Why exactly is Bitcoin clinging to PoW?

[thumamuma]

First of all. I don't agree with MarsMan and I think what he is doing is straightforward market manipulation.

But one thing is o/c right in this whole mess. Proof of Work can't be Bitcoins destination. First of all one question is if it really still fulfills its function for decentralization. Is a system truly decentralized or distributed when there is already just a handful of groups that would just need to agree on common terms?

Energy might be another factor and important as well, so a less power hungry solution might be great, on the other side it could be very healthy to the renewables industry if all miners would be forced to use only green energy, since this would generate a significant amount of money flowing into those industries. But I don't see any technical way to really enforce that.

I am a long term user since Bitcoins inception, but I stopped following the development for some years now and hold most of my assets I bought for a few cents years ago and just do some trading from time to time. So I might be not up to date if there are efforts to move away from PoW. Can someone give me an update on this? If Bitcoin is not considering to move and evolve, what are your takes on this and why would one cling to much to PoW, just b/c of the hard fork it requires? Or are the alternatives still not mature enough?

[1714252389]

1714252389

[DannyHamilton]

But one thing is o/c right in this whole mess. Proof of Work can't be Bitcoins destination.

It is. It always has been. It was the intention from the beginning. It always will be.  Get over it.

If you don't like it, there are thousands of shitcoins for you to choose from.

First of all one question is if it really still fulfills its function for decentralization.

Decentralization has nothing to do with it.  Decentralization means nobody can stop you from creating a wallet and connecting to the system. Whether consensus rules change or not is determined by the consensus of the users, not by some authority.

Is a system truly decentralized or distributed when there is already just a handful of groups that would just need to agree on common terms?

it seems you misunderstand the basics.  The only way to change any consensus rule is for ALL users to agree.

Energy might be another factor and important as well, so a less power hungry solution might be great,

And just how much energy does the world's leading alternative consume??  The energy FUD is a bunch of nonsense.

on the other side it could be very healthy to the renewables industry if all miners would be forced to use only green energy, since this would generate a significant amount of money flowing into those industries. But I don't see any technical way to really enforce that.

No.  Because....  It's decentralized.  There is no authority that gets to decide.  You want to force mining onto renewables?  Make renewables cheaper.  Mining is driven by profit, it will tend towards the cheapest electricity.

I am a long-term user since Bitcoins inception, but I stopped following the development for some years now and hold most of my assets I bought for a few cents years ago and just do some trading from time to time. So I might be not up to date if there are efforts to move away from PoW.

There are not.  There will never be.

If Bitcoin is not considering to move and evolve,

Bitcoin moves and evolves all the time, but it's not going to adopt nonsense just because some people said made up some scary things on the T.V. (or twitter)

[NeuroticFish]

Proof of Work can't be Bitcoins destination.

Yet it is.
Without this kind of PoW, Bitcoin price would have not reached these levels and most probably you wouldn't talk about Bitcoin because you wouldn't have heard about it or your have been abandoning it already.

Also this topic was discussed 1000 times.
Also imho you've posted in the wrong board, this is not that technical...

[thumamuma]

Well those are suprisingly agressive answers...

Maybe I missed the board, but it is called also technical discussion. I am talking about technical details of the implementation, so I might be off but not too far. Sorry if you feel like this ended up in the wrong place.


> And just how much energy does the world's leading alternative consume??  The energy FUD is a bunch of nonsense.

Do you have data to back that up? You seem to be very angry on me, I mean no harm, but clearly seem to have hit a nerve I did not intend to. If it is all FUD all is good, would welcome if you could send me the data that proofs this statement wrong.


> No.  Because....  It's decentralized.  There is no authority that gets to decide.  You want to force mining onto renewables?  Make renewables cheaper.  Mining is driven by profit, it will tend towards the cheapest electricity.

Please calm down... . Can you maybe get your emotions under control and read what I actually write. Everyone including me knows all that. I made the point that the energy consumption of bitcoin could be for good if it is driving development of renewable forward by giving them even more funding.


> There are not.  There will never be.

Why not? That is exactly what I wanted to know, what is the rationale? Is everything bad? If there is an actually feasible alternative, what is bad about adopting it?

> it seems you misunderstand the basics.  The only way to change any consensus rule is for ALL users to agree.

no i did not understand any single thing. Of course I know that.



Whatever, I didn't expect such a toxic answer, I honestly asked what is the state and are alternative considered and if not why not. I really don't know what is wrong with that. This really felt like questioning a religion instead of questioning the status quo.

[BrewMaster]

Bitcoin energy consumption by Andereas Antanopolos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvFqEofdAZ0

Well those are suprisingly agressive answers...

i don't see any agression here. they are correcting the wrong assumptions you've made and the misunderstanding you have of bitcoin, energy production and consumption that lead to your final conclusion about PoW needing a change.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

BTC energy footprint is NOT as bad as the FUDsters like to make it sound. Good comparison to the banking sector energy usage is here. BTC will NEVER change from PoW for the simple reason that PoW is the single best way to ensure the blockchain integrity: Attacking it requires a huge amount of hardware and energy.

Piece Of Shit on the other hand only requires the developers of the coin to simply change whatever they want to, whenever they want to or a single deep-pocket to buy up a majority of coins.

[ranochigo]

If it is all FUD all is good, would welcome if you could send me the data that proofs this statement wrong.

It would be fairer to consider Bitcoin as a currency and compare it to the next best alternative, which is the fiat system. Unfortunately, there really isn't any reliable estimations other than this[1] made about that but I would argue that they contribute far more carbon footprint as compared to Bitcoin mining, considering the numerous banking branches, offices, ATMs, etc.

I made the point that the energy consumption of bitcoin could be for good if it is driving development of renewable forward by giving them even more funding.

Renewable energy in many regions are cheaper than coal and for most parts, the cost of purchasing the electricity offsets the R&D of that as well.

Why not? That is exactly what I wanted to know, what is the rationale? Is everything bad? If there is an actually feasible alternative, what is bad about adopting it?

There is a PoS version of Bitcoin, which I'll argue is a shitcoin. I don't see a need for Bitcoin to change, personally. PoW is working as intended, hence the cries about its electrical consumption (which is arguably overblown by both Elon and the media). In general, Bitcoin has pretty much always adopted the mantra of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". There really isn't any reason as of now (perhaps ever) for any shift to a different algorithm.

[1] https://twitter.com/glxyresearch/status/1393166955864117248/photo/1

[thumamuma]

well the responses were aggressive, the way and tone of communication makes up aggression, not that we disagree or he points out flaws (which wasn't the case, it was stated wrong without added proof).

Thank you for the youtube video, will watch it.

> It would be fairer to consider Bitcoin as a currency and compare it to the next best alternative, which is the fiat system. Unfortunately, there really isn't any reliable estimations other than this[1] made about that but I would argue that they contribute far more carbon footprint as compared to Bitcoin mining, considering the numerous banking branches, offices, ATMs, etc.

Well I would totally agree to that, that should be a fair comparison. Technically, taking mastercard. Their tech and servers probably consumes less energy since those are really cheap operations even considering the grade of HA that is employed, but the whole apparatus around it (offices, workers, gasoline of people driving around, local terminals, ...) probably will be somewhat on par or worse.

To do my best to get the tone on a friendly level. Again thanks for the sources, I am **only** questioning the status quo since I couldn't find the information that I wanted to see proof of either. I do consider the environment in total of course, but I am neither an offender of bitcoin nor of PoW (I actually employ PoW for other things b/c it is a very powerful way to force a system to operate at a given speed without trusting the client to stick to the defined loose standards). I was wondering why Bitcoin is not considering any of the alternatives and that is what I was ultimately asking. I understand that especially due to MarsMan, this topic is escalating, but however I never took him serious or any of his late projects which in the end are not all that good for the world (especially when one is centralizing the internet on a single provider (google)). I am well considering all the information you gave and give me and ahead of reading and watching: thank you for that!

[DannyHamilton]

well the responses were aggressive,

Perhaps you are unaccustomed to people disagreeing with you?  Nothing I said was intended to be aggressive or angry.  Perhaps slightly exasperated, but I've been answering similar questions here for a decade now, so I'm not really bothered by it at all. It's just the same old same old all over again.

There is no need to change Bitcoin away from POW. There are MANY other crypto currencies that use something other than POW, and they've been around for years.  If any of them had implemented a significantly better solution, then it would be the leading cryptocurrency of the world.

Beyond that, the only way to make a change to the consensus mechanism would be a hard-fork.  A hard fork would require overwhelming support from ALL users (consumers, merchants, miners, HODLers, exchanges, etc).  As you can see from the response you've gotten on this discussion board, getting that overwhelming support is going to be effectively impossible.  Especially the miners.  If at least on miner and one user in the ENTIRE world refuse to switch away from POW, then there will still be a Bitcoin in the world that is using POW.  In that case, the new (non-POW) Bitcoin would effectively be an alt-coin, and as I've already pointed out, alt-coins without POW already exist.  Furthermore, how are you going to convince an overwhelming majority of miners, that are making profit from their rigs, that they should just turn those rigs off and let the new (non-POW) Bitcoin take their place?

If it is all FUD all is good, would welcome if you could send me the data that proofs this statement wrong.

Someone on the internet makes an outrageous claim (and one that common sense indicates is nonsense) and the world needs to provide proof that the outrageous claim is false?  Here's a better idea.  Perhaps SOMEONE (anyone?) making the claim that Bitcoin's energy usage is a significant problem can provide the proof that it's actually a problem? Think about EVERYTHIING that goes into maintaining just the U.S. dollar as a trusted medium of exchange (skipping all the other Fiat currencies in the world).  Think about the minting of the physical currency, the securing and transporting of that physical currency, the secret service effort to prevent counterfeiting and fraud, the banking system, vaults, branches, ATMs, tellers, all the fuel spent on all the vehicles by all the employees getting to and from work, all the databases and computers for storing balances all over the world, the networks needed for inter-bank transfers, the consumer level electronic payment systems, card readers, routers, security systems, etc. I'm sure there's more I haven't thought to type just now. Some people might even include much of the U.S. military in calculations on what the U.S. spends to make sure that their currency keeps its status as the reserve currency of the world. Stop and think for just a few minutes about the total amount of energy that the world spends on this one Fiat monetary system.  Do you really believe that the Bitcoin miners in the world are spending more than the entire world is spending on the U.S. dollar system?  If you want to make that claim, then I'd like to see some proof. Otherwise, I'm always going to dismiss that concept with as little thought as I dismiss the flat-earthers and the moon-landing deniers.

[NotATether]

I don't think PoW is the problem (and even if it is it's too late to change it without bankrupting the entire mining industry, it's not like it's a niche like dogecoin mining is), but rather pressure needs to be applied to ASICs manufacturers to make miners that draw less power.

Here in PC and mobile devices land, you can't just make a PSU that pulls as much power as you want because that comes with heavy prices for user experience, cost, and ultimately the revenue and sales.

A possible solution would be to have the EPA regulate the energy usage of miners and ban the product from the US if it fails energy regulations. The US does have some slice of the mining distribution so ASIC manufacturers will want to follow them to be able to sell their miners there.

well the responses were aggressive,

Perhaps you are unaccustomed to people disagreeing with you?  Nothing I said was intended to be aggressive or angry.  Perhaps slightly exasperated, but I've been answering similar questions here for a decade now, so I'm not really bothered by it at all. It's just the same old same old all over again.

This is Danny's normal posting style, you should get used to it 

[thumamuma]

> A possible solution would be to have the EPA regulate the energy usage of miners and ban the product from the US if it fails energy regulations. The US does have some slice of the mining distribution so ASIC manufacturers will want to follow them to be able to sell their miners there.

Yup that would make sense, same could apply to the energy origin, to not allow mining activities if a certain percentage does not come from renewables. But I have doubts that the US government would have just the slightest interest to regulate in favor of crypto currencies. It always looks more that they would just like to ban them.

[NotATether]

> A possible solution would be to have the EPA regulate the energy usage of miners and ban the product from the US if it fails energy regulations. The US does have some slice of the mining distribution so ASIC manufacturers will want to follow them to be able to sell their miners there.

Yup that would make sense, same could apply to the energy origin, to not allow mining activities if a certain percentage does not come from renewables. But I have doubts that the US government would have just the slightest interest to regulate in favor of crypto currencies. It always looks more that they would just like to ban them.

It doesn't have to be specifically the US, if the EU also has a large share of mining farms in its territory then it's more likely than US to push a regulation. See for example GDPR.

Heck even if China was the one making the regulations (though they are notoriously lax regulation-wise on everything) that'll cause a spike of energy savings too given that a majority of hashpower is located there.

[DannyHamilton]

pressure needs to be applied to ASICs manufacturers to make miners that draw less power.

They already do.  This is the main reason that people keep buying the newest generation of ASIC and that older generations become obsolete.

Miners have to pay for the electricity necessary for each hash.  If they use less power per hash, then they can afford to buy more hashes and increase their share of the mining rewards.

Looking just at the Antminer S series, we can see that in 2013 they released the S1 with only 1.8 trillion hashes for each watt hour used.  Over the next few years, they had reduced their power consumption to the point where the S8 could generate 36.7 trillion hashes with the same 1 watt hour. Today, the most efficient miners are calculating nearly 40 trillion hashes for each watt hour.

Miners will always demand more efficient mining rigs.  Competition drives ASIC developers to produce the most efficient rigs that current technology makes possible. If they don't then some other ASIC manufacturer will produce a rig that is slightly more efficient and put them out of business. Regulations aren't going to be a stronger motivator than that.


Note that I'm talking about power in terms of how many hashes you can get from it.  Just a straight limit to total power is useless.  Miners will just buy more units (of the rigs that get the most hashes for that power). So the total power usage will stay the same.

In the end, it's the market value of a mined block and the cost of electricity that determines the total amount of money per hash that a miner can profitably spend on mining. Raise energy prices worldwide, and miners will use less energy overall. Decrease energy prices on renewables, and a larger percentage of mining will happen with renewable energy.

At the current difficulty it takes on average about 108 zetahashes (108,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 hashes) to solve a block, and the average block reward, including transaction fees, is about 6.75 BTC.

If the bitcoin exchange rate drops, then those 6.75 BTC won't be worth as much, so the block won't be worth as much.  Also, in a few years after the next halving, the block won't be worth as many bitcoins.  Both of these factors will result in some miners finding that they are earning less per block than they are spending on electricity (they are mining at a loss) and they will shut down rigs resulting in a reduction in energy usage.

On the other hand, if fees increase or if the exchange rate increases, then miners will find that they can afford to purchase more equipment and there will be an increase in energy usage.

If electricity gets cheaper, then miners can afford more electricity and therefore will buy more rigs.  If electricity gets more expensive, then some miners will be mining at a loss and will shut down their equipment.

Note that the value of the network being secured directly affects the amount of money spent securing it (and therefore the amount of energy used to secure it). I don't think you can say the same about any Fiat currency.

[TangentC]

Here is a question,

what is the PoW supporters plan to stop cities and countries from banning bitcoin PoW mining,
due to their concerns over bitcoin energy usage and carbon footprint?

Because I hear bitcoiners don't won't to switch, OK don't ,
but how are you going to solve the above issues if you don't.
Ignoring it or blaming other industries will make little difference to the Politicians that are banning mining.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/02/china-bitcoin-mining-hub-to-shut-down-cryptocurrency-projects.html
https://cointelegraph.com/news/new-york-bill-proposes-to-ban-crypto-mining-for-3-years-over-carbon-concerns
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/05/bitcoin-btc-surge-renews-worries-about-its-massive-carbon-footprint.html

 

[dkbit98]

what is the PoW supporters plan to stop cities and countries from banning bitcoin PoW mining,
due to their concerns over bitcoin energy usage and carbon footprint?

Because I hear bitcoiners don't won't to switch, OK don't ,
but how are you going to solve the above issues if you don't.
Ignoring it or blaming other industries will make little difference to the Politicians that are banning mining.

You can solve it easy for yourself if you stop watching mainstream media brainwashing or listening elon, and if some city or state ban's Bitcoin mining than miners will simply move to other city or region that is pro Bitcoin.

If some city is using electricity created mostly from coal then they have the problem to solve and move to renewable energy sources, and Bitcoin has nothing to do with that.

 

[Wind_FURY]

OP, plus Bitcoin mining is also a Sybil Attack prevention mechanism, and the incentive-structure works, the Game Theory works, and the network will chug along for many many years. Why change something that already works?

[TangentC]

what is the PoW supporters plan to stop cities and countries from banning bitcoin PoW mining,
due to their concerns over bitcoin energy usage and carbon footprint?

Because I hear bitcoiners don't won't to switch, OK don't ,
but how are you going to solve the above issues if you don't.
Ignoring it or blaming other industries will make little difference to the Politicians that are banning mining.

You can solve it easy for yourself if you stop watching mainstream media brainwashing or listening elon, and if some city or state ban's Bitcoin mining than miners will simply move to other city or region that is pro Bitcoin.

If some city is using electricity created mostly from coal then they have the problem to solve and move to renewable energy sources, and Bitcoin has nothing to do with that.

No offense , but ignoring the energy waste will not make the issue go away,
that is like ignoring that mole that turns into cancer and kills you.

Whether Bitcoiners like it or not , the media is slamming bitcoin for excessive energy usage,
and Bans of PoW mining are growing. If you plan on staying PoW, then you need to figure how you are going to bypass those future bans,
because at some point, their won't be any one allowing PoW mining.
Since increased energy usage does not translate into increased performance only increased security, a PR nightmare is looming for bitcoin.
Ethereum solution to the energy waste issue has been to start a transition to PoS, Bitcoiners don't want that, so you need to make a plan.
Also the growing excessive energy issue has been an issue since 2013 when PoS was created to fix it, so this has been an issue ignored for years already.

FYI:
Even if energy is renewal , it is still a limited supply of a semi-fixed total, by bitcoin using an ever increasing % at a growth rate exceeding all other industries, it is still going to cause problems, such as rolling blackouts , and massive price increases in the cost of electricity for anyone unfortunate enough to be on the same power grid as miners.

