rpietila Altcoin Observer

[jwinterm]

Botnet wranglers have an advantage over "normal" miners, and if they're not a dominant fraction of the mining that's happening, they should be able to mine with a comfortable profit while everyone else's net profit is driven to (close to) zero.

As I've said before, from the point of view of the coin network, botnets are just another form of mining rig. Assuming what you wrote above is true (though it is harder to understand the botnet owner's cost structure as you point out), this is not very different from someone mining with a 0.5 W/GH ASIC while someone else are still mining with older 1 W/GH ASIC. Obviously the guy with the 0.5 W/H has a higher profit margin, and the guy with the worst efficiency is barely breaking even.

It is most certainly different to the computer owner, but I've also said before that botnet mining is very likely less socially harmful than other uses of botnets (spam, DDOS, etc.) because the costs are borne by the computer owner who is in the best position to either prevent it or address it.

EDIT: One last point. Probably the best way to detect a mining botnet on your computer is to mine with it. If your hash rate drops then you know something is wrong, be it hardware failure, software failure, or a botnet. There is no way for a botnet owner to steal your hash rate without reducing your hash rate.

lol nice rationalization to mine on any and every computer you ever own or have access to

[smooth]

Botnet wranglers have an advantage over "normal" miners, and if they're not a dominant fraction of the mining that's happening, they should be able to mine with a comfortable profit while everyone else's net profit is driven to (close to) zero.

As I've said before, from the point of view of the coin network, botnets are just another form of mining rig. Assuming what you wrote above is true (though it is harder to understand the botnet owner's cost structure as you point out), this is not very different from someone mining with a 0.5 W/GH ASIC while someone else are still mining with older 1 W/GH ASIC. Obviously the guy with the 0.5 W/H has a higher profit margin, and the guy with the worst efficiency is barely breaking even.

It is most certainly different to the computer owner, but I've also said before that botnet mining is very likely less socially harmful than other uses of botnets (spam, DDOS, etc.) because the costs are borne by the computer owner who is in the best position to either prevent it or address it.

EDIT: One last point. Probably the best way to detect a mining botnet on your computer is to mine with it. If your hash rate drops then you know something is wrong, be it hardware failure, software failure, or a botnet. There is no way for a botnet owner to steal your hash rate without reducing your hash rate.

lol nice rationalization to mine on any and every computer you ever own or have access to

In case it was not clear I find botnets reprehensible and have nothing to do with them. That is independent of understanding the economics of it.

[jwinterm]

EDIT: One last point. Probably the best way to detect a mining botnet on your computer is to mine with it. If your hash rate drops then you know something is wrong, be it hardware failure, software failure, or a botnet. There is no way for a botnet owner to steal your hash rate without reducing your hash rate.

lol nice rationalization to mine on any and every computer you ever own or have access to

In case it was not clear I find botnets reprehensible and have nothing to do with them. That is independent of understanding the economics of it.

I was just referring to your EDIT, that I left in the above quote, not implying you condone botting or netting or anything

[smooth]

EDIT: One last point. Probably the best way to detect a mining botnet on your computer is to mine with it. If your hash rate drops then you know something is wrong, be it hardware failure, software failure, or a botnet. There is no way for a botnet owner to steal your hash rate without reducing your hash rate.

lol nice rationalization to mine on any and every computer you ever own or have access to

In case it was not clear I find botnets reprehensible and have nothing to do with them. That is independent of understanding the economics of it.

I was just referring to your EDIT, that I left in the above quote, not implying you condone botting or netting or anything

Oh okay. Somewhere in the comments from the cryptonote folks, they describe their "one cpu, one vote" concept as including a (distant) vision that every computer, cell phone, etc. will be mining all the time. This makes the sort of botnets that exist today impossible. It also makes 51% attacks much harder since there is no idle capacity to use. For example, in this model Amazon's cloud nodes would just mine for Amazon when no one else is renting them. It also implies a change in the design of CPUs away from power scaling and efficiency at idle to efficiency at full load.

