Oddbean

#4 Bitcoin mining is indeed centralized. Too much for sure, and other aspects of the network should also be more decentralized. But that is not its job: that is your job. This natural money is just a method of securing transactions economically and globally. How those transactions are carried is a different story, maybe yours. We just need ways to transfer those bytes accross the houses, streets and the globe, a pretty simple task isn't it? Satoshi Nakamoto set already the right path by "the network is robust by its unstructured simplicity" and "messages only need to be delivered on best effort basis". It is up to us to implement the best strategies for this.

#₿ #₿itcoin #bitcoin #nostr #hamradio #amateurradio nostr:nevent1qqsr5ve9zkgeeh32kjedg5jwcp8qrhkkvwjhyduf902sa36ak4srvpqpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyq78r968kfauw87e7s7l3csurk7nxte3lj53zq5e6llgn7x4esp72qcyqqqqqqg5duvcc

bItCoIn mInInG iS cEntRaLiZeD 🤡 https://image.nostr.build/1fb730887b5b7610759a1f431a1e6458a494fd562929819f3b504085f9695468.jpg nostr:nevent1qqsr5ve9zkgeeh32kjedg5jwcp8qrhkkvwjhyduf902sa36ak4srvpqpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyq78r968kfauw87e7s7l3csurk7nxte3lj53zq5e6llgn7x4esp72qcyqqqqqqg5duvcc

That chart is the PREDICTED hashrate distribution IF everyone would use stratumv2. They show that chart as a reference to how much INDEPENDEND miners there probably could be, IF the block template process was not centralized.

I know, but it's still true in a sense that there's countless of individual entities mining around the globe. Mining operations are not centralized at all! I'm not saying that everything's perfect and I believe we should focus on to talk about mining pool centralization or ASIC manufacturer centralization, but those are very different topics.

Yes, but as long as the control over the next block contents is centralized, it doesn't help much. The operation is not centralized, but the final result that they bring (new block) is determined by an obscure few.

yeah, actually. It's trivial for a gov funded group to have a lot of ASIC's join the miners and easily turn the entire network into their bitch. hence why ASIC resistant mining is a thing. hence why you should use Monero :)

That is not necesarily the problem. Because Application Specific Integrated Circuits are used, normal computing resources cannot be used to effectively hash and manipulating the system, keeping super computers and maybe even quantum computers at bay. If mining is done using cpu's, a single supercomputer could take control over the entire hashrate and thus coin distribution in an instant. If you look at hashpower, you can see a weird pattern where the line goes up but hits the same boundary as the total amount of combuting power by supercomputers. Something really strange. Eventually it goes above it, surpassing the combined powers of the top500 supercomputers. But it almost seems like the short cap at hashrate power was caused by supercomputers that hashed away at the blockchain.

true, but actively fighting against massive farms with thousands of GPU's and ASIC's, and putting CPU miners in front allows for more decentralization as smaller miners now also have a chance of giving back to the network. pools are great for giving smaller miners a chance,, but they are a possible attack vector because of centralization (p2pool excluded, as it is peer to peer) on the other side, this is easy mining botnets too (especially IoT botnets).

The thing is that asics also are alot more efficient than cpus's. for each asic device you would need around thousand cpu's to equal its hashing power. I do agree with you on that the regular bitcoin users should also have possibility to mine, using heaters that hash etc.

yup, and a simple SHA256 ASIC is so cheap and easy to make. RandomX is really hard to implement on hardware, so creating an ASIC for it is gonna be really expensive. CPU's profit from it because it's specifically made for CPU, and the memory hard operations make mining on GPU's the same as/slower then CPU mining.

But It is also a factor of coin distribution. If we have to choose, who would deserve a new issuance of coins in reward for securing the network? pure luck (random) hardest work (pow) central issuer (fiat) orrrr... The biggest stake holder (eth)

And if ₿itcoin was really using this randomx algorithm, it wouldn't even matter, the mining factories would just switch to that protocol and massbuy cpu's. And who says if supercomputers aren't fit for this task asswell? With no way to outperform super computers, the mining process would lie in the hands of nations again and pucked. The only difference is that the mining process is also in the hands of the consumers: if that is the only difference and goal, we should rather make those Asic's easy to use for every person to achieve that goal then switching from hashing algorithm. You achieve the same results eventually.

"We just need ways to transfer those bytes accross the houses, streets and the globe, a pretty simple task isn't it? Satoshi Nakamoto set already the right path by "the network is robust by its unstructured simplicity" and "messages only need to be delivered on best effort basis". It is up to us to implement the best strategies for this." #nostr #bitcoin #₿itcoin nostr:nevent1qqsr5ve9zkgeeh32kjedg5jwcp8qrhkkvwjhyduf902sa36ak4srvpqpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyq78r968kfauw87e7s7l3csurk7nxte3lj53zq5e6llgn7x4esp72qcyqqqqqqg5duvcc

We also want these methods to go via out of band methods. Thus, we want to be as independend on digital infrastructure as possible. The optimal case would be doing everything in your head, but this is not possible. (No, don't use Elon Musk brain chips!) So we need to focus on the aspects of the #₿itcoin #timechain that are easiest to tranfer out of band. I was thinking about the blocks themselves for example, as they only refresh every 10 minutes. Enough time to propagate and probably our best bet. You could also easily leave out data in order to make it even smaller. You could even prune the whole merkle root diagram except for the first levels and share a qr code for it.! individual transactions might be smaller but the amount makes it unfeasible to effectively transfer them without digital infrastructure. And you also don't know how much ends up on chain so it is a wasteful thing to try and it is easy to fake if you have no node verifying it. With block hashes you immeadiatly have the proof of work, that makes it a bit less likely that someone misused that power. are there other interesting aspects of the #timechain that can be transmitted easily decentralized and out of band (optical or something else)? nostr:nevent1qqsrhjvav2azwn2jqt3alv56083tgm9w4dhuq5z0wgyc2y6wjfrs6mqpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyq78r968kfauw87e7s7l3csurk7nxte3lj53zq5e6llgn7x4esp72qcyqqqqqqgqpl6cg