[dkbit98]

No offense , but ignoring the energy waste will not make the issue go away,
that is like ignoring that mole that turns into cancer and kills you.

This is probably one of the worst comparison I ever saw in my life, but if you are so big eco warrior that stop driving cars, stop using electricity for anything, and don't use your bank and credit cards because they spend more energy than Bitcoin.
Move to forest, desert or live in some cave to save the earth.

PoS was created to fix it, so this has been an issue ignored for years already.

Proof-of-stake is created only to make owners and whales richer, and it has nothing to do with decentralization, security or saving of energy.

[TangentC]

No offense , but ignoring the energy waste will not make the issue go away,
that is like ignoring that mole that turns into cancer and kills you.

This is probably one of the worst comparison I ever saw in my life, but if you are so big eco warrior that stop driving cars, stop using electricity for anything, and don't use your bank and credit cards because they spend more energy than Bitcoin.

PoS was created to fix it, so this has been an issue ignored for years already.

Proof-of-stake is created only to make owners and whales richer, and it has nothing to do with decentralization, security or saving of energy.

Ethereum and Cardano , the #2 and #4 coins on CMK would disagree with you.
As Cardano Proof of Stake is 1.6 million times more energy efficient than the bitcoin PoW network, and it onchain transaction capacity exceeds btc to the point , they don't need an offchain LN network to help with transactions.

My point , is without PoS conversion, Bitcoiners are just ignoring the problems,
and if you are going to stay PoW, then how will bitcoin avoid future bans on mining, and those bans are coming , no matter what you ignore.
 

[dkbit98]

Ethereum and Cardano , the #2 and #4 coins on CMK would disagree with you.

You clearly don't understand anything and farting about centralized altcoins that mostly run on vps servers and have blockchain size that can't fit on normal hard drives is not decentralization or security.
Anyone can run Bitcoin node even on Pi devices, that is impossible on mentioned coins, and they don't spend any energy because they run on centralized VPS almost as database files.
Not to mention you would need to have huge amount of coins to buy and stake, or issues with premine...

OP, plus Bitcoin mining is also a Sybil Attack prevention mechanism, and the incentive-structure works, the Game Theory works, and the network will chug along for many many years. Why change something that already works?

Change is needed sometimes and anything that is stagnant and not improving can be overtaken, so I would not be surprised if we see some future change in Bitcoin PoW or some better model, but it is certainly not going to be some shitty Proof-of-Stake.

[NotATether]

Here is a question,

what is the PoW supporters plan to stop cities and countries from banning bitcoin PoW mining,
due to their concerns over bitcoin energy usage and carbon footprint?

You have a very important point. Since large-scale profitable mining can only be done in certain regions, banning miners from them could kill their business and cause a (another) short-term dip.

Unfortunately most of us have a very tiny voice compared to all the pollution naysayers, and the few people that do have the power to influence opinion (microstrategy CEO for example) are being outnumbered in debates.

[In the interest of full transparency, I still think an algorithm change is a terrible idea, but not even that's going to stop the ferocious anti-mining politicians.]

[TangentC]

Ethereum and Cardano , the #2 and #4 coins on CMK would disagree with you.

You clearly don't understand anything and farting about centralized altcoins that mostly run on vps servers and have blockchain size that can't fit on normal hard drives is not decentralization or security.
Anyone can run Bitcoin node even on Pi devices, that is impossible on mentioned coins, and they don't spend any energy because they run on centralized VPS almost as database files.
Not to mention you would need to have huge amount of coins to buy and stake, or issues with premine...

You're kind of missing the point, the miners are driving up the energy waste, your little Pi is useless in bitcoin mining,
however that little pi could run a PoS network.

My final point is this a solution to PoW energy waste is needed, don't want to switch to PoS like Ethereum,
fine don't, but thinking that something does not have to be done to fix an ever growing problem will not end well for BTC, IMO.

Have a Great Day.  

[dkbit98]

You're kind of missing the point, the miners are driving up the energy waste, your little Pi is useless in bitcoin mining,
however that little pi could run a PoS network.

Good luck trying to run those crap altcoin nodes on Pi device and good luck purchasing all those coins needed to be validator

I see you are not promoting BCH and Roger Ver anymore who also use PoW, so now you switched for other more centralized coins and you are not calling Maxwell a pet cat anymore.  

Everyone know you G.Maxwell pet cat, shoo bad kitty.

Core BTC coin is BROKEN!!
113403 Unconfirmed Transactions

[thumamuma]

Even if energy is renewal , it is still a limited supply of a semi-fixed total, by bitcoin using an ever increasing % at a growth rate exceeding all other industries, it is still going to cause problems, such as rolling blackouts , and massive price increases in the cost of electricity for anyone unfortunate enough to be on the same power grid as miners.

Why do you think so? PoW has a sustained load, the power grid has only problems with spike loads, like the one that comes from charging millions of electric vehicles, I don't think that is a fair point to be made and not really true. And it is not like that bitcoin uses infinite amount of power, that would only happen if the electricity would be free, which it is not. Also when regulators forbid to mine more than XYZ energy capacity that would be a good thing in the end since that would improve decentralization in total.

[xmready]

[thumamuma]

Interesting. Where is there are source of that picture including the sources of how it was aggregated? Would like to have a deeper dive into the whole analysis (especially having a question mark what the gold energy usage means?)

[thumamuma]

ok found it on my own. A little bit questionable why exactly they put gold in there... . They calculated back the CO2 footprint of gold into theoretical TWH. Dunno what this comparison should tell, this is like putting concrete into comparison. In the end every device also contains gold again so it might have made sense if they wanted to calculate a total CO2 footprint including the gold production. Weird...

https://docsend.com/view/adwmdeeyfvqwecj2
https://github.com/GalaxyDigitalLLC/Financial-Industry-Electricity-Balance

[TangentC]

You're kind of missing the point, the miners are driving up the energy waste, your little Pi is useless in bitcoin mining,
however that little pi could run a PoS network.

Good luck trying to run those crap altcoin nodes on Pi device and good luck purchasing all those coins needed to be validator

I see you are not promoting BCH and Roger Ver anymore who also use PoW, so now you switched for other more centralized coins and you are not calling Maxwell a pet cat anymore.  

Everyone know you G.Maxwell pet cat, shoo bad kitty.

For the record, I was calling the now non-entity formerly know as Lauda the pet cat of G.Maxwell as she/he/it did his bidding on multiple occasions. For a time Lauda red tagged almost everyone that even type BCH.
What I was promoting with BCH was the fact they had no need of offchain networks such as LN, because they were unafraid to raise their blocksize , something it would have been nice if BTC had done, but refused to do so, due to misplaced fear.
If you have a problem with BCH , you should contact the people also mining BTC, because the same miners are keeping both running.  

[vjudeu]

If you have a problem with BCH , you should contact the people also mining BTC, because the same miners are keeping both running.

It is not the case, because merged mining is not activated.

[Wind_FURY]

Ethereum and Cardano , the #2 and #4 coins on CMK would disagree with you.

You clearly don't understand anything and farting about centralized altcoins that mostly run on vps servers and have blockchain size that can't fit on normal hard drives is not decentralization or security.
Anyone can run Bitcoin node even on Pi devices, that is impossible on mentioned coins, and they don't spend any energy because they run on centralized VPS almost as database files.
Not to mention you would need to have huge amount of coins to buy and stake, or issues with premine...

OP, plus Bitcoin mining is also a Sybil Attack prevention mechanism, and the incentive-structure works, the Game Theory works, and the network will chug along for many many years. Why change something that already works?

Change is needed sometimes and anything that is stagnant and not improving can be overtaken, so I would not be surprised if we see some future change in Bitcoin PoW or some better model, but it is certainly not going to be some shitty Proof-of-Stake.

Stagnant? Bitcoin doesn’t need to change. Bitcoin actually has the fastest SETTLEMENT times compared to ALL coins. Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin settle more than 10 times slower than Bitcoin. Compare how much shitcoin confirmations is worth in just one Bitcoin confirmation.

[dkbit98]

Stagnant? Bitcoin doesn’t need to change. Bitcoin actually has the fastest SETTLEMENT times compared to ALL coins. Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin settle more than 10 times slower than Bitcoin. Compare how much shitcoin confirmations is worth in just one Bitcoin confirmation.

Do you know how many code changes Bitcoin had since it's creation? It's changing all the time and that is the rule for anything in life, adapt and change or die.
Even now we are going to see Taproot code update soon, and I am not at all comparing Bitcoin with any altcoins, but I was talking what could happen in future.
If you look at the bigger picture and all climate change plans by 2030 you would realize that we need to start thinking of ways how to improve and change PoW (not by using stupid PoS for sure).
Again, I am not saying Bitcoin is the source of problem with spending only 1% of world energy, but we better be ready for some bad scenarios.

[Wind_FURY]

Change is needed sometimes and anything that is stagnant and not improving can be overtaken, so I would not be surprised if we see some future change in Bitcoin PoW or some better model, but it is certainly not going to be some shitty Proof-of-Stake.

Stagnant? Bitcoin doesn’t need to change.

But Bitcoin already changed many times, from P2PKH, P2SH, SegWit to Taproot which will be activated later in future.

Read his post. He believes a change in Bitcoin’s POW “or some better model” <- not sure what that means, will be better for Bitcoin’s future, and that he “will not be surprised to see that kind of change” in the future. Is he actually saying that Bitcoin must break what makes the whole system work?

[DaveF]

What I have not seen is how much energy is wasted in other ways in relation to fiat vs. cards vs. electronic payments in general vs. crypto.
You can come up with a number showing how much energy the ATMs of the world use. And probably even how much fuel is needed to have the people filing them use.
But where do you draw the line? If I need cash I have to go an ATM. Unless I am passing one that I can use on the way to someplace else there is my fuel burn.

How much oil is used to make the plastic for credit cards?
How much energy / gold / other metals is used to make the chips for credit cards?

It's a very deep rabbit hole to go down and it will be difficult to draw a line as to where to stop.

US bills are cotton & linen, how much does it cost to grow the cotton to make it in terms of fuel & water and land that could be used for food?

-Dave

[BlackHatCoiner]

Read his post.

I believe he did. He just said that Bitcoin has indeed changed a lot of times in the past, to improve the way it works. You see, sometimes, the “singers” of this network must switch tunes, but that's not necessarily bad. As long as there is harmony, we're fine.

He believes a change in Bitcoin’s POW “or some better model” <- not sure what that means

I guess he said that PoW will either be changed or a new mechanism will replace it, although I doubt for both of them.

Is he actually saying that Bitcoin must break what makes the whole system work?

“Break” isn't the greatest word to describe this. The system has to change sooner or later and you should be okay with this, except if you haven't understood the way it is structured.

I'm quoting you a message of this forum:

According to NIST and ECRYPT II, the cryptographic algorithms used in Bitcoin are expected to be strong until at least 2030. (After that, it will not be too difficult to transition to different algorithms.)

[TangentC]

If you have a problem with BCH , you should contact the people also mining BTC, because the same miners are keeping both running.

It is not the case, because merged mining is not activated.

BTC miners have warehouse full of ASICs,
thinking they don't switch back and forth for greater profit gains between BTC and BCH is naive.
Switching does not require merge mining.

Because if all of the BTC miners had the loyalty that a bitcoiner cultist has,
then BCH would have suffered a chain death on day 1 of the split.    

[vjudeu]

If BCH is so good, why they don't switch from Proof of Work to something else? You don't like Proof of Work in BTC, but like it in BCH? Also, you have a lot of coins with other consensus, if something other than Proof of Work is so good, why they are not as successful as Bitcoin? And even if they are less known, why you want to change the way BTC works instead of selling your BTC and buying some other coin that works the way you want? If there is no such coin, you are free to create it, in this way you will learn the hard way, why other consensus are worse.

I think that any consensus other than Proof of Work can be reduced to "obscured Proof of Work", it is well explained for example here: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/ and if that's the case, then there is no reason to switch to something else.

[TangentC]

If BCH is so good, why they don't switch from Proof of Work to something else? You don't like Proof of Work in BTC, but like it in BCH? Also, you have a lot of coins with other consensus, if something other than Proof of Work is so good, why they are not as successful as Bitcoin? And even if they are less known, why you want to change the way BTC works instead of selling your BTC and buying some other coin that works the way you want? If there is no such coin, you are free to create it, in this way you will learn the hard way, why other consensus are worse.

I think that any consensus other than Proof of Work can be reduced to "obscured Proof of Work", it is well explained for example here: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/ and if that's the case, then there is no reason to switch to something else.

I don't like proof of work at all, but I hate a coin not improving onchain transaction capacity most of all.

Your bitcoiner cultist attitude does not serve you at all, I am not the one banning PoW mining.
I am pointing out that banning PoW mining is a growing phenomenon.

Instead of getting irrational with me, maybe realize that if you want PoW to continue, you are going to have to work with the ones making the bans. 

 

[pooya87]

Because if all of the BTC miners had the loyalty that a bitcoiner cultist has,
then BCH would have suffered a chain death on day 1 of the split.   

BCH didn't die because first of all there are malicious centralized entities with some amount of hashrate behind this altcoin and secondly because they also changed the difficulty and how it works to reduce it enough to let that tiny amount of hashrate keep the chain alive.
They also created incentive by letting miners find more than 1000 blocks per day (instead of the normal ~144) like an airdrop. There is no room for loyalty in business and also even some bitcoin investors when they see some shitcoin pumping (see profit) they go there temporarily to make quick profit.

you want PoW to continue,

That's your naive interpretation. The problem is that there is nothing better than bitcoin's PoW.

[TangentC]

The problem is that there is nothing better than bitcoin's PoW.

You know, I know you honestly believe that.

But the problem is the growing banning of PoW mining due to what others think that don't share your belief.

Good day to you,
I think enough of all of our time has been wasted on a subject that bitcoiners just refuse to even attempt to comprehend.
As with all things , their will be a tipping point and then denying reality will have consequences.
Until then enjoy your belief that Bitcoin PoW is special.    

[vjudeu]

But the problem is the growing banning of PoW mining due to what others think that don't share your belief.

Proof of Work is harder to ban than other consensus like Proof of Stake. In PoS you cannot reliably prove if someone is DDoSed or is only pretending to get advantage by slashing. In PoW if there is a monopolist, it has to keep working to hold that position, in PoS the validator can sign every competing chain and always be rewarded. In PoW when someone has 51% computing power, then turning off some miners may even be profitable, so it is natural pressure against centralization (imagine you have 100% computing power, then there is no reason to mine blocks starting with 80 zero bits and pay high electricity bills, you can save money by letting the difficulty drop). In PoS when someone has 51% coin supply, then there is no reason to give up. Once 51%, always 51%, it is true in PoS, because you can sign every chain using different addresses and pretending that you are not a monopolist and you can still control everything without making any additional effort, like in PoW where you have to keep your mining equipment running.

[Wind_FURY]

Read his post.

I believe he did. He just said that Bitcoin has indeed changed a lot of times in the past, to improve the way it works. You see, sometimes, the “singers” of this network must switch tunes, but that's not necessarily bad. As long as there is harmony, we're fine.

Bitcoin didn’t actually “change”, like the poster’s context of “change”. Or maybe I misunderstood?

He believes a change in Bitcoin’s POW “or some better model” <- not sure what that means

I guess he said that PoW will either be changed or a new mechanism will replace it, although I doubt for both of them.

Change the POW algorithm, the network’s security breaks down. Everything about it breaks down, it’s laughable to consider thinking about that kind of “change”.

Is he actually saying that Bitcoin must break what makes the whole system work?

“Break” isn't the greatest word to describe this. The system has to change sooner or later and you should be okay with this, except if you haven't understood the way it is structured.

I'm quoting you a message of this forum:

According to NIST and ECRYPT II, the cryptographic algorithms used in Bitcoin are expected to be strong until at least 2030. (After that, it will not be too difficult to transition to different algorithms.)

But a change of the POW? That will break the incentive structure, the game theory, that thing that makes everything behind Bitcoin work.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Bitcoin didn’t actually “change”, like the poster’s context of “change”. Or maybe I misunderstood?

What did you understand in the context of “change”? A consensus change such as 21M coins that would result in a hard fork? A change like SegWit and Taproot that would result in a soft fork?

Change the POW algorithm, the network’s security breaks down. Everything about it breaks down, it’s laughable to consider thinking about that kind of “change”.

It's been said by everyone and I also agree that PoW is the greatest choice and that this mechanism shouldn't be changed by force. But we can't be sure for any other innovative ideas, though.

Yes, although i doubt it'll happen anytime soon.

Even if someone found a more efficient way to secure the network same like with PoW, I don't understand why we'd want that. The system works fine this way and the miners become more and more efficient, if we see this situation morally.

Wouldn't this be a hard fork?

[ranochigo]

Even if someone found a more efficient way to secure the network same like with PoW, I don't understand why we'd want that. The system works fine this way and the miners become more and more efficient, if we see this situation morally.

Wouldn't this be a hard fork?

It is. I would argue that it becomes an altcoin. The foundation of Bitcoin has mostly been left unchanged and it probably should be, barring any vulnerabilities of some sort. The game theoretic model of PoW is basically as good as it gets; giving up resources for the security of the network.

If you're finding another scheme that can secure the network in the same way, then the miners that we have today will be out of the equation. That is not going to sit well with them in the first place. Perhaps we should change PoW, if such a great scheme comes about but the fact that you're never going to get any significant consensus with so much conflict of interest makes it hard for us to agree to a change. I wouldn't bother, PoW is fine as it is. People needs to start attacking actual climate change contributors for it or just go and penalize miners with carbon tax. That's all.

[vjudeu]

Wouldn't this be a hard fork?

It depends on implementation. For example I can imagine a chain storing 64k block headers per block and distributing rewards to the miners according to how low their hashes would be. Doing it directly on Bitcoin would be a hard fork, but storing it on separate chain and doing settlement transactions on Bitcoin would be a soft fork. The same for other features, I think there is a room for improvements, as long as people can still produce blocks as today.

[dnagh]

what is the PoW supporters plan to stop cities and countries from banning bitcoin PoW mining,
due to their concerns over bitcoin energy usage and carbon footprint?