Of course this is not happening in full form any time soon. We may move in that direction though.

[r0ach]

LMAO, botnet argument against cryptonote right now are like the 'only used to buy drugs' for Bitcoin several years ago, clever tactic to dismiss the coin by proxy association, but it won't work.

Not even close.  It's an obvious legit issue if it pushes "rational miners" out of the equation.  People already mentioned it requiring 45+ months to break even GPU mining.  If there's little or no incentive to be involved with a coin, distribution goes to crap, bad distribution then obviously leads to bad price.  Everything has a feedback loop in these things.

[r0ach]

LMAO, botnet argument against cryptonote right now are like the 'only used to buy drugs' for Bitcoin several years ago, clever tactic to dismiss the coin by proxy association, but it won't work.

Not even close.  It's an obvious legit issue if it pushes "rational miners" out of the equation.  People already mentioned it requiring 45+ months to break even GPU mining.  If there's little or no incentive to be involved with a coin, distribution goes to crap, bad distribution then obviously leads to bad price.  Everything has a feedback loop in these things.

See you just did it lol, lets all stop mining XMR because it may not be profitable for short-term dump.

Um, you realize that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE has to mine the coin right?  No miners = no coin.  Disincentivizing against miners is obviously a bad thing.

Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down.  Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad.  There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.

[smooth]

Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down.  Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad.  There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.

1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?

2. Not having a high cost structure would reduce, not increase the incentive to sell. The people who are most motivated to sell quickly are those with high operating costs (electricity, cloud mining, etc.). So this argument about botnet behavior is illogical in addition to unproven.

[r0ach]

Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down.  Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad.  There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.

1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?

2. Not having a high cost structure would reduce, not increase the incentive to sell. The people who are most motivated to sell quickly are those with high operating costs (electricity, cloud mining, etc.). So this argument about botnet behavior is illogical in addition to unproven.

#1  Most botnets originate in broke, Eastern Euro areas where money now is more important to them than a speculative instrument in the future.

#2  If you receive something completely for free with no overhead, you personally value it less than if you had to actually work to obtain it.

[smooth]

Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down.  Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad.  There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.

1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?

2. Not having a high cost structure would reduce, not increase the incentive to sell. The people who are most motivated to sell quickly are those with high operating costs (electricity, cloud mining, etc.). So this argument about botnet behavior is illogical in addition to unproven.

#1  Most botnets originate in broke, Eastern Euro areas where money now is more important to them than a speculative instrument in the future.

#2  If you receive something completely for free with no overhead, you personally value it less than if you had to actually work to obtain it.

1. I guess. But how long can they be broke if they're supposedly making so much money mining with no overhead?

2. It is work to run a botnet. I don't know the details of what tasks running a botnet entails but it has to be a naturally competitive market. If it is too easy then other people get into it and it becomes more work to successfully compete.

[bigj]

Mh, we really don't know if there is already a botnet out in the wild mining XMR coins. We know for sure, however, that there is a positive likelihood for the event that a botnet will enter the mining market, just because one can make little/big money with selling XMR coins. (IMO, botnet miners are likely to drive the price down by immediately selling their mined coins; but that is another point to be discussed.) Nevertheless, botnets are unlikely to overcome FPGAs and ASICs, once those enter the game, right?! That's why I'm mostly concerned about FPGA (and later ASIC) miners entering the field.

Did anyone use FPGAs for Bitcoin mining activities back in the good old BTC days? Would you agree that FPGAs could become a threat to today's Monero miners - worse then botnets (thinking of mining power percentages and cheaply mined coins)?

[Este Nuno]

I know at least one person who's mined or currently mines XMR with a botnet. I'm not saying that XMR is infested with botnets or making any other claims. But I've seen quite a few people outright dismissing the idea of botnets mining XMR and that's just incredibly naive.

