Is Bitcoin infrastructure too Chinese? What should be done technically?

[Kakmakr]

Are the rest of the world so far behind with ASIC development or something similar, that they cannot develop something that would be able to compete with the Chinese?

Bitfury's latest ASIC https://bitfury.com/hardware/asic is pretty competitive with Chinese designs...

But where will they make the chips and assemble the miners for mass production that would make the price more competitive? I believe it will still end up to be "Made in China". Haha.

That to me is a slap in the face of the Western world. Trump is saying "Make America great again" and trade restrictions are implemented, but the Chinese still rule the technical manufacturing of complex electronic components.   Where are all the brilliant engineers and scientists of the western world?

Elon Musk <ex-South African> are one of the leaders in electronic manufacturing of components like this... Why are they not stepping up to the plate to fulfil this role?

We are gifting this to the Chinese.  

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[HeRetiK]

It's not good to have an exact algorithm planned out, since then someone could make an ASIC for it in advance.

Then how about a group of developer upload encrypted code of the algorithm? They simply need to decrypt when it's needed.

[...]

That would still require trust in none of the developers leaking the selected algorithm.

Are the rest of the world so far behind with ASIC development or something similar, that they cannot develop something that would be able to compete with the Chinese?

Bitfury's latest ASIC https://bitfury.com/hardware/asic is pretty competitive with Chinese designs...

But where will they make the chips and assemble the miners for mass production that would make the price more competitive? I believe it will still end up to be "Made in China". Haha.

...just like all GPUs where apparently no one is bothered about where the chips come from. Like I said, I think it's more a question of where the miners are deployed, not where they are produced.

That to me is a slap in the face of the Western world. Trump is saying "Make America great again" and trade restrictions are implemented, but the Chinese still rule the technical manufacturing of complex electronic components.   Where are all the brilliant engineers and scientists of the western world?

Focusing on software, rather than hardware. We live in a globalized society of specialization, so naturally knowledge accumulates where its applied most.

Elon Musk <ex-South African> are one of the leaders in electronic manufacturing of components like this... Why are they not stepping up to the plate to fulfil this role?

Because it's apparently neither profitable nor interesting enough.

[d5000]

I'm also a bit concerned about the "new monopolies" that could emerge after a PoW change. It may sound a bit naive, but - is there a possibility to create/fund an open hardware project for mining chips running the "new Bitcoin algorithm"? It's true however that major "chip foundries" are located in China, but there are at least some scattered around the world (mainly Europe and North America) which could step in for production.

I think it's possible. But, the competition with China won't gone since the cost to manufacture the chips is still cheaper on China.

Maybe manufacturing the chips in China isn't really a problem. Many companies from other countries manufacture their products in China, and they control that the producers don't "tamper" with the design of their products. If the Chinese manufacturer manipulated the product, the customer would be able to charge a penalty for breaching the contract and change the manufacturer. An "open mining hardware" project could do the same thing, ensuring no Antbleed-style backdoors are implemented - and such a backdoor would be very easy to discover, above all if the firmware is open-source.

Once Bitcoin and the mining market becomes really big, it would be perhaps no problem to install production infrastructure outside of China able to deliver similar production costs.

[aliashraf]

...just like all GPUs where apparently no one is bothered about where the chips come from. Like I said, I think it's more a question of where the miners are deployed, not where they are produced.
....

Focusing on software, rather than hardware. We live in a globalized society of specialization, so naturally knowledge accumulates where its applied most.

Right to the point.

ASICs are bad but pools are horrible, both should be taken care of but we need to understand without a truly pool-resistant fork bitcoin has no chance to be adopted in levels much higher than what it is right now because it is not decentralized enough and could not be considered secure for bigger missions.

Let's just forget about scalability, decentralization is a more urgent issue and although I think it is very convenient to retire ASICs and let more commodity devices in, but it would make no difference with pools being in charge.

[HeRetiK]

Maybe manufacturing the chips in China isn't really a problem. Many companies from other countries manufacture their products in China, and they control that the producers don't "tamper" with the design of their products.

[...]

Slightly off-topic, but it's worth pointing out that the truth is rather dire in this regard:

https://bgr.com/2018/10/04/china-hardware-backdoors-sophisticated-chips-used-in-us-bound-tech/

In short, supply chain attacks on hardware do happen. However it doesn't appear to be as critical if you only produce the chips in China and assemble the rest of the hardware within a trusted environment (ie. backdooring a chip is much harder than backdooring a motherboard).