Because I hear bitcoiners don't won't to switch, OK don't ,
but how are you going to solve the above issues if you don't.
Ignoring it or blaming other industries will make little difference to the Politicians that are banning mining.

You can solve it easy for yourself if you stop watching mainstream media brainwashing or listening elon, and if some city or state ban's Bitcoin mining than miners will simply move to other city or region that is pro Bitcoin.

If some city is using electricity created mostly from coal then they have the problem to solve and move to renewable energy sources, and Bitcoin has nothing to do with that.

 
How is this a reasonable answer to the question asked?  so if more and more countries ban bitcoin minings then the miners just have to keep moving from countries to countries?

[Intercoin-Greg]

Bitcoin is clinging to PoW because the original network and its miners don't want to fork anything.

Even trying to increase the block size led to a fork: Bitcoin Cash. And there were other forks too.

Also, besides the miners' economic incentives, there is a religious element to Bitcoin's design for many end-users who actually buy and hold Bitcoin. People care about the mysterious original founder and his vision. The original founder (Satoshi) and his whitepaper said it was supposed to be a peer-to-peer cash system. But it can't handle more than 10 transactions a second, so it became just a really secure store of value. Craig Wright started "Bitcoin SV" for "Satoshi's Vision" and tried to argue that his is closer to the vision, and then also that he himself is Satoshi (LOL).

Well, Bitcoin isn't JUST a store of value. You can also speculate by buying and holding it, like any other asset. And you can also use it to settle large trade balances between other "Layer 2" networks, via multisig maybe. That's about it.

Things you can't do on Bitcoin are build a decentralized exchange, write smart contracts, etc. But as far as a store of value, it has ALL the features, so it pretty much nailed it. If all you want to do is store money under a mattress then Bitcoin doesn't need to be improved upon. Even if a better network comes along that's better in EVERY WAY - technologically, economically etc. Suppose it becomes a sidechain of BTC by allowing a gateway where you send BTC to an address and then it mints you their synthetic Bitcoins on the other side. Well, suppose even that 99% of all Bitcoins are locked in sidechains like this. The remaining 1% will become an order of magnitude more valuable, because people will trade them as rare collectibles and they're divisible down to the Satoshi. So, sadly many people will ALWAYS stay on Bitcoin even if better technologies exist because, perversely, by being the last to leave you make the most money. Look at Ethereum Classic, people are still trading it and it went up in price. Why? Same reason SHIBA INU does. It's just people speculating on its price.

And if Bitcoin prices go up, then mining rewards become more valuable (rising faster than the halvings). The result: electricity use will increase for 100 years until it consumes half the electricity on the planet. It will be as lucrative as drug cartels are, and the governments won't be able to stop it. A bleak future if future tech would allow you to lock up Bitcoins in its sidechains. But seems that all future networks being built are not doing that. So Bitcoin dominance should eventually go down (just my opinion, nothing is forever after all) the same way that AltaVista/AskJeeves (Web 1.0) or MySpace/Friendster (Web 2.0) dominance went down to second-generation networks.

[TangentC]

But the problem is the growing banning of PoW mining due to what others think that don't share your belief.

Proof of Work is harder to ban than other consensus like Proof of Stake. In PoS you cannot reliably prove if someone is DDoSed or is only pretending to get advantage by slashing. In PoW if there is a monopolist, it has to keep working to hold that position, in PoS the validator can sign every competing chain and always be rewarded. In PoW when someone has 51% computing power, then turning off some miners may even be profitable, so it is natural pressure against centralization (imagine you have 100% computing power, then there is no reason to mine blocks starting with 80 zero bits and pay high electricity bills, you can save money by letting the difficulty drop). In PoS when someone has 51% coin supply, then there is no reason to give up. Once 51%, always 51%, it is true in PoS, because you can sign every chain using different addresses and pretending that you are not a monopolist and you can still control everything without making any additional effort, like in PoW where you have to keep your mining equipment running.

You can tell you only know what PoW supporters have told you.
Everything you think you know is literally wrong.
I suggest actually study of a PoS coin so you can learn why you are wrong.
I tell you, but you seem to have trouble believing me, so research it your self.  

Hint :
PoS staking % is not a constant. (51% attacks are easier on PoW networks.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/cardano/comments/fvbslt/51_attack_on_cardano_ada_would_be_impossible/
Plus selling of coins changes %.
That is all the help , I am giving you, do the rest of the research on your own.

[vjudeu]

They furthered that this implies that the attack could cost 15 Billion ADA when ADA is priced at $1, which will be a thousand times more money currently needed to initiate a 51% attack on Bitcoin (BTC).

It is not true, because in BTC if you spend your coins on electricity, you lose them. In ADA you get them back, that's the difference. Well explained for example here: https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/#nonproductive-investments-are-wasteful, you have two columns, one for Proof of Work, one for Proof of Stake. Where exactly is the difference?

“Decentralized value transfer with a volatile token is not interesting for payment and business. Smart contracts on the Cardano platform will allow sending stable coins backed by ADA. The use of stable coins will push the price of ADA. The smart contracts will bring utility,” Cardanians shared.

Stable coins are as good as coins backing them up. As long as for example USD is "stable", it of course works, in "happy day scenarios". But Bitcoin raised after crisis in 2008 and if anything goes wrong for example with USD, then it would affect stable coins.

[amishmanish]

But the problem is the growing banning of PoW mining due to what others think that don't share your belief.

Proof of Work is harder to ban than other consensus like Proof of Stake. In PoS you cannot reliably prove if someone is DDoSed or is only pretending to get advantage by slashing. In PoW if there is a monopolist, it has to keep working to hold that position, in PoS the validator can sign every competing chain and always be rewarded. In PoW when someone has 51% computing power, then turning off some miners may even be profitable, so it is natural pressure against centralization (imagine you have 100% computing power, then there is no reason to mine blocks starting with 80 zero bits and pay high electricity bills, you can save money by letting the difficulty drop). In PoS when someone has 51% coin supply, then there is no reason to give up. Once 51%, always 51%, it is true in PoS, because you can sign every chain using different addresses and pretending that you are not a monopolist and you can still control everything without making any additional effort, like in PoW where you have to keep your mining equipment running.

You can tell you only know what PoW supporters have told you.
Everything you think you know is literally wrong.
I suggest actually study of a PoS coin so you can learn why you are wrong.
I tell you, but you seem to have trouble believing me, so research it your self.  

Hint :
PoS staking % is not a constant. (51% attacks are easier on PoW networks.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/cardano/comments/fvbslt/51_attack_on_cardano_ada_would_be_impossible/
Plus selling of coins changes %.
That is all the help , I am giving you, do the rest of the research on your own.

That argument says nothing. The PoS architecture itself limits the number of pool operators that can be there for optimal netowrk efficiency. Anything beyond that is just useless as those pools neither get significant reward nor ever participate as they'll never get the leader slots.

For example, you quote ADA. This currently has around 2500 pools. The optimal value as per their spec is 500. This means the system isn't really efficient already. Then there is the fact that exchanges are operating multiple nodes to increase their own stakes. Decentralization and censorship-resistance are two factors that come to mind.

When a PoS network actually becomes valuable and is at scale, the amount of manipulation that the central players can do to centralize the network and profit from the reward in those cycles is insane. EOS is a prime example.

Thus, you maybe trying to show that you have done your research, it is pretty incomplete. I frankly don't think this deserves a spot in Technical Discussion and I had started a thread for people who wanted to prove that Po(Insert your favorite word) is better alternative to PoW. Maybe you should bring the arguments.

[Wind_FURY]

Bitcoin didn’t actually “change”, like the poster’s context of “change”. Or maybe I misunderstood?

What did you understand in the context of “change”? A consensus change such as 21M coins that would result in a hard fork? A change like SegWit and Taproot that would result in a soft fork?

The poster mentioned change as in change of POW, “or some better model”.

Change the POW algorithm, the network’s security breaks down. Everything about it breaks down, it’s laughable to consider thinking about that kind of “change”.

It's been said by everyone and I also agree that PoW is the greatest choice and that this mechanism shouldn't be changed by force. But we can't be sure for any other innovative ideas, though.

Are you still saying that changing POW into some other “innovative idea” would be a good idea for Bitcoin? How Hashcash was implemented as POW in Bitcoin is the greatest break-through/“discovery” for decentralized, censorhip-resistant protocols, and the missing piece for achieving Nakamoto Consensus. It works, the system works, the incentive structure works, everything works.

[BlackHatCoiner]

The poster mentioned change as in change of POW, “or some better model”.

The poster meant that changes have to be made sometimes. This is all he said. He didn't mention any new models that are greater than PoW and I doubt if there is one. He said that there may be in the future and that PoS won't replace it.

Are you still saying that changing POW into some other “innovative idea” would be a good idea for Bitcoin?

No! I never wrote that we have to change PoW with something better. I've already said that PoW is the greatest choice, I just don't know what the future holds. How sure can you be, for example, that RIPEMD160 will be safe from collisions in the next 3 decades?

[dkbit98]

Bitcoin is clinging to PoW because the original network and its miners don't want to fork anything.

There has been many changes in Bitcoin code and Taproot will be next one, but majority needs to agree that change is good and not just two random rich guys.

Even trying to increase the block size led to a fork: Bitcoin Cash. And there were other forks too.

It's not as easy as just increasing block size that would not fix anything long term and would result in more forked coins.
Just look what happened with BCH joined project of CSW Faketoshi and RogerVer aka MemoryDealers, that later split into one more fake coin BSV, and after that Amaury Sachet forked his own coin BCHA.
That is the circus show you will get when someone decides to just increase block size and create ''better'' Bitcoin vision.

Things you can't do on Bitcoin are build a decentralized exchange, write smart contracts, etc.

Smart contracts are so smart that stupid developers are making so much bugs and every day we hear news of some new exploits resulted in losing of millions.
I don't know what is worse smart contracts or smart phones, seems to me that both of them are making people more stupid, but gold medal goes to smart contracts.
Bitcoin should never have smart contracts, but scripts are still possible and they will be used much more in near future.

And if Bitcoin prices go up, then mining rewards become more valuable (rising faster than the halvings). The result: electricity use will increase for 100 years until it consumes half the electricity on the planet.

C'mon man  
This is just crazy thinking and you obviously watch to much CNN and mainstream media if you really believe that Bitcoin mining will ever consume 50% of world electricity.

[TangentC]

For example, you quote ADA. This currently has around 2500 pools.

For their to be a decent argument , one's mind has to be open to receiving information.
Bitcoiners cult like beliefs prevent new information from being received.

For example : ADA has 2500 pools, Bitcoin only has 18 pools, only 4 of those pools control over 54%.
But you can't see why that matters either, can you?

Have a Nice Day.  

[Wind_FURY]

The poster mentioned change as in change of POW, “or some better model”.

The poster meant that changes have to be made sometimes. This is all he said. He didn't mention any new models that are greater than PoW and I doubt if there is one. He said that there may be in the future and that PoS won't replace it.

This is what he said, “so I would not be surprised if we see some future change in Bitcoin PoW or some better model”.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5338061.msg57036766#msg57036766

A change to what better POW? And risk disabling the current mining hardware? That would break the very foundation/fundamental structure on why everything in Bitcoin works.

Are you still saying that changing POW into some other “innovative idea” would be a good idea for Bitcoin?

No! I never wrote that we have to change PoW with something better. I've already said that PoW is the greatest choice, I just don't know what the future holds. How sure can you be, for example, that RIPEMD160 will be safe from collisions in the next 3 decades?

I don’t know, but you know “some future change in POW” that would disable the current miners will break Bitcoin.

[BlackHatCoiner]

A change to what better POW? And risk disabling the current mining hardware? That would break the very foundation/fundamental structure on why everything in Bitcoin works.

Let me put it another way. If SHA256 suddenly became weak to collisions from some super-duper-quantum computers, that isn't going to happen but IF, what should we do to protect our savings? Leave the fate decide for us or agree upon an algorithm change? _{(in this case SHA512 that is 2²⁵⁶ harder to find a collision)}

The above example isn't a great one, since SHA256 is very strong and I doubt if I'll see a collision 'til I pass away, I'm just talking hypothetically. It'd also make the current mining hardware useless, since they perform SHA256d, but it'd be a consensus dead end with two choices. We'd either upgrade Bitcoin or make bitcoins useless.

For example : ADA has 2500 pools, Bitcoin only has 18 pools, only 4 of those pools control over 54%.
But you can't see why that matters either, can you?

Dogecoin has also better hash distribution than Bitcoin. Can you see what really matters after all?

[Wind_FURY]

A change to what better POW? And risk disabling the current mining hardware? That would break the very foundation/fundamental structure on why everything in Bitcoin works.

Let me put it another way. If SHA256 suddenly became weak to collisions from some super-duper-quantum computers, that isn't going to happen but IF, what should we do to protect our savings? Leave the fate decide for us or agree upon an algorithm change? _{(in this case SHA512 that is 2²⁵⁶ harder to find a collision)}

I don’t have that answer for you, and Bitcoin should be the least of the world’s problems if super-duper-quantum computers came attacking everything. But please understand what the argument is, based on how everything is working in Bitcoin.

The above example isn't a great one, since SHA256 is very strong and I doubt if I'll see a collision 'til I pass away, I'm just talking hypothetically. It'd also make the current mining hardware useless, since they perform SHA256d, but it'd be a consensus dead end with two choices. We'd either upgrade Bitcoin or make bitcoins useless.

Then it would technically be “the end” of Bitcoin, if the Core developers can’t find a solution.

[amishmanish]

For example, you quote ADA. This currently has around 2500 pools.

For their to be a decent argument , one's mind has to be open to receiving information.
Bitcoiners cult like beliefs prevent new information from being received.

For example : ADA has 2500 pools, Bitcoin only has 18 pools, only 4 of those pools control over 54%.
But you can't see why that matters either, can you?

Have a Nice Day.  

I have an open mind. Lets talk about it rather than throwing un-intelligent arguments meant to prove that somehow people are not realizing the benefits of PoS while you know something that we don't.

Do you realize that 18 pools in Bitcoin's PoW are Mining pools made up of thousands of different miners. Its not like the Pool can make some sort of decision and the miners will continue to direct hashpower to it. On top of this, there are full nodes that verify blocks and transactions continuously to ensure that they matchup to the consensus rules.

Those 2500 pools in ADA are simply newbies joining in thinking that them staking 2000 coins will make any difference to the network. Add this to the fact that an increased number of staking pools are considered inefficient by the developers themselves. That is why, there is an upper bound to the optimum number of pools. What they call the 'k' factor. This is 500 at the moment.

Need I to remind you that only a few epochs back, all the nodes were being run by the foundation. This is because when you have a few central parties running the PoS nodes, it is easier to maintain the so called TPS that these networks love to flaunt. You can ensure hundred percent uptime AND avoid any propagation delays. The moment these get supposedly "decentralized", the network starts to break down. This has happened with several of these PoS coins when they tried to scale. EOS, NEO are just the two biggest examples.

PoW may not feel great in terms of throwing around TPS values, but to be sound money, and to be a reliable, truly censorship resistant network that can actually keep real value safe, there is no better choice than PoW. Quite simply, if Bitcoin's PoW is removed from the equation, all of crypto will simply be a bunch of corporations selling their products and yield farms, nothing else.

[garlonicon]

Let me put it another way. If SHA256 suddenly became weak to collisions from some super-duper-quantum computers, that isn't going to happen but IF, what should we do to protect our savings?

SHA-256 is very strong.  It's not like the incremental step from MD5 to SHA1.  It can last several decades unless there's some massive breakthrough attack.

If SHA-256 became completely broken, I think we could come to some agreement about what the honest block chain was before the trouble started, lock that in and continue from there with a new hash function.

If the hash breakdown came gradually, we could transition to a new hash in an orderly way.  The software would be programmed to start using a new hash after a certain block number.  Everyone would have to upgrade by that time.  The software could save the new hash of all the old blocks to make sure a different block with the same old hash can't be used.

I can also imagine this as a soft-fork, where each new block header would have sha256d equal to zero and have to contain for example valid sha3 of the previous block. In this way, the new header would be exactly the same, only during validation it would be checked if sha256d is equal to zero and if sha3 is correct, the same could be done for any other place where sha256 is used.

[TangentC]

SNIP

What is the Bitcoiners plan to stop the Growing banning of PoW mining and the Growing number of people refusing to accept bitcoin because they consider it to be energy wasteful?

Insulting PoS, does nothing to solve bitcoin's very real problem.

No one has ever claimed the devs of ethereum to be stupid,  they choose PoS for their fix to the PoW energy waste.

Again , what is the bitcoiners solution to energy waste, since they only have disdain for the PoS solution?


FYI:
Claiming Proof of Waste is not an environmental problem will not be seen as a solution by the rest of the world.

[BlackHatCoiner]

What is the Bitcoiners plan to stop the Growing banning of PoW mining and the Growing number of people refusing to accept bitcoin because they consider it to be energy wasteful?

The growing banning of PoW? Buddy, are you kidding me? That's the whole gist of PoW to remain! If lots of governments ban it, then it'll not be that wasteful anymore (if we assume that securing a network is called a “waste”), but it'll still be secure. Bitcoin will continue to produce block after block after block, no matter the ban. Phenomenally, you simply can't f*ck with Proof of Work.

As for those who refuse to accept it, we will ignore them.  

No one has ever claimed the devs of ethereum to be stupid,  they choose PoS for their fix to the PoW energy waste.

So, they're changing their mechanism from a requirement of computational power to a proof that the user owns units of the system, while the majority of ETH are premined.

Yep, they did it to tackle the energy waste problem.

[a.a]

@TangentC

The solution is simple:
Everybody is free to chose if he wants to use bitcoin or not. Thats it.

[TangentC]

What is the Bitcoiners plan to stop the Growing banning of PoW mining and the Growing number of people refusing to accept bitcoin because they consider it to be energy wasteful?

The growing banning of PoW? Buddy, are you kidding me? That's the whole gist of PoW to remain! If lots of governments ban it, then it'll not be that wasteful anymore (if we assume that securing a network is called a “waste”), but it'll still be secure. Bitcoin will continue to produce block after block after block, no matter the ban. Phenomenally, you simply can't f*ck with Proof of Work.

