Decentralization Required, Ongoing Problem, Help Needed!

[zimmah]

I may look into it, maybe even creating a node. Will need to do some research on how P2P pools work.

[acoindr]

This is a good post highlighting mining centralization and helpful countermeasures like P2Pool, but it's a bit misleading.

What is the current popular solution?

When GHash approached the 50% mark in January many miners switched to other centralized pools (Eligius, BTC Guild, Slush, etc…).

Can this solve the problem?

If their were 5 major pools, each with an equal distribution of 20% of the global hash rate, that might solve the 51% problem, but we will have still consolidated all Bitcoin transaction processing to 5 central facilities, leaving the whole network open to an attack that could bring down Bitcoin for good.

All Bitcoin transaction processing wouldn't be consolidated to 5 central facilities. Blockchain's hashrate distribution chart shows about 30% is unknown, which I think is healthy. It's probably made up of tinkering solo miners, enterprise miners, less than famous pools etc., which will probably grow.

There may be 5 major/popular pools now but I doubt that will remain. GHash.io wasn't the first pool. That was Slush's Pool, if I'm not mistaken, which now has 3% of the pie slice... 3%. Just as GHash.io entered the picture and ballooned in size so too can other pools. Even now there are 9 pools not including P2Pool.

I think it's worthwhile to try and bolster P2Pool's meager 1% share, but I think we will also see more pools forming. Something they need to do, however, is take inspiration from GHash.io and get their presentation right. This was mentioned on reddit too. Let me make the point.

If you haven't seen the homepage for GHash.io do me a favor and first visit the page for Slush's Pool:

https://mining.bitcoin.cz/

Now visit GHash.io:

https://ghash.io/

It's a fricking mine shaft. No self-respecting male (of which the Bitcoin community is about 80%) would not find that appealing. Note to pool developers & entrepreneurs: you don't have to be first to be biggest. Google wasn't the first search engine. Facebook wasn't the first social network. Presentation and user experience make a difference, and that will probably become more true the more mainstream Bitcoin gets.

[luckypyrate]

I am very concerned by this as well.  How ironic that the movement to decentralize currency needs to decentralize the manufacturing of currency 2.0...

I think what you have revealed here is a clear example of how easily the power and wealth of a few offsets the balance and function of any system.

This isn't about being fair, this is about being sustainable.  And the quicker we move away from comparing BitCoin in value to dollars  and other fiat currency, the more and more I think people will stop trying to make cash on bitcoin and be more reasonable about mining and/or cash exchanging.

I also think more of us need to put some serious efforts into bringing BitCoin into the real world.  No one thought the car would catch on until you started seeing people with them.  People thought the same thing about the TV, the Cell Phone and the computer.  BitCoin is the next logical step in the "things people don't know they need it yet" paradigm.

We need to all go out, tell people about BitCoin, show people the apps and the tools that are already available.  CoinBase has an amazing app for turning any tablet or phone into a payment kiosk, and even allows for tipping!  The beauty of BitCoin is the ability to put a cell phone or tablet in the hands of anyone and give them all they need to start a business.  It is time to move to the next level folks.

[windpath]

We just upgraded our node to a new server in a new data center, this node is blazingly fast:

http://minefast.coincadence.com

With this upgrade comes a big update to our routing system that introduces latency based routing for miners.

What this means is that as we add more p2pool nodes around the globe your miners will always be directed to the closest node, insuring the best efficiency and speed.

[windpath]

Announcement:

CoinCadence.com Acquires P2Pool.org Domain
And Announces Plans For New Open Source P2Pool Dashboard

Stamford, CT: Today, CoinCadence.com, a Bitcoin startup focused on mining decentralization and transparency, announced that they have acquired the p2pool.org domain name. p2pool is a decentralized mining pool that creates a peer-to-peer network of miner nodes working together as a mining pool. p2pool is open source and any miner may host their own node and join the pool.

Milk House, LLC’s managing member said, “We have been working with the p2pool mining community to develop the most data-rich and useful p2pool dashboard available at minefast.coincadence.com. With the acquisition of p2pool.org we now have even greater capabilities to promote the growth of p2pool and strengthen the decentralized mining network.”

The company plans a staged roll-out for the new p2pool.org website:

● The existing p2pool.org site will remain as-is until the new site is complete, mining will not be interrupted.

● By September 1st: A fresh home page for p2pool.org explaining the benefits of becoming a p2pool node operator, a public Coin Cadence p2pool node with 0% fee for those that are not able to operate their own node, and links to accredited p2pool resources and guides.

● By November 1st: Open source version of the data-rich Coin Cadence p2pool dashboard released including real time data from p2pool and the Bitcoin blockchain and an API that provides historical data.