Bitcoin should adopt a multi-algo PoW consensus mechanism

[Abiky]

Ever since Bitcoin came into inception in 2009, we've seen a "boom" in the crypto mining industry. There are different types of ASIC hardware available with their unique hashing algorithms for specific cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, being the innovator in the space, has the most hashrate than its counterparts. The Chinese have been widely successfully in launching their own business ventures in the mining space, as electricity tends to go cheap there (sometimes even FREE). Mining companies like Bitmain and Canaan have dominated the space, centralizing Bitcoin's consensus within China. As of now, the Chinese control 51% or more of Bitcoin's hashrate allowing them to destroy the pioneer cryptocurrency in the future if they desire to do so. (take a look at this research article here.)

Which is why, I believe that it's time for Bitcoin to look for other ways to preserve its decentralization above all else. The best way to go would be using a multi-algorithm PoW consensus mechanism just like DigiByte does in order to minimize the chances of a 51% attack. Big miners like Bitmain would be able to control only the SHA-256 PoW algorithm of Bitcoin, but not the rest. This way, anyone can contribute towards the security of the Bitcoin blockchain using any type of computer hardware at their disposal (such as CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and even HDDs).

What are your thoughts about this? Is it a clever idea for Bitcoin to make this change? Or is it best to stay as is?

[arklan]

the quality of the idea isn't the problem - it seems fine to me, but it's outside my expertise - the issue is the difficulty of the change.

you would have to get people like bitmain and canaan and EVERY OTHER miner AND user of bitcoin, far more than 51%, closer to 90%, to adopt the new code. and make no mistake, it would, in effect, be a new coin entirely. unless absolutely everyone transacting in BTC upgraded to the new software, the old would remain, and would still function.

there's no way to change bitcoin's POW without forking and creating two bitcoins.

[DooMAD]

The main point I'd add to the mix is that China is not some sort of hive-mind.  It's not a single entity acting in unison.  If the news was that 51+% of the hashrate was based in a country you weren't told by the media to be afraid of, I'm guessing you wouldn't bat an eyelid.  So leave the arbitrary lines on the map and corresponding prejudices out of it, please.  These pools are operated by users of cryptocurrency, meaning they probably don't place as much faith in the Chinese national currency as their government do.  In fact, I'm pretty sure if there was a magic line they could join to tell their government to fuck off with impunity, they'd probably be right there at the front of the queue.

Secondly, there's the alignment of incentives.  Imagine a traditional mining operation, digging into the earth to extract precious metals.  The owner of that mine could theoretically blow up the entire mine and destroy it.  But it would put a pretty big dent in their profit margins, don't you think?  The system was designed precisely so that it's more rewarding to contribute to the network than it is to attack it.

Then, echoing arklan's point, the part where you need to convince a supermajority of users, miners, developers, merchants, payment processors, etc to not stick around on the current chain with the one single proof-of-work algorithm.

[hatshepsut93]

As of now, the Chinese control 51% or more of Bitcoin's hashrate allowing them to destroy the pioneer cryptocurrency in the future if they desire to do so. (take a look at this research article here.)

They can't destroy Bitcoin with 51% attack, they can only do DOS attack at the cost of millions of dollars of wasted electricity or disrupt the network with forks. But they won't win this fight, sooner or later they will have to give up, and everyone will see that Bitcoin can not be successfully attacked for long periods of time. The government or whomever will be behind this attack will only makes themselves look weak by trying to stop Bitcoin and failing.

[1Referee]

I honestly never really have had a problem with Bitcoin's mining ecosystem. People tend to be overly concerned about all sorts of scenarios where miners or China takes over Bitcoin, but I don't see that happen, neither is there much of an economical incentive to do so. Bitcoin has done extremely well while people expected doom scenarios to unfold. Don't break something that has proven to not be a problem.

I'm more concerned about how to onboard common joes than anything else, because that's something we aren't even remotely close to with how unfriendly the whole experience of crypto is.

[BeManga]

Ever since Bitcoin came into inception in 2009, we've seen a "boom" in the crypto mining industry. There are different types of ASIC hardware available with their unique hashing algorithms for specific cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, being the innovator in the space, has the most hashrate than its counterparts. The Chinese have been widely successfully in launching their own business ventures in the mining space, as electricity tends to go cheap there (sometimes even FREE). Mining companies like Bitmain and Canaan have dominated the space, centralizing Bitcoin's consensus within China. As of now, the Chinese control 51% or more of Bitcoin's hashrate allowing them to destroy the pioneer cryptocurrency in the future if they desire to do so. (take a look at this research article here.)

