True distribution: limit hashing power to (for example) 1TH/s per IP address

[BenTuras]

Bitcoin mining is getting more and more into the hands of only a few BIG players, who are throwing multiple 10's of PH/s at the network at the cost of enormous electricity usage and grabbing almost all the BTC produced.

Before we know it, the whole ecosystem depends on these players, with all the risk that comes with this.

Shouldn't we start a movement to back out of this strangling hold, by bringing back mining to the miners at home, by limiting the production of each miner to for example 1TH/s per unique IP address ?

Sure, you can have multiple IP addresses, but suppose we'll have 100,000 miners, will there be one party that can get another 100,000 unique IP addresses to achieve the 50% attack ?

I know there will be challenges to make this happen, but still I think it is a wise move to make.

1. It will limit the electricity needed to keep the bitcoin network alive.
2. It will bring back advantages to run bitcoin mining hardware to the small miner.
3. It will limit the hashing power that can be in one hand.
4. It will make small miners enthusiastic about mining again, and the bitcoin exchange rate might go up again.
5. It's better to have 100,000 miners each making 0.036BTC/day, compared to 10 miners making 350BTC/day and leave some crumbs to the rest.
6. I am sure there are other positive things that will come out of it that I didn't think of.

There are also disadvantages to a few parties that are really big now, but I bet the majority wouldn't mind them getting small again.

I didn't think of all the technicalities needed to make this hack-proof, there are others way smarter than me to do that.

[CryptoCurrencyInc.com]

Limiting it to 1 TH/s per IP address is a good idea.

Also, the system need not to be able to ban any IP.

[neoneros]

It seems the cryptocurrency are going in the same direction as the othe fiat currencies. The whole trading in BTC is making it an unstable currency, people investing in BTC or mining BTC want fast ROI. It would have been wiser to fix the value of the bitcoin, to take the bigmac index for example to a big mac menu, and tie in on that with the fastfood franchise and launch a BTC Mc Menu for 1 BTC, everywhere around the world.

Limiting mining would cause other problems I guess, ip spoofing is too easy to be done, it would not have prevented big guys emerging and I think the current affairs are going ok, it might be better if you could adopt bitcoins to manage, other than mine, there are BTC that have gone missing because of a faulty mining setup, they were mined but not credited to a miner and other causes. You can never be certain that no one ever will havemore than 50% of all bitcoins in hand, if you have enough resources at hand you can buy up other miners and put them in a construction on paper so it will not look like you have 50%, but you still have the power to steer it in your direction.

[shorena]

What would prevent those big miners to just buy an /32 IPv6 Block and up the hashingpower to 4,194,304 PH/s?

It would just make things more complicated and change nothing. E.g. every person that currently has 2TH/s would have a problem.

[hardshot]

What would prevent those big miners to just buy an /32 IPv6 Block and up the hashingpower to 4,194,304 PH/s?

It would just make things more complicated and change nothing. E.g. every person that currently has 2TH/s would have a problem.

+1

[franky1]

the psychology, economy of mining suggest otherwise.

big whales have issues trying to buy bitcoins through exchanges due to daily limits and amlkyc, thus big investors found new routes.

many shrimp naively believe that large miners will mine coins and cash out to pay electric using the proceeds of the coins. the truth is that the bigger the mining company the better it is for bitcoin.

little shrimp think big miners are cashing out, simply because the little shrimp cash out and they think thats how the mining game is played.

but in actual fact, big investors keep their fiat and spend it on rigs and electric. and then as they produce bitcoin they keep the bitcoin as bitcoin, and then just continue using their fiat investment lumpsum to pay electric.

also many fiat investors hand mining companies fiat (directly/privately) to pay electric in exchange to hold bitcoin, and this is done privately and not on exchanges.

messing with this to let the little shrimp and small fish make profits will bring back the naive plan to sell bitcoins on exchanges to pay electric because the small shrimp dont have fiat upfront savings to pay the electric to keep bitcoin.

the little shrimp are the ones cashing out. and this makes little shrimp NOT bitcoin investors, but electric company investors as the only thing little shrimmp have to show for their efforts is 0 bitcoin and a piece of paper that says electric bill paid in full.

by attempting to force new protocols that make 100,000 people solo mine is also flawed as the whole argument of only 1 person gets the whole share of 25btc, means that 99,999 other people have to wait for 10 minutes for the next block for their chance. and if you do the maths, no one will wait 2 years just for 1 chance of 25bitcoins.

so what would happen is that people would circumvent the code somehow to reform pools and collaborate/share the wins so that they are not waiting upto 2 years for 25bitcoins but waiting 10 minutes for smaller amounts, but regularly. (returning to the pools of today, thus changing eventually changes nothing)

and we of course come back to the large whale investors who wont want to wait months-years for ROI thus they also will find ways to circumvent the OP's proposed changes to be able to invest in 1 large pool rather than making random 100,000 small microloans.