As for those who refuse to accept it, we will ignore them.  

Thinking ignoring a problem is a solution , is why reasonable conversations can not be had with a bitcoiner on PoW.  

Thank you for being honest.  

This is my last post on this specific topic, as their is no reason to continue with people that made up their mind before the topic was even created.  

[amishmanish]

What is the Bitcoiners plan to stop the Growing banning of PoW mining and the Growing number of people refusing to accept bitcoin because they consider it to be energy wasteful?

Bitcoin isn't just for bitcoiners. It is a social phenomena enabled by technology which started against the money printing and debt waivers of corporations. That is why it is important that it remains:

1. Censorship resistant: Till the last node is online on a voluntary p2p network, it can never be censored. All it takes to censor PoS is to catch hold of the biggest nodes.
2. Decentralized: People like you love to quote miner pool centralization. You conveniently forget that decentralization implies that consensus rules cannot be changed without everyone agreeing. That is why full nodes verify and propagate.

If you want a base cryptocurrency that has the above properties, you need PoW and Bitcoin. PoS coins have never shown that they can actually succeed in real decentralization. EOS was a 4 Billion USD failure. Coins like ADA are indeed working with decentralization as the end goal but how is that possible when exchanges run multiple nodes. The foundation runs multiple nodes.
In PoW, those securing the network are economic players only interested in the best return on their hashpower. In PoS, network is secured by those who have a direct stake in keeping things under control, i.e. the biggest hodlers.

You are right that PoW consumes energy. But that is energy well consumed towards the goal of a true, people-owned cryptocurrency.

Again , what is the bitcoiners solution to energy waste, since they only have disdain for the PoS solution?

Switching the network over to renewables as much as possible. This will eventually happen because of the pressure. And its a welcome thing.

Thinking ignoring a problem is a solution , is why reasonable conversations can not be had with a bitcoiner on PoW. 

It is NOT a problem. PoW is the best solution for a true base cryptocurrency. Without it, all of these other coins are simply corporations running their own projects.
You're the one who thinks its a problem because you refuse to think for yourselves and just want to troll Bitcoin. Maybe because you resent the old hodlers. Maybe because you resent the fact that you weren't here when Bitcoin started out. Guess what, a lot of us weren't here either. We aren't bagholders with 10, 100s or even one complete coin. Yet, we understand that this isn't just about good business and my own profit.

If Bitcoin doesn't stand through these values of true decentralization and censorship-resistant, this whole other game people love playing with their centralized pre-mines and "contributor" coins; will all come crashing down.

[Shemsu]

Need I to remind you that only a few epochs back, all the nodes were being run by the foundation. This is because when you have a few central parties running the PoS nodes, it is easier to maintain the so called TPS that these networks love to flaunt. You can ensure hundred percent uptime AND avoid any propagation delays. The moment these get supposedly "decentralized", the network starts to break down. This has happened with several of these PoS coins when they tried to scale. EOS, NEO are just the two biggest examples.

You are implying that these networks failed because they were PoS-based, which is not the case, things are a bit more complicated.

It is NOT a problem. PoW is the best solution for a true base cryptocurrency.

This is your interpretation of what a cryptocurrency should be. Now, granted, this is the idea shared by many others but it remains an interpretation nonetheless.

PoS coins have never shown that they can actually succeed in real decentralization.

So far, PoW networks neither, in theory, yes, but the reality is indicating a different outcome.

[PrimeNumber7]

BTC will NEVER change from PoW for the simple reason that PoW is the single best way to ensure the blockchain integrity: Attacking it requires a huge amount of hardware and energy.

I don’t think it is good to have absolutes. FTR, I believe that POW is superior to POS, and I am not aware of any superior means to mine above POW. I do however have an open mind and am willing to support an alternate means of mining if there is substantial evidence that POW is creating unnecessary risks for bitcoin and that there is a superior means of mining.

I don’t buy the argument that POW results in waisted electricity. I think the major risk that POW creates is that mining tends to be concentrated in areas with very cheap electricity. This creates the risk that a government with cheap electricity could seize miners equal to 51%+ of mining capacity. Another drawback is that POW results in governments being able to detect the physical location where the miners are. This gives governments additional influence over the miners because they cannot hide their activity.

[Wind_FURY]

BTC will NEVER change from PoW for the simple reason that PoW is the single best way to ensure the blockchain integrity: Attacking it requires a huge amount of hardware and energy.

I don’t think it is good to have absolutes. FTR, I believe that POW is superior to POS, and I am not aware of any superior means to mine above POW. I do however have an open mind and am willing to support an alternate means of mining if there is substantial evidence that POW is creating unnecessary risks for bitcoin and that there is a superior means of mining.

I believe you are not thinking of it well enough, or you probably forgot why Bitcoin actually works. Are you willing to break Bitcoin’s incentive structure, the Game Theory, or break everything about why the whole system simply works? Change POW, you break Bitcoin. Bitcoin is proof that POW is superior. POW as implemented in Bitcoin is Satoshi’s REAL breakthrough.

[zbig001]

The potential of Bitcoin with its mining environment is almost intact yet.
I mean merged mining and the ability to secure an infinite number of additional networks (performing functions other than monetary, expanding the capabilities of Bitcoin) without incurring any additional energy expenditure.
Merged mining is also beneficial for the parental chain security (which may be particularly noticeable in 2140).

PoS of course does the opposite.
Virtually any form of horizontal scalability, instead of increasing, reduce the security of the main chain.

[QuantumQ]

Wow. if that initial reply was not majorly hostile and indeed aggressive I am not really sure what is. are you sure this is the forum where reasonable discussion can take place? and then to suggest that it is the original poster who has trouble with people disagreeing with him. very mature.

PoW can (and probably should) have some role to play as a means of securing the chain and should be present, but not as the only system in place, and only if it can be built so that it does not get in the way of scaling up transaction throughput. alternatively you can explore the possibility of having a very large number of devices (such as phone or iot apparatus) doing jus a little bit of PoW now and then - instead of having relatively few devices doing a lot of the work. this way the energy consumption also scales up with adoption, something that is far less the case at the moment, as consumption can not drop below a very high level even with no usage.

the key is that we want a secure, manipulation-proof network that can't be screwed with. to single-mindedly and ignorantly hang on to PoW because current alternatives have weaknesses (and to casually dismiss and ridicule even the mention of what others perceive as PoW downsides) is pretty stupid and shortsighted.

[PrimeNumber7]

BTC will NEVER change from PoW for the simple reason that PoW is the single best way to ensure the blockchain integrity: Attacking it requires a huge amount of hardware and energy.

I don’t think it is good to have absolutes. FTR, I believe that POW is superior to POS, and I am not aware of any superior means to mine above POW. I do however have an open mind and am willing to support an alternate means of mining if there is substantial evidence that POW is creating unnecessary risks for bitcoin and that there is a superior means of mining.

I believe you are not thinking of it well enough, or you probably forgot why Bitcoin actually works. Are you willing to break Bitcoin’s incentive structure, the Game Theory, or break everything about why the whole system simply works? Change POW, you break Bitcoin. Bitcoin is proof that POW is superior. POW as implemented in Bitcoin is Satoshi’s REAL breakthrough.

I am not sure what your concern is. I was clear that I believe that POW is superior to any other means of mining in the portion of my post you quoted. I have an open mind to be willing to listen to arguments to the contrary. I was also clear in the portion of my post you did not quote that I don't think the OP is making valid arguments against POW. Having an open mind does not mean I will agree with any proposal supported by flimsy evidence, having an open mind means I am willing to debate someone on the merits of a proposal and am willing to listen to a debate on the merits of a proposal, and am willing to change my mind given a sufficiently strong argument and evidence.

Believe it or not, but I am a very smart person, and I have the ability to evaluate the evidence presented to me, for or against a technical argument. It is also healthy to have these types of debates so the community can have confidence that POW is in fact superior to alternatives.

[DannyHamilton]

Wow. if that initial reply was not majorly hostile and indeed aggressive I am not really sure what is.

Your attempts to discredit the response by calling it hostile are obvious, and a bit funny.

There was no profanity or vulgar language. (ok, I said shitcoin, but come on, we all know that 99% of the altcoins out there are trash, right?)
There was no name-calling.
There was no attacking the character or intelligence of the original poster.
There was nothing written in ALL CAPS.
There was nothing written in bold.
There was no use of exclamation marks!

Either you've never used an internet discussion forum before in your life, or you are being very disingenuous when you say you're not sure what is hostile and aggressive.

are you sure this is the forum where reasonable discussion can take place?

Yep.  But if you're going to have a "reasonable discussion", then you need to expect some people to disagree with your opinion. If a disagreement is going to scare you off, then you'll want to find an echo chamber somewhere so that everyone can re-affirm whatever you've already decided is true.  I suggest Twitter, YouTube, or the altcoin subforum of your favorite coin.

and then to suggest that it is the original poster who has trouble with people disagreeing with him.

He did refer to a simple response as "surprisingly aggressive", referred to me as "very angry",  claimed that he "hit a nerve", told me to "calm down", asked me to "get my emotions under control", and claimed that it was a "toxic answer".  So, yes, it did seem that he "had trouble with (a person) disagreeing with him".

very mature.

Thank you for noticing.

PoW can (and probably should) have some role to play as a means of securing the chain and should be present,

And it does, so we are in agreement on that, and fortunately, that's already been thought of and implemented.

but not as the only system in place,

We disagree on this, but the good news is that there are altcoins that have been implemented by those with similar beliefs.  If they truly have found a substantially better solution, then they have the opportunity to become the flagship cryptocurrency of the world.

and only if it can be built so that it does not get in the way of scaling up transaction throughput.

Thankfully we already have solutions such as Lightning Network and Taproot to aid in "scaling up transaction throughput". I'm confident that additional features will be available in the future.

alternatively you can explore the possibility of having a very large number of devices (such as phone or iot apparatus) doing jus a little bit of PoW now and then - instead of having relatively few devices doing a lot of the work.

You will need to provide an incentive for someone to actually run one of these devices.  Then, you'll need to find a way to provide an incentive for someone to not run more than one of them, otherwise it just becomes yet another ASIC and people will find ways to run warehouses full of them. Bitcoin started with many people each running just one (or a few) devices, but greed exists and as long as there is an incentive people will find a way to scale up the solution to match their greed. Fortunately Bitcoin was designed with an awareness of this, so the incentives to secure the network are designed to scale with the value of what is being secured.

this way the energy consumption also scales up with adoption, something that is far less the case at the moment, as consumption can not drop below a very high level even with no usage.

No usage?  When was the last time that the number of unconfirmed transactions remained below 1000 transactions for more than 10 minutes?

Bitcoin energy consumption scales up with the exchange rate of bitcoin. The exchange rate scales up with demand for Bitcoin.

the key is that we want a secure, manipulation-proof network that can't be screwed with.

Again, at least we agree on this.

to single-mindedly and ignorantly hang on to PoW because current alternatives have weaknesses (and to casually dismiss and ridicule even the mention of what others perceive as PoW downsides) is pretty stupid and shortsighted.

And to demand change in the fundamentals that define what it is to be Bitcoin, the longest-running and most successful cryptocurrency in the world, without providing a viable alternative that is actually implementable and won't weaken its security is tilting at windmills.

[Wind_FURY]

BTC will NEVER change from PoW for the simple reason that PoW is the single best way to ensure the blockchain integrity: Attacking it requires a huge amount of hardware and energy.

I don’t think it is good to have absolutes. FTR, I believe that POW is superior to POS, and I am not aware of any superior means to mine above POW. I do however have an open mind and am willing to support an alternate means of mining if there is substantial evidence that POW is creating unnecessary risks for bitcoin and that there is a superior means of mining.

I believe you are not thinking of it well enough, or you probably forgot why Bitcoin actually works. Are you willing to break Bitcoin’s incentive structure, the Game Theory, or break everything about why the whole system simply works? Change POW, you break Bitcoin. Bitcoin is proof that POW is superior. POW as implemented in Bitcoin is Satoshi’s REAL breakthrough.

I am not sure what your concern is. I was clear that I believe that POW is superior to any other means of mining in the portion of my post you quoted. I have an open mind to be willing to listen to arguments to the contrary. I was also clear in the portion of my post you did not quote that I don't think the OP is making valid arguments against POW. Having an open mind does not mean I will agree with any proposal supported by flimsy evidence, having an open mind means I am willing to debate someone on the merits of a proposal and am willing to listen to a debate on the merits of a proposal, and am willing to change my mind given a sufficiently strong argument and evidence.

The bolded part is the concern, because if you have truly thought it through, there’s no place to be “open minded” about it. A POW change, that would disable the current ASICs, and reduce a great amount of hashing power, will break the incentive structure, will break the Game Theory, will break the very thing that keeps the whole system together.

Believe it or not, but I am a very smart person, and I have the ability to evaluate the evidence presented to me, for or against a technical argument. It is also healthy to have these types of debates so the community can have confidence that POW is in fact superior to alternatives.

I know that I am the stupid one, but ask gmaxwell about our discussion. Let’s learn.

[QuantumQ]

this way the energy consumption also scales up with adoption, something that is far less the case at the moment, as consumption can not drop below a very high level even with no usage.

No usage?  When was the last time that the number of unconfirmed transactions remained below 1000 transactions for more than 10 minutes?

Bitcoin energy consumption scales up with the exchange rate of bitcoin. The exchange rate scales up with demand for Bitcoin.

What I meant was that even if nobody is using the BTC network for transactions (not likely, to be sure, but bear with me for a moment) then the energy consumption of this network would still be enormous as it is idly standing by as (while some measure of) mining occurs. It would be far more ideal if the energy consumption scales  as much as possible with transaction volume.

Another way to state the problem with the BTC network would be to say: Imagine how far much further BTC adoption would have been (and how far more value and utility it would have) if it could do 2000 TPS out of the box. The low transaction speed is a major stumbling block (no pun intended) in the penetration of BTC into the global economic structure. And, 11-12 years later, there still is no widely accepted solution to this problem.

[amishmanish]

--snip--It would be far more ideal if the energy consumption scales  as much as possible with transaction volume.

Please spend time to understand first that HOW PoW works and WHY it has to work the way it does. Think about the "race" for finding the next transaction as early as possible which ensures that miners have economic incentive to provide security and not collaborate.

The way you talk about "energy consumption scaling", you seem to suggest changes to difficulty can be made on the fly without affecting the miner roles. Do you know of a working example of this?

--snip-- if it could do 2000 TPS out of the box. The low transaction speed is a major stumbling block (no pun intended) in the penetration of BTC into the global economic structure. And, 11-12 years later, there still is no widely accepted solution to this problem.

You are just saying what "businessmen", with zero concern for centralization, have been saying since 2014. This has all bee discussed in the scaling debate and there's no new perspective. Go through the history or support whatever corporate/ foundation-coin makes sense to you.

[PrimeNumber7]

What I meant was that even if nobody is using the BTC network for transactions (not likely, to be sure, but bear with me for a moment) then the energy consumption of this network would still be enormous as it is idly standing by as (while some measure of) mining occurs. It would be far more ideal if the energy consumption scales  as much as possible with transaction volume.

If there are no bitcoin transactions for any extended period of time, there would be little reason for the miners to continue mining. Transaction fees make up an increasing amount of miners’ total revenue, and this will increase over time; if there are no transactions, there are no transaction fees. Also, if there are no transactions, there is a good chance that bitcoin will be worth very little; if bitcoin is worth little, the block subsidy will be worth little and the miners’ revenue will be worth little.

Another way to state the problem with the BTC network would be to say: Imagine how far much further BTC adoption would have been (and how far more value and utility it would have) if it could do 2000 TPS out of the box. The low transaction speed is a major stumbling block (no pun intended) in the penetration of BTC into the global economic structure. And, 11-12 years later, there still is no widely accepted solution to this problem.

There is a limit as to the number of on-chain transactions that bitcoin can handle, but changing to POS would not fix this. If POS were to be used, nodes would still need to validate all blocks and incur the related costs with storing, validating and receiving each block every 10 minutes (on average). There will still be problems if block propagation and validation takes too long.

Bitcoin has a scaling solution, even if imperfect, and that is LN. LN allows for many transactions per single on-chain transaction. LN somewhat resembles POS, at least from the perspective that someone can commit bitcoin to earn fees over time after keeping their coin on a single address.

[ABCbits]

this way the energy consumption also scales up with adoption, something that is far less the case at the moment, as consumption can not drop below a very high level even with no usage.

No usage?  When was the last time that the number of unconfirmed transactions remained below 1000 transactions for more than 10 minutes?

Bitcoin energy consumption scales up with the exchange rate of bitcoin. The exchange rate scales up with demand for Bitcoin.

What I meant was that even if nobody is using the BTC network for transactions (not likely, to be sure, but bear with me for a moment) then the energy consumption of this network would still be enormous as it is idly standing by as (while some measure of) mining occurs. It would be far more ideal if the energy consumption scales  as much as possible with transaction volume.

I get the point, but actually there's no correlation between average TPS (transaction per second) and energy consumption to mine Bitcoin. It's possible to have few miners (which means low energy consumption), while Bitcoin have big block size limit (which allow higher TPS) and vice versa.

[Dabs]

What is the Bitcoiners plan to stop the Growing banning of PoW mining and the Growing number of people refusing to accept bitcoin because they consider it to be energy wasteful?

PoW mining will never be completely banned, and any country that attempts to ban it will do so at their own financial disadvantage compared to other countries that accept them. Plant growers use a lot of electricity and if they pay for it (and not steal it) then they all make money. They can always use the sun to grow their plants, but lots of them use really bright light bulbs.

As bitcoin goes above $100k and beyond, I doubt there will be a "growing number of people" that will refuse to accept bitcoin.

I mean, go ahead and not accept it, that's perfectly fine for the rest of us that do accept it.

[topcoin360]

...

As bitcoin goes above $100k and beyond, I doubt there will be a "growing number of people" that will refuse to accept bitcoin.