Which is why, I believe that it's time for Bitcoin to look for other ways to preserve its decentralization above all else. The best way to go would be using a multi-algorithm PoW consensus mechanism just like DigiByte does in order to minimize the chances of a 51% attack. Big miners like Bitmain would be able to control only the SHA-256 PoW algorithm of Bitcoin, but not the rest. This way, anyone can contribute towards the security of the Bitcoin blockchain using any type of computer hardware at their disposal (such as CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and even HDDs).

What are your thoughts about this? Is it a clever idea for Bitcoin to make this change? Or is it best to stay as is?

we dont need to be scared on the 51% attack because it cant destroy bitcoin
and in my opinion, 51% attack is only possible before because of low hashrate
but as you can see as time pass by the mining hashrate keep increasing

[DooMAD]

Oh, and if the world's #1 cryptocurrency did somehow become mineable on a PC again, we'd reintroduce the temptation for people to code malware to create botnets again.  Bitcoin gets enough negative attention from ransomware.  We definitely don't need fresh headlines on top of that about everyone's PCs getting hijacked to mine illicitly.

[BrewMaster]

what people refer to mining centralization is simply someone who has put millions of dollars at risk and bought equipment to mine an experimental currency (aka a mining farm) and even then he doesn't even own enough to be close to 10% let alone 51%.
that also means no matter what algorithm bitcoin mining is using, that same person(s) are going to invest millions into mining bitcoin and own a lot of hashrate.
as a result the only thing that changing the algorithm to whatever else does is that it destroys the current ridiculously huge security that bitcoin blockchain has while solving absolutely nothing.

[btcmurat]

It's a hard job to do a 51% attack on Bitcoin. But there's one question that stuck in my head. Binance has had a recent hack. Now the problem is. He said we could get the CZ chain back. This is an explanation of how. Is it that easy to get the bitcoin chain back? I was shocked...

[Abiky]

the quality of the idea isn't the problem - it seems fine to me, but it's outside my expertise - the issue is the difficulty of the change.

you would have to get people like bitmain and canaan and EVERY OTHER miner AND user of bitcoin, far more than 51%, closer to 90%, to adopt the new code. and make no mistake, it would, in effect, be a new coin entirely. unless absolutely everyone transacting in BTC upgraded to the new software, the old would remain, and would still function.

there's no way to change bitcoin's POW without forking and creating two bitcoins.

That's certainly true, mate. In Bitcoin's current state, it's hard to achieve consensus across the whole Blockchain. Remember Bitcoin's proposed "SegWit2x" solution for scaling Bitcoin? At first, it was hard to achieve above the required threshold to activate SegWit. But then, consensus was achieved after reaching a common agreement (called the "New York Agreement") in order to scale the Bitcoin blockchain for the world to use. While Bitcoin had the green light for SegWit activation, the "2x" part that was meant to increase the block size to 2 MB simply failed. Imagine changing Bitcoin's PoW algorithm that has been used since it was launched, to a new one. Miners would be reluctant to accept changes to the Blockchain, defeating the whole purpose of decentralizing Bitcoin.

It seems to me that a "soft fork" would be the best way to go than a "hard fork" for the security and stability of the Bitcoin blockchain. But a change in consensus algo, definitely requires the former ("hard fork") to work as intended. In this case, DigiByte is more decentralized than Bitcoin because of its multi-algorithm design for consensus. In the event Bitcoin experiences a 51% attack by Chinese miners, people could resort to other blockchains (like DigiByte) with ease. It's even possible to create a fork from the original Bitcoin blockchain using a multi-algo PoW model for consensus if anyone desires to do so. We've seen how people have parted their own separate ways with "forked" versions of Bitcoin that would satisfy their needs (remember the scaling debate and Bitcoin Cash's inception?).

Nonetheless, time will tell us if Bitcoin will continue to be centralized in the way it's mined or developers come up with a solution for it. Luckily, there's a solution called "BetterHash" which aims to decentralize Bitcoin mining with new hashing protocols (more info here: https://medium.com/hackernoon/betterhash-decentralizing-bitcoin-mining-with-new-hashing-protocols-291de178e3e0). If this turns out to replace "stratum", then the Bitcoin blockchain would've achieved an advancement within the mainstream world. Adoption of new protocols/solutions are necessary in order to keep Bitcoin as decentralized as possible. Just my opinion