Block distribution algo

As it comes from the developers’ philosophy and ZCash’s main idea - every user even with more or less modern CPU should be able to mine relatively effectively giving the value to the coin. Taking into account that there are a lot of people who already have farms of GPU (considering even open-source miner in development) or hundreds of CPU are interested in mining and will obviously have superiority over generic miners , will it be still effective for ordinary people to mine? In this context, Dear Developers, is that possible to modify blocks redistribution algo to prevent big miners to render the main idea of the coin, or just significantly decrease the factor of mining power?

Breaking the main idea will break the coin, for sure.

From my point of view it would be much more effective, from decentralization point of view, to redistribute the blocks based on IP and geo-location and not hashing power. It is obvious that strong decentralized network is strong only when it covers as many geo-locations as possible.

In general, can any of developers describe in simple words for generic miners how currently does block distribution algorithm work?

Your idea of using GPS to ensure decentralized mining is interesting.

Zcash has set a goal of making Zcash as decentralized as possible but will not be delaying the launch of Zcash for mining algorithm adjustments. Toomim Bros GPU mining software and cloud mining - #31 by zooko

In fact you do not need GPS to implement it. The idea is based on an already redistributed IPv4 address space. Actually implementation is pretty simple like anything genius. Regarding the link below - If You have a big wish then You have only opportunities, If You Do NOT, then You have only reasons.

When I was looking through hash power providers I was wonder why it was prohibited to Zeropond to sell hashpower for american citizens. It seems that the protocol is really good what simply leads us to a conclusion that some agencies are interested in it either. Let’s image that the most powerfull farm will mine the most coins, guess who control this farm or set of farms? Forget about miners they are simply nothing in this game until the distribution protocol is changed to remove hashpower as a factor.

You will have to ask @tim_olson from Zeropond the answer to that question.

It seems You did not get the idea. The idea is that gov organizations have the biggest power available, and they simply instamine as much as they can to prevent others to use zcash actively because there will be no simply enough coins for that.

@counsellor, It may be unfair to small miner like me but that’s the way it is. If you have the means to procure and assemble mining farms would you not do it and with the availability of low power cost? These farms are also investing their time and have the budget and technical know how to do such. If I have the resources I will build more. I started with 2 rigs but I was able to add a few more thanks to ethereum. If zcash will deliver to its expectation, everything will just be profit outside powercost. It all boils down to resources in this game.

You are wrong, the system You describe exactly similar to the banking system were rich becomes even more richer and poor remains poor w/o chance to start. I provided enough arguments that current block distribution model is exactly wrong and no developer provided any reason against what means, there are no reasons against. So they go against common sense or hide real reasons behind.

What I am also trying to say is that you can be big even if you start small. You can add more to your hashpower along the way. I did start small. I started not thinking anything will return but fortunately it did. I do have my day job to augment the expenses while waiting for the right time to short. I have to convince my wife to just ignore if these mining rigs causes inconvenience. But when I gave her almost all after purchasing additional rigs, I cannot paint her smile. Love that feeling. I’m sure others did experience that look from their partner. Just shared you my mining life. Hope you take something from it. :slight_smile:

Neo, its a principal question, main idea of which is to give a chance to everyone, regardless the power he/she has, and this is stated as a main slogan of this crypto, which is not ture as it seems. So, if the team don’t follow its main idea, why do they state that?

@counsellor, while your idea may be laudable, it appears impossible to implement securely. Anything like IPv4 address is easily faked or subject to sybil attacks (creation of arbitrarily many identities). Your proposal would only lead to corruption of the IPv4 system, with current holders of large blocks of address space given incentives to create fake computers at all their addresses. Hashpower has been identified as the only secure method to prevent sybil attacks, since it consumes actual physical resources.

Until you propose an actual method to combine your fair distribution goal with full-proof sybil attack resistance, it must be regarded as a search for a perpetuum mobile…

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It seems I was unclear explaining my thoughts. Let’s consider it on example. We have a requirement of 3 GHz per core and 6GB of RAM for the system to perform block mining. We have 3 systems each of which satisfies the requirements: a) 4 cores CPU 8GB, b) 2 cores CPU 16 GB, c) 1 GPU with say more than enough hashing power. Currently, as far as I understand variant c) will be chosen simply because of bigger hashing power. I offer to remove that and allow any of the given systems to mine the block choosing them randomly because all of them satisfies the requirements. When one of the systems mined the block its IP address is excluded from the next block mining. In the beginning it does not actually matter which system will mine the block simply because of relatively low difficulty, but it will be mach more fair, and probably not weaken the network.

its IP address is excluded from the next block mining

That’s completely ineffective, as a pool operator will have thousands of IP addresses available, spread over the globe, through which to submit the winning blocks.

Besides, how do you prevent faking of the IP-source in a peer to peer relay network?

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But geolocation does matter here, we can chose from another country.

Existing securities law in the US views our service as a profit sharing fund, so we are subject to SEC rules that also affect hedge funds. These laws are designed to protect ordinary people from making high-risk investments. So in order to buy our contract, basically you need to prove that you’re rich. :frowning:

Tim, thanks for clarification.

Just to reiterate @tromp, mining by IPv4 address does not make any sense.

Your public IP address is not the IP address of your computer. I can only assume you were referring to your public IPv4 address. Furthermore, tools have been developed since the dawn of IPv4 that allow for easy manipulation. Proxies, VPNs, Comcast Modems…etc

Furthermore, you cannot build a system meant to last eternally on IPv4. IPv6 is going to be a real pain in the ass when it does get pushed, but it will get pushed eventually. Changing IP schema should not affect a decentralized currency system.

The concept of mining is based on the idea that doing computationally difficult work renders a reward. By further restricting this reward by IP, you are not helping small miners. You would destroy small miners by requiring knowledge on IP space just to mine efficiently, which is not realistic in 2016.

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