Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
This thread is, in my opinion, a waste of time. It's yet again another perennial bikeshedding proposal brought up many times since at least 2011, suggesting random changes for non-existing(/not-yet-existing) issues. There is a lot more complexity to the system than the subsidy schedule. Well, the main question is what makes Bitcoin secure. It is secured by proofs of work which are produced by miners. Miners have economic incentives to play by the rules; in simple terms, that is more profitable than performing attacks. So the question is, why and when it works? It would be nice to know the boundaries, no? -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
Answering today's concerns with yesterday's facts is dangerous, especially with bitcoin on a 4 years period. I personally consider all arguments like we went through once, and nothing special. So no disturbance worthy of discussion to expect baseless. Also, starting a topic with mentions of death is not leading to any useful discussion. @Topic starters: don't oversell your topic with that kind of vocabulary hype. death by halving, seriously? @Everybody else: don't focus on the chosen vocabulary, or use it to discard what might be a relevant discussion topic. The fact that a topic was brought up many times since a long time, does not mean it is not relevant. It only means it is a recurring concern. I read no convincing argument against a significant disturbance of the mining market to come. The fact that it is known in advance is no counter argument to me. Environmental conditions will have changed so much, the next halving occurence might have nothing to do with the previous one, and it should be perfectly ok to discuss it instead of putting the whole thing under the carpet. What is most important to the discussion to me: the main difference between the last halving and the one to come is the relative weight of ideology vs. rationality in miners's motivations. Effectively putting us closer to the original bitcoin premises (miners fully rational). Miners were close to being 100% individuals last halving, they are now largely for-profit companies. This isn't a change we can overlook with pure maths or with previous experience. Jeremie DL 2014-10-28 21:36 GMT+01:00 Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com: On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 8:17 PM, Ferdinando M. Ametrano ferdinando.ametr...@gmail.com wrote: On Oct 25, 2014 9:19 PM, Gavin Andresen gavinandre...@gmail.com wrote: We had a halving, and it was a non-event. Is there some reason to believe next time will be different? In november 2008 bitcoin was a much younger ecosystem, Or very old, indeed, if you are using unsigned arithmetic. [...] and the halving happened during a quite stable positive price trend Hardly, http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2012-10-01zeg2012-12-01ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv Moreover, halving is not strictly necessary to respect the spirit of Nakamoto's monetary rule It isn't, but many people have performed planning around the current behaviour. The current behaviour has also not shown itself to be problematic (and we've actually experienced its largest effect already without incident), and there are arguable benefits like encouraging investment in mining infrastructure. This thread is, in my opinion, a waste of time. It's yet again another perennial bikeshedding proposal brought up many times since at least 2011, suggesting random changes for non-existing(/not-yet-existing) issues. There is a lot more complexity to the system than the subsidy schedule. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development 2014-10-28 21:57 GMT+01:00 Alex Mizrahi alex.mizr...@gmail.com: This thread is, in my opinion, a waste of time. It's yet again another perennial bikeshedding proposal brought up many times since at least 2011, suggesting random changes for non-existing(/not-yet-existing) issues. There is a lot more complexity to the system than the subsidy schedule. Well, the main question is what makes Bitcoin secure. It is secured by proofs of work which are produced by miners. Miners have economic incentives to play by the rules; in simple terms, that is more profitable than performing attacks. So the question is, why and when it works? It would be nice to know the boundaries, no? -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
In november 2008 bitcoin was a much younger ecosystem, Or very old, indeed, if you are using unsigned arithmetic. [...] :-) I meant 2012, of course, but loved your wit and the halving happened during a quite stable positive price trend Hardly, http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2012-10-01zeg2012-12-01ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv indeed! http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2012-08-01zeg2013-02-01ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv There is a lot more complexity to the system than the subsidy schedule. who said the contrary? This thread is, in my opinion, a waste of time. it might be, I have some free time right now... many people have performed planning around the current behaviour. The current behaviour has also not shown itself to be problematic (and we've actually experienced its largest effect already without incident), and there are arguable benefits like encouraging investment in mining infrastructure. I would love a proper rebuttal of a basic economic argument. If increased competition will push mining revenues below 200% of operational costs, then the halving will suddenly switch off many non profitable mining resources. As of now the cost per block is probably already about 100USD, probably in the 50-150USD. Dismissed mining resources might even become cheaply available for malevolent agents considering a 51% attack. Moreover the timing would be perfect for the burst of any existing cloud hashing Ponzi scheme. From a strict economic point of view allowing the halving jump is looking for trouble. To each his own. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
