A Public Plea to Bitcoin Developers and Supporters alike

[Lupus_Yonderboy]

So smart to see so little. How are changes to the protocol made? They are voted on by the miners. It only takes a few THash miners to drive the difficulty so high everybody else gets squeezed out. So when a few control a majority of the network, it will be they that decide what BIPs get approved or not.  And when those few miners decide they want 3% of every transaction there won't be a damn thing you can do about it. So much for a decentralized currency. This was your last chance to keep Bitcoin in the hands of the people, because once those ASICs start rolling out it will be too late. Hopefully Bitcoin 2.0 will address this issue (amongst others).

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[Vladimir]

The whole BFL announcement is currently a whole lot of nothing. Nothing. There were many parts that didn't make any sense either, the electricity efficiency is off the scale and the pricing is ridiculously low. I wouldn't even THINK about this before there is something more solid let alone wonder into any conclusions about the consequences. There are no consequences right now because there is nothing.

I have to agree, that BFL announcement seems to be a tad too optimistic. Unless they got 30+ million USD venture funding, which seems to be rather improbable.

[teflone]

I agree, BFL is spreading FUD..

And this wont be for quite a while I presume..  Well after the reward halving.

And then, when they ship the first one..  they wont have enough to go around..

Just look at how pathetic they are handling the FPGA's, which are easily obtained.

Their stats, and prices is just FUD, a game to stop other companies starting up.. 


So yes, they are being stupid, and killing the spirit somewhat..


Im not a fan of how they do biz..   They have a lot to learn..   And customer service has to exist eventually..

Because at this point, the FPGA's were a scam..   how many are out in the wild?   100-250 ?  whoop dee doo

[mccorvic]

So smart to see so little. How are changes to the protocol made? They are voted on by the miners. It only takes a few THash miners to drive the difficulty so high everybody else gets squeezed out. So when a few control a majority of the network, it will be they that decide what BIPs get approved or not.  And when those few miners decide they want 3% of every transaction there won't be a damn thing you can do about it. So much for a decentralized currency. This was your last chance to keep Bitcoin in the hands of the people, because once those ASICs start rolling out it will be too late. Hopefully Bitcoin 2.0 will address this issue (amongst others).

I really can't imagine a scenario or fix where miners with more resources don't have more advantage over "the people". Just kinda how these things work. People with access to dozens of GPUs are going to dominate miners with a dual-core CPU.  Eventually difficulty will increase and payouts decrease that only a handful of people will be able to mine successfully even WITHOUT ASIC coming into being.


Also, there's something funny about people arguing that bitcoin should be changed to keep some people out for the sake of "the people".  

And that said, BFL does look like a whole lotta vapor ware to me anyways.

[Vladimir]

Their stats, and prices is just FUD, a game to stop other companies starting up.. 

And it is not working.

[hazek]

So smart to see so little. How are changes to the protocol made? They are voted on by the miners. It only takes a few THash miners to drive the difficulty so high everybody else gets squeezed out. So when a few control a majority of the network, it will be they that decide what BIPs get approved or not.  And when those few miners decide they want 3% of every transaction there won't be a damn thing you can do about it. So much for a decentralized currency. This was your last chance to keep Bitcoin in the hands of the people, because once those ASICs start rolling out it will be too late. Hopefully Bitcoin 2.0 will address this issue (amongst others).

Wrong.

Those who run the full client but do not mine have just as much say in which BIPs are adopted and which aren't. If miners alter the protocol in anyway that isn't backwards compatible everyone else will reject their blocks and the chain will get forked.

I suggest you learn how the protocol works before you make baseless and false comments.

[evoorhees]

Personally, I encourage all hardware developers to be as awesome as BFL. OP's complaint basically boils down to "those guys are too good, and the community should prevent them from being successful."

I welcome BFL's announcement and can't wait to buy some of the new hardware.

Any monopoly earned through virtue and brilliant achievement is legitimate. If nobody can compete with BFL, then so be it.

[rjk]

Personally, I encourage all hardware developers to be as awesome as BFL. OP's complaint basically boils down to "those guys are too good, and the community should prevent them from being successful."

I welcome BFL's announcement and can't wait to buy some of the new hardware.

Any monopoly earned through virtue and brilliant achievement is legitimate. If nobody can compete with BFL, then so be it.

The monopoly is good, the business practices are not.

[jimbobway]

Personally, I encourage all hardware developers to be as awesome as BFL. OP's complaint basically boils down to "those guys are too good, and the community should prevent them from being successful."

I welcome BFL's announcement and can't wait to buy some of the new hardware.