[Wind_FURY]

...just like all GPUs where apparently no one is bothered about where the chips come from. Like I said, I think it's more a question of where the miners are deployed, not where they are produced.
....

Focusing on software, rather than hardware. We live in a globalized society of specialization, so naturally knowledge accumulates where its applied most.

Right to the point.

ASICs are bad but pools are horrible, both should be taken care of but we need to understand without a truly pool-resistant fork bitcoin has no chance to be adopted in levels much higher than what it is right now because it is not decentralized enough and could not be considered secure for bigger missions.

What "bigger missions" are you speaking of that would put decentralization on top of its list?

Let's just forget about scalability, decentralization is a more urgent issue

I agree, decentralization secures on-chain censorship resistance. That's why many people in the community believe, me included, that an off-chain layer is the best way to scale Bitcoin.

and although I think it is very convenient to retire ASICs and let more commodity devices in, but it would make no difference with pools being in charge.

Is it convenient to hard fork to cut nodes and hash power from the network, and hurt its security? For a developer like yourself, I believe you need to think about these things.

[aliashraf]

...just like all GPUs where apparently no one is bothered about where the chips come from. Like I said, I think it's more a question of where the miners are deployed, not where they are produced.
....

Focusing on software, rather than hardware. We live in a globalized society of specialization, so naturally knowledge accumulates where its applied most.

Right to the point.

ASICs are bad but pools are horrible, both should be taken care of but we need to understand without a truly pool-resistant fork bitcoin has no chance to be adopted in levels much higher than what it is right now because it is not decentralized enough and could not be considered secure for bigger missions.

What "bigger missions" are you speaking of that would put decentralization on top of its list?

Replacing fiat definitively. To accomplish this you just can't put all the eggs in a Chinese basket and give it to XI JInping to keep it secure and act rational.

Massive adoption of bitcoin rises scalability challenges, but we could just wait for them to actually happen then figure out a solution but it is a process that never gonna boost with the current fragile situation.

Actually I  suppose the level of adoption we got right now is even a bit higher than what a realistic assessment of the level of decentralization would suggest as a safe situation.

Let's just forget about scalability, decentralization is a more urgent issue

I agree, decentralization secures on-chain censorship resistance. That's why many people in the community believe, me included, that an off-chain layer is the best way to scale Bitcoin.

I don't see the old scaling debate's  scalability vs decentralization dilemma (or the stupid Buterin trilemma) as a viable discourse, (as you know already) but I think it is not our problem today. Once bitcoin got enough stem and started boosting in adoption, we can debate  off-chain vs on-chain disputes. Without mass adoption, arguing about scalability is pointless.

Most people suppose we need scaling bitcoin to help with adoption. It is absolutely false. Adoption is a slow process and won't be even triggered as a massive one, without a solid, decentralized, uncompromisable network, scaling challenges won't show up until the midst of this process.

and although I think it is very convenient to retire ASICs and let more commodity devices in, but it would make no difference with pools being in charge.

Is it convenient to hard fork to cut nodes and hash power from the network, and hurt its security? For a developer like yourself, I believe you need to think about these things.

By convenient, I mean forking to an ASIC-resistant algo is both desirable and achievable (incrementally tho) but not very effective and helpful while fixing mining variance and proximity premium flaws and  pooling pressure, is the hard job comparatively and the ultimate decentralization solution.

Boring I know,  but I have to rephrase it: with pools being in charge no cryptocoin could be considered decentralized enough to get mass adopted no matter how popular it would be, period.

[danda]

I agree that pools are the biggest problem.

They logically result from the winner take all algo.

I postulate that in a theoretically ideal POW system, every single participant that contributes cycles/work towards securing the network would be rewarded in direct proportion to their contribution.  ie, even if they only calculate 1 hash during a given block and do not match target difficulty.

How to achieve that?  I have no idea.  haha.  But I'd like to see more discussion/brainpower/research on it.


First question:  Is the above scenario ideal/desirable for maximizing distribution of work across non-colluding parties?   Or the incentives are flawed somehow?

Followup question:  What technical obstacles prevent it, and how might they be overcome?   (assuming a brand-new system with no legacy code/chain).







I will leave these open-ended for now...

It is odd, imo, too much concerns about ASICs and zero interest in the situation with pools.

[HeRetiK]

What "bigger missions" are you speaking of that would put decentralization on top of its list?