[drawingthesun]

Mh, we really don't know if there is already a botnet out in the wild mining XMR coins. We know for sure, however, that there is a positive likelihood for the event that a botnet will enter the mining market, just because one can make little/big money with selling XMR coins. (IMO, botnet miners are likely to drive the price down by immediately selling their mined coins; but that is another point to be discussed.) Nevertheless, botnets are unlikely to overcome FPGAs and ASICs, once those enter the game, right?! That's why I'm mostly concerned about FPGA (and later ASIC) miners entering the field.

Did anyone use FPGAs for Bitcoin mining activities back in the good old BTC days? Would you agree that FPGAs could become a threat to today's Monero miners - worse then botnets (thinking of mining power percentages and cheaply mined coins)?

Several people have already said that they know people mining with botnets, so botnets are likely a thing, however how much of a problem botnets are remains to be seen.

Also, I think that FPGA mining would be the best spot for us to be in. Anyone can get hold of a FPGA and the code can be loaded from an open source repo, much like today's GPU miners. However this might pull power away from CPU miners and end the constant FUD about botnets. Even if botnets are not a problem, FPGA's ending the perceived botnet threat would do Monero good.

[rpietila]

Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down.  Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad.  There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.

1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?

Theory strongly says that it is irrelevant, given perfect markets (which in the case of Monero actually is true!).

People earn in what they happen to get, and save in what they want. If these two coins do not coincide, they make a conversion between earning and saving.

[btc2nxt]

Economic fact:

Mining cannot provide real returns.

I'm just saying that CPU-only mining is the *fastest* way to get general adoption. The only problem is it's really, really hard to get GPU/ASIC resistant algorithm, but that will be solved eventually.

I mined XCN with AMD FX-8320 core 8, and got 500Kh/s. About mined 25-30 coins a day, so this is only a bit profitable, because electricity would costs 90% of coins.

Comparing the rank 1 miner in the pool http://xcn.1gh.com/,  the miner has 1500X power of me.  In this situation, i have to quit mining.

[drawingthesun]

I'm just saying that CPU-only mining is the *fastest* way to get general adoption. The only problem is it's really, really hard to get GPU/ASIC resistant algorithm, but that will be solved eventually.

This is out of my depth, but here are my thoughts:

A GPU is different from a CPU mainly because a CPU is fewer more powerful cores, and a GPU is many slower cores. If this is the main difference, then building a CPU only algorithm seems like an impossible task.

In fact this race to create a CPU only coins only serves to give display driver hackers a chance to get rich.

I'm not seeing any benefit to a CPU only coin.

[Este Nuno]

Mh, we really don't know if there is already a botnet out in the wild mining XMR coins. We know for sure, however, that there is a positive likelihood for the event that a botnet will enter the mining market, just because one can make little/big money with selling XMR coins. (IMO, botnet miners are likely to drive the price down by immediately selling their mined coins; but that is another point to be discussed.) Nevertheless, botnets are unlikely to overcome FPGAs and ASICs, once those enter the game, right?! That's why I'm mostly concerned about FPGA (and later ASIC) miners entering the field.

Did anyone use FPGAs for Bitcoin mining activities back in the good old BTC days? Would you agree that FPGAs could become a threat to today's Monero miners - worse then botnets (thinking of mining power percentages and cheaply mined coins)?

Several people have already said that they know people mining with botnets, so botnets are likely a thing, however how much of a problem botnets are remains to be seen.

Also, I think that FPGA mining would be the best spot for us to be in. Anyone can get hold of a FPGA and the code can be loaded from an open source repo, much like today's GPU miners. However this might pull power away from CPU miners and end the constant FUD about botnets. Even if botnets are not a problem, FPGA's ending the perceived botnet threat would do Monero good.

I agree with you. CryptoNote/CryptoNight algo FGPAs would be a good thing. An open market with anyone table to both buy FGPAs or rent hashing power from them is a much better situation overall I think.

That's part of the reason I've recently come to prefer scrypt again. It has a mature market where anyone can purchase ASICs or rent as much hash power as they can afford. Networks are pretty secure and no one is left out. It would be pretty expensive to mount attacks on a decent sized network. SHA-256 is always an option but with the scale of Bitcoin mining I would be pretty scared of pissing the wrong person off or something, as happened before when Luke-jr attacked some random alt with an ASIC farm.

