[HN Gopher] Bitcoin Mining's Three Body Problem
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Bitcoin Mining's Three Body Problem
Author : hosolmaz
Score : 52 points
Date : 2020-06-02 20:27 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aniccaresearch.tech)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aniccaresearch.tech)
| tines wrote:
| If an article is written in English for an English speaking
| audience, I wish it would include translations of non-English
| quotations.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| The header quote is:
|
| "The more transparent something was, the more mysterious it
| seemed. The universe itself was transparent; as long as you
| were sufficiently sharp-eyed, you could see as far as you
| liked. But the farther you looked, the more mysterious it
| became." ----Liu Cixin "Three Body Problem"
| trixie_ wrote:
| 'Bitcoin is the product of hashpower. The industry wouldn't exist
| without incentivizing miners to continuously invest in hardware
| and burning electricity to augment Bitcoin network's settlement
| assurance'
|
| I think this is a common misconception. People don't need to
| continually invest in mining hardware to keep it going. The
| entire Bitcoin network could technically be run off a single
| Rasberry Pi. The network hash rate is only so high because the
| ROI is there, but without it, people would still be mining.
|
| Case in point, there are plenty of long forgotten altcoins out
| there that people are mining just for fun. At the end of the day
| your computer is no different from an expensive space heater.
| Might as well mine some crypto with it.
| season2episode3 wrote:
| > At the end of the day your computer is no different from an
| expensive space heater. Might as well mine some crypto with it.
|
| Or, you know, you could just turn the computer off while you're
| not actively using it. It saves you money and does a small
| little good thing for the environment too.
| CalmStorm wrote:
| The other common misconception is that the price of bitcoin
| is determined by the hashrate. It is actually the other way
| around, a higher price drives up the hashrate, because a
| higher price means more demand for bitcoin.
|
| Some founders of altcoins apparently don't understand this
| and try to buy hashpower to artificially increase the
| hashrate, hoping to increase the price of their coins. If
| there is no demand for their coins, an ASIC farm is no
| different from a Rasberry Pi.
| trixie_ wrote:
| That is why I made the analogy to a space heater - because
| mining would be a free side benefit of something you actively
| use to keep warm.
|
| The environmental impact is also negligible if the power
| you're using is coming from solar or wind.
| Klinky wrote:
| An idle computer clocks down and sips power. Going full
| bore mining coins results in significant power usage
| increases. We're talking 10 watts vs 100s of watts.
| beervirus wrote:
| That matters if you live in Texas. It doesn't matter if
| you live above the Arctic Circle.
| thebean11 wrote:
| Right but if your goal is to heat your apartment (and
| your alternative heat source is also electric) running
| the computer is a pretty efficient heat source.
| trixie_ wrote:
| Small space heaters run at 750 watts on the low setting.
| brian_cloutier wrote:
| I haven't read the article, but I believe it will say something
| like, the continual investment is necessary in order for the
| transactions to be irreversible (settlement assurance). I'm
| sure there are some forgotten altcoins out there still chugging
| along, but it probably does not take much money to hire
| sufficient hash power to double-spend those alts, or even re-
| write their history.
|
| For as long as bitcoin miners fight, tooth and nail, to hash
| incrementally more efficiently than their competitors, it will
| be prohibitively expensive for most actors to reverse
| transactions.
| trixie_ wrote:
| Not saying this isn't a possibility, but you'd think in the
| last 5 years of thousands of altcoins this sort of thing must
| of happened at least once? I guess the interest has to be
| there to attack it? Though if the interest was there more
| people would be mining it. Something like that.
| brian_cloutier wrote:
| It... has happened. Multiple times.
|
| Bitcoin Gold: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-gold-
| blockchain-hit-b...
|
| Vertcoin: https://www.coindesk.com/the-vertcoin-
| cryptocurrency-just-go...
|
| Ethereum Classic: https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-
| classic-51-attack-th...
|
| Google is happy to show you more.
| trixie_ wrote:
| Right, I guess I feel less at risk of being the victim of
| a double spend and more at risk with rewriting history.
| Are there any reports of that? Like coins I've held on
| the chain for some time being stolen?
| hn_acc_2 wrote:
| The value of your long-held coins will be almost nothing
| if the network is vulnerable to double spend.
|
| The potential losses are huge (especially for exchanges
| etc.) from double spend attacks, and the value of a
| cryptocurrency is very much dependent on users'
| confidence in its resistance to attacks.
| trixie_ wrote:
| Good. My long held worthless altcoins will remain
| worthless and mine regardless.