Replacing fiat definitively. To accomplish this you just can't put all the eggs in a Chinese basket and give it to XI JInping to keep it secure and act rational.

[...]

Slightly off tangent, but I think for this we'd need to start from scratch either way.

Regardless of what growth potential I still expect from Bitcoin and some of the other cryptos I'm not convinced that a deflationary currency can work without an inflationary currency to relieve market pressure -- ie. without credit I'd expect economic growth to stagnate, and credit within a deflationary ecosystem is financial suicide. Note that I mean credit as in company bonds, not as in maxing out ones credit card.

[aliashraf]

What "bigger missions" are you speaking of that would put decentralization on top of its list?

Replacing fiat definitively. To accomplish this you just can't put all the eggs in a Chinese basket and give it to XI Jinping to keep it secure and act rational.
[...]

Slightly off tangent, but I think for this we'd need to start from scratch either way.

Regardless of what growth potential I still expect from Bitcoin and some of the other cryptos I'm not convinced that a deflationary currency can work without an inflationary currency to relieve market pressure -- ie. without credit I'd expect economic growth to stagnate, and credit within a deflationary ecosystem is financial suicide. Note that I mean credit as in company bonds, not as in maxing out ones credit card.

Definitively off tangent 

It is axiomatic, and I afraid you put yourself in shadowy borders of cryptocurrency movement once you begin revisioning its mission. Inflationary monetary disciplines which are meant to help 'relieving' market pressure (like fiat) are aligned with state control and government intervention eventually and it is not an option for us, rebels. Bitcoin is based on a resistance axiom, resistance against sate control, it is deflationary by definition and indisputably.

Also, I think it is too soon, to argue about how economic growth could ever be compatible with a true deflationary monetary system and we could relax and focus on preliminary phase: mass adoption.

[aliashraf]

I agree that pools are the biggest problem.

They logically result from the winner take all algo.

I postulate that in a theoretically ideal POW system, every single participant that contributes cycles/work towards securing the network would be rewarded in direct proportion to their contribution.  ie, even if they only calculate 1 hash during a given block and do not match target difficulty.

How to achieve that?  I have no idea.  haha.  But I'd like to see more discussion/brainpower/research on it.

I have worked on this, PoCW, it is based on few tricks:
Trick 1: Miners not only generate nonce for block headers,  they are also free to commit to Merkle root by generating nonce for it.
Trick 2: Miners do not include coinbase transaction in the Merkle tree they commit to. This way validating a Merkle path happens once and shares are being validated in microsecond scales to be at least partially difficult (good) compared to what is dictated by the target.
Trick 3:  Coinbase transaction provides both proof for difficulty and reward distribution i.e. a coinbase consists of like thousands of wallet addresses and nonces that commit to the Merkle tree (coinbase excluded).

Many other details are also devised ,,,, Understanding that it is about a hard fork, I just decided to postpone implementation to a more complete package and a much stronger community support.
[

First question:  Is the above scenario ideal/desirable for maximizing distribution of work across non-colluding parties?   Or the incentives are flawed somehow?

Followup question:  What technical obstacles prevent it, and how might they be overcome?   (assuming a brand-new system with no legacy code/chain).

First: It is absolutely a guaranteed secure decentralized schema because when you have tens of thousands of distinct almost anonymous human beings involved in solo mining bitcoin, there would be no practical chance for collusion or state control. Absolutely secure, no doubts.

Follow up: no technical obstacles, I just need more community support and contribution.

[Wind_FURY]

...just like all GPUs where apparently no one is bothered about where the chips come from. Like I said, I think it's more a question of where the miners are deployed, not where they are produced.
....

Focusing on software, rather than hardware. We live in a globalized society of specialization, so naturally knowledge accumulates where its applied most.

Right to the point.

ASICs are bad but pools are horrible, both should be taken care of but we need to understand without a truly pool-resistant fork bitcoin has no chance to be adopted in levels much higher than what it is right now because it is not decentralized enough and could not be considered secure for bigger missions.

What "bigger missions" are you speaking of that would put decentralization on top of its list?

Replacing fiat definitively.

I believe Bitcoin can be a world reserve currency, but taking away the right to print money and seigniorage from the government would be impossible.

To accomplish this you just can't put all the eggs in a Chinese basket and give it to XI JInping to keep it secure and act rational.

What's the acceptable solution? The problem in Bitcoin is many developers have just discovered it and some of them already propose to "save" it without fully understanding the trade-offs.