mining is not suppose to be the get rich for free method for little shrimp. that was the naive sales pitch people told each other to get their friends into bitcoin without actually explaining bitcoins real benefits

the OP's mindset is the mindset that little shrimp have, that only want to pay $500 in the hopes of getting $75,000 ROI within 2 years. which is their selfish and lazy mindset, that does not help the community.

think about it. large whales cant buy in through exchanges and shrimp are only putting in $500 and then taking out $75k.. psychologically, socially, economically and practically it wont help the community in the long run as these shrimp winning their lottery will cash out their $75k and tank the price.

in short, smart people invest thousands to make small but continual profits. where not so smart people want to invest small amounts and hope for large returns.

if little shrimp want to make a profit. mine litecoins until you have enough to then become a big player in the bitcoin mining arena, treat litecoin as the entry point for cryptocurrency for the little shrimp to learn and understand the economy. and then if they want to step up their game, move into bitcoin mining.

[franky1]

It seems the cryptocurrency are going in the same direction as the othe fiat currencies. The whole trading in BTC is making it an unstable currency, people investing in BTC or mining BTC want fast ROI. It would have been wiser to fix the value of the bitcoin, to take the bigmac index for example to a big mac menu, and tie in on that with the fastfood franchise and launch a BTC Mc Menu for 1 BTC, everywhere around the world.

not sure if your realising it. but replace bigmac with "cost of living" index, you are definitely on the right path to the future of bitcoin price measuring.

[101111]

"It will limit the electricity needed to keep the bitcoin network alive."

Centralised ops would be far more efficient.

[franky1]

"It will limit the electricity needed to keep the bitcoin network alive."

Centralised ops would be far more efficient.

+1

as OP suggest everyone only has 1Thash unit requiring a 1kw PSU. yet a 4Thash units uses far less that 4kw PSU

[neoneros]

It seems the cryptocurrency are going in the same direction as the othe fiat currencies. The whole trading in BTC is making it an unstable currency, people investing in BTC or mining BTC want fast ROI. It would have been wiser to fix the value of the bitcoin, to take the bigmac index for example to a big mac menu, and tie in on that with the fastfood franchise and launch a BTC Mc Menu for 1 BTC, everywhere around the world.

not sure if your realising it. but replace bigmac with "cost of living" index, you are definitely on the right path to the future of bitcoin price measuring.

Cost of living index would indeed be nice to achieve for the BTC and a worldwide currency, it is what I was aiming at, it is a label you put on things, thought the big mac would make it a bit more copeable.
Cost of living would mean a big change in one go, economic and political, starting small and make it more accesible to the public, gradualy getting more acceptance and eventualy take over the world is a more plausible path to take, where it might end up, who knows.

[BenTuras]

What would prevent those big miners to just buy an /32 IPv6 Block and up the hashingpower to 4,194,304 PH/s?

It would just make things more complicated and change nothing. E.g. every person that currently has 2TH/s would have a problem.

For 4,194,304 PH/s you'll need 4,194,304,000 IP addresses. Good luck acquiring them...

Why would a 2TH/s person have a problem ? Today he is making 0.02902BTC and this is declining, which is less than he would make with an even distribution of the daily 3600BTC, until the number of participants is more than 120,000. And I am not taking electricity cost into account here, which would halve.

[corebob]

Sounds like a good idea. If you ask me, taking measures to keep bitcoin decentralized is not just in line with the original ideas, its necessary for bitcoins survival.

[BenTuras]

First of all, thanks for comparing me to a little shrimp 

the psychology, economy of mining suggest otherwise.

Does that make it right?

big whales have issues trying to buy bitcoins through exchanges due to daily limits and amlkyc, thus big investors found new routes.

So what that they have issues? Do we need those big whales ?

many shrimp naively believe that large miners will mine coins and cash out to pay electric using the proceeds of the coins. the truth is that the bigger the mining company the better it is for bitcoin.

I have been mining for many years and never exchanged BTC for fiat to pay for electricity. So your assumption is wrong, at least for me and probably for a lot more small miners. I have used btc to pay for goods many times. It is out of my control what the merchant did with my payment tho.
Why is a bigger mining company better for bitcoin ? Care to explain?

little shrimp think big miners are cashing out, simply because the little shrimp cash out and they think thats how the mining game is played.

And how do you know this for a fact ? Got any reference ?

by attempting to force new protocols that make 100,000 people solo mine is also flawed as the whole argument of only 1 person gets the whole share of 25btc, means that 99,999 other people have to wait for 10 minutes for the next block for their chance. and if you do the maths, no one will wait 2 years just for 1 chance of 25bitcoins.

Where did I say we would all solo mine ? Ever heard of p2pool, which would be a great way to achieve this, perhaps with some modifications ?

so what would happen is that people would circumvent the code somehow to reform pools and collaborate/share the wins so that they are not waiting upto 2 years for 25bitcoins but waiting 10 minutes for smaller amounts, but regularly. (returning to the pools of today, thus changing eventually changes nothing)

That's why I said I don't have all the answers, my OP was just to start the discussion.

and we of course come back to the large whale investors who wont want to wait months-years for ROI thus they also will find ways to circumvent the OP's proposed changes to be able to invest in 1 large pool rather than making random 100,000 small microloans.

