(Serious Question) Is Bitcoin Doomed to be Centralized by China?

[Lunatic_Pandora]

Hear me out before you call me paranoid or anything.

I have been looking for multiple sources of information on this, and most seem to agree that at least 40% and up to 65% of the mining hash-power is coming from China.

I'm not going to argue here if the Chinese government is to be trusted or not - that's something you decide for yourself. What I want to know, is to what extent are they going to allow Bitcoin to remain independent when it becomes harder to turn a profit and how "independent" these mining groups are from the influence of the government.

Maybe it won't happen today, 6.25 BTC per block seems to still make the cut for many miners - but let's say pigs don't fly and BTC is still around 10k for the next halving and the next one as well. What prevents their government from attempting a hostile take over of the farms? (assuming they aren't all loyal to the party already)

After looking at what Justin Sun has done with the Steem Blockchain (I know its dPoS vs PoW) I've been looking for more info in true defense mechanisms to guarantee a decentralized platform but really, most of them are either abandoned or still in the theoretical or alpha phase... Will Bitcoin rise to the occasion when needed or will it slowly become centralized? Maybe they don't do a full hostile take over but enforce a mining block tax like with BCH? Anything goes?

[cryptoaddictchie]

For me BTC will never be centralized. Yes mostly miners coming from Chinese but you expect they will have some sort of coupdetat due to current situation? Hash rate will decrease in due time I believe its not forever like this.

Dont compared the case of BCH, the owner of that project is beyond a typical crypto enthusiast, and he preferred BCH to be more like a centralized ecosystem. Roger Ver is a wise but coward for implementing a selfish 12% mining tax.

[Darkuso]

To be honest, it is not impossible, just by watching all that China had pulled off so far you never know what could be in their plans. I think that will depend on how profitable it is for them, centralized bitcoin by taking control of all the miners farms and just as many other commie countries, launch their own blockchain and milk it from the start. It is the last thing that I would like to see but right now, and how has been this year (I know that won't be that soon) kinda feels now that I don't know what can happen tomorrow.

[Kakmakr]

Let's rather look at the other side of the coin, when the Chinese miners gets shutdown by their government. We will suddenly see a massive drop in the hashing power and more people with smaller mining rigs would be able to re-enter the mining scene from all over the world and it will be even more decentralized when the difficulty drops.  

We currently have loads of people mining Alt coins, because their mining rigs are too small to compete with the high difficulty and hashing requirements for mining Bitcoin, so if this difficulty drops.. those Alt coin miners will start mining Bitcoin again.  

The Chinese government would do the rest of the mining community a huge favor, if they shut their own miners down.    Also, some of those miners will quickly relocate to other countries to be able to continue mining or they will sell their ASICs on the black markets.

[Bttzed03]

~
I'm not going to argue here if the Chinese government is to be trusted or not - that's something you decide for yourself. What I want to know, is to what extent are they going to allow Bitcoin to remain independent when it becomes harder to turn a profit and how "independent" these mining groups are from the influence of the government.

No, it's not doomed to be centralized in China.

Scenario 1:
The government will take over and continue to mine most bitcoin. They still cannot keep it to themselves because they have to cover mining operation related expenses. They have to sell/trade it somewhere and they cannot prevent anyone who bought from them to  send it anywhere else in the world.

Scenario 2:
The government will take over the mining farms and shut it down. Bitcoin will still thrive since anyone or any group can set up their own equipment and start mining bitcoin unless if they are in countries where it's forbidden by their law to mine.

[Lunatic_Pandora]

Let's rather look at the other side of the coin, when the Chinese miners gets shutdown by their government. We will suddenly see a massive drop in the hashing power and more people with smaller mining rigs would be able to re-enter the mining scene from all over the world and it will be even more decentralized when the difficulty drops.  

We currently have loads of people mining Alt coins, because their mining rigs are too small to compete with the high difficulty and hashing requirements for mining Bitcoin, so if this difficulty drops.. those Alt coin miners will start mining Bitcoin again.  

The Chinese government would do the rest of the mining community a huge favor, if they shut their own miners down.    Also, some of those miners will quickly relocate to other countries to be able to continue mining or they will sell their ASICs on the black markets.

Most of my worries come from them taking over and changing how supply works or imposing new, arbitrary rules like BCH causing the main Bitcoin community to split again.

~
I'm not going to argue here if the Chinese government is to be trusted or not - that's something you decide for yourself. What I want to know, is to what extent are they going to allow Bitcoin to remain independent when it becomes harder to turn a profit and how "independent" these mining groups are from the influence of the government.

No, it's not doomed to be centralized in China.

Scenario 1:
The government will take over and continue to mine most bitcoin. They still cannot keep it to themselves because they have to cover mining operation related expenses. They have to sell/trade it somewhere and they cannot prevent anyone who bought from them to send it anywhere else in the world.

Scenario 2:
The government will take over the mining farms and shut it down. Bitcoin will still thrive since anyone or any group can set up their own equipment and start mining bitcoin unless if they are in countries where it's forbidden by their law to mine.

