I wanted to make an extra post about that dirty play but as you comment it i will further comment it with your comment, do not take it personally.
I’am born in a western european country but moved to a eastern european country, ex communism , when i was 23 for doing business there and due lower taxes.
The first decade was a shock, the 2nd i got more or less used to it and nowadays i even bother ot try to make a business in the country. What i explain now hold true to nearly ALL ex communism countries and i would say the more “east” they are the bigger the problem is.
You get ALL the time blackmailed and have to bribe someone for something or just nothing will happen. I could write 2 books of situations and cases that most western people even would think it’s sciene fiction. You may see that behavour not in such extent as a normal human, BUT if you run a business you have to deal with corruption everywhere, from the tax department that blackmails you up to the major of your city just everybody in the chain you need something. There is only one way to avoid that and that is big connections, real big friends and you guess it, money in advance…
With this said, and with my communism and post communism experience it could be that either that manufactor tried to blackmail obelisk (absolutly common practice!) or they knew it will come from the authorities and they had NO way to explain that to an western investor as it’s hard to believe as a western what’s going on and the first decade i always thought someone else is doing the dirty job on me, but this was absolutly not the case. There is a good chance that it’s just the corruption, bribery and blackmail business nearly all communist or post communist countries have, up to date.
Pretty sure Russian, chinese, romanian, bulgarian, ukrainian miners/businesses can confirm that immediatly what i’am writting here. Of course we have no proof for that, but it sounds more logic than bitmain, not to defend them, but because i was x times such victim myself by now. And i doubt that any competitor, even more such small like obelisk, would hurt their business that it would make sense to play that dirty, BUT of course, neither me nor anybody else knows that. Just some real life based argumentation that in my opinion the problem could be somewhere else.
While i agree that the situation if far from perfect and reading it as an mostly Asic miner didn’t make me too happy, no doubt. Someone has to admit that if everything is like described and it seems that must is just like that. Maybe here and there is some room for correction, but allover someone has to agree and admit that the situation is just like that.
However, what to do? At least all the buyers of (bitmain) asics ( i prefer principally baikal by the way! ) are at least providing some competition and some balance, be it the small asic miners, mid or even bigger ones.
POS is even worse in my opinion, but that’s another story anyway. Just wanted to write back to CPU mining, but than i again, i bet soon we would see some bitcoin mainboard for 20 CPU’s, lol.
At least i was not that shocked at all as i was pretty sure that after the Baikal 5+2+2 algo miner that Asics will get into everything, just logical somehow. The rumours that even now Asics are on the cryptoniteV7 algo mining Monero seem after that read even more plausible.
The main question in my opinion is if it’s worth at this point, without knowing what the next generation Asics are capable to do, focusing on that, or are these resources only wasted or short/limited time a solution?! No idea, mostly up to every projects very own priorities. Until somone comes up with something total new i have my doubts it will be worth the investements, workinghours, efforts, whatever.
And not, this post is totally out of own interest. I even admit that after doing the read i came to the conclusion it’s best to stop mining at all end of the year and focus just on trading and investing. The power cost calcuation mentioned their made just sense and with some some % electricity price getting more expensive in my country i did the mathematics that i would be over these USD 80 to stay competive mostly.
Agreed one of the reasons the germans sell a lot of asics the last months.
I was pretty fine as well, at least thought it, lol, but that calcuations in the read with at most US$ 80kw per month is something i can not hold to be honest. It’s just not holding mostly for 2019 with my $0.14 now and $0.16 for next year.
“At least all the buyers of (bitmain) asics ( i prefer principally baikal by the way! ) are at least providing some competition and some balance, be it the small asic miners, mid or even bigger ones.”
Like i sad…there is no competition …its fake competition…there cost off ASIC is 200$ but mine is 2000$ + shiping+ import tax…they can mine right away and after paying i have to wait 2-3 months.
And for price off 1 ASIC they sold me they can for that money build 10 same ASIC and have 10 times more profitability.
So as long BITMAIN mine there is ZERO competition...and they mine like crazy.
Also living all new created coins 2 asic manufacturer and as you sad just focus on trading is also for me NOT an option…because if they have almost all created coins they can also move the price anywhere they want and always win
Im on the same boat like you, my dude - I have recently purchased a couple of Z9-s. Still, I find it more important that crypto succeeds in becoming a true decentralized currency, than gaining a profit from these miners (still I hope I’ll be able to at least to break even on the purchase).
If we are to buy our crypto from Bitmain or Halong, that’s fine. But when one player has the capacity to not only to provide the hardware, but also to compete with the rest on uneven ground, could potentially place crypto in a precarious situation. A precarious situation where one player slowly devours the mining field to a point where he gets the majority of the profit. Such player can’t be trusted to always act in his best behavior to maintain the network in everyone’s interest, especially considering that he has a government breathing behind his back. You might as well place your investments on the CNY and that’s not the point of crypto.
