Over 2 percent of the US’s electricity generation now goes to bitcoin::US government tracking the energy implications of booming bitcoin mining in US.

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    The security of this whole arrangement has so far been working good as well.

    In order for someone to try and perform a 51% attack, they’ll need to either compromise a large swathe of existing miners (e.g if the government seized control) or create/acquire hardware totaling more than 100% of the existing network today plus growth while you attempt to build more than 100% and then maintain growth over the rest of the network.

    As the network grows that becomes exceedingly more difficult to perform.

    I have really high hopes for something like proof of work stake, but it’s not without it’s own problems either, and with Ethereum, it’s the first massive scale test, so it’s not as battle tested as proof of work yet, although it’s been used in smaller projects so there has been some testing. With more money on the line though, comes more will to try and break it, or use an exploit you may have held back beforehand.

    One interesting difference with POW/POS is that if a miner/entity does somehow perform an attack, they keep the hardware and can continue to try. With POS, they should get slashed in which case the money is gone. But with POW you have the barrier of actually acquiring the correct amount of hardware, meanwhile in POS, you just need the money so there’s no manufacturing/lead time and will be easier to achieve by state actors.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      My main issue with Bitcoin isn’t even the POW vs POS angle, it’s the fact that the core devs see no problem with their current POW algorithm, which is not designed to put any bounds at all on energy consumption. But I also think they should have increased the block size, and you can see where that discussion went.

      • TypicalHog@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        I sometimes have a weird vibe like someone somehow crippled Bitcoin by making it not able to evolve and develop. I mean… If I wanted it gone and couldn’t just destroy it, I would cripple it. Idk, just feels sus.

        • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Anything that makes bitcoin more valuable is a financial benefit to all people holding bitcoin. Anyone who has a brilliant idea is financially better off by making their own coin.

          Miners, who have money tied up in bitcoin-specific hardware, have a vested interest in maintaining the POW system or else their capital loses value.

          There are probably exchanges short on bitcoin that stand to profit from a decreasing price.

          So yeah. Someone crippled bitcoin. That someone is Satoshi.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Fuck the core devs is really all i have to add to that without going into it…

        Luckily things like Ethereum and others were born due to them.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I have really high hopes for something like proof of work

        I just realized I wrote the above, but if it wasn’t clear, I meant proof of stake.

    • TypicalHog@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Bitcoin has literally 2 pools who have more then half of the block production. Also not all PoS systems have locking and slashing btw.