Any monopoly earned through virtue and brilliant achievement is legitimate. If nobody can compete with BFL, then so be it.

The monopoly is good, the business practices are not.

BFL could truly be evil and keep all of their technology for themselves and not sell it to the general public.  Instead, they are "nice" and sell their technology to anyone who wishes to mine.  They could easily, easily, take over the network and hold 99% of the remaining bitcoins to be mined.  Yet, they have decided to sell their equipment to everyone.

[rjk]

Personally, I encourage all hardware developers to be as awesome as BFL. OP's complaint basically boils down to "those guys are too good, and the community should prevent them from being successful."

I welcome BFL's announcement and can't wait to buy some of the new hardware.

Any monopoly earned through virtue and brilliant achievement is legitimate. If nobody can compete with BFL, then so be it.

The monopoly is good, the business practices are not.

BFL could truly be evil and keep all of their technology for themselves and not sell it to the general public.  Instead, they are "nice" and sell their technology to anyone who wishes to mine.  They could easily, easily, take over the network and hold 99% of the remaining bitcoins in existence.  Yet, they have decided to sell their equipment to everyone.

I meant the things like broken promises about performance and shipping times. But yes, selling to the public instead of keeping it to themselves is only logical, since it ought to make more in the long run.

[jimbobway]

Personally, I encourage all hardware developers to be as awesome as BFL. OP's complaint basically boils down to "those guys are too good, and the community should prevent them from being successful."

I welcome BFL's announcement and can't wait to buy some of the new hardware.

Any monopoly earned through virtue and brilliant achievement is legitimate. If nobody can compete with BFL, then so be it.

The monopoly is good, the business practices are not.

BFL could truly be evil and keep all of their technology for themselves and not sell it to the general public.  Instead, they are "nice" and sell their technology to anyone who wishes to mine.  They could easily, easily, take over the network and hold 99% of the remaining bitcoins in existence.  Yet, they have decided to sell their equipment to everyone.

I meant the things like broken promises about performance and shipping times. But yes, selling to the public instead of keeping it to themselves is only logical, since it ought to make more in the long run.

Some believe this is not true.  I can't say anymore since I'm under NDA.

[Technomage]

BFL could truly be evil and keep all of their technology for themselves and not sell it to the general public.  Instead, they are "nice" and sell their technology to anyone who wishes to mine.  They could easily, easily, take over the network and hold 99% of the remaining bitcoins to be mined.  Yet, they have decided to sell their equipment to everyone.

I don't think that praising them for making sound business decisions leads to the conclusion that they are good instead of evil. Hoarding the chips just doesn't make sense because even though you would get all the bitcoins you'd cause a serious trust erosion which would lead to at least a crash of the value of bitcoins, possibly even total failure of the whole concept.

The money needed to fund these sorts of things doesn't come from thin air, the investors behind it are making sound business decisions. If they were "evil" they would most likely not get the backing or if they did, then there would be something wrong. With Bitcoin a mining monopoly is not just a bad thing, it's potentially catastrophic. Most Bitcoin users and most likely the biggest holders of bitcoins love this currency for what it is and a single entity having the power to shut down the network at any time is not part of that.

So I would rephrase that selling and distributing those chips is them not being total idiots, it has nothing to do with them being good or bad. Although obviously they are more good than bad and gain respect by doing this. Simply because they do have the power to make different choices but they choose wisely.

[wachtwoord]

Personally, I encourage all hardware developers to be as awesome as BFL. OP's complaint basically boils down to "those guys are too good, and the community should prevent them from being successful."

I welcome BFL's announcement and can't wait to buy some of the new hardware.

Any monopoly earned through virtue and brilliant achievement is legitimate. If nobody can compete with BFL, then so be it.

This. If you don't like what they do, compete with them.

To me one of the big advantages of the current economy around Bitcoin is that it is the only thing I know even closely resembling a free market. Did I say I love free markets? 

[Technomage]

This. If you don't like what they do, compete with them.

To me one of the big advantages of the current economy around Bitcoin is that it is the only thing I know even closely resembling a free market. Did I say I love free markets? 

I also agree with this. With the invention of the Internet and p2p networks and now finally Bitcoin, a free market works more and more efficiently. The future is of the free markets because information moves freely and efficiently and now money moves freely and efficiently as well. Also the barriers of entry to new markets that use these technologies are so small that it also helps and keeps the markets competitive.

[phelix]

should things really get ugly we can simply fork and have a majority vote.