I mean, go ahead and not accept it, that's perfectly fine for the rest of us that do accept it.

Or it could go down to its intrinsic value which is "0". Btc isn't widely used as payment method because of its inefficiency (high transaction fees, long delay for confirmations...)

Initially one dollar was backed by one ounce of gold
Today one bitcoin is backed by 36 822,00 USD

In its actual form BTC is worst than fiat. You can buy a lottery ticket instead of putting your money into bitcoin (you'd have more chances of becoming a billionaire).

[zbig001]

What do you need efficiency for here?

BTC can be used as a payment system (though altcoins are better at it), but in fact it is unique money that is completely resistant to debasement: this is Bitcoin's fundamental value proposition.

Such money can be used in a number of payment systems, which may be characterized by various degrees of centralization (depending on the application), BTC adoption may look like this in the future.

Starting from the Ligtning Network, through tokenization on various scalable altcoins L1, ending with fiat currencies with a fixed exchange rate to BTC.

[BlackHatCoiner]

BTC can be used as a payment system (though altcoins are better at it)

You see, it's a little annoying seeing this phrase between the parenthesis; it doesn't make any sense. In what functionality are altcoins better than Bitcoin? In all of them or in some of them? You need to provide a clarification, otherwise you're lying.

Saying that Bitcoin is worse than altcoins means that they're better in every way, but that's wrong. For example, Bitcoin has the least whales. Have you ever wondered why they are more volatile?

[zbig001]

BTC can be used as a payment system (though altcoins are better at it)

You see, it's a little annoying seeing this phrase between the parenthesis; it doesn't make any sense. In what functionality are altcoins better than Bitcoin? In all of them or in some of them? You need to provide a clarification, otherwise you're lying.

Saying that Bitcoin is worse than altcoins means that they're better in every way, but that's wrong. For example, Bitcoin has the least whales. Have you ever wondered why they are more volatile?

If you are not sure what the statement was about, you cannot just ask what it is about instead of blindly calling someone a liar?
Even if someone you are arguing with is wrong, the mistake is not always a lie (the definition of lying implies deliberate deception).
If I have to, I will defend myself in the same fashion.

I thought the context in which I mentioned altcoins is clear considering all the comment, so I didn't expand it.
Let me clarify: I mentioned altcoins in the context that some of them are capable of being a tool for making Bitcoin transactions.
Not every payment system is actually money (even if it needs gas to run and has a token), and money is a much broader term than currency.
Similarly, there is no such currency as Visa, even though Visa network is a layer for making transactions in multiple currencies.

[Pmalek]

Let me clarify: I mentioned altcoins in the context that some of them are capable of being a tool for making Bitcoin transactions.

What exactly do you mean with this?

Regarding your statement about altcoins being better than bitcoin. As BlackHatCoiner, mentioned, it depends how you look at things and what features you consider when determining what is better. An altcoin that requires a transaction fee of a fraction of a cent is certainly better than if moving bitcoin requires 50 cents or a dollar. An altcoin with a block time of a second is better than bitcoin's 10 min average.

An altcoin whose transaction confirms in a few seconds but has no liquidity on exchanges and very little interest from the general public is not better than bitcoin. An altcoin whose value can rise 40% one day only to drop 60% the other is not better. A centralized altcoin whose transactions can be rolled back (as we saw with the Ethereum DAO hack) is not better than bitcoin because the interest of a few large investors are more important that the community. An altcoin that is quick and cheap, but has been 51% attacked with a few thousand dollars worth of investments is not better compared to bitcoin where you need millions of dollars to start and maintain the attack.   

[BlackHatCoiner]

An altcoin that requires a transaction fee of a fraction of a cent is certainly better than if moving bitcoin requires 50 cents or a dollar. An altcoin with a block time of a second is better than bitcoin's 10 min average.

Even this one requires further clarification. Will a same sized block be generated quicker? That'd mean that the block chain would then weight more and the decentralization would be harder to achieve. It'd also mean that there'd be more orphaned blocks and less network security. One second is around 0.016 minutes and thus, 6 blocks of a 10-minute interval chain would be equal with 3,750 blocks of a 1-second interval chain.

[zbig001]

Let me clarify: I mentioned altcoins in the context that some of them are capable of being a tool for making Bitcoin transactions.

What exactly do you mean with this?

Regarding your statement about altcoins being better than bitcoin. As BlackHatCoiner, mentioned, it depends how you look at things and what features you consider when determining what is better. An altcoin that requires a transaction fee of a fraction of a cent is certainly better than if moving bitcoin requires 50 cents or a dollar. An altcoin with a block time of a second is better than bitcoin's 10 min average.

An altcoin whose transaction confirms in a few seconds but has no liquidity on exchanges and very little interest from the general public is not better than bitcoin. An altcoin whose value can rise 40% one day only to drop 60% the other is not better. A centralized altcoin whose transactions can be rolled back (as we saw with the Ethereum DAO hack) is not better than bitcoin because the interest of a few large investors are more important that the community. An altcoin that is quick and cheap, but has been 51% attacked with a few thousand dollars worth of investments is not better compared to bitcoin where you need millions of dollars to start and maintain the attack.  

What a typical modern "altcoin" (designed to maximize scalability) really is?

I see a network (blockchain) which can have interesting applications, such as transactions with tokenized Bitcoin or tokenized fiat currency (stablecoins, CBDC).
But I do not see that such a network can directly constitute good money or currency.
Claims by the founders and members of the community of such projects that their product is money (finacial asset, store of value) "better" than Bitcoin, can be rejected even without getting into discussions, knowing that there is no escape from the blockchain trillemma .

For maximized scalability, they inevitably pay the price of losing decentralization or security, right?

So all the features we need from good quality money, reducing counterparty risk, are lost.

Do we understand each other well now?

[franky1]

technically. bitcoin is the most secure coin in existance from a brutforce energy requirement prospective.
all other coins cant even compete

socially:

I see a network (blockchain) which can have interesting applications, such as transactions with tokenized Bitcoin or tokenized fiat currency (stablecoins, CBDC).

they already have these pegged coins
liquid featurenetchain(allows different coins/assets):- exchange arbitrage utility
RSK sidechain
LN featurenet(allows different coins/assets):-consumer banknote utility

but yes. a bank note deemed as 'backed by gold' is still not gold. and we all know how bank note pegs of gold turned out post 1970

But I do not see that such a network can directly constitute good money or currency.
Claims by the founders and members of the community of such projects that their product is money (finacial asset, store of value) "better" than Bitcoin, can be rejected even without getting into discussions, knowing that there is no escape from the blockchain trillemma.

bitcoins underlying value is truly based on the fact that it costs thousands to mine bitcoin. much like gold takes over $1k to mine gold

if bitcoin/gold could be mined for under $1. its value would not be as high and its speculative market price above that would not be as high
(mine gold for the price of a dinner spoon and a coffee filter in ur own yard $1. speculative market $5)

once the big organisations start vault managing the peg-ins-outs of these feature/sidechains. then you will see the 1970's bank note/gold games at play in the cryptosphere.vault up btc. play with their tokens withdraw/swap to scamcoin 'coz withdrawal is cheap'

which is why im staying with bitcoin onchain transactions.. thanks

[zbig001]

once the big organisations start vault managing the peg-ins-outs of these feature/sidechains. then you will see the 1970's bank note/gold games at play in the cryptosphere.vault up btc. play with their tokens withdraw/swap to scamcoin 'coz withdrawal is cheap'

which is why im staying with bitcoin onchain transactions.. thanks

Literally, ANY technology for transferring monetary value other than directly on Bitcoin's L1 introduces trust or some other form of counterparty risk.

Therefore, keeping your life savings (or your company's financial reserves) other than directly in BTC would be either outright suicidal or at least asking for problems.
Outside the Bitcoin's ledger, send or hold only those funds that "you are willing to lose", one might say ironically...

But as the BTC adoption progresses, the need for additional layers will increase, I suppose.

The subject of how Bitcoin differs from gold is interesting (for me at least), but very deep. Since this is related to the problem of how the world's financial systems can adapt to the existence of Bitcoin, if it is possible.
So it would be a complete offtop.

[zeuner]

Energy might be another factor and important as well, so a less power hungry solution might be great

The PoW algorithm adapts itself to the globally invested computing power regularly. So it is always as power hungry as people are willing to invest electricity.

on the other side it could be very healthy to the renewables industry if all miners would be forced to use only green energy, since this would generate a significant amount of money flowing into those industries. But I don't see any technical way to really enforce that.

I don't see the need to enforce this technically. People acquire electricity through the existing economy. If it is wanted to have a larger fraction of green energy, a way to do so might be to tax energy from non-renewable sources.

[NotATether]

on the other side it could be very healthy to the renewables industry if all miners would be forced to use only green energy, since this would generate a significant amount of money flowing into those industries. But I don't see any technical way to really enforce that.

I don't see the need to enforce this technically. People acquire electricity through the existing economy. If it is wanted to have a larger fraction of green energy, a way to do so might be to tax energy from non-renewable sources.

I don't think such a green-energy requirement is going to work well in practice because it will put strain on renewable energy makers (because they are not big as coal/oil/gas companies) to make enough to meet the miners' demands, and this could cause a global renewable energy shortage as a result. That's going to stir up environmentalists even more against bitcoin, except this time they'll be able to squarely blame bitcoin because of whatever merged BIP mandated this switch.

[buwaytress]

once the big organisations start vault managing the peg-ins-outs of these feature/sidechains. then you will see the 1970's bank note/gold games at play in the cryptosphere.vault up btc. play with their tokens withdraw/swap to scamcoin 'coz withdrawal is cheap'

which is why im staying with bitcoin onchain transactions.. thanks

Literally, ANY technology for transferring monetary value other than directly on Bitcoin's L1 introduces trust or some other form of counterparty risk.

Therefore, keeping your life savings (or your company's financial reserves) other than directly in BTC would be either outright suicidal or at least asking for problems.
Outside the Bitcoin's ledger, send or hold only those funds that "you are willing to lose", one might say ironically...

This vault management thing is already a thing now too, caught sight of big recent announcements from Yearn, polka, others, all jumping on board each other to use Yearn's vault solution to manage all them sidechain and wrapped tokens "securely".

The fact also that many of these, when called out to explain their counterparty risks, aren't willing or able to, says a lot.

Only a big fall for these, catching out all those bitcoiners pegging in their coins, is the only way people might finally understand why Bitcoin is "clinging to PoW".

[Dabs]

Bitcoin mining is going to renewable energy on it's own, "naturally" or organically, simply because that's the general direction miners will take if they can't have "normal" power at a price they are willing to pay. Not including the thieves that steal electricity, that's a different issue.

Small miners will set up their equipment where ever convenient for them. Big miners will set up their equipment where electricity is cheap or no one else is using them or find a way to create electricity through renewable resources. Kinda like instead of going to the city, the city will come to them? It's been mentioned a few times in other places already so ... that line of thinking is out there.

[thecodebear]

First of all. I don't agree with MarsMan and I think what he is doing is straightforward market manipulation.

But one thing is o/c right in this whole mess. Proof of Work can't be Bitcoins destination. First of all one question is if it really still fulfills its function for decentralization. Is a system truly decentralized or distributed when there is already just a handful of groups that would just need to agree on common terms?

Energy might be another factor and important as well, so a less power hungry solution might be great, on the other side it could be very healthy to the renewables industry if all miners would be forced to use only green energy, since this would generate a significant amount of money flowing into those industries. But I don't see any technical way to really enforce that.

I am a long term user since Bitcoins inception, but I stopped following the development for some years now and hold most of my assets I bought for a few cents years ago and just do some trading from time to time. So I might be not up to date if there are efforts to move away from PoW. Can someone give me an update on this? If Bitcoin is not considering to move and evolve, what are your takes on this and why would one cling to much to PoW, just b/c of the hard fork it requires? Or are the alternatives still not mature enough?

Not sure why you think Bitcoin is "clinging" to PoW. PoW is not a bad thing. It is a rather uninformed take to think PoW is bad and something that must be moved away from. There only needs to be one proof of work chain, and Bitcoin is it.


PoW provides Bitcoin with global-level security.

It allows Bitcoin to be highly decentralized and have its security rooted in physical reality.

It separates the minters of coins from the owners of coins (for example, PoS is a "the rich get richer" system by making the holders be the minters of new coins, not saying that is bad or good, but Bitcoin separates the two which is a nice difference).

PoW also makes Bitcoin a literal energy-to-money conversion machine, and having a system that can directly convert energy into money is a very powerful economic tool, especially over the coming decades as the world works on moving to renewables. You don't enforce renewable usage, Bitcoin naturally encourages renewable energy production because it makes the spread of renewable energy more economically viable - I should say it makes energy production in general more viable, but as the world is trying to switch to renewables this naturally favors the spread of renewables.

So, no, there are no efforts to move Bitcoin away from PoW, because there is no desire to move Bitcoin away from PoW, because there is no need to move Bitcoin away from PoW. The only people who want to move Bitcoin away from PoW are the people who don't participate in the Bitcoin network in any way - which is to say nocoiners, because they don't get what Bitcoin is all about, so they don't understand PoW.

As you can see from the Ethereum upgrade, changing consensus mechanisms is a huge complicated undertaking, and Bitcoin is much more stable and moves much more slowly than any other blockchain because it is so important, so valuable, and it's value is partially reliant on it being so stable. So there is no need to put the Bitcoin network in potential harms way in order to do a very complicated and entirely unnecessary consensus change.

PoW is not a bad thing that Bitcoin clings to against rationality. PoW is a fundamental part of Bitcoin's power, security, value, and importance to society.

[Wind_FURY]

Bitcoin mining is going to renewable energy on it's own, "naturally" or organically, simply because that's the general direction miners will take if they can't have "normal" power at a price they are willing to pay. Not including the thieves that steal electricity, that's a different issue.

The “green transition” is also not only “about Bitcoin”, but mainly about how electricity is generated. Elon Musk criticizes that Bitcoin is not “green” enough, but if not given a choice, Bitcoin will be green, like if the world is not given a choice between fossil fuels and green alternatives.

[PrimeNumber7]

PoW also makes Bitcoin a literal energy-to-money conversion machine, and having a system that can directly convert energy into money is a very powerful economic tool, especially over the coming decades as the world works on moving to renewables. You don't enforce renewable usage, Bitcoin naturally encourages renewable energy production because it makes the spread of renewable energy more economically viable - I should say it makes energy production in general more viable, but as the world is trying to switch to renewables this naturally favors the spread of renewables.

I am not in favor of moving away from PoW, but this argument is nonsense.

PoW miners need more than electricity, they also need ASIC machines that require technical expertise to design and build. ASIC machines require specialized chips that are in scarce supply.

Even "renewable" energy costs money to generate via building the medium of "capturing" the energy, such as solar panels, or windmills.

Probably most importantly, someone who has a large excess of energy, "renewable" or otherwise, can sell said energy to consumers of energy, as electric utilities do today. People are willing to pay for electricity because they need it to power things such as their stove, oven, lights, air conditioning, computers, and other devices that require electricity to work.

[thecodebear]

PoW also makes Bitcoin a literal energy-to-money conversion machine, and having a system that can directly convert energy into money is a very powerful economic tool, especially over the coming decades as the world works on moving to renewables. You don't enforce renewable usage, Bitcoin naturally encourages renewable energy production because it makes the spread of renewable energy more economically viable - I should say it makes energy production in general more viable, but as the world is trying to switch to renewables this naturally favors the spread of renewables.

I am not in favor of moving away from PoW, but this argument is nonsense.

PoW miners need more than electricity, they also need ASIC machines that require technical expertise to design and build. ASIC machines require specialized chips that are in scarce supply.

Even "renewable" energy costs money to generate via building the medium of "capturing" the energy, such as solar panels, or windmills.

Probably most importantly, someone who has a large excess of energy, "renewable" or otherwise, can sell said energy to consumers of energy, as electric utilities do today. People are willing to pay for electricity because they need it to power things such as their stove, oven, lights, air conditioning, computers, and other devices that require electricity to work.

You didn't in any way invalidate my statement that you bolded. As I said, Bitcoin is an energy-to-money conversion machine. This feature makes Bitcoin profoundly important for spreading renewable energy production around the world. Not sure what you were trying to argue in your comment, but you weren't arguing against this fact of Bitcoin. Also I don't think you realize what "excess of energy" means - it specifically means there is no one to sell the energy to, which makes that statement by you, in fact, nonsense.

Bitcoin provides an economy for that excess of energy, it also allows energy to be produced in places where there is no energy demand at all, but perhaps there will be in the future. It also allows new ways to produce energy to become economically viable when they normally wouldn't be. It not only fixes the excess energy problem, but it allows for the growth of new energy all over, and the development of new energy producing technologies. PoW is a truly powerful feature of Bitcoin.

[NotATether]

~
It also allows new ways to produce energy to become economically viable when they normally wouldn't be.

Keep in mind this only applies exactly if the energy sources are large enough to generate enough power for making a decent amount of hashrate to bother with mining Bitcoin. Since Bitcoin's difficulty is huge, smaller energy sources could power the PoW of some altcoins like Bcash, Doge and LTC.

But otherwise what you said is largely correct.

[TangentC]

Also I don't think you realize what "excess of energy" means - it specifically means there is no one to sell the energy to,

I think most bitcoiners don't realize that when heat waves or subzero temps arrive, their is NO EXCESS ENERGY!

https://news.trust.org/item/20210616152609-rkr1c

Searing heat across the U.S. Southwest and soaring electricity demand for air conditioners this week are prompting grid operators in
Texas and California to warn consumers about energy conservation to avoid outages.

Which is why Proof of Waste is so dangerous , wasting energy when a power grid is maxed out ,
at best creates rolling blackouts,
at worst crashes a power grid and destroys the transformers,
Once that happens and a major grid is down for ~2 years to repair all those blown transformers,
expect bitcoin PoW mining to be permabanned around the world.