Massive adoption of bitcoin rises scalability challenges, but we could just wait for them to actually happen then figure out a solution but it is a process that never gonna boost with the current fragile situation.

What's your opinion on the Lightning Network or a layered topology for Bitcoin in general?

Let's just forget about scalability, decentralization is a more urgent issue

I agree, decentralization secures on-chain censorship resistance. That's why many people in the community believe, me included, that an off-chain layer is the best way to scale Bitcoin.

I don't see the old scaling debate's  scalability vs decentralization dilemma (or the stupid Buterin trilemma) as a viable discourse, (as you know already) but I think it is not our problem today. Once bitcoin got enough stem and started boosting in adoption, we can debate  off-chain vs on-chain disputes. Without mass adoption, arguing about scalability is pointless.

Most people suppose we need scaling bitcoin to help with adoption. It is absolutely false. Adoption is a slow process and won't be even triggered as a massive one, without a solid, decentralized, uncompromisable network, scaling challenges won't show up until the midst of this process.

Yes but these are "tools" that will help create more tools for the network, and make it easier for new users to enter and use Bitcoin that will help in adoption.

You are granted the right to criticize and disagree, but it will not take away their right to create those tools.

and although I think it is very convenient to retire ASICs and let more commodity devices in, but it would make no difference with pools being in charge.

Is it convenient to hard fork to cut nodes and hash power from the network, and hurt its security? For a developer like yourself, I believe you need to think about these things.

By convenient, I mean forking to an ASIC-resistant algo is both desirable and achievable (incrementally tho) but not very effective and helpful while fixing mining variance and proximity premium flaws and  pooling pressure, is the hard job comparatively and the ultimate decentralization solution.

Desirable knowing that you are cutting off hash power and nodes?

When should the community expect a written proposal?

[aliashraf]

What "bigger missions" are you speaking of that would put decentralization on top of its list?

Replacing fiat definitively.

I believe Bitcoin can be a world reserve currency, but taking away the right to print money and seigniorage from the government would be impossible.

As much as using this term, "world reserve currency"  is common nowadays, it is nonsense. There is and there would be no such thing ever. Central banks use their reserves among other devices, for manipulating market. It is not what bitcoin and cryptocurrency is about.

Denouncing the possibility of elimination of fiat and gov seigniorage is an ideological argument which as a bitcoiner, I'm not aligned with, neither Satoshi:

Code:

Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper
2008-11-06 20:15:40 UTC - Original Email - View in Thread
>[Lengthy exposition of vulnerability of a systm to use-of-force
>monopolies ellided.]
>
>You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.

Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own.

Satoshi


---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com

I don't think politically neutralizing bitcoin by pushing it to whales/central banks territory in the name of "world reserve currency" would help. For this they have Ripple.

To accomplish this you just can't put all the eggs in a Chinese basket and give it to XI JInping to keep it secure and act rational.

What's the acceptable solution? The problem in Bitcoin is many developers have just discovered it and some of them already propose to "save" it without fully understanding the trade-offs.

The only solution, acceptable or not, is a PoCW hard fork complemented by a 2 way hash algorithm for retiring ASICs in a 2-3 years window as a package.

Massive adoption of bitcoin raises scalability challenges, but we could just wait for them to actually happen then figure out a solution but it is a process that never gonna boost with the current fragile situation.

What's your opinion on the Lightning Network or a layered topology for Bitcoin in general?

As I said, I think it is too early to be concerned about scalability but generally I think off-chain solutions (LN, side chains, ... ) are not that ultimate that BlockStream suggests and we need on-chain scaling through improvements and sharding as well.

By convenient, I mean forking to an ASIC-resistant algo is both desirable and achievable (incrementally tho) but not very effective and helpful while fixing mining variance and proximity premium flaws and  pooling pressure, is the hard job comparatively and the ultimate decentralization solution.

Desirable knowing that you are cutting off hash power and nodes?

No hash power cut-off. Imagine we implant a secondary ASIC-resistant cpu/gpu friendly algo (like ProgPow) and define two parallel difficulty adjustment systems which regulate blocks mined by sha2 at 11 blocks per every 2 hours ratio while gpus are set to generate 1 block in the same window also suppose we use a gradual re-adjustment policy by introducing a decrease/increase strategy for above parameters. See? no cut-off!

When should the community expect a written proposal?