[Melbustus]

It would be insane for ASIC producers to hoard all the chips for themselves and use them on the network directly because of the trust erosion it would cause for Bitcoin. No one can be allowed to have the power of a 51% attack and any business minded entity will voluntarily skip that route. It's gargantually more profitable to sell those chips so that they're distributed. So I wouldn't really worry about this in any case.

+1. Bitcoin as a concept is unstable until we get to current technological edge (which is ASICs); ie, until no further effort requiring only a few $million can meaningfully influence hashing power. Once there are a bunch of big ASIC farms, we'll be at that point. Before then, some malevolent entity *can* theoretically build a 51% attack for sub-$10M (via ASICs). Having ASIC mining actually distributed, even if just a dozen big farms or so, will be a good thing.

The real point at which the bitcoin community can breathe a little easier is when hashing power is sufficiently large so that a government can't launch a 51% attack. Though that'll be a while - a few $B buys a lot of hashing...

[nedbert9]

Stop mining (when you are forced to) and take that passion and drive and build something (anything) which makes Bitcoin better.  I am no longer expanding my farm, and eventually will be forced to turn it off and guess what ... I have never been more exciting about Bitcoin. Cellcoin is a fun and exciting project.  Maybe it won't go anywhere but I am having fun USING Bitcoin to create value.

I hate to break it to you but your mom, and non techy friends, and small business owner couldn't give two rats farts about what makes Bitcoin secure.  They only care that it IS secure, has value, and they can make/save money using it.  The last element has been sorely neglected.  Be part of the solution to fix that.

+1000000


The only thing keeping mining alive right now is subsidy.  If there is no widespread adoption then tx fees will not be sufficient to keep mining incentivized.  Not a good situation. 


Concerned about mining gear depreciation and infinite ROI brought on by proprietary ASICs and crazy high difficulty?  There is a reasonable solution.

Show your support for open, community developed ASIC where profit margins would be negligible.  Infinite ROI would be primarily attributed to hefty profit margins in the face of plummeting returns as difficulty goes way, way up.

Really, ASICs are a good thing, but not at 10x cost of production.

[Dalkore]

In essence the ONLY reason to change the algorithm is if there is a security problem with it, which at the moment there is not.

The only problem with this line of thinking is that when you do have a problem, it will be too late.    I am looking for more formal guidance from BFL and maybe some added information on what there intentions are long-term.  They have to understand politics do play apart in this because so many peoples hard work and investment is tied to Bitcoin so they have a RESPONSIBILITY to understand the fortunate position and power they weld.   

If they disagree or anyone on here responds with, "they can do whatever they want", in my opinion, don't really believe in Bitcoin for its important place in history and are really just in it to profiteer.   In any case, thats what we already have in the world around us, but here we "could" actually try and work together to change things so we help not only the big players grow, but the small one too so we have a robust network and people we have a pleasure to work with.   Maybe it is idealistic, but I don't think this bar is set too high.

I want to build something that will be here after I am not and is in a better shape than I left it

.02 BTC
Dalkore

[Littleshop]

1)    BitForce SC Jalapeno: a USB powered coffee warmer providing 3.5 GH/s, priced at under $149
2)    BitForce SC Single: a standalone unit providing roughly 40 GH/s, priced at $1,299
3)    BitForce SC Mini Rig: a case & rack mount server providing 1 TH/s, priced at $29,899

$150 for 3.5 GH/s ? .......this will surely be the downfall of Bitcoin as we know it.
Love me or hate me,
bitlane.

The only danger is in the beginning and BFL can address that situation.  In the beginning, one entity could buy up 51% for about 600,000.  If BFL does not allow one person to buy that many at once... or even just staggers delivery to known different buyers there is really not a big problem.  

This is the free market, and the buyers will be taking a bunch of risks.  One is that they spend $30,000 and the protocol changes in such a way that they can not keep up.  Even buyers of the current FPGA single probably do not fact that problem as it is more programmable.  

Video card miners can sell their cards.  People who keep boxes and keep items in good condition could get more then 50% or more of what they paid for their cards.  They are not doing so bad!

Think of it this way, right now bitcoin is subsidizing the power industry, who does not give back to the bitcoin community.  With bitforce SC products the money is going into the community instead of the power industry.  

[DeathAndTaxes]

The only danger is in the beginning and BFL can address that situation.  In the beginning, one entity could buy up 51% for about 600,000.  If BFL does not allow one person to buy that many at once... or even just staggers delivery to known different buyers there is really not a big problem.  

Don't worry if there is one thing BFL is good at it is not delivery enough product to make a difference.   I am still waiting on my single from over two months ago.