I guess time will tell, hopefully, we get new security measures in the future for cases like this. I'm still bullish on Bitcoin because its the only asset worthwhile having in this current world situation but I can't run on hopium and people expecting an authoritarian government to play things smart instead of forcing themselves in like they are used to. I think a BCH like scenario is more probable rather than a complete overtake scenario like Steem's and Justin Sun zeroing out people but I guess time will tell. I just hope we are ready to fight back if that's the case, there's no jumping off this ship now :-D

[yhiaali3]

I think it is not wise for the Chinese government to shut down or confiscate the mining devices that exist in China, not because that will affect the mining hash-power of Bitcoin, but because the mining devices and mining workers contribute significantly to the economy The Chinese, although the government does not recognize Bitcoin, the mining industry is very expensive and profitable and is in the interest of the Chinese economy, also the miners who get bitcoin and sell it against the dollar also this will provide the government treasury with more dollars. Also, don't forget the many job opportunities that mining provides for young people, which is good for the government.

[DoubleEdgeEX]

It´s not Bitcoin who is doomed to be centralized but to be put aside in favor of a CBDC. WeChat just invested 70M USD into fintech incl. blockchain and AI. They could simply block every app that allows Bitcoin and reduce the legal use to a Digital Yuan. China is already beyond cashless, I mean you can donate to a beggar with a QR code!

[salamat700]

I would say that this is a valid and major concern but as of now we don't see it happening. The Chinese government can be unpredictable many times and they have the tendency to be secretive so essentially it would be hard to read whatever they are thinking and this can be the big reason why many are concern whether one day Bitcoin can be controlled by the government for their own purposes. We should be vigilant, of course, but not react like it is already the end of the world.

[Wind_FURY]

OP, bad-actors WILL be THROWN OUT, https://twitter.com/bitcoinmagazine/status/1197161029832265729

Listen to it over and over 100 times, and let it sink in. OK? Nation-states' "hostile" miners would be better rewarded if they were honest.

[Lunatic_Pandora]

I would say that this is a valid and major concern but as of now we don't see it happening. The Chinese government can be unpredictable many times and they have the tendency to be secretive so essentially it would be hard to read whatever they are thinking and this can be the big reason why many are concern whether one day Bitcoin can be controlled by the government for their own purposes. We should be vigilant, of course, but not react like it is already the end of the world.

I agree in the sense that is not a "now" concern - maybe not even for the next halving but for sure for the one after that because if the price hasn't scaled and block production is at 1.XX BTC per block, it will be hard to justify mining for a lot of people except for those with infinite resources, like the Chinese government.

I'm just thinking that we should start doing some pre-planning and even future-proofing bitcoin for this scenario, the tech is out there, at least the basics, its just a matter of reaching a bitcoin core consensus for new security features.

[Wind_FURY]

I would say that this is a valid and major concern but as of now we don't see it happening. The Chinese government can be unpredictable many times and they have the tendency to be secretive so essentially it would be hard to read whatever they are thinking and this can be the big reason why many are concern whether one day Bitcoin can be controlled by the government for their own purposes. We should be vigilant, of course, but not react like it is already the end of the world.

I agree in the sense that is not a "now" concern - maybe not even for the next halving but for sure for the one after that because if the price hasn't scaled and block production is at 1.XX BTC per block, it will be hard to justify mining for a lot of people except for those with infinite resources, like the Chinese government.

All resources are finite. Economics 101.

Plus watch the video in the Twitter link I posted for you, and read more about how Bitcoin works, and why full nodes are important. I believe you'll find your answer.

[avikz]

No, it's not doomed to be centralized in China.

Scenario 1:
The government will take over and continue to mine most bitcoin. They still cannot keep it to themselves because they have to cover mining operation related expenses. They have to sell/trade it somewhere and they cannot prevent anyone who bought from them to  send it anywhere else in the world.

Not necessarily! If a particular government wants to ruin bitcoin. They can take over all mining ops within their country and run it by paying out of their pocket. They won't necessarily have to sell those. The intention of the government is what matters, not money!

Scenario 2:
The government will take over the mining farms and shut it down. Bitcoin will still thrive since anyone or any group can set up their own equipment and start mining bitcoin unless if they are in countries where it's forbidden by their law to mine.

No contradiction here! This way only a particular country will come out of the network and not others. Instead, once 60% of Chinese hashes are out of the market, the difficulty will decrease drastically which will create more opportunities for old miners to come back to the network.

[hatshepsut93]

After looking at what Justin Sun has done with the Steem Blockchain (I know its dPoS vs PoW) I've been looking for more info in true defense mechanisms to guarantee a decentralized platform but really, most of them are either abandoned or still in the theoretical or alpha phase... Will Bitcoin rise to the occasion when needed or will it slowly become centralized? Maybe they don't do a full hostile take over but enforce a mining block tax like with BCH? Anything goes?

What makes Bitcoin different from altcoins is that it has a large network of nodes that independently validate transactions, and users are encouraged to run full nodes if possible. And Proof of Work makes it seriously expensive to attack Bitcoin, so even if China takes over the farms, they'll have to pay out of their own pockets to sustain this attack.

