51% - Only 2 solutions

[Azlan]

Its a classic common resource problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
"... individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource."

Historically, only 2 viable solutions exist:
1) An authority to regulate (% in this case)
2) Privatization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Modern_solutions

Pick your poison..... but be quick about it.


Ref: "The Tragedy of the Commons". Science 162 (3859): 1243–1248. 1968. doi:10.1126/science.162.3859.1243

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[justusranvier]

I clicked on thread expecting a false dichotomy, and I was not dissapointed.

[tvbcof]

Its a classic common resource problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
"... individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource."

Historically, only 2 viable solutions exist:
1) An authority to regulate (% in this case)
2) Privatization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Modern_solutions

Pick your poison..... but be quick about it.

Ref: "The Tragedy of the Commons". Science 162 (3859): 1243–1248. 1968. doi:10.1126/science.162.3859.1243

Presumably you are referring to miners and their supposed free will.  If so, you hit the nail on the head.  Anyway...

Don't worry about it.  Most people are way to fuckin stupid to understand what this means.  A fair fraction of those who do understand it are in favor of having ways for the authorities to manage the solution so the 51% is a good thing.  It's pretty artificial and easily rectified from a PR point of view anyway.  Just give have Google with %33, Facebook with 33%, and Microsoft with 33%.  The net effect is the same (or better actually) than a '51%'.  Most people who welcome the control will be delighted and most people who fear it will be put at ease.  The leftover dead-enders can work on something else.

[shorena]

Why the hell do you copy pasta the same post all over the board?

You can read my answer here if you really care about a discussion.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=650816.msg7303716#msg7303716

[darrenwgray]

As a relatively layman to the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency I can not see a successful 51% attack being of any benefit to the person undertaking it. I am sorry if I miss something simple and I will happily stand corrected; but to undertake the attack you have to have in excess of 51% of the total hashing power and that is  substantial in itself; I realise that GHash has been the most prominent group of servers to possibly achieve this.

Would they really do it though? They might have considered whether becoming the biggest of the big then they may become a regulator almost by default and without knowing anyone associated with GHash then maybe they don't want to.

but the only reasons that I could see a company with the amount of money invested in hardware to have 51% of the hashing power are:

• They were compromised.
• They had found some massive flaw that would very quickly render all of their hardware worthless.

Now. There is something that might not have been considered and I regret that I am not learned enough in Bitcoin to know how and where to look. If GHash went offline would the huge drop in hashing cause anyone else to have enough of a stake to do something? Reading between the lines I understand that it is massively unlikely that it would ever happen but there is always the minute chance.

[edmundedgar]

1) An authority to regulate (% in this case)

I'm not advocating calling them, but FWIW there already is an authority who could be regulating these guys. IIUC GHash are registered in London, so they'd be under the control of the UK's Financial Services Authority.

If you're just an ordinary node in a p2p network it would be none of their business, but once you're controlling over 50% of the network it's not really obvious that you're different to any regular, centralized payment processor like PayPal. In which case you need to be doing AML/KYC and all kinds of other expensive, bureaucratic things that would seriously erode your competitive advantage...

[Gianluca95]

Its a classic common resource problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
"... individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource."

Historically, only 2 viable solutions exist:
1) An authority to regulate (% in this case)
2) Privatization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Modern_solutions

Pick your poison..... but be quick about it.


Ref: "The Tragedy of the Commons". Science 162 (3859): 1243–1248. 1968. doi:10.1126/science.162.3859.1243

Think that if there will be a choice, the first of this is the best. "1) An authority to regulate (% in this case)"

[Sniar]

I think there should be a body to regulate it , like visa/mastercard or somesort.

Atleast it will be more solid and investors will be convinced ?

[devphp]

I think there should be a body to regulate it , like visa/mastercard or somesort.

Atleast it will be more solid and investors will be convinced ?

What would be the difference with visa/mastercard then? Bitcoin became as popular as it is, because it was deemed by early investors as not regulated. Regulation makes it the same as any other fiat currency - USD, Euro. Give at least one reason why more solid large investors would join just another regulated currency, if there are plenty of those already, issued by established countries or stock issued by established companies. Really large investors prefer government bonds, not only because bonds are risk-free for them, but also because large institutional investors are regulated to only buy bonds and a selected choice of established companies. Now, if we talk about private large investors, they wouldn't want to invest in something that can be regulated and taxed the hell out of.

[herzmeister]

mining pools are already quite privatized, afaik 

the problem at hand is not the tragedy of the commons (which is quite a myth, or falsely understood anyway, and has historically been a way to justify "private" or governmental rule over a hard to control stubborn "free" peasantry).

no, this is just a simple example of monopolization in a "free market" where this is supposed to never happen. But it does, even without "evil government" interfering. The devil just always shits on the biggest pile, as we say here Germany.

[marcotheminer]

People could just stop mining at certain mining pools? COUGH COUGH you know which ones..