So Bitcoin Leaders what is your position on the ongoing Altcoinocide?

[steelhouse]

All it shows it that merged mining and mining pools are dangerous.  The government could infiltate Deepbit and take down bitcoin whenever they want.  The larger pools can take down namecoin, ixcoin, iocoin whenever they want.

[DeathAndTaxes]

All it shows it that merged mining and mining pools are dangerous.  The government could infiltate Deepbit and take down bitcoin whenever they want.  The larger pools can take down namecoin, ixcoin, iocoin whenever they want.

Deepbit can't take down Bitcoin.

[zerokwel]

Well since as its oft claimed these coins changed next to nothing in relation to the BTC code he has done you a favour as well showing the fatal law in your system as everything you say here can be applied to it, which you allude to with "or Bitcoin, for that matter".

Hardly.

The 51% attack has always been a potential attack vector for Bitcoin.

However there are some key differences:
a) the cost threshold is much higher
b) there is no mechanism of using free hashing power to attack Bitcoin
c) anyone w/ sufficient resources has an economic incentive to not attack Bitcoin.

The way CoiledCoin launched way beyond stupid.  Merged Mining is a double edged sword.  Sure it gives you increased hashing power BUT that increased hashing power can be used for good or bad.  Having a launch rushed w/ little notice is pure fail.  Likely no other alt-coin will be so stupid (or blind to the threat) next time.


Sure Bitcoin is vulnerable to non-economic 51% attacks.  It always has been.  That is far different than a scenario which allows a "free" 51% attack.

100% agreed.
If your system relies on a lack of assholes on the internet... good luck.
Btw, the same problem also exists for non-mergemined chains with miniscule hashrate right after launch, remember the massive FBX orphaning?
Anyone with a dozen decent CPUs could do it... and someone did it. whoops. Except no one stepped forward admitting to the attack, so instead of 20 pages of forum drama spread over a dozen threads we got a bunch of "aww, sucks" posts and people moved on.

We know the history but you left out your and BTCGuild's part in the first i0c attack and attempt to kill it off then. And I'm not going to do no aww sucks I will remind you hypocrites every damn opportunity I have about your hypocrisy.

Hold up I think you got history wrong. All El did was put up a altcoin pool because quite a few of us was bugging him in IRC to do it to mine the coin. He/we did nothing apart from put hash onto the coin to mine it. Yes btc guild did have over 50% of the hash but was this an attack NOO. It was because at the start there was not many pools that did altcoin. So that meens the blame must rest with the miners who mined it when it was worth more than bitcoin then dumped it when it was not.
He then closed the pool when the altcoin broke due to faulty code and at the time no sign of it being fixed.

History shows the same happened with namecoin so do we blame DoubleC for providing the pool at the time. Or the people who mined it for the profit.

Did not post this to start a argument but still just had to post this to set the story right.

[markm]

How is a 51% merged mining attack on Bitcoins not free if such an attack on other coins is?

Actually I'd think such an attack on bitcoin might even be better than free, it might be profitable, for example if the bitcoins gained by the attacker cause their electricity bill barely or not quite covered by the other coins to be more than covered, or even if the other coins already cover their operating costs any money they can make from also mining bitcoins at the same time would be almost pure profit.

Arguing that they might lower the value of bitcoins by attacking them doesn't really change anything except for people who already have quite a few bitcoins before considering the attack.

-MarkM-

[doublec]

We know the history but you left out your and BTCGuild's part in the first i0c attack and attempt to kill it off then. And I'm not going to do no aww sucks I will remind you hypocrites every damn opportunity I have about your hypocrisy.

There was no attack that I'm aware of from BTCGuild or anyone on i0c other than the double spend attack on the exchange much later in the chains history. Whoever did that is a mystery, other than knowing the i0coin addresses that hold the funds. i0coin's issue was broken difficulty adjustment code that used 'real world' time. ArtForZ actually provided the fix for this so the chain could continue.

[DeathAndTaxes]

How is a 51% merged mining attack on Bitcoins not free if such an attack on other coins is?

Actually I'd think such an attack on bitcoin might even be better than free, it might be profitable, for example if the bitcoins gained by the attacker cause their electricity bill barely or not quite covered by the other coins to be more than covered, or even if the other coins already cover their operating costs any money they can make from also mining bitcoins at the same time would be almost pure profit.

Arguing that they might lower the value of bitcoins by attacking them doesn't really change anything except for people who already have quite a few bitcoins before considering the attack.

-MarkM-

How are they gaining Bitcoins if they are attacking the network?

Also no altcoin has sufficient depth, and value to support a miner with ~9TH of hashing power. 

Arguing that they might lower the value of bitcoins by attacking them doesn't really change anything except for people who already have quite a few bitcoins before considering the attack.

The attack would be massively expensive.  The hardware, electrical, and labor costs in the tens of millions of dollars.  The only revenue an attacker would get from that would be the value of the double spent bitcoins which would crash massively in value resulting in an economic loss for the attacker.

[Luke-Jr]

He/we did nothing apart from put hash onto the coin to mine it.

Same here.

[finway]

What do I personally think?  I think it was mean, and luke-jr shouldn't have done it.