| wmf wrote:
| Weirdly, this doesn't seem to be the case. Coins with no
| hashrate like BCH are still trading at pretty high
| prices. https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-cash-
| could-face-51-at...
| gridlockd wrote:
| If you're just holding coins you're "safe" in the sense
| that you will get to keep your account balance.
|
| However, if the network is unstable, then that balance
| will lose value in real terms or even become worthless.
| hn_acc_2 wrote:
| Bitcoin Gold was hit by double spend multiple times, and
| that's just what I remember off the top of my head.
|
| However there are obviously diminishing returns for such an
| attack. The alt coin value drops drastically when users
| find out about the attack and flee to more secure
| currencies.
| uryga wrote:
| > At the end of the day your computer is no different from an
| expensive space heater. Might as well mine some crypto with it.
|
| i mean... it wouldn't be a space heater if it wasn't crunching
| pointless numbers...
| mindcandy wrote:
| The point of the numbers is to prove that you heated space.
| Seriously. It proves that you burned value that you know you
| are not getting back if you are caught falsifying records for
| the system. And, everyone knows its extremely hard to not get
| caught if you try. Therefore you can be trusted to sign
| records for the system because you are risk:reward
| tremendously more financially motivated to be a good actor
| than a bad one --including whatever nefarious scenarios you
| might imagine.
| hn_acc_2 wrote:
| I think you're missing the point.
|
| For Bitcoin to continue to act as a decentralized currency
| ledger (with "settlement assurance"), then the network hash
| rate must remain high.
|
| Nobody is arguing that the code couldn't run on one processor,
| only that cryptocurrencies conceptually depend on this high
| hash rate
| trixie_ wrote:
| It doesn't 'have' to be high. The hash rate could be 1/1000
| of what it is today without any risk to 'settlement
| assurance'
| jkhdigital wrote:
| Settlement assurance is roughly a function of (a) the
| expected cost of mining a block and (b) the total value of
| bitcoins moved in that block. In general, the larger the
| ratio of a to b, the less time a merchant must wait to
| reach a certain level of assurance.
| hn_acc_2 wrote:
| https://www.crypto51.app/coins/BTC.html
|
| You could pay $384k to hire miners to 51% attack BTC right
| now (that is, if NiceHash had the capacity). If you cut the
| hash rate that much the cost would be only $400 or so.
|
| Does it sound like a secure trustless currency if anyone
| can pay $400 to gain 51% majority?
|
| EDIT: 51% attack != rewrite blockchain
| thebean11 wrote:
| Another caveat: pumping $384k/h into NiceHash would
| probably change the supply/demand dynamic drastically and
| increase the price.
| hn_acc_2 wrote:
| Definitely. I don't really think this hypothetical attack
| would be possible, I only bring it up to demonstrate the
| effect that lowering the hash rate would have on the cost
| of disrupting the network.
| trixie_ wrote:
| There's a big difference between rewriting all history
| and rewriting a portion of it during an attack which
| costs 400k per hour.
|
| Also people may misinterpret 'rewriting history' as the
| ability to to change coins sent from A -> B to A -> C.
| Which it is not.
|
| Not saying an attack still isn't bad, but let's be clear
| what the extent of the damage could and could not be.
| jkhdigital wrote:
| Correction: pay $400/hr to gain a temporary majority in
| the block mining lottery. You can do a variety of things
| with that majority power, but "rewriting history" is a
| bit misleading. Yes, you can probably get the network to
| discard some previously accepted blocks, but this only
| allows you to invalidate your own transactions plus the
| transactions that depend on them.
|
| Furthermore, any blocks that were mined under high
| hashpower still need the same hashpower to be re-mined. A
| one-time reduction in network hash power doesn't make
| previously mined blocks easier to mine.
| TylerE wrote:
| > At the end of the day your computer is no different from an
| expensive space heater
|
| In most of the US, at least, you want AC and not heat at least
| 7-8 months out of the year, if not more.
| trixie_ wrote:
| It also works with solar and wind.
| gridlockd wrote:
| In order to maintain network stability at current prices of
| Bitcoin, a massive amount of hashrate is required.
|
| Those altcoins that have become worthless and are mined "just
| for fun" are only protected by the fact that they are
| worthless. Any attack would be a waste of resources. You could
| still attack them "just for fun" of course...
| trixie_ wrote:
| Not really. They are cemented into those blockchains. Unless
| you have a way to back write a blockchain.
| novalis78 wrote:
| That's a very thorough overview
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(page generated 2020-06-02 23:00 UTC)