Economically a halving is almost the same as a halving in price (as fees take up more of the pie, less so). Coincidentally the price has halved since early July to mid-October, and we've not even seen difficulty fall yet. I don't think there's much to see here. Neil -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 9:19 PM, Jérémie Dubois-Lacoste jeremie...@gmail.com wrote: The fact that a topic was brought up many times since a long time, does not mean it is not relevant. I am not saying that it is not relevant, I'm saying the discussion is pointless: No new information has arrived since the very first times that this has been discussed except that the first halving passed without incident. If people were not sufficiently convinced that this was a serious concern before there was concrete evidence (however small) that it was okay, then discussion is not likely going to turn out differently the 50th or 100th time it is repeated... except, perhaps, by wearing out all the most experienced and knowledgeable among us as we become tired of rehashing the same discussions over and over again. On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 9:23 PM, Ferdinando M. Ametrano ferdinando.ametr...@gmail.com wrote: [snip] As of now the cost per block is probably already about 100USD, probably in the 50-150USD. This is wildly at odds with reality. I don't mean to insult, but please understand that every post you make here consumes the time of dozens (or, hopefully, hundreds) of people. Every minute you spend refining your post has a potential return of many minutes for the rest of the users of the list. At current difficulty, with a SP30 (one of the leading-in-power-efficiency) marginal break-even is ~1144.8852 * $/kwh == $/btc. At $0.10/kwh each block has an expected cost right now, discounting all one time hardware costs, close to $3000. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 10:34 PM, Neil kyuupic...@gmail.com wrote: Economically a halving is almost the same as a halving in price (as fees take up more of the pie, less so). Coincidentally the price has halved since early July to mid-October, and we've not even seen difficulty fall yet. because mining profits are many times operational costs. This might change because of competition, in that case halving in price will become problematic. It amazes me that basic economic considerations seems completely lost here, especially when it comes to mining. We should have learned the lesson of how a small error in the incentive structure has lead from one CPU, one vote to an oligopoly which might easily become a monopoly in the near future. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
The fact that it is known in advance is no counter argument to me. But it does change miner behaviour in pretty significant ways. Unlike difficulty forecasting, which seems near impossible to do accurately, miners can plan to purchase less hardware as they approach the revenue drop. You can do some basic cost/benefit calculation and see that *if* margins are already low as the halving approaches, then rational miners would cease purchasing any new hardware that wouldn't be profitable past that point, unless they expect it to pay for itself by then. The lower the margins are, the longer in advance they would alter their buying behaviour. You'd see an increased focus on cost-effective hashpower (and older units would not be replaced as they break). Either a significant supply of cost effective hardware shows up (because it's the only thing that would sell in the last months), or difficulty would stall long before the halving happens. Either way, the predictability of the halving can reduce the hashpower on the day. On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 5:34 PM, Neil kyuupic...@gmail.com wrote: Economically a halving is almost the same as a halving in price (as fees take up more of the pie, less so). Coincidentally the price has halved since early July to mid-October, and we've not even seen difficulty fall yet. I don't think there's much to see here. Neil -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
On Tuesday 28. October 2014 22.44.50 Ferdinando M. Ametrano wrote: It amazes me that basic economic considerations seems completely lost here, especially when it comes to mining. Please don't confuse people dismissing your thoughts with dismissing the basic economic considerations. The fact of the matter is that you didn't read the archives where these ideas have been brought forward and discussed, a consensus was reached. (it wasn't so basic afterall) The fact that people don't want to repeat the discussion just for your sake is not the same as people not listening to those arguments. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 11:00 PM, Thomas Zander tho...@thomaszander.se wrote: you didn't read the archives where these ideas have been brought forward and discussed, a consensus was reached. (it wasn't so basic afterall) The fact that people don't want to repeat the discussion just for your sake is not the same as people not listening to those arguments. I didn't start the thread and so didn't research the archive. Until two posts ago there was no reference about the issue being discussed before. A link would have been much kinder than harsh dismissal. I will research and read. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Re: [Bitcoin-development] Fwd: death by halving
On Tue, Oct 28, 2014 at 10:43 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: As of now the cost per block is probably already about 100USD, probably in the 50-150USD. This is wildly at odds with reality. I don't mean to insult, but please understand that every post you make here consumes the time of dozens (or, hopefully, hundreds) of people. Every minute you spend refining your post has a potential return of many minutes for the rest of the users of the list. At current difficulty, with a SP30 (one of the leading-in-power-efficiency) marginal break-even is ~1144.8852 * $/kwh == $/btc. At $0.10/kwh each block has an expected cost right now, discounting all one time hardware costs, close to $3000. yes, you're right I meant about $100USD per BTC, i.e. $2500 per block. Because of my mistake I'll shut up and go back researching the archive on this issue. Thank you for the kind summary of the many good reasons why halving is a non-issue. Very much appreciated, especially considering how precious is your time. -- ___ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
