about 600kGH... Out of curiosity I wrote a script to search for crashes and found a few. It's calculated using the average 14 days, then comparing the new value.

These are all over 25%:

Average Diff      New Diff            Percentage Decline
9.60447475176 7.14510736828 0.256064745554
536.872239933 367.392898201 0.315679092951
10659.1147545 7641.93145599 0.283061339336
9484.62097297 6860.53271228 0.276667699023
25941.2798106 18975.3491722 0.26852686873
34557.2006617 25621.1386579 0.258587554337
314324099.393 229513533.571 0.269818846169

Most of these were from the very beginning. Really the only one that I'd call a crash is "13/01/2015 18:15:05"

[qwizzie]

How does it come that Chinese miners are mining for free?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/43opxy/does_anyone_know_what_the_chinese_miners_are/

According to Charlie Lee, a large number of Chinese miners have zero cost for electricity. Instead, they have entered into profit-sharing agreements with the small, mostly hydro-based providers.
 The percentage was, of course, not revealed. A situation like that allows for infinite scaling, up or down, to the capacity of the provider and makes it virtually impossible for anyone anywhere else to compete for hashpower.

[patrolman]

How does it come that Chinese miners are mining for free?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/43opxy/does_anyone_know_what_the_chinese_miners_are/

According to Charlie Lee, a large number of Chinese miners have zero cost for electricity. Instead, they have entered into profit-sharing agreements with the small, mostly hydro-based providers.
 The percentage was, of course, not revealed. A situation like that allows for infinite scaling, up or down, to the capacity of the provider and makes it virtually impossible for anyone anywhere else to compete for hashpower.

It's not something that I'll personally be negotiating this week, but surely it's not totally inconceivable for some entities outside of China to enter into profit-sharing agreements with hydro-based providers

[dEBRUYNE]

[1] That only applies if miners are on average mining break even. With all those Chinese miners who are basically mining for free I presume on average miners are mining with a profit. You are right about the remainder. Worst case scenario the hashrate drops so much that you would need a emergency hardfork to adjust the difficulty.

[2] Not entirely true, the hashrate "ramped up" in the summer, but you can see a decrease from around July 2012 until and somewhat after the halving (which was end november 2012 if I recall correctly).

https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1&timespan=all&scale=1&address=

[2] You shouldn't use logarithmic data when we're looking for a fall on the linear scale. It's even more helpful to use the averaged option as well:

https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate?showDataPoints=false&timespan=all&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&scale=0&address=

For example if number 1 happened we would see a fall to about 600kGH... Out of curiosity I wrote a script to search for crashes and found a few. It's calculated using the average 14 days, then comparing the new value.

These are all over 25%:

Average Diff      New Diff            Percentage Decline
9.60447475176 7.14510736828 0.256064745554
536.872239933 367.392898201 0.315679092951
10659.1147545 7641.93145599 0.283061339336
9484.62097297 6860.53271228 0.276667699023
25941.2798106 18975.3491722 0.26852686873
34557.2006617 25621.1386579 0.258587554337
314324099.393 229513533.571 0.269818846169

Most of these were from the very beginning. Really the only one that I'd call a crash is "13/01/2015 18:15:05"

I used log merely because the blockchain.info chart is a bit of a blunt instrument and I couldn't find any better. Without log the chart is hardly readible. Furthermore, in my opinion log is perfectly fine for looking it at (most traders use log for prices too) and it gives a better relative picture. If you hoover over the hashrate you can clearly see it dropping.

EDIT: Disregard all I said about [2], apparently I have terrible (chart) reading comprehension late at night. I was looking at 2011 instead of 2012. Eduffield (and you) was (were) right and I stand corrected.

[jiggytom]

50+ btc order on polo... Next run?

[stealth923]

50+ btc order on polo... Next run?

Bigger players are starting to get hungry

[TanteStefana2]

Looking at a Mr. Robot article ( http://www.hngn.com/articles/190251/20160318/mr-robot-season-2-premiere-date-news.htm )

"Creator Sam Esmail revealed in a recent interview that the second season will heavily focus on encryption and privacy just as the FBI is currently locked in a battle with Apple over the same exact issues in reality. Esmail believes it's something that will only grow in importance over the next decade and that because the average viewer may not understand the complexities of the issue, he wants to bring it to the forefront this season and explore all of its intricacies."

If this series opens up the minds of the masses, it would be amazing!

[TaoOfSaatoshi]

Dash seems poised to go on another run... but keep in mind, when it comes to markets, I have no clue what I'm doing. But I did call the last two rises...

[Macno]

Looking at a Mr. Robot article ( http://www.hngn.com/articles/190251/20160318/mr-robot-season-2-premiere-date-news.htm )

"Creator Sam Esmail revealed in a recent interview that the second season will heavily focus on encryption and privacy just as the FBI is currently locked in a battle with Apple over the same exact issues in reality. Esmail believes it's something that will only grow in importance over the next decade and that because the average viewer may not understand the complexities of the issue, he wants to bring it to the forefront this season and explore all of its intricacies."

If this series opens up the minds of the masses, it would be amazing!

[EdgarTheEdge]

Every time, I swear by god, i sell some dash, price goes immediately up.
I buy and it goes down. Works with other cryptos, too.

You have 2 choices...hold for years or play with price like traders. It's called panic, you need to be cold as ice in this world

[BrainShutdown]

Every time, I swear by god, i sell some dash, price goes immediately up.
I buy and it goes down. Works with other cryptos, too.

You have 2 choices...hold for years or play with price like traders. It's called panic, you need to be cold as ice in this world

Yes, plan your trade AND trade your plan  

Oh and don't plan trades while in some altered state of mind