Can we drop the decentralization lie yet?

[devphp]

PoW is doomed in the long run, but many bitcoiners are in denial.

[turvarya]

What harm can people really do, when they have 51+% of the hashing power?
They can redirect the hashing power to build an alternative blockchain, which will overtake the "real" blockchain and lose a lot of BTC reward in the progress
How long can someone keep this power?
We are talking about a pool. they do not really have the hashing power. If they harm the network, people can easily decide to go to another pool.
Can they even decide, that all the people in their pool use their hashing power for harmful use?

I am not really familiar with how this whole technology works exactly. Maybe some more techie person can give me some answers.

[Ardenyham]

PoW is doomed in the long run, but many bitcoiners are in denial.

PoW means fairest distribution. If the block rewards will become problem in future, Bitcoin can be modified if there is consenzus. I just dont like the idea of central authority to issue coins (first coins or later as well) so others can buy these, which is basically PoS.

[devphp]

PoW means fairest distribution.

Mining is becoming profitable only for few largest mining farms, don't you see a contradiction with your 'fairest distribution' argument here?

[fdiini]

“It’s accelerated out of the garage and the homes, to the small businesses, to the large data centers, and now you’ve got to have a mega data center for it to be profitable.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-21/bitcoin-miner-ditches-clients-to-chase-2-billion-coding-prize.html

KNC bitcoin central issuing authority.. great job guys creating the same shit sytem we already have. 

People who invest will become a bagholder. Pretty much same as anyone foolish enough to buy their miners.

[arbitrage001]

PoW means fairest distribution.

Mining is becoming profitable only for few largest mining farms, don't you see a contradiction with your 'fairest distribution' argument here?

Right on spot.

But this is only true if fabrication technology remain expensive. May be one day everyone can own a small lab and use 3d printer to print their own low cost asic.

[btcxyzzz]

“It’s accelerated out of the garage and the homes, to the small businesses, to the large data centers, and now you’ve got to have a mega data center for it to be profitable.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-21/bitcoin-miner-ditches-clients-to-chase-2-billion-coding-prize.html

KNC bitcoin central issuing authority.. great job guys creating the same shit sytem we already have. 

FIAT: let's add something like 100000000000 USD... OK, type that number there.
BTC: hmmmm... not that easy.

Don't talk shit here. Bitcoin is far far better than fiat in that sense.

[tatu]

PoW is doomed in the long run, but many bitcoiners are in denial.

PoW means fairest distribution. If the block rewards will become problem in future, Bitcoin can be modified if there is consenzus. I just dont like the idea of central authority to issue coins (first coins or later as well) so others can buy these, which is basically PoS.

I think it will have to be changed in the future. I just wish the mining would be fairer for all and anyone could still mine bitcoins. I think in the future it could become unsustainable if it becomes more and more expensive to mine etc.

[ytr8]

Speak in superlatives, deceive people who don't know that ,I hope that we won't see these in future.

[Q7]

With all the ongoing discussion, there is only one thing clear for me. As long as mining is controlled only by the big miners, there is no such thing as what you refer to as decentralization.

[johnyj]

Cheap chinese miners will take much more market share, currently the discuss fish pool is already the No. 1 in hash power

Miners with free electricity will ultimately win against large mining farms, large mining farms can only stand a while with newer chip design, but their cost is significantly higher when difficulty eventually rise and electricity becomes more than half of the cost of each coin

But the biggest worry is that large banks will eventually build huge mining farms through funding, they could loan out 1 billion (out of nothing) to build and run a cluster of large mining farms thus control more than 70% of the network hash power easily and destroy the credibility of bitcoin transaction. I think knc is on this route to become their puppet, since they think in terms of fiat money

[chenka563]

What happens to the btc community if their infrastructure fails in a few years? What effect would that have?

it can't fail .we should trust the BTC, and  the btc community!

[SBradford]

So decentralization was just a lie to attract the world towards bitcoin for traders's gain?

[devphp]

So decentralization was just a lie to attract the world towards bitcoin for traders's gain?

It wasn't a lie in the beginning when everybody could mine bitcoins with their low end hardware, but it's turning more and more into a lie now.

[inBitweTrust]

So decentralization was just a lie to attract the world towards bitcoin for traders's gain?

Welcome to bitcoin. Bitcoin is an open source project where these issues have been discussed openly and honestly for years. Centralization of mining isn't unexpected:

The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale.  That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server.  The design supports letting users just be users.  The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be.  Those few nodes will be big server farms.  The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate.

Many people are confused to the risks of this consolidation and exaggerate the concerns. Please do a little more research into the incentives structure which discourages attacking the network even if there are only 100 mining farms and what a 51% attack actually does and how quickly it would be identified and prevented if it ever did happen.  

[opossum]

Cheap chinese miners will take much more market share, currently the discuss fish pool is already the No. 1 in hash power

Miners with free electricity will ultimately win against large mining farms, large mining farms can only stand a while with newer chip design, but their cost is significantly higher when difficulty eventually rise and electricity becomes more than half of the cost of each coin

But the biggest worry is that large banks will eventually build huge mining farms through funding, they could loan out 1 billion (out of nothing) to build and run a cluster of large mining farms thus control more than 70% of the network hash power easily and destroy the credibility of bitcoin transaction. I think knc is on this route to become their puppet, since they think in terms of fiat money

I don't think this would be a serious threat. First of all an attacker (the "big bad banks" in your case) would need to spend actual money in order to launch such an attack, money they would end up loosing in an attack, when they could earn more money by acting honestly.

If a bank were to lend out money they would need to put some amount of money aside to account for the possibility that the loan will not be repaid, and it would certainly not be repaid as any attacker would not make any money from such an attack

[BBmmBB]

What happens to the btc community if their infrastructure fails in a few years? What effect would that have?

"the btc community"  <------ bwaahahahaha 

[Lethn]

Keep trying to push down the price guys so it's easier for me to get more, I appreciate it.

[jennifer21]

Keep trying to push down the price guys so it's easier for me to get more, I appreciate it.

lol same here. loving the low bitcoin price right now.

[Febo]

Keep trying to push down the price guys so it's easier for me to get more, I appreciate it.

lol same here. loving the low bitcoin price right now.

Well you will find out that there always happens that you can buy cheaper