Not a question of if, it has become a question of how soon especially for Texas.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/texas-power-outages-ercot/

Texas was "seconds and minutes" away from catastrophic months long blackouts, officials say

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-texas-is-becoming-a-mecca-for-bitcoin-miners-2021-05-04

How Texas Is Becoming A Mecca For Bitcoin Miners

[Dabs]

Also I don't think you realize what "excess of energy" means - it specifically means there is no one to sell the energy to,

I think most bitcoiners don't realize that when heat waves or subzero temps arrive, their is NO EXCESS ENERGY!

When there is a source of power far enough away that there are no people ... and no easy way to deliver that energy to the rest of the people ... I think that's what they mean. If you are talking about cities, then of course, there are people there and energy requirements and all the energy is used by that city and the price of energy will be too high for any miner so the miner will move their equipment away from the higher priced energy and go to a lower priced energy.

expect bitcoin PoW mining to be permabanned around the world.

I actually don't see that happening ever. Or maybe I am just blind and can't see it. What I see is more renewable sources of energy appear around the world whereever they are. And how does one ban mining? Oh, you mean, like China maybe? When you have a bunch of people with 1 device in their home mining ... it's going to be difficult to ban that.

[Wind_FURY]

Also I don't think you realize what "excess of energy" means - it specifically means there is no one to sell the energy to,

I think most bitcoiners don't realize that when heat waves or subzero temps arrive, their is NO EXCESS ENERGY!

https://news.trust.org/item/20210616152609-rkr1c

Searing heat across the U.S. Southwest and soaring electricity demand for air conditioners this week are prompting grid operators in
Texas and California to warn consumers about energy conservation to avoid outages.

Which is why Proof of Waste is so dangerous , wasting energy when a power grid is maxed out ,
at best creates rolling blackouts,
at worst crashes a power grid and destroys the transformers,
Once that happens and a major grid is down for ~2 years to repair all those blown transformers,
expect bitcoin PoW mining to be permabanned around the world.

Not a question of if, it has become a question of how soon especially for Texas.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/texas-power-outages-ercot/

Texas was "seconds and minutes" away from catastrophic months long blackouts, officials say

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-texas-is-becoming-a-mecca-for-bitcoin-miners-2021-05-04

How Texas Is Becoming A Mecca For Bitcoin Miners

Genuine question, wouldn’t large mining farms avoid regions where electricity is in high demand, and therefore have higher electricity rates, making it unprofitable for mining? Plus electricity generated is only “wasted” if there’s a surplus and the surplus isn’t used.

[TangentC]

Genuine question, wouldn’t large mining farms avoid regions where electricity is in high demand, and therefore have higher electricity rates, making it unprofitable for mining? Plus electricity generated is only “wasted” if there’s a surplus and the surplus isn’t used.

Excess Energy is never wasted, that is a myth.
Texas energy rate prices are lower than average, which is why miners are flocking there.

Most Power Grids are interconnected, they have to maintain a % of power to keep their grid stable,
when their usage is lower, they sell the so called excess energy to the other grids. (Their is No wasted energy.)
So their is no massive amount of excess energy in the grid system.

[PrimeNumber7]

PoW also makes Bitcoin a literal energy-to-money conversion machine, and having a system that can directly convert energy into money is a very powerful economic tool, especially over the coming decades as the world works on moving to renewables. You don't enforce renewable usage, Bitcoin naturally encourages renewable energy production because it makes the spread of renewable energy more economically viable - I should say it makes energy production in general more viable, but as the world is trying to switch to renewables this naturally favors the spread of renewables.

I am not in favor of moving away from PoW, but this argument is nonsense.

PoW miners need more than electricity, they also need ASIC machines that require technical expertise to design and build. ASIC machines require specialized chips that are in scarce supply.

Even "renewable" energy costs money to generate via building the medium of "capturing" the energy, such as solar panels, or windmills.

Probably most importantly, someone who has a large excess of energy, "renewable" or otherwise, can sell said energy to consumers of energy, as electric utilities do today. People are willing to pay for electricity because they need it to power things such as their stove, oven, lights, air conditioning, computers, and other devices that require electricity to work.

You didn't in any way invalidate my statement that you bolded. As I said, Bitcoin is an energy-to-money conversion machine. This feature makes Bitcoin profoundly important for spreading renewable energy production around the world. Not sure what you were trying to argue in your comment, but you weren't arguing against this fact of Bitcoin. Also I don't think you realize what "excess of energy" means - it specifically means there is no one to sell the energy to, which makes that statement by you, in fact, nonsense.

Bitcoin is about as much an "energy-to-money" machine as a toaster is a "energy-to-toast" machine.

Someone who is mining bitcoin is not going to wait and only use "excess" electricity, they are going to do their best to get "priority" access to electricity. As bitcoin miners become more efficient, current ASICs will generate less revenue, so it is important for miners to have as close to 100% uptime as they can.

Bitcoin provides an economy for that excess of energy, it also allows energy to be produced in places where there is no energy demand at all, but perhaps there will be in the future. It also allows new ways to produce energy to become economically viable when they normally wouldn't be. It not only fixes the excess energy problem, but it allows for the growth of new energy all over, and the development of new energy producing technologies. PoW is a truly powerful feature of Bitcoin.

There is already a source of near-unlimited, cheap electricity available. It is called nuclear power.

PoW is going to consume cheap electricity today. If there is a means to produce electricity that is expensive today, but might be cheap tomorrow, PoW is not going to consume that electricity until it is cheap.

[Wind_FURY]

Genuine question, wouldn’t large mining farms avoid regions where electricity is in high demand, and therefore have higher electricity rates, making it unprofitable for mining? Plus electricity generated is only “wasted” if there’s a surplus and the surplus isn’t used.

Excess Energy is never wasted, that is a myth.
Texas energy rate prices are lower than average, which is why miners are flocking there.

Most Power Grids are interconnected, they have to maintain a % of power to keep their grid stable,
when their usage is lower, they sell the so called excess energy to the other grids. (Their is No wasted energy.)
So their is no massive amount of excess energy in the grid system.

But in regions with low demand for electricity, don’t the power stations regulate the output themselves, which could lower profit? Wouldn’t industrial POW miners be welcome consumers for those power stations because it makes them generate the output to their capacity? I don’t know why some people believe this is bad. It’s simply commerce.

[TangentC]

Genuine question, wouldn’t large mining farms avoid regions where electricity is in high demand, and therefore have higher electricity rates, making it unprofitable for mining? Plus electricity generated is only “wasted” if there’s a surplus and the surplus isn’t used.

Excess Energy is never wasted, that is a myth.
Texas energy rate prices are lower than average, which is why miners are flocking there.

Most Power Grids are interconnected, they have to maintain a % of power to keep their grid stable,
when their usage is lower, they sell the so called excess energy to the other grids. (Their is No wasted energy.)
So their is no massive amount of excess energy in the grid system.

But in regions with low demand for electricity, don’t the power stations regulate the output themselves, which could lower profit? Wouldn’t industrial POW miners be welcome consumers for those power stations because it makes them generate the output to their capacity? I don’t know why some people believe this is bad. It’s simply commerce.

Actually in the US,  power plants and power generators hand over control of their output to Power Grid Operators.
They do this to avoid a monopoly.
https://peguru.com/2018/09/who-controls-the-power-grid-in-usa/

https://www.anthropoceneinstitute.com/science/grid/

Grid operators constantly monitor and manage the demand, supply, reserve margins, and power mix to ensure that you have immediate access to power in your home or business. What is the reserve margin? It is a specified backup generation capacity that can compensate for potential forecasting errors, unexpected power plant shutdowns or weather events

The grid operator uses a three-phase planning process to ensure that power plants produce the right amount of electricity to meet electric demand at any given time. Electricity supply must balance demand at all times in order to avoid a blackout or other cascading problem. The production of electricity is adjusted in 15 minute intervals to account for demand changes throughout the day. For this reason, there are three main types of power plants: baseload, load-following, and peakers.

Baseload power plants meet the minimal power needed by the grid and are designed to be on most of the time. Their capacity factor, or percent of time operational, is above 80%. They are only shut down or curtailed when performing maintenance or repair. Baseload power is the cheapest type of generation and usually supplied by coal fired and nuclear power plants because they can provide large amounts of power (up to 1.6 GW).

Load-following plants, also known as intermediate load plants, are typically combined-cycled gas fired power plants, which have a high thermal efficiency of up to 58%.  They have a gas turbine and a waste heat recovery system to capture the gas turbine’s exhaust to drive a steam turbine that produces additional electricity. Generation from load-following plants can be ramped up and down as needed. Their capacity factor is usually less than 30% of the time. But they are more complex to maintain and more expensive to operate/

The power plant of “last resort” are peaker plants. They are turned on for even shorter periods of time to meet extremely high high demands, for example, when air conditioning is used during hot days. Due to their low capacity factor, which could be as low as a few hours for the entire year, they the most expensive type of generation.

How is power bought and sold in the US?

Electricity is bought and re-sold on the wholesale power market before finally reaching the final consumer.  With the exception of Texas, this market is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) due to the interstate nature of the grid.

The wholesale market is open to utility owned suppliers and marketers, non-utility independent power producers (IPPs), and excess generation from traditional vertically-operated utilities. Furthermore, participants in the wholesale market do not necessary have own generation capacity or serve the end-user. Much like other commodity markets, individual traders (power marketers) buy electricity on the market to re-sell it.

Once the electricity is procured from the wholesale market, it is sold to the final consumer through the retail market. In states where full retail competition exists, customers may choose from either their incumbent utility supplier or from an array of new competitive suppliers

How do grid operators work together?
Within the regional wholesale markets, grid operators organize under a regional transmission organization (RTO) or independent system operator (ISO). These entities serve as a third-party independent operator of the transmission system to control, monitor, and coordinate the operations of a grid.

About 60% of the U.S. electric power supply is managed by RTOs. Ten Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) operate bulk electric power systems across much of North America.

These operators ensure that no preference is given in the dispatch of a utility-owned generator over a competitive generator. Grid operators must be certified under the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

Since PoW miners require 24x7 power, they draw down a large % of the Baseload power plants ,
which in turn means more Intermediate Load plants, are running longer,
and that when weather extremes happen, the “last resort” are peaker plants which if unable to meet the increased demand,
that is when the power grid operators start rolling blackouts to avoid the whole grid collapsing and transformers burning out.

Bitcoin Miners draw such large amounts of power in small regions , they totally remove a large % of the energy generated by the Baseload power plants.

If the Number of Bitcoin Mining devices were regulated to limit their number per power grid, then their power drain could be managed better by the power grid operators thus avoiding the rolling blackouts that have to happen to protect the grid.
* Regulating the number of ASICS per grid would have huge impact on Miners Profits as further separates locations increases their costs. Which is one reason Ethereum dev decided to avoid the potential coming government regulations by switching to PoS.*

A lot of people in the bitcoin community want to cry fud and ignore the power drain of PoW,
It is not fud, when the Power Grid operators start rolling blackouts, which has already happen in China and Iran,
which is why they started banning mining.
Power Grid operators only concern is protecting the Power grids, they don't care about bitcoins , altcoins or any of our opinions on algorithms, so the pretense that they are involved in fud is totally baseless, all they care about is a functioning power grid.

It is like this, Bitcoiners don't have to switch to PoS,
but they will have to do something to combat the energy drain they are placing on the power grids,
before the Governments step in and make the decision for them.
Which in China , they decided it was easier to ban bitcoin PoW mining than regulate it.

[Dabs]

Which in China , they decided it was easier to ban bitcoin PoW mining than regulate it.

That's their loss. I mean, China. The miners will simply move somewhere else and we are seeing it happening now.

The power grid operators don't care if you are looking for aliens, solving optical goloumb rulers, finding a cure for cancer, calculating large prime numbers, growing plants indoors or mining for any coins. If you use power and pay for it, then you should be okay, doesn't matter what you do.

Miners will simply migrate (or at least the equipment does) to wherever it makes sense for them, usually that means where it's cheaper.

[TangentC]

Which in China , they decided it was easier to ban bitcoin PoW mining than regulate it.

That's their loss. I mean, China. The miners will simply move somewhere else and we are seeing it happening now.

The power grid operators don't care if you are looking for aliens, solving optical goloumb rulers, finding a cure for cancer, calculating large prime numbers, growing plants indoors or mining for any coins. If you use power and pay for it, then you should be okay, doesn't matter what you do.

Miners will simply migrate (or at least the equipment does) to wherever it makes sense for them, usually that means where it's cheaper.

And the earlier point , was the miners have been moving to Texas,  
https://news.yahoo.com/displaced-chinese-bitcoin-miners-flocking-060215932.html
and Texas Power Grid operators are now warning of rolling blackouts.

Their is your clue.  


FYI:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/18/texas-promotes-master-plan-lure-worlds-crypto-billionaires-forced/amp/

“We have governors like Greg Abbott in Texas who are promoting mining,” he told CNBC.

“It is going to become a real industry in the United States, which is going to be incredible.

“Texas not only has the cheapest electricity in the US but some of the cheapest in the globe,” he said.

“It’s also very easy to start up a mining company.”

Argo Blockchain CEO Peter Wall recently told Bitcoin Magazine: "We chose West Texas because it offers us some of the lowest electricity rates in the world and the majority is from renewable sources, namely wind and solar.”

But there has been a backlash.

Critics have pointed out that Texas’s power grid failed during a winter storm earlier this year and that the significant drain on resources could lead to future blackouts.

More than four million people were left without power, some for days, and 111 people died.

[buwaytress]

^ Can't say I know enough about what's going on in Texas, I think it's a tragedy but I also think it's a case of mismanagement and poor governance, and a direct result of storm damage (or failure of storm resistance, which it knowingly did not fix for a decade at least apparently).

So them Texans had better start electing better leaders or pushing for better means to distribute energy or fix the storm damage. Blaming it on miners is at best going to remove them from the equation, but that doesn't mean they won't simply be replaced by other commercial consumers, nor will it mean redistributing power to where it's needed.

The problem is a loss of power generation capacity. The miners won't have been invited over if there wasn't enough capacity in the first place.

[thecodebear]

PoW also makes Bitcoin a literal energy-to-money conversion machine, and having a system that can directly convert energy into money is a very powerful economic tool, especially over the coming decades as the world works on moving to renewables. You don't enforce renewable usage, Bitcoin naturally encourages renewable energy production because it makes the spread of renewable energy more economically viable - I should say it makes energy production in general more viable, but as the world is trying to switch to renewables this naturally favors the spread of renewables.

I am not in favor of moving away from PoW, but this argument is nonsense.

PoW miners need more than electricity, they also need ASIC machines that require technical expertise to design and build. ASIC machines require specialized chips that are in scarce supply.

Even "renewable" energy costs money to generate via building the medium of "capturing" the energy, such as solar panels, or windmills.

Probably most importantly, someone who has a large excess of energy, "renewable" or otherwise, can sell said energy to consumers of energy, as electric utilities do today. People are willing to pay for electricity because they need it to power things such as their stove, oven, lights, air conditioning, computers, and other devices that require electricity to work.

You didn't in any way invalidate my statement that you bolded. As I said, Bitcoin is an energy-to-money conversion machine. This feature makes Bitcoin profoundly important for spreading renewable energy production around the world. Not sure what you were trying to argue in your comment, but you weren't arguing against this fact of Bitcoin. Also I don't think you realize what "excess of energy" means - it specifically means there is no one to sell the energy to, which makes that statement by you, in fact, nonsense.

Bitcoin is about as much an "energy-to-money" machine as a toaster is a "energy-to-toast" machine.

Someone who is mining bitcoin is not going to wait and only use "excess" electricity, they are going to do their best to get "priority" access to electricity. As bitcoin miners become more efficient, current ASICs will generate less revenue, so it is important for miners to have as close to 100% uptime as they can.

Bitcoin provides an economy for that excess of energy, it also allows energy to be produced in places where there is no energy demand at all, but perhaps there will be in the future. It also allows new ways to produce energy to become economically viable when they normally wouldn't be. It not only fixes the excess energy problem, but it allows for the growth of new energy all over, and the development of new energy producing technologies. PoW is a truly powerful feature of Bitcoin.

There is already a source of near-unlimited, cheap electricity available. It is called nuclear power.

PoW is going to consume cheap electricity today. If there is a means to produce electricity that is expensive today, but might be cheap tomorrow, PoW is not going to consume that electricity until it is cheap.

I'm not sure why you think you're disproving the fact that Bitcoin is an energy to money conversion machine. But you're not. It's a simple fact. Nothing you said is even an argument against that fact. I'm not even sure what you're arguing about, or what you randomly brought up nuclear power. Seems like you're just having a conversation with yourself but for some reason quoting me.

[thecodebear]

Which in China , they decided it was easier to ban bitcoin PoW mining than regulate it.

That's their loss. I mean, China. The miners will simply move somewhere else and we are seeing it happening now.

The power grid operators don't care if you are looking for aliens, solving optical goloumb rulers, finding a cure for cancer, calculating large prime numbers, growing plants indoors or mining for any coins. If you use power and pay for it, then you should be okay, doesn't matter what you do.

Miners will simply migrate (or at least the equipment does) to wherever it makes sense for them, usually that means where it's cheaper.

And the earlier point , was the miners have been moving to Texas,  
https://news.yahoo.com/displaced-chinese-bitcoin-miners-flocking-060215932.html
and Texas Power Grid operators are now warning of rolling blackouts.

Their is your clue.  


FYI:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/18/texas-promotes-master-plan-lure-worlds-crypto-billionaires-forced/amp/

“We have governors like Greg Abbott in Texas who are promoting mining,” he told CNBC.

“It is going to become a real industry in the United States, which is going to be incredible.

“Texas not only has the cheapest electricity in the US but some of the cheapest in the globe,” he said.

“It’s also very easy to start up a mining company.”

Argo Blockchain CEO Peter Wall recently told Bitcoin Magazine: "We chose West Texas because it offers us some of the lowest electricity rates in the world and the majority is from renewable sources, namely wind and solar.”

But there has been a backlash.

Critics have pointed out that Texas’s power grid failed during a winter storm earlier this year and that the significant drain on resources could lead to future blackouts.

More than four million people were left without power, some for days, and 111 people died.

Texas had blackouts after a severe winter storm because their energy infrastructure wasn't designed to handle extreme cold, cuz they're in Texas. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Bitcoin mining.

