Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Adrian-x]

The real problem is the inevitable centralization of mining.

Year after year, the number of active mining pools go up.

Year after year, concern trolls talk about the "inevitable centralization" of mining.

And year after year the bitcoin faithful bury their head in the sand, "if we don't worry about it, it is not a problem".

I have wondered if several decades from now, governments might not end up securing the blockchain by goverment-funded mining in order to protect the economy, property records etc. from evil 51% attacks by other nations or terrorist groups.  I might be dreaming of unicorns and rainbows though....

sure  it'll be a little messy if when they are attacking each others sidechains.

[smooth]

Very concerned about the long-term viability of this experiment.

Don't be concerned. Even if the "unknown" increases and reached 100%, it is extremely healthy, and was the normal state of affairs before mining pools were invented! Unknown miners are unknown to each other and can't collude. Yes, you can have a big secretive miner, like 18xf3MQ, but several exist today anyway.

You don't know and can't know that they are unknown to each other only that they are unknown to the person constructing the chart. For all we know "unknown" might be a single miner, or 90% of it might be a single miner. In fact that isn't extraordinarily unlikely given that most truly independent miners use known pools.

[marcus_of_augustus]

The only thing better than unknown miners is the P2Pool. The P2Pool has scaling problems, and maybe there needs to be many of them. This is an important development to further improve the mining situation.

Decentralised (actually highly distributed) pool mining hasn't eventuated yet because there hasn't been a market need for them ... and that, my friends, is the only hard FACT that you need to know about all the FUD surrounding the "mining centralisation" beat-up by the less-than-knowledgeable.

[Adrian-x]

oooooooh.  i am SO scared:

Yes, I know that you do not see anything wrong with that picture.  The top 6 companies have 60% of the hashrate.  What could possibly go wrong?  As long as there is sand around...

you know that attack vector is real, but it doesn't work like you think it does, (as illustrated by your earlier though experiment) there is a full force assault underway at the moment happening in the open, BlockStream are openly trying to insert the infamous (SPVP) change into the protocol, only the miners need adopt it, and there is a big carrot for them as the new income it would generate is advertised as coming from new services offered by new sidechains, and it is packaged as no downside risk other than a miniscule amount of CPU power and a a few hours of time.

It remains to be seen if it succeeds, both sides seem to be confidant, and it looks like the market has priced in the odds already.  

Time will tell if its a viable attack vector. as far as i can see it's now (over the next 2 years) or never as entropy has a way of closing such windows. it's time to wait and see  

[Adrian-x]

Yes, I know that you do not see anything wrong with that picture.  The top 6 companies have 60% of the hashrate.  What could possibly go wrong?  As long as there is sand around...

Yes, but you would be saying the same thing if it were 10 with 60% or 20 with 60%.  These are pools, miners can re-direct their rigs anytime.  They are not going to conspire to destroy BTC, what would be the point.

they might do it out of ignorance

[smooth]

On the topic of blocksize, is anyone else noticing the back up of transactions that is occurring due to the combination of a slowing hash rate (so more frequent long blocks -- right now only 2 blocks one block in the past hour) and these blocks filling up? My fee-paying transaction didn't make it into the last block (which was 976 kB) after waiting 20 minutes, and I'm now waiting an hour or so -- still no confirm.

[fonzie]

On the topic of blocksize, is anyone else noticing the back up of transactions that is occurring due to the combination of a slowing hash rate (so more frequent long blocks -- right now only 2 blocks one block in the past hour) and these blocks filling up? My fee-paying transaction didn't make it into the last block (which was 976 kB) after waiting 20 minutes, and I'm now waiting an hour or so -- still no confirm.

According to some experts from the mining forum the ETA for the total blockchain collapse is in <14d.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=681655.204802

[smooth]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=681655.204802

Broken link

BTW, last two blocks are now:

54 minutes   
1 hour 34 minutes

[Trolfi]

The transaction rate limits are fixable.  The real problem is the inevitable centralization of mining.  It seems that no one knows how to fix that.  Bitcoin with centralized mining does not make any sense.

[Kupsi]

The transaction rate limits are fixable.  The real problem is the inevitable centralization of mining.  It seems that no one knows how to fix that.  Bitcoin with centralized mining does not make any sense.

Why is it inevitable? A lot of people use electricity for heating. Create a bitcoin mining heater which is easy to use and the problem is solved.

[tvbcof]

On the topic of blocksize, is anyone else noticing the back up of transactions that is occurring due to the combination of a slowing hash rate (so more frequent long blocks -- right now only 2 blocks one block in the past hour) and these blocks filling up? My fee-paying transaction didn't make it into the last block (which was 976 kB) after waiting 20 minutes, and I'm now waiting an hour or so -- still no confirm.

According to some experts from the mining forum the ETA for the total blockchain collapse is in <14d.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=681655.204802

When a moderator says something like this and provides a link, it's best to run like hell and don't look back!

---

Someone posted a breakdown of the different type of trolls here a while ago and used as an example of the most primitive type 'fonzie (in his earlier career)' IIRC.  I've not run across you much for whatever reason, but I would agree that if you had been in the primitive group you've upped your game.  Keep up the good work

[tvbcof]

The transaction rate limits are fixable.  The real problem is the inevitable centralization of mining.  It seems that no one knows how to fix that.  Bitcoin with centralized mining does not make any sense.

Why is it inevitable? A lot of people use electricity for heating. Create a bitcoin mining heater which is easy to use and the problem is solved.

Well...it might get us through the winter I suppose...

[Kupsi]

The transaction rate limits are fixable.  The real problem is the inevitable centralization of mining.  It seems that no one knows how to fix that.  Bitcoin with centralized mining does not make any sense.