I don't really see the point of all these exotic algos other than for marketing purposes. I mean, in theory I guess their intentions are good, they want to make it more fair for everyone. But in reality I think we've seen that's not really the case. But it's not a disaster or anything either. Networks can run just fine on some of these algos, but a tested and mature PoW is better I believe.

[counter]

Mh, we really don't know if there is already a botnet out in the wild mining XMR coins. We know for sure, however, that there is a positive likelihood for the event that a botnet will enter the mining market, just because one can make little/big money with selling XMR coins. (IMO, botnet miners are likely to drive the price down by immediately selling their mined coins; but that is another point to be discussed.) Nevertheless, botnets are unlikely to overcome FPGAs and ASICs, once those enter the game, right?! That's why I'm mostly concerned about FPGA (and later ASIC) miners entering the field.

Did anyone use FPGAs for Bitcoin mining activities back in the good old BTC days? Would you agree that FPGAs could become a threat to today's Monero miners - worse then botnets (thinking of mining power percentages and cheaply mined coins)?

Several people have already said that they know people mining with botnets, so botnets are likely a thing, however how much of a problem botnets are remains to be seen.

Also, I think that FPGA mining would be the best spot for us to be in. Anyone can get hold of a FPGA and the code can be loaded from an open source repo, much like today's GPU miners. However this might pull power away from CPU miners and end the constant FUD about botnets. Even if botnets are not a problem, FPGA's ending the perceived botnet threat would do Monero good.

I agree with you. CryptoNote/CryptoNight algo FGPAs would be a good thing. An open market with anyone table to both buy FGPAs or rent hashing power from them is a much better situation overall I think.

That's part of the reason I've recently come to prefer scrypt again. It has a mature market where anyone can purchase ASICs or rent as much hash power as they can afford. Networks are pretty secure and no one is left out. It would be pretty expensive to mount attacks on a decent sized network. SHA-256 is always an option but with the scale of Bitcoin mining I would be pretty scared of pissing the wrong person off or something, as happened before when Luke-jr attacked some random alt with an ASIC farm.

I don't really see the point of all these exotic algos other than for marketing purposes. I mean, in theory I guess their intentions are good, they want to make it more fair for everyone. But in reality I think we've seen that's not really the case. But it's not a disaster or anything either. Networks can run just fine on some of these algos, but a tested and mature PoW is better I believe.

I think their would be more small miners if the coins like BTC, LTC or whatever had better distribution from mining.  Many people were afraid to even get their feet wet and invest their time/money for fear they would loose both.  Many people would mine now if the distribution of the coins I'd mentioned were more fair IMO.

[itod]

I'm just saying that CPU-only mining is the *fastest* way to get general adoption. The only problem is it's really, really hard to get GPU/ASIC resistant algorithm, but that will be solved eventually.

This is out of my depth, but here are my thoughts:

A GPU is different from a CPU mainly because a CPU is fewer more powerful cores, and a GPU is many slower cores. If this is the main difference, then building a CPU only algorithm seems like an impossible task.

It's not about the number of cores, algorithms we talked about (https://github.com/tromp/cuckoo/blob/master/cuckoo.pdf) resist massive parallelizability. If you are interested in details there's a bounty that GPU can't beat modern CPU: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=707879.0 It's not our grandpa's PoWs which were moved to GPUs in no time. We'll see if the bounty will be collected or not.

[r0ach]

as happened before when Luke-jr attacked some random alt with an ASIC farm.

It's funny because he posted about it and denies it completely, while everyone else says he did.

[Este Nuno]

as happened before when Luke-jr attacked some random alt with an ASIC farm.

It's funny because he posted about it and denies it completely, while everyone else says he did.

I thought that I read him denying using eligius hashing to attack the altcoin but acknowledging he used his own ASIC farm or something similar. I think he wanted to avoid people thinking he stole their hash from the pool.