But if your system has a requirement "everybody will play nice" then your system is broken. You have to assume that people will try to break what you build (and also have to assume that nobody is perfect so you'll have to have a way of fixing your system when you find out it is broken).

So my heart feels sorry for CoiledCoin; my head thinks it is possible Luke-Jr did all the altchains a favor by demonstrating a problem that needs to be solved. And I'll re-iterate what I say in my "Be Safe" post:  only invest money or time in altcoins (or Bitcoin, for that matter) that you can afford to lose.

this.

Well since as its oft claimed these coins changed next to nothing in relation to the BTC code he has done you a favour as well showing the fatal law in your system as everything you say here can be applied to it, which you allude to with "or Bitcoin, for that matter".

Hardly.

The 51% attack has always been a potential attack vector for Bitcoin.

However there are some key differences:
a) the cost threshold is much higher
b) there is no mechanism of using free hashing power to attack Bitcoin
c) anyone w/ sufficient resources has an economic incentive to not attack Bitcoin.

The way CoiledCoin launched way beyond stupid.  Merged Mining is a double edged sword.  Sure it gives you increased hashing power BUT that increased hashing power can be used for good or bad.  Having a launch rushed w/ little notice is pure fail.  Likely no other alt-coin will be so stupid (or blind to the threat) next time.


Sure Bitcoin is vulnerable to non-economic 51% attacks.  It always has been.  That is far different than a scenario which allows a "free" 51% attack.

this.

[phelix]

He/we did nothing apart from put hash onto the coin to mine it.

Same here.

could you have done it without the pool?

[DeathAndTaxes]

He/we did nothing apart from put hash onto the coin to mine it.

Same here.

could you have done it without the pool?

Could he have done it without electricity or a network connection?

[Ahimoth]

He/we did nothing apart from put hash onto the coin to mine it.

Same here.

could you have done it without the pool?

Could he have done it without electricity or a network connection?

Ah, but he pays for a network connection and electricity out of his profits. The hashing power belonged to his clients (the miners). They are trading their work, which they believed was for mining bitcoins, in exchange for a bitcoin payment.

In my eyes, this whole Luke vs CLC situation equates to the following:
Joe starts up a company (pool). Hires a bunch of scientists (miners) to do genetic research for curing cancer (work). In exchange, Joe pays the scientists for their work (bitcoins). Then one day Joe decides to use some of the results of the genetic research to make his own biological weapons and then proceeds to use those weapons to eradicate an entire country in its infancy, just because he thought the country was filled with thieves.

[k9quaint]

He/we did nothing apart from put hash onto the coin to mine it.

Same here.

could you have done it without the pool?

Could he have done it without electricity or a network connection?

Ah, but he pays for a network connection and electricity out of his profits. The hashing power belonged to his clients (the miners). They are trading their work, which they believed was for mining bitcoins, in exchange for a bitcoin payment.

In my eyes, this whole Luke vs CLC situation equates to the following:
Joe starts up a company (pool). Hires a bunch of scientists (miners) to do genetic research for curing cancer (work). In exchange, Joe pays the scientists for their work (bitcoins). Then one day Joe decides to use some of the results of the genetic research to make his own biological weapons and then proceeds to use those weapons to eradicate an entire country in its infancy, just because he thought the country was filled with thieves.

So Joe cured cancer and eradicated a country full of thieves.
Sounds like a hero to me. 

[BurtW]

Who the hell is Joe?  I thought his name was Luke.  I am so confused.

[steelhouse]

http://bitcoinmedia.com/luke-dashjr-throws-book-at-solidcoin/

I found the above link written by Amir Taaki yesterday.

"I examined IxCoin’s sourcecode after unsuccessfully imploring him to drop his losing bet on IxCoin. Quickly it was apparent that the entire thing was unstable and a get rich quick scam. Within 6 years, the system would become unstable and shut down overnight because of technical reasons. IxCoin’s creator also spammed me and the other front-page developers offering us an ‘IxCoin bonus’. I tried to urge Jason to dump his IxCoins but he would not. It became unconciable for me to keep this knowledge secret. I made a forum post titled IxCoin is a SCAM and the value of IxCoins soon plummeted to zero (whether related or not). "

From what I understand, in 6 years when the 21,000,000 coin is minted, no new blocks will be minted?  Is that true? I think they will be minted, but just with no reward.  Hopefully, Nasakioto will add a 1 coin block reward at the end.  How do you know the "spammed me" was not just a reach out to give the main developers a bonus for all the work you did on the main client?  The only thing ixcoin showed is bounties do not work, almost all the bounty sites went down.  

From what I see these coins (ioc and ixc) are not scams.  The only two with massive pre-mine were gg and tbx, ixc were used in bounties.  The price of ixc has never gone to zero.

[paraipan]

The problem is not Luke attacking altcoins but Luke using his pool for attacking altcoins without his pool users knowing. This is a breach of trust.

Wasn't for me. I fully support using my resources to destroy alternate cryptocurrencies that are designed to make their creators a quick buck. Also, did anyone ever give any proof that luke-jr actually did this?

yes

survival of the fittest lawl