Understanding the need for a hard fork, and not being interested in following bch fate, I have realized that I need to produce a complete package and it is hard job for a lone wolf, not impossible but I need more time. I'm thinking of early 2019 for such a package, like 6 months 

[Wind_FURY]

What "bigger missions" are you speaking of that would put decentralization on top of its list?

Replacing fiat definitively.

I believe Bitcoin can be a world reserve currency, but taking away the right to print money and seigniorage from the government would be impossible.

As much as using this term, "world reserve currency"  is common nowadays, it is nonsense. There is and there would be no such thing ever. Central banks use their reserves among other devices, for manipulating market. It is not what bitcoin and cryptocurrency is about.

I said it more to make a point that Bitcoin will have the same status as the US Dollar as a "world reserve currency". A currency that nations will be willing to hold. Who said they can be stopped if they wanted to?

Denouncing the possibility of elimination of fiat and gov seigniorage is an ideological argument which as a bitcoiner, I'm not aligned with, neither Satoshi:

Trying to put yourself on the level of Satoshi now are we? Hahaha. I'm joking.

I don't think politically neutralizing bitcoin by pushing it to whales/central banks territory in the name of "world reserve currency" would help. For this they have Ripple.

If Bitcoin is viewed as something of real value within 50 years, then it will become a world reserve currency in my opinion.

To accomplish this you just can't put all the eggs in a Chinese basket and give it to XI JInping to keep it secure and act rational.

What's the acceptable solution? The problem in Bitcoin is many developers have just discovered it and some of them already propose to "save" it without fully understanding the trade-offs.

The only solution, acceptable or not, is a PoCW hard fork complemented by a 2 way hash algorithm for retiring ASICs in a 2-3 years window as a package.

I would be happy to see you prove to the Core developers that your idea is applicable.

Many developers discovered Bitcoin and claimed they can "fix" it.

Massive adoption of bitcoin raises scalability challenges, but we could just wait for them to actually happen then figure out a solution but it is a process that never gonna boost with the current fragile situation.

What's your opinion on the Lightning Network or a layered topology for Bitcoin in general?

As I said, I think it is too early to be concerned about scalability but generally I think off-chain solutions (LN, side chains, ... ) are not that ultimate that BlockStream suggests and we need on-chain scaling through improvements and sharding as well.

Why would Bitcoin need "sharding"? Bitcoin is already designed to scale out by the regulated the block size cap.

Plus wasn't sharding "invented" by Vitalik Buterin? The same developer that you said we should not lend an ear to?

By convenient, I mean forking to an ASIC-resistant algo is both desirable and achievable (incrementally tho) but not very effective and helpful while fixing mining variance and proximity premium flaws and  pooling pressure, is the hard job comparatively and the ultimate decentralization solution.

Desirable knowing that you are cutting off hash power and nodes?

No hash power cut-off. Imagine we implant a secondary ASIC-resistant cpu/gpu friendly algo (like ProgPow) and define two parallel difficulty adjustment systems which regulate blocks mined by sha2 at 11 blocks per every 2 hours ratio while gpus are set to generate 1 block in the same window also suppose we use a gradual re-adjustment policy by introducing a decrease/increase strategy for above parameters. See? no cut-off!

How many hard forks will that take?

What would make you so sure that Bitmain will not make new ASICs for the new mining algorithm?

When should the community expect a written proposal?

Understanding the need for a hard fork, and not being interested in following bch fate, I have realized that I need to produce a complete package and it is hard job for a lone wolf, not impossible but I need more time. I'm thinking of early 2019 for such a package, like 6 months  

Good luck in finding a solution.

[aliashraf]

No hash power cut-off. Imagine we implant a secondary ASIC-resistant cpu/gpu friendly algo (like ProgPow) and define two parallel difficulty adjustment systems which regulate blocks mined by sha2 at 11 blocks per every 2 hours ratio while gpus are set to generate 1 block in the same window also suppose we use a gradual re-adjustment policy by introducing a decrease/increase strategy for above parameters. See? no cut-off!

How many hard forks will that take?

What would make you so sure that Bitmain will not make new ASICs for the new mining algorithm?

It is just ONE hard fork. The ratio is adjusted deterministically by virtue of the protocol, just like halving in legacy bitcoin.

Good luck in finding a solution.

Solution is almost ready, implementation is the phase.