[zbig001]

Since PoW miners require 24x7 power, they draw down a large % of the Baseload power plants

It is not necessarily that simple.
If your miners are already paid off, the higher their uptime, the more you will earn if the price of electricity in a given period allows you to make profit.
But it won't always be profitable for you to turn on the oldest, least effective miners.

It is different if you have just invested in a given part of your mine's equipment and you have to pay it back.
Then obviously the uptime should be as close to 100% as possible.
But even 85% would let you pay off the equipment if you had access to electricity at a very favorable price.

[Wind_FURY]

Genuine question, wouldn’t large mining farms avoid regions where electricity is in high demand, and therefore have higher electricity rates, making it unprofitable for mining? Plus electricity generated is only “wasted” if there’s a surplus and the surplus isn’t used.

Excess Energy is never wasted, that is a myth.
Texas energy rate prices are lower than average, which is why miners are flocking there.

Most Power Grids are interconnected, they have to maintain a % of power to keep their grid stable,
when their usage is lower, they sell the so called excess energy to the other grids. (Their is No wasted energy.)
So their is no massive amount of excess energy in the grid system.

But in regions with low demand for electricity, don’t the power stations regulate the output themselves, which could lower profit? Wouldn’t industrial POW miners be welcome consumers for those power stations because it makes them generate the output to their capacity? I don’t know why some people believe this is bad. It’s simply commerce.

Actually in the US,  power plants and power generators hand over control of their output to Power Grid Operators.
They do this to avoid a monopoly.
https://peguru.com/2018/09/who-controls-the-power-grid-in-usa/

https://www.anthropoceneinstitute.com/science/grid/

Grid operators constantly monitor and manage the demand, supply, reserve margins, and power mix to ensure that you have immediate access to power in your home or business. What is the reserve margin? It is a specified backup generation capacity that can compensate for potential forecasting errors, unexpected power plant shutdowns or weather events

The grid operator uses a three-phase planning process to ensure that power plants produce the right amount of electricity to meet electric demand at any given time. Electricity supply must balance demand at all times in order to avoid a blackout or other cascading problem. The production of electricity is adjusted in 15 minute intervals to account for demand changes throughout the day. For this reason, there are three main types of power plants: baseload, load-following, and peakers.

Baseload power plants meet the minimal power needed by the grid and are designed to be on most of the time. Their capacity factor, or percent of time operational, is above 80%. They are only shut down or curtailed when performing maintenance or repair. Baseload power is the cheapest type of generation and usually supplied by coal fired and nuclear power plants because they can provide large amounts of power (up to 1.6 GW).

Load-following plants, also known as intermediate load plants, are typically combined-cycled gas fired power plants, which have a high thermal efficiency of up to 58%.  They have a gas turbine and a waste heat recovery system to capture the gas turbine’s exhaust to drive a steam turbine that produces additional electricity. Generation from load-following plants can be ramped up and down as needed. Their capacity factor is usually less than 30% of the time. But they are more complex to maintain and more expensive to operate/

The power plant of “last resort” are peaker plants. They are turned on for even shorter periods of time to meet extremely high high demands, for example, when air conditioning is used during hot days. Due to their low capacity factor, which could be as low as a few hours for the entire year, they the most expensive type of generation.

How is power bought and sold in the US?

Electricity is bought and re-sold on the wholesale power market before finally reaching the final consumer.  With the exception of Texas, this market is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) due to the interstate nature of the grid.

The wholesale market is open to utility owned suppliers and marketers, non-utility independent power producers (IPPs), and excess generation from traditional vertically-operated utilities. Furthermore, participants in the wholesale market do not necessary have own generation capacity or serve the end-user. Much like other commodity markets, individual traders (power marketers) buy electricity on the market to re-sell it.

Once the electricity is procured from the wholesale market, it is sold to the final consumer through the retail market. In states where full retail competition exists, customers may choose from either their incumbent utility supplier or from an array of new competitive suppliers

How do grid operators work together?
Within the regional wholesale markets, grid operators organize under a regional transmission organization (RTO) or independent system operator (ISO). These entities serve as a third-party independent operator of the transmission system to control, monitor, and coordinate the operations of a grid.

About 60% of the U.S. electric power supply is managed by RTOs. Ten Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) operate bulk electric power systems across much of North America.

These operators ensure that no preference is given in the dispatch of a utility-owned generator over a competitive generator. Grid operators must be certified under the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

Since PoW miners require 24x7 power, they draw down a large % of the Baseload power plants ,
which in turn means more Intermediate Load plants, are running longer,
and that when weather extremes happen, the “last resort” are peaker plants which if unable to meet the increased demand,
that is when the power grid operators start rolling blackouts to avoid the whole grid collapsing and transformers burning out.

Bitcoin Miners draw such large amounts of power in small regions , they totally remove a large % of the energy generated by the Baseload power plants.

If the Number of Bitcoin Mining devices were regulated to limit their number per power grid, then their power drain could be managed better by the power grid operators thus avoiding the rolling blackouts that have to happen to protect the grid.
* Regulating the number of ASICS per grid would have huge impact on Miners Profits as further separates locations increases their costs. Which is one reason Ethereum dev decided to avoid the potential coming government regulations by switching to PoS.*

A lot of people in the bitcoin community want to cry fud and ignore the power drain of PoW,
It is not fud, when the Power Grid operators start rolling blackouts, which has already happen in China and Iran,
which is why they started banning mining.
Power Grid operators only concern is protecting the Power grids, they don't care about bitcoins , altcoins or any of our opinions on algorithms, so the pretense that they are involved in fud is totally baseless, all they care about is a functioning power grid.

It is like this, Bitcoiners don't have to switch to PoS,
but they will have to do something to combat the energy drain they are placing on the power grids,
before the Governments step in and make the decision for them.
Which in China , they decided it was easier to ban bitcoin PoW mining than regulate it.

OK, then in that context, can we agree that Chrismas lights are also a wasteful/useless use of energy that doesn’t benefit society? Where’s the “Ban the Christmas Lights Foundation”, or people calling to ban them because it’s harmful for the environment? We don’t see them anywhere.

[TangentC]

OK, then in that context, can we agree that Chrismas lights are also a wasteful/useless use of energy that doesn’t benefit society? Where’s the “Ban the Christmas Lights Foundation”, or people calling to ban them because it’s harmful for the environment? We don’t see them anywhere.

Because
1. Christmas Lights moved to LEDs , which is way less power.

2. Christmas Lights are spread out across multiple power grids.

3. Christmas Lights don't run 24x7.

4. Christmas Lights usually only run for a few hours at night.

5. All of the world's Christmas lights are not in just a few warehouses overloading the electric grids.

So if you want the Bitcoin Bans to stop.
And still want to keep PoW.

1.  Improve Asics power usage by a factor of 8.5X.
2.  Regulate only 1 Asic per house hold.
3.  Only run ASICS at Night , 1 Month Out of the Year. 

Then you can compare it to Christmas Lights.

But to be honest , I am totally over the PoW verses PoS debates,
If the Bitcoin Cult refuses to evolve, then the bans will just keep increasing.
Solve the PoW energy waste problem or don't,
because at the end of the day if the devs fail to step up,
the governments will just outright ban it. (Like China Did.)
Energy Waste Problem solved.  

Have a Great Day.  

[Wind_FURY]

OK, then in that context, can we agree that Chrismas lights are also a wasteful/useless use of energy that doesn’t benefit society? Where’s the “Ban the Christmas Lights Foundation”, or people calling to ban them because it’s harmful for the environment? We don’t see them anywhere.

Because
1. Christmas Lights moved to LEDs , which is way less power.

2. Christmas Lights are spread out across multiple power grids.

3. Christmas Lights don't run 24x7.

4. Christmas Lights usually only run for a few hours at night.

5. All of the world's Christmas lights are not in just a few warehouses overloading the electric grids.

So if you want the Bitcoin Bans to stop.
And still want to keep PoW.

1.  Improve Asics power usage by a factor of 8.5X.
2.  Regulate only 1 Asic per house hold.
3.  Only run ASICS at Night , 1 Month Out of the Year.  

Then you can compare it to Christmas Lights.

But to be honest , I am totally over the PoW verses PoS debates,
If the Bitcoin Cult refuses to evolve, then the bans will just keep increasing.
Solve the PoW energy waste problem or don't,
because at the end of the day if the devs fail to step up,
the governments will just outright ban it. (Like China Did.)
Energy Waste Problem solved.  

Have a Great Day.  

I find the criticism hypocritical. Because IF Bitcoin solves, what you say is a “problem”, and switches to, if possible, POS, would you continue your criticism against other forms of wasteful uses of Elecricity? Or are you doing it because you hate Bitcoin?

Plus, who’s to say that POW is wasteful? It secures the network. The more energy spent, the more secure the network is. China cannot even do anything to attack Bitcoin through POW.

You say the network has no value. Who decides its value? You? I believe the market is saying that you are wrong, ser.

[amishmanish]

But to be honest , I am totally over the PoW verses PoS debates,
--snip--

If you were over it, you would stop making these ridiculous claims and assumptions. All you ever do is peddle PoS as a solution which it clearly is not.

You are intellectually dishonest and simply a Bitcoin hater. I guess one reason is that nobody accepts your viewpoint as worthy of a debate when it comes to real meaning of cryptocurrencies.

--snip--
the governments will just outright ban it. (Like China Did.)

Well that won't ever happen. An outright ban similar to China is out of the question. If it ever happens, you can say goodbye to all your crypto dreams including your PoS shitcoins.

[TangentC]

Bitcoiner Cult Speak.

--snip--
the governments will just outright ban it. (Like China Did.)

Well that won't ever happen. An outright ban similar to China is out of the question. If it ever happens, you can say goodbye to all your crypto dreams including your PoS shitcoins.

And until last week, none of you would have claimed China would have banned bitcoin mining.
But they did, time to get a clue my friend,
your vision of reality is tainted by bitcoin cultism, as such you have become blind to the dangers bitcoin now faces.
The reason the PoS verses PoW debate is over, is your side lost and are just too drenched in cult mentality to see it.
Look in the top 5 coins on CMK, only bitcoin is holding on to PoW, none of the rest are, so PoW has already lost,
the only real question is will the bitcoin cult leaders wise up and look for a solution or will the government bans be the solution.
Unlike Bitcoin PoW miners , no one can track a PoS staker location by energy usage.  
 
FYI:
The only debate now ,
is will Bitcoiners solve their energy waste issues or will the government solve bitcoin energy waste issue by banning it?

FYI2:
Get your crappy 2nd hand energy wasting ASIC for Proof of Waste Supporters while they last or until they are banned.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/chinese-crackdown%3A-bitmain-stops-rig-sales-exodus-ensues-hash-rate-declines-2021-06-23

By halting sales, Bitmain claims it can help miners targeted by Chinese authorities to get better prices for their machines when exiting the industry. And in the long run, the mining rig maker giant could also benefit if the reduced supply ends up triggering a price increase for new rigs.

Translation: Bitmain has been mining in secret dominating the bitcoin mining, so now they have to sell those rigs they were using to rip off the rest of the miners.  

[Pmalek]

Look in the top 5 coins on CMK, only bitcoin is holding on to PoW, none of the rest are, so PoW has already lost.

Has it really lost? While you check the Top 5 coins on CoinMarketCap, you might want to take a glance at the top of the site where it says 'Dominance'. Bitcoin's dominance is currently at 46.5%, but I have seen it at 50% and even over 55%. What that tells you is that the POW-powered bitcoin has a market capitalization almost as big as all the other 10.000 coins and tokens. Just because many coins use a POS consensus, even those in the top 10/top 5, that doesn't make them better when the stats show that bitcoin beats them by a mile.     

[zbig001]

Unlike Bitcoin PoW miners , no one can track a PoS staker location by energy usage.  

Anyone can track the energy consumption of whales that own PoS networks and earn money to secure them.
Earning very well, otherwise they would have moved with their capital elsewhere and PoS networks would be characterized by low security.

That energy consumption occurs when they buy diamond jewelry or expensive shoes for their wives, or when they buy luxury yachts, private jets, luxury mansions, space trips, or pursue their innumerable expensive hobbies.

Global direct consumption of primary energy, both by the defenders of the existing traditional systems of concentration of wealth and power, and their modern cryptocurrency counterparts, is over 140,000 TWh per year (1 TWh equals 1,000,000,000,000 watts).

It is hard to miss even from orbit around the Earth.

Especially when specialized satellites measure how the oceans and Earth are slowly heading to the boiling point.

The only chance to stop the waste of energy and the possible destruction of Earth's life for the temporary benefit of people belonging to the elite is Bitcoin.

Especially if it becomes the backbone of the global monetary system.

[TangentC]

Unlike Bitcoin PoW miners , no one can track a PoS staker location by energy usage.  

Anyone can track the energy consumption of whales that own PoS networks and earn money to secure them.
Earning very well, otherwise they would have moved with their capital elsewhere and PoS networks would be characterized by low security.

Ok,
Guy you know nothing about Proof of Stake Energy usage,

So I shall school you in.

You know those laptops people use, that is the only hardware needed to run a proof of Stake network.
Laptops that use less power than your xbox,
Plus anyone can get a deep cycle battery and a few solar panels and run that laptop off that 24x7,
and no one knows since it draws zero power from the grid.

Proof of Stake Security is in the coin & code itself which is extremely energy efficient, not in the energy wasting asics like Proof of work.

FYI: The Security of a Network PoS or PoW is the Good Will of the Majority not the algorithm or energy used.

PoW is not more secure than PoS,
Both are secure or insecure depending on 1 specific condition , the Majority.

Many PoW Coins have suffered 51% attacks,
Many PoS  Coins have suffered 51% attacks.

Some PoW coin have never suffered a 51% attack.
Some PoS  coin have never suffered a 51% attack.

The algorithms themselves will not secure a coin,
all that secure PoW is the majority of Pooled Hashrate,  
all that secure PoS is the majority of staking coins.

So the good will of the majority is the answer for both.

In Bitcoin Case as long as the top 4 pool operators don't collude, bitcoin is safe,
but if the top 4 pool operators ever do collude, 51% attack in bitcoin is unstoppable.
Kind of makes you wonder why people think bitcoin is so secure, when only 4 guys could totally decimate it in a day.  

In Cardano Case, they have over 2500 PoS pools, and they limit the max % one pool can dominate by code design.
So Cardano PoS has more protection from colluding mining pool operators than Bitcoin PoW.  
Because the collusion would take a much greater majority of operators than 4 like BTC.


FYI:
In Bitcoin PoW history ,
the Majority Rewrote 6 hours of bitcoin blocks in 2013, proving the majority will move the PoW chain however they deem fit.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/bitcoin-network-shaken-by-blockchain-fork-1363144448

The economic damage was significant, but fairly small; the only monetary losses that have been reported are the $26,000 USD worth of mining block rewards from the 24 mined blocks of 25 BTC that are now forever lost in the now abandoned chain, as well as a $10,000 double spend against OKPay.

A Doublespend has occurred on the Bitcoin PoW network.  

No Doublespends have ever occurred on the Cardano PoS network.  

From the above, PoW does not seem all that secure.  

[zbig001]

The point is not whether the code is efficient (Bitcoin core is written in C++ so it is as efficient as possible).

The point is that a group of DLT network users who are capable of attacking or controlling the network should not use its power to the detriment of other users.
Indeed, code in the sense of asymmetric cryptography protects the funds that are under the control of your private key.
But it will not protect you from increasing inflation, undoing your transactions by reorganizing the chain, or from censoring your addresses.
The main thing that keeps your funds safe is financial incentives for those stronger than you (or some party capable of coming to an agreement and cooperating), so that it pays off for them to act honestly.

And it's not necessarily a consolation that some PoS coin has never been 51 attacked, because it is possible that it is just hopelessly centralized and centrally controlled.

PoS coins are unfortunately prone to centralization.

[TangentC]

The point is not whether the code is efficient (Bitcoin core is written in C++ so it is as efficient as possible).

The point is that a group of DLT network users who are capable of attacking or controlling the network should not use its power to the detriment of other users.
Indeed, code in the sense of asymmetric cryptography protects the funds that are under the control of your private key.
But it will not protect you from increasing inflation, undoing your transactions by reorganizing the chain, or from censoring your addresses.
The main thing that keeps your funds safe is financial incentives for those stronger than you (or some party capable of coming to an agreement and cooperating), so that it pays off for them to act honestly.

And it's not necessarily a consolation that some PoS coin has never been 51 attacked, because it is possible that it is just hopelessly centralized and centrally controlled.

PoS coins are unfortunately prone to centralization.

Hate to break it to you , everything is prone to centralization.

Look at your PoW, are the asics spread out across every home, Nope
they are centralized to a few energy sucking warehouses.
And on top of that, those warehouse centralized control to the pools ,
of which their are less than 4 or 5 that have over 51% on a daily basis for Years.

Compared that with Cardano,
that have over 2500 pools and has code that disincentives pools from growing too big.
In the Comparison , Cardano is more decentralized than the PoW bitcoin.

You want to trust just 4 pool operators with your money,
feel free, but don't for a second think you are more secure or decentralized.

[zbig001]

Remember that addresses or even private keys are not the same as people.
So in the case of PoS coins, you may try to impede centralization, but still one person/party can run a large number of pools or nodes.
It is impossible to stop it.

And that there is an endless list of reasons why an individual miner may not be able to survive in business.
While the staker makes profits automatically, which, combined with the reinvesting of profits, favors the concentration of coin ownership and therefore power over the network.

In the case of PoW currencies, the existence of pools does not necessarily mean centralization.
What matters is whether individual miners are free to change pools or set up new ones, which depends on many seemingly unrelated factors.
I would recommend you to read "The Blocksize War" by Jonathan Bier.

You will understand how deep the topic of decentralization is, and how difficult it is to design a system meant to last.

[TangentC]

I think the fact, that I am not a bitcoiner cultist insures that I will never see decentralization the way you do? 

Have a Great Day.   

[Dabs]

2.  Regulate only 1 Asic per house hold.

They can certainly try.

But to be honest , I am totally over the PoW verses PoS debates,

It does not look like it.