Altcoins on the other hand have inherently centralized design. PoS means that buying majority or even less than majority of coins is enough to mine as you please, and masternodes and other similar schemes mean that regular users aren't peers of the network, they are clients who rely on servers. This is why coins like Steem can be taken over, though even in that case community tries to fight back by forking the project.

[Darkuso]

No contradiction here! This way only a particular country will come out of the network and not others. Instead, once 60% of Chinese hashes are out of the market, the difficulty will decrease drastically which will create more opportunities for old miners to come back to the network.

But in this case, with the hash rate reduced so much, it wouldn't be a threat for btc network integrity, security and validation times? Maybe I'm thinking in the worst-case scenario but I genuinely want to know, besides how something like this can affect the price, wouldn't make it vulnerable to something like a 51% attack?

[Wexnident]

A tad bit too late imo. Firstly, even if China does take hold of all miners and take all the coins they mine, it's less than 15% of the coins of the total supply now. Even if they do hold it for long until the time that supply is thinned out to the point that they'd be the majority, it'd take too long. Not to mention that mining takes up a significant amount of money to perform, even the fact that they'd hold that much amount of Bitcoin for an unknown number of years is already destroying their economy. There isn't even any guarantee that they'd receive the entirety of that less than 15% BTC that hasn't been mined yet.

I'd rather be concerned about how China could potentially perform a 51% attack on the Bitcoin scheme. I'd rather them continue hating Bitcoin and eventually shutdown all their miners in the country and let the community take over. I just wish their notion of hating means leaving it alone and not taking over it.

[Darkuso]

I'd rather be concerned about how China could potentially perform a 51% attack on the Bitcoin scheme. I'd rather them continue hating Bitcoin and eventually shutdown all their miners in the country and let the community take over. I just wish their notion of hating means leaving it alone and not taking over it.

This is also my concern, not how many coins they can take from the miners but what can they do with all that hash power. Maybe they won't even want to take over bitcoin network but instead do it to undermine it, in the case that they want to their blockchain/crypto take over bitcoin spot.

[davis196]

Nobody knows what the Chinese government will do after China launches their central bank digital currency.
Perhaps the government will ban all the other cryptocurrencies and crypto mining in China.
I think that China might keep Bitcoin as an alternative,if their central bank coin project fails and if the US/China trade war continues,China might stop using US dollars as a reserve currency and replace them with gold,euro,or maybe Bitcoin(the last option is highly unlikely to happen,but who knows).

[ranochigo]

But in this case, with the hash rate reduced so much, it wouldn't be a threat for btc network integrity, security and validation times? Maybe I'm thinking in the worst-case scenario but I genuinely want to know, besides how something like this can affect the price, wouldn't make it vulnerable to something like a 51% attack?

It would make attacking the network less costly since it would take less to generate blocks faster than the rest in the network. However, you have to consider the resources needed for a 51% attack. Rationally, it still wouldn't take place since the amount of hashrate you'll still have to gather is a pretty significant amount. You can't use money to buy that much hashrate. Blocks would be mined at a longer interval until at least the next difficulty adjustment.

Let's rather look at the other side of the coin, when the Chinese miners gets shutdown by their government. We will suddenly see a massive drop in the hashing power and more people with smaller mining rigs would be able to re-enter the mining scene from all over the world and it will be even more decentralized when the difficulty drops.  

The big farms located in the other countries would take over. It's just that China will no longer have the largest concentration of hashrate.
Crypto mining is probably one of the bigger sources of revenue for some of the provenience and the larger government. Spending billions to attack a crypto and wasting all the ASICs that they have won't do any good and the community will just fork the coin and shift elsewhere. Its just not to their best interest.

[pooya87]

I have been looking for multiple sources of information on this,

the problem is that what you see as "sources" are mostly poorly researched and written articles by news sites or individuals that seek to be heard.

and most seem to agree that at least 40% and up to 65% of the mining hash-power is coming from China.
What prevents their government from attempting a hostile take over of the farms?

there is a difference between a mining farm and a mining pool. there are Chinese owned mining pools that have servers in multiple places and the miners connecting to these pools (multiple) count for as much hashrate as 65%.
then there are mining farms that are among those miners that connect to those pools that could only have 1% of hashrate or less.

taking over a pool means miners abandon that pool and connect to another server.
taking over a mining farm means taking over a small percentage of hashrate.

After looking at what Justin Sun has done with the Steem Blockchain (I know its dPoS vs PoW)

apart from the difference in algorithms, another problem was that steem was already centralized which is why he could do what he did. in comparison bitcoin (both hashrate and nodes) are decentralized and distributed all over the world. so there is no single point of attack, for example as i said above you'll have to take over thousands of miners to gain a meaningful amount of hashrate that could be used for an attack. and if such actions were noticed a hard fork could prevent such attacks.

of course a better "prevention" mechanism is always more decentralization meaning more distributed hashrate, more number of mining pools coming from different parts of the world, more bitcoin full nodes coming from all parts of the world.