[funkenstein]

1) Bitcoin doesn't care what language miners are speaking or what lines orcs have drawn on maps to satisfy their mental deficiencies.  Also there is no person called "China", there are many people here with different agendas.  To use English properly please avoid assigning agency to non-agents.    

2) Sure there may be problems with centralized pools and ASIC manufacturers,  but the money supply and transactions can still all be public despite these problems.  In other words, we are still worlds above a privately issued currency system (fiat).  We aren't talking about abuses such as issuing arbitrary amounts of monetary units for ourselves here, so it really isn't fair to compare this kind of centralization with the kind witnessed in fiat systems.  



  

[Wind_FURY]

No hash power cut-off. Imagine we implant a secondary ASIC-resistant cpu/gpu friendly algo (like ProgPow) and define two parallel difficulty adjustment systems which regulate blocks mined by sha2 at 11 blocks per every 2 hours ratio while gpus are set to generate 1 block in the same window also suppose we use a gradual re-adjustment policy by introducing a decrease/increase strategy for above parameters. See? no cut-off!

How many hard forks will that take?

What would make you so sure that Bitmain will not make new ASICs for the new mining algorithm?

It is just ONE hard fork. The ratio is adjusted deterministically by virtue of the protocol, just like halving in legacy bitcoin.

Good luck in finding a solution.

Solution is almost ready, implementation is the phase.

Sincerely good luck. But I believe the idea has already failed before it has started. The miners will never signal their readiness for a hard fork that will kill them. The community would also not want to risk a chain-split.

1) Bitcoin doesn't care what language miners are speaking or what lines orcs have drawn on maps to satisfy their mental deficiencies.  Also there is no person called "China", there are many people here with different agendas.  To use English properly please avoid assigning agency to non-agents.    

2) Sure there may be problems with centralized pools and ASIC manufacturers,  but the money supply and transactions can still all be public despite these problems.  In other words, we are still worlds above a privately issued currency system (fiat).  We aren't talking about abuses such as issuing arbitrary amounts of monetary units for ourselves here, so it really isn't fare to compare this kind of centralization with the kind witnessed in fiat systems.  

Theoretically if there is enough of Bitcoin's "transaction processors" centralized geographically in one country, that country's government can threaten them, and make the "processors" censor some transactions that that country's government does not like.

[aliashraf]

Good luck in finding a solution.

Solution is almost ready, implementation is the phase.

Sincerely good luck. But I believe the idea has already failed before it has started. The miners will never signal their readiness for a hard fork that will kill them. The community would also not want to risk a chain-split.

There exists no such thing as a miner in bitcoin network, I suppose by miners you mean pools, there will be no signaling neither any negotiations, pools are the main target and they are to be extinguished.
How?
I admit it is one of the most sophisticated problems in bitcoin right now, getting rid of pools and transition to a truly decentralized heterogeneous network but you always find it more convenient to face a problem when both it is recognized by most people as a serious problem and there is hope/technology to overcome it.

I think both ASICs and pools have triggered enough hatred and protests again themselves and the ugly face of centralized mining is nothing to be covered by any means, the fact that they've been tolerated that long is a result of the lack of an ultimate solution especially for pools and this is what we should  focus on: preparing a solution. The community will decide how and when to adopt it.

[danda]

I still think that PoCW will need to be deployed successfully in an altcoin and tested in the wild for a good while before the bitcoin community will seriously consider it.

There are a few folks that take the pool problem seriously and that value real mining decentralization, but I think not enough to make a difference at this time.    I'm happy to be wrong on this point of course, but if others thought like I do then only a few innovative coins would have any value right now, and PoS and tokens wouldn't be a thing...

If you get a library of working code and decide to launch an altcoin with it, let me know.  I might be able to help out.

[funkenstein]

2) Sure there may be problems with centralized pools and ASIC manufacturers,  but the money supply and transactions can still all be public despite these problems.  In other words, we are still worlds above a privately issued currency system (fiat).  We aren't talking about abuses such as issuing arbitrary amounts of monetary units for ourselves here, so it really isn't fare to compare this kind of centralization with the kind witnessed in fiat systems.  

Theoretically if there is enough of Bitcoin's "transaction processors" centralized geographically in one country, that country's government can threaten them, and make the "processors" censor some transactions that that country's government does not like.

True, and reason for concern.  However:

 1)  This shouldn't be compared to the problem of private issuance, or fiat money
 2)  Users already have tools to evade this kind of censorship, such as alternative chains, coinjoins, pseudonymity, stealth addresses, ...