Hey, you can always make a fork of bitcoin and have it run on PoS, then feel free to use that, and there are indeed several coins that run on PoS.

A double spend has never happened because it is simply not possible. Only one transaction or block made it through, there was a reorg, or something, but it was not spent twice.

[TangentC]

A double spend has never happened because it is simply not possible. Only one transaction or block made it through, there was a reorg, or something, but it was not spent twice.

Dude,
really.

A double spend is exactly that ,
User send btc, merchant accepts btc after in OKPAY case , Six freaking hours of confirmations,
blockchain is reorged to a new chain without that specific transaction.
So those coins were spend twice. ie: double-spend
Once with OKPAY and after the reorg with someone else.

That is the whole point to waiting for 1-3 confirmations, that a reorg should be impossible after 3 confirms in btc,
so in the case mention,  their was a doublespend with bitcoin.
Sorry if that hurts your bitcoin cultist beliefs, but it is absolutely true.

FYI:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1lhwcu/has_there_ever_been_a_successful_double_spend/

yes,
during the last fork a guy skrewed OKpay out of 10grand by reloading his keys and submitting a transaction into the new chain.

FYI2:
If you want blockchains that have never had any doublespends occur,
look no further than 3rd generation blockchain tech using Proof of Stake coins, Cardano & Algorand.   

[Lee_Mire]

First of all. I don't agree with MarsMan and I think what he is doing is straightforward market manipulation.

But one thing is o/c right in this whole mess. Proof of Work can't be Bitcoins destination. First of all one question is if it really still fulfills its function for decentralization. Is a system truly decentralized or distributed when there is already just a handful of groups that would just need to agree on common terms?

Energy might be another factor and important as well, so a less power hungry solution might be great, on the other side it could be very healthy to the renewables industry if all miners would be forced to use only green energy, since this would generate a significant amount of money flowing into those industries. But I don't see any technical way to really enforce that.

I am a long term user since Bitcoins inception, but I stopped following the development for some years now and hold most of my assets I bought for a few cents years ago and just do some trading from time to time. So I might be not up to date if there are efforts to move away from PoW. Can someone give me an update on this? If Bitcoin is not considering to move and evolve, what are your takes on this and why would one cling to much to PoW, just b/c of the hard fork it requires? Or are the alternatives still not mature enough?

POW is the only proven way to secure the network. Read the whitepaper and read into older implementations of fully decentralized e-currencies. Securing the network in a decentralized way and solving the byzantine problem is nothing short of a nightmare but somehow the genius that is Satoshi and the early devs solved it.  Anything else (POS, DAG, etc) is gravely experimental and bitcoin is nearly a $1 trillion network. It's not worth the risk. POW can be improved with greener mining solutions and increasing transaction throughput through L2, L3, etc. Overall POW is not a problem, it is a beautiful conception that has worked near flawlessly for over a decade.

[PrimeNumber7]

A double spend has never happened because it is simply not possible. Only one transaction or block made it through, there was a reorg, or something, but it was not spent twice.

The inability of someone to double-spend inputs is due to blockchain technology, not due to PoW, or Proof of whatever.

There have been many double-spends with unconfirmed transactions, in fact, RBF is a feature of bitcoin that allows users to double spend unconfirmed transactions. There have also been a handful number of double-spend transactions when there is a reorg, but this was due to the randomness of the timing of finding blocks, and that it just so happened that two miners found a block at the same height at approximately the same time that just so happened to include competing transactions.

I would argue that PoS blockchains have not seen as many double spends resulting from reorgs because 1) they see lower transaction volume, and 2) it is more difficult to get a double-spend transaction of an unconfirmed transaction to propagate throughout the network.

[NotATether]

User send btc, merchant accepts btc after in OKPAY case , Six freaking hours of confirmations,
blockchain is reorged to a new chain without that specific transaction.
So those coins were spend twice. ie: double-spend
Once with OKPAY and after the reorg with someone else.

Actually, it's not a double-spend in this case. Because the spending inputs are included in one transaction, but there is no second transaction to different outputs the spending inputs are in. A reorg is not transaction spending, because there is no spending initiated - the transaction inputs are still valid as if the first transaction never happened, in other words the first transaction was deleted. There was no second transaction at all, hence no double spend.

A double-spend would be if you submit a transaction to one miner, and then the same transaction but with different outputs to another miner and the two miners don't sync fast enough before a large number of nodes on both side have one of the different chain forks.

[TangentC]

**** No Double-Spends can ever happen in BTC. *****
       {The Bitcoiner Cult is strong with this one.}

Whatever floats your boat.  

[topcoin360]

User send btc, merchant accepts btc after in OKPAY case , Six freaking hours of confirmations,
blockchain is reorged to a new chain without that specific transaction.
So those coins were spend twice. ie: double-spend
Once with OKPAY and after the reorg with someone else.

Actually, it's not a double-spend in this case. Because the spending inputs are included in one transaction, but there is no second transaction to different outputs the spending inputs are in. A reorg is not transaction spending, because there is no spending initiated - the transaction inputs are still valid as if the first transaction never happened, in other words the first transaction was deleted. There was no second transaction at all, hence no double spend.

A double-spend would be if you submit a transaction to one miner, and then the same transaction but with different outputs to another miner and the two miners don't sync fast enough before a large number of nodes on both side have one of the different chain forks.

Reorganizing the blockchain to reverse a transaction is a fraud and it is possible to do it on btc's network. Definition of fraud by Google: wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

[NotATether]

**** No Double-Spends can ever happen in BTC. *****
       {The Bitcoiner Cult is strong with this one.}

Whatever floats your boat.  

Nice paraphrasing with words I never said. I gave you a practical example of double-spending above.

Reorganizing the blockchain to reverse a transaction is a fraud and it is possible to do it on btc's network. Definition of fraud by Google: wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

Yeah you're right about that. If miners knowingly include transactions inside a smaller chain when they are aware of a larger chain that exists, that is a perfect example of fraud against users (and also, buggy mining software that should be repaired ASAP) but from a metaphorical perspective to conventional fraud, in this case the fraud will also hurt the miners who will lose large sums of block reward BTC from submitting blocks to a shorter chain.

Because of the amount of money at stake and how difficult mining became, this is why you don't see miners pull of this kind of fraud. It would take a really dumb mining organization to risk millions of $$$ in block rewards just to play with people's transactions.

But normally the reason why a lot of temporary chain splits happen is because two miners who are far from each other on the peer graph find a block, broadcast it to their peers who are also far enough from the other set of peers such that they can't talk to each other quickly, and then one of the miners that are in these groups of peers finds a third block and extends one of the competing changes.

Since this type of occurrence can't be known in advance and is corrected by the network quickly, in no more than several minutes, it can't be described as fraud though. In this case, there's nothing a miner can do to prevent this kind of situation from happening except to connect to all the nodes which are attached to other miners. Whereas fraud is something that happens intentionally, as you said, not accidentally.

[PrimeNumber7]

User send btc, merchant accepts btc after in OKPAY case , Six freaking hours of confirmations,
blockchain is reorged to a new chain without that specific transaction.
So those coins were spend twice. ie: double-spend
Once with OKPAY and after the reorg with someone else.

Actually, it's not a double-spend in this case. Because the spending inputs are included in one transaction, but there is no second transaction to different outputs the spending inputs are in. A reorg is not transaction spending, because there is no spending initiated - the transaction inputs are still valid as if the first transaction never happened, in other words the first transaction was deleted. There was no second transaction at all, hence no double spend.

A double-spend would be if you submit a transaction to one miner, and then the same transaction but with different outputs to another miner and the two miners don't sync fast enough before a large number of nodes on both side have one of the different chain forks.

Reorganizing the blockchain to reverse a transaction is a fraud and it is possible to do it on btc's network.

A reorg to reverse a transaction is possible on any blockchain network. This is not specific to bitcoin. This remains true regardless of if PoW, or something else is implemented. A party wishing to reverse a transaction on a PoS blockchain for example would need to bribe a different set of stakeholders versus a PoW blockchain, but is still possible.

[Dabs]

So where is the double-spend again? I don't see it. Sorry. My boat already sunk. Lost all my bitcoins some time ago. We cultists always have boating accidents.

[TangentC]

So where is the double-spend again? I don't see it. Sorry. My boat already sunk. Lost all my bitcoins some time ago. We cultists always have boating accidents.

I showed you the double spend, the original article called it a double-spend, the reddit post called it a double-spend.

Everyone in the freaking universes calls it a double-spend, except for bitcoin cult members.

If part of being in the bitcoin cult makes you ignore reality, that is your problem , not mine.

I guess when the US bans bitcoin PoW mining in ~ 3 years for excessive power grid disruptions,
the bitcoin cult members will cry fud just like when China did for excessive power grid disruption.

[zbig001]

As a last resort, you can mine Bitcoin with totally ecological pencil and paper, reaching around 0.67 hashes per day 

http://www.righto.com/2014/09/mining-bitcoin-with-pencil-and-paper.html

But let's not be naive...
If the elite really cared about the environment, then they would order mining using only green energy sources instead of banning it completely, right?
I also think they know that in terms of DLT-based networks, Sybil-resistance and fault tolerance can quite well go hand in hand with centralization.

Bitcoin is still a resistance movement, not a cult.

[Dabs]

Where is the double-spend in the blockchain? It can not possibly be there. Can I see it on my own full node? I'm not a part of any cult, have no idea what you are trying to imply.

The reddit thread had these words in them:

Technically speaking the answer is no. No successful double-spend.

You are also saying the US will ban bitcoin mining in 3 years, just like China? I look forward to that. Maybe some things will change before then.

[TangentC]

Where is the double-spend in the blockchain?

Double-spends will Never show up on the Blockchain,
Because the Reorg overwrites the ORIGINAL transaction.
That is why it is a DOUBLE_SPEND!


FYI:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/doublespending.asp

The greatest risk for double-spending comes in the form of a 51% attack, which can occur if a user controls more than 50% of the computing power maintaining the distributed ledgers of a cryptocurrency. If this user controls the blockchain they will be able to process transfer bitcoins to their wallet multiple times by
reversing the blockchain ledger as though the initial transactions had never occurred.

[Dabs]

Double-spends will Never show up on the Blockchain,
Because the Reorg overwrites the ORIGINAL transaction.
That is why it is NOT a DOUBLE_SPEND!

Fixed that for you. And yes, that is correct.

[TangentC]

(Clueless, just utterly clueless nonsense.)

Their is no hope for you.
You don't know anything.

 

[Dabs]

Their is no hope for you.
You don't know anything.

I have hope for you.

[franky1]

double spends:
the blockchain will never have 2 UXTO's (unspent transactions of the same parent)
block rejects/orphans ensure only 1 utxo is valid/remains

a double spend is not about onchain transactions existing in double..
but services that give away products at the sight of a zero-confirm/low confirm.. and then find that transaction disapears(never confirms, gets confirmed then orphaned).. so the service doesnt get paid

meaning the person(spender) has got the goods and kept the funds. via one version of his transaction dispearing

its about the service/retailer/recipient of funds not waiting for good confirms to guarantee they are paid before releasing goods/service.

[Dabs]

Yes, it would be wise to wait for a few or several confirmations. If you also know there is an upcoming hard fork or some other major upgrade, it would be wise to wait for a day or two worth of confirmations. Many exchanges suspend trading or withdrawals when everyone knew a fork or upgrade was going to happen, and not just to bitcoin but any other altcoin.

Double spent transactions will never exist on chain.

It's not that hard to understand. But, this is a little bit beyond the original topic already.

[DannyHamilton]

a double spend is not about onchain transactions existing in double..
but services that give away products at the sight of a zero-confirm/low confirm..

Nah.  That's no different than giving away products at the verbal promise of payment.

If I call you and say, I'll send you 0.01 BTC, please send me $300 worth of product, and then you send it without ever seeing the transaction that's not a "double-spend".  That's you making an assumption about how much you can trust my promise.

If I send you a transaction that isn't confirmed (or has very few confirmations), and then you send it without waiting for sufficient confirmations, that's not a "double-spend".  That's you making assumptions about how much you can trust an unconfirmed transaction.

The entire purpose of the blockchain (the only reason it exists at all) is so that the users of bitcoin can determine (among multiple transactions spending the same utxo) which transaction is the one-and-only "real" transaction. In other words, to eliminate the possibility of an actual "double-spend" where there are two (or more) transactions and no way to determine which is the real one.

If a transaction that is not in the blockchain is considered to be a "double-spend", then we can just get rid of the blockchain (and mining) entirely and move on with the acceptance that double spends happen.

Let's think about this in terms of cash.  It's impossible to "double-spend" cash, right?  If I give you a $10 bill, and you are holding on to it in your hands, there's no way for me to hand it to someone else at the same time and they believe that they are the sole possessor of that $10 bill.  However, if I deposit that $10 bill into a bank account and then write two people each a separate cheque for $10, does that mean that I "double spent" that $10?  No.  The bank will transfer the $10 based on whichever cheque clears first, and the other cheque will "bounce".  The $10 wasn't "double-spent", but the losing recipient of a cheque may have made a poor assumption about the trustworthiness of the cheque.

[TangentC]

Let's think about this in terms of cash.  It's impossible to "double-spend" cash, right?  If I give you a $10 bill, and you are holding on to it in your hands, there's no way for me to hand it to someone else at the same time and they believe that they are the sole possessor of that $10 bill.  However, if I deposit that $10 bill into a bank account and then write two people each a separate cheque for $10, does that mean that I "double spent" that $10?  No.  The bank will transfer the $10 based on whichever cheque clears first, and the other cheque will "bounce".  The $10 wasn't "double-spent", but the losing recipient of a cheque may have made a poor assumption about the trustworthiness of the cheque.

The double spend that we were originally reference had 6 hours of confirmations.

And yes Cash can be double spent,
If I give you a $10 bill for a soda, and you are holding on to it in your hands,
Then I slap you upside your head and Take the $10 back and keep the soda,
then walk down the street, and buy some candy with that $10 , I just double-spent that $10,
and the only proof I did so is that knot on your head.  


FYI:
Think of it as a 51% butt kickin.
As I was 51% stronger than you to take the cash back.  

[DannyHamilton]

And yes Cash can be double spent,
If I give you a $10 bill for a soda, and you are holding on to it in your hands,
Then I slap you upside your head and Take the $10 back and keep the soda,
then walk down the street, and buy some candy with that $10 , I just double-spent that $10,
and the only proof I did so is that knot on your head.  

Nah.  You spent it once on some candy, and stole some soda from me.

Or, if you consider the soda transaction to be complete before you take the $10 back, then you are looking at 3 separate transactions...
Transaction 1: $10 transferred to me from you (in exchange for a soda)
Transaction 2: $10 transferred to you from me (in exchange for a bump on the head)
Transaction 3: $10 transferred to a vendor down the street (in exchange for some candy)

Either way, it's physically impossible to create an equally valid identical copy of that $10 bill (which is the specific "double spend" problem that digital goods need to deal with). That $10 bill can only exist in a single place at any moment in time.  The blockchain makes sure that the same is true of digital goods.

This is the only issue that the blockchain solves.  It doesn't prevent theft, it doesn't prevent fraud, it doesn't make people intrinsically good (or bad), it doesn't prevent or cause inflation, it doesn't determine exchange rates, etc. It just makes sure that at any moment in time, a given unit of value can only be under the control of a single individual.

Inherently true of ALL blockchain solutions, including both POW and POS, is the fact that there is some period of time between when a transaction is initiated and when the recipient of that transaction can be comfortable with the level of risk which remains that control over that value might change without their authorization.

[TangentC]

And yes Cash can be double spent,
If I give you a $10 bill for a soda, and you are holding on to it in your hands,
Then I slap you upside your head and Take the $10 back and keep the soda,
then walk down the street, and buy some candy with that $10 , I just double-spent that $10,
and the only proof I did so is that knot on your head.  

Nah.  You spent it once on some candy, and stole some soda from me.

No,
I purchase the soda with the $10 , and then smacked you upside the head, retrieved my $10,
and spent the $10 down the street. A double spend.

You know, their really is no further point talking to any of you bitcoiner cultist.

You can't recognize that PoW is a dead end.
You can't recognize that LN is Bank 2.0 , ie an IOU system.
You can't even acknowledge what a double-spend is.
You ignore government bans as fud.
You ignore the fact every altcoin can outperform bitcoin onchain.

You bitcoiners have totally left the rails of sanity behind for your ridiculous cult like worship of a bitcoin.

So as of now,
I shall leave you to enjoy your asinine worship of a 1st generation blockchain that is inferior to all of the 3rd generation blockchain designs.

Good Luck to you,
however those that ignore reality are one day going to get reality smacked and that is going to take alot more than $10 from you.

Enjoy your Bitcoiner Cult's Delusions.    

 

[amishmanish]

You know, their really is no further point talking to any of you bitcoiner cultist.

You have been barking the same thing for years now through idiotic, banned accounts. But you never actually go away. Nobody needs your repetitive, stupid takes.

You are incapable of convincing people not because Bitcoin is a cult but because you don't have a valid point with these delusions about "PoS" and "3rd generation blockcahin"..

however those that ignore reality are one day going to get reality smacked and that is going to take alot more than $10 from you.

Nobody is ignoring reality here. Every single individual understands the limitations and choices for Bitcoin. They also understand the logic behind those choices. The whole community and market have taken those decisions. Just because you hate bitcoin for not being what you THINK it should be, doesn't mean the rest of us don't get it.

This also doesn't mean that Bitcoiners are being left behind in making money out of all these foundations/ corporation coins. In fact, they put money into them all the time and make it back several times over. We just know that some centralized PoS shitcoin that you think has solved the trilemma, cannot be what Bitcoin is.

PoS coins serve a different purpose than what Bitcoin does. Its morons like you who don't understand this and keep hating on bitcoin and the community for your self-therapy sessions. Stop being such a useless human being and stop repeating yourself.

[gmaxwell]

The discussion here just seems to be looping and getting increasingly heated. I think people have said what they want to say on the subject.

Further threads about non-pow will get punted to the altcoin subforum for the immediate future.