Why is it inevitable? A lot of people use electricity for heating. Create a bitcoin mining heater which is easy to use and the problem is solved.

Well...it might get us through the winter I suppose...

When you have summer, it's winter on the other side of the world.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

The transaction rate limits are fixable.  The real problem is the inevitable centralization of mining.  It seems that no one knows how to fix that.  Bitcoin with centralized mining does not make any sense.

Why is it inevitable? A lot of people use electricity for heating. Create a bitcoin mining heater which is easy to use and the problem is solved.

Well...it might get us through the winter I suppose...

Can anyone get one of these Bitcoin heaters? Home Hardware?

[tvbcof]

The transaction rate limits are fixable.  The real problem is the inevitable centralization of mining.  It seems that no one knows how to fix that.  Bitcoin with centralized mining does not make any sense.

Why is it inevitable? A lot of people use electricity for heating. Create a bitcoin mining heater which is easy to use and the problem is solved.

Well...it might get us through the winter I suppose...

When you have summer, it's winter on the other side of the world.

Very true.  All we need is to teach fish to mine Bitcoin and we're all set.

[Kupsi]

The transaction rate limits are fixable.  The real problem is the inevitable centralization of mining.  It seems that no one knows how to fix that.  Bitcoin with centralized mining does not make any sense.

Why is it inevitable? A lot of people use electricity for heating. Create a bitcoin mining heater which is easy to use and the problem is solved.

Well...it might get us through the winter I suppose...

When you have summer, it's winter on the other side of the world.

Very true.  All we need is to teach fish to mine Bitcoin and we're all set.

I also use electricity to heat the water in my shower 12 months a year.

[tvbcof]

I also use electricity to heat the water in my shower 12 months a year.

Don't get me wrong; I actually like the idea.  It is one way to achieve what I feel is among the most important factors; getting infrastructure support widely distributed among the userbase.

Back around the time when ASIC first appeared I hypothesized about a mining rig in the form-factor of a standard hot water heater heating element.  Not many people would swap out their entire water heater since it's an expensive hassle.  Far more people would screw in a new element to replace the existing one however.

Since then I've changed my mind on the economics.  For 4.5 years since I first read the whitepaper I felt that using Bitcoin as an exchange currency was absurd since it is so inefficient and such overkill.  As far as I'm concerned time has proven me right.  There is simply no realistic 'sweet spot' where transaction fees provide any real support.

Now, it might make sense if you had a handful of sidechains that you liked to support them and merge-mine Bitcoin on the side (since most sidechains would likely require it.)  I'm guessing that some sidechains would do such things as provide better service for those who actively provided infrastructure support.  Mostly I could see sidechains appealing to people because they are sponsored and benefit entities that the user wishes to support anyway.  With extra incentives like this I could imagine there being enough reason to acquire and operate mining rigs on otherwise free electricity.

[iCEBREAKER]

oooooooh.  i am SO scared:

Yes, I know that you do not see anything wrong with that picture.  The top 6 companies have 60% of the hashrate.  What could possibly go wrong?  As long as there is sand around...

OK, we get it.  You are yet another Marxist who resents/hates power laws and Pareto distributions.  You probably also think equality of outcome is the only proof of a system's fairness.  "ZOMG a Fibonacci retracement!  What about the children?  Call the BIS and print more money everywhere, forever!"

It's bad enough we have to put up with your type's wailing about how the few most innovative and productive people control far more assets than the useless eaters.

But now you're updating the SJW rhetoric and bringing it into the world of digital currencies, where we formerly had a moment of peace without you looters.

Such FUD hasn't slowed BTC down one iota, and it never will.  Because cryptography interprets regulation as damage, then routes around it.   

[solex]

Very concerned about the long-term viability of this experiment.

Don't be concerned. Even if the "unknown" increases and reached 100%, it is extremely healthy, and was the normal state of affairs before mining pools were invented! Unknown miners are unknown to each other and can't collude. Yes, you can have a big secretive miner, like 18xf3MQ, but several exist today anyway.

You don't know and can't know that they are unknown to each other only that they are unknown to the person constructing the chart. For all we know "unknown" might be a single miner, or 90% of it might be a single miner. In fact that isn't extraordinarily unlikely given that most truly independent miners use known pools.

We can't know. We can only think in probabilities.

P(mining pools collude) > P(unknown miners know each other) * P(unknown miners collude)

The odds that DF contacts Ghash (they have public email addresses) and they scheme up some unconfirmed tx censorship or double-spends, is highly unlikely as news of the stunt would crush both their business models, but is still more likely than the risk from unknown miners.

Assuming these total 50% which is not even the case now, hashpower is well spread out lately.

[cypherdoc]

Very concerned about the long-term viability of this experiment.

Don't be concerned. Even if the "unknown" increases and reached 100%, it is extremely healthy, and was the normal state of affairs before mining pools were invented! Unknown miners are unknown to each other and can't collude. Yes, you can have a big secretive miner, like 18xf3MQ, but several exist today anyway.

You don't know and can't know that they are unknown to each other only that they are unknown to the person constructing the chart. For all we know "unknown" might be a single miner, or 90% of it might be a single miner. In fact that isn't extraordinarily unlikely given that most truly independent miners use known pools.

We can't know. We can only think in probabilities.

P(mining pools collude) > P(unknown miners know each other) * P(unknown miners collude)

The odds that DF contacts Ghash (they have public email addresses) and they scheme up some unconfirmed tx censorship or double-spends, is highly unlikely as news of the stunt would crush both their business models, but is still more likely than the risk from unknown miners.

Assuming these total 50% which is not even the case now, hashpower is well spread out lately.

the 2 *olfi's around here seem incapable of noting trend in the mining distribution charts, ie, moving towards decreased centralization as mining becomes commoditized.