Do we needs pools if we're all on p2pool ?

mining is not suppose to be the get rich for free method for little shrimp. that was the naive sales pitch people told each other to get their friends into bitcoin without actually explaining bitcoins real benefits

Your constant usage of the words little shrimp is annoying. One insult is already more than enough.

the OP's mindset is the mindset that little shrimp have, that only want to pay $500 in the hopes of getting $75,000 ROI within 2 years. which is their selfish and lazy mindset, that does not help the community.

think about it. large whales cant buy in through exchanges and shrimp are only putting in $500 and then taking out $75k.. psychologically, socially, economically and practically it wont help the community in the long run as these shrimp winning their lottery will cash out their $75k and tank the price.

Please use a better calculator. At the current exchange rate, 0.036BTC a day is roughly us$4500 a year.

in short, smart people invest thousands to make small but continual profits. where not so smart people want to invest small amounts and hope for large returns.

Continual profits is impossible within the current rat race. If you stop investing, you will be out of profit soon because of the almost constant raise in difficulty. You need to keep on investing to return more or less the same, how odd is that to do?

if little shrimp want to make a profit. mine litecoins until you have enough to then become a big player in the bitcoin mining arena, treat litecoin as the entry point for cryptocurrency for the little shrimp to learn and understand the economy. and then if they want to step up their game, move into bitcoin mining.

All virtual currencies that I know have the same problem, being a rat race where people invest to get more returns, which doesn't work because the other miner is also investing more to get more. If we limit the returns, there is no need to invest more, because you will not get higher returns. Also the electricity usage will not explode like it does now. MegaWatts are wasted to do an enormous amount of calculations that once in a million return a satoshi.

I rather play a lottery that has 10,000 prices of us$100, than a lottery that has 1 price of us$1,000,000. That is, if a ticket cost us$1.

[BenTuras]

"It will limit the electricity needed to keep the bitcoin network alive."

Centralised ops would be far more efficient.

Probably true, but that's exactly what we don't want: centralised.
Next year we'll have 1TH/s using 100W. I rather have 100,000 people mining and using 100W than the enormous amount of electricity we're using now.

[Q7]

While it's a very good thought unfortunately it can't be done. At this stage any change will be considered too drastic. Plus it won't like make the problem go away. Eventually miners will find a way to overcome that. Perhaps an altcoin starting from scratch might be possible. However haven't really seen one which addresses all bitcoin weaknesses

[DannyHamilton]

Bitcoin is peer-to-peer and decentralized.

Therefore, it is impossible to know for certain how much hash power a particular IP address has.

Since it is impossible to know how much hash power an IP has, it is impossible to keep someone using that IP from running additional hash power.

[BenTuras]

If there was a way to implement this i would be in full support, but 1thash seems pretty low, I mean im in a 1 bedroom apartment and have 800ghash and an s3 coming that would put me over the 1thash limit. I feel like maybe 5Thash would be more suitable.

Why would you like to use more electricity if in return the amount of BTC you get will be the same ? (The idea is that we all have the same power, so also the same electricity usage). In that scenario, it doesn't matter if it's 1TH/s or 5TH/s.
You might want to enjoy the extra warmth generated?

[BenTuras]

Bitcoin is peer-to-peer and decentralized.

Therefore, it is impossible to know for certain how much hash power a particular IP address has.

Since it is impossible to know how much hash power an IP has, it is impossible to keep someone using that IP from running additional hash power.

I agree, but your hashing power has a relation to the number of shares you find. That's how a pool can display your hashrate. So it can't be too difficult to implement this by limiting the number of shares per IP address.

[DannyHamilton]

Bitcoin is peer-to-peer and decentralized.

Therefore, it is impossible to know for certain how much hash power a particular IP address has.

Since it is impossible to know how much hash power an IP has, it is impossible to keep someone using that IP from running additional hash power.

I agree, but your hashing power has a relation to the number of shares you find. That's how a pool can display your hashrate. So it can't be too difficult to implement this by limiting the number of shares per IP address.

What if a mining pool refused to limit some of their users?  How would you know?  You have to assume that the mining pool that is willing to go against your "rule" is willing to lie about how many shares they are receiving per IP address.

[cr1776]

What would prevent those big miners to just buy an /32 IPv6 Block and up the hashingpower to 4,194,304 PH/s?

It would just make things more complicated and change nothing. E.g. every person that currently has 2TH/s would have a problem.

For 4,194,304 PH/s you'll need 4,194,304,000 IP addresses. Good luck acquiring them...

Why would a 2TH/s person have a problem ? Today he is making 0.02902BTC and this is declining, which is less than he would make with an even distribution of the daily 3600BTC, until the number of participants is more than 120,000. And I am not taking electricity cost into account here, which would halve.

He said IPv6 so getting the IPs are no problem.

Then there is the TOR issue.

The big issue is how you'd implement it on a distributed, peer to peer network.