For that reason, I think we should look for a workaround on mining and the process of maintaining the network decentralized. The idea that popped out of my head was to make it so that each individual who would like to support the network should be limited to having 1 miner. We just need to find a way to link the individual with the miner, something like Proof of Life, 1 piece of hardware for 1 individual - perfect decentralization. Since Facebook are interested in engaging into crypto I think they can help with that. They can provide the platform and their algos to ensure that the individual behind their profile is a real human, as well as that individual is active and alive on their platform. And guess what? Not only this could be profitable for Facebook as well, but one player won’t be able to create millions of accounts pop up out of nowhere without raising some flags on their side.
I still think tweaking the proof of work algorithm is a powerful tool that gives an ASIC-resistant cryptocurrency an advantage in the long run.
Here are two reasons.
The time and money required to tweak the algorithm are orders of magnitude lower than the time and money required to create new ASICs.
If ASICs are able to continue to mine through a proof of work change, they wouldn’t be able to mine in significant magnitudes, because if they did, the effect would be obvious. All GPU mineable coins should converge to the same profit over time (usually this happens within days). If a certain coin is significantly less profitable than others, then that’s good evidence for the existence of ASIC activity on that coin, which will cause the developers to fork again. This means that ASIC manufacturers who chose to mine covertly will be able to do so in only in low magnitudes, which would likely have no effect on the network.
At the very least, it would be nice if Zcash attempted a fork to examine the outcome rather than just assuming ASICs will win.
First, I’m pretty skeptical of anything David Vorick says. Let’s not forget that last summer, he created a crowd-funded ASIC that cost one BTC each and is still not available yet. These ASICs are unable to produce a profit because competitors have already released better ASICs. Vorick is now officially an ASIC manufacturer, so we have to consider potential conflicts of interest.
Two, he made a simple assertion that my claim is wrong. I disagree with his assertion. Neither side really has much evidence yet. We have a good opportunity to get some empirical data because Monero is committed to ASIC resistance. I am confident that ASICs or FPGAs will not be able to mine Monero, at least in meaningful magnitudes. He thinks otherwise. We’ll find out who is right.
Zcash can at least attempt a fork to make Equihash more memory hard. (This “fork” is more a correction anyway, because the original parameters were not as memory hard as was expected.) I’m not convinced ASIC manufacturers will be able to make custom hardware that can resist changes to the proof of work algorithm. If they manage to consistently defeat proof of work tweaks, then I may concede that ASIC resistance is impossible. Right now, however, there is not enough data to conclude that.
I don’t remember what thoughts you posted in here in 2015–2016. I do love the idea of partnering with Facebook to give out an airdrop to all Facebook users. This is unfair in a lot of ways, but so is Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-Stake, airdrops to holders of other coins, and every other way of giving out free money.
I will rely on what you are saying for this. You seem to have far more insight then I. I have had to deal with it to an extent while working in the Middle East at times, but not to the levels you are describing.
Sorry, the numbers were a typo on my part. I didn’t mean them as years, I meant the posts from here - 2115 and 2116 where I laid a short summary of the issues you presented us with in David Vorick’s “The State of Cryptocurrency Mining”.
To avoid further confusion I’ve made a compilation of my comments here below:
If we take the “The State of Cryptocurrency Mining” post at face value there are two issues that should be considered:
Any conventional algorithm can be eventually mined via ASIC-s
The problem about any major player, like Bitmain or Halong, is that they can compete in an uneven ground with the people who buy ASIC-s from them. Meaning, for the money we spend on their ASIC-s, they can make profit, as well as purchase more ASIC-s for themselves at a much lower production price. As well as many other issues along this one. That centralizes mining, and centralized mining centralizes crypto.
The way I see it POS isn’t much different because it simply raises the stakes higher. And as soon as any POS currency gets recognized and it is strong enough to have the value/risk ratio profitable, the same issue will occur there as well.
Now, I like most of you guys am a believer in a free and open market, I don’t think it is optimal to think into the direction on how to dethrone Bitmain or Halong, since it is in their right to do what is best for them.
I do however believe that we should put our effort into a direction on providing the opportunity of mining or whatever system we use to keep crypto moving, into the hands of as many envolved individuals as possible. I think we should look for a workaround on mining and the process of maintaining the network decentralized.
The idea that popped out of my head was to make it so that each individual who would like to support the network should be limited to having 1 miner. We just need to find a way to link the individual with the miner, something like Proof of Life, 1 piece of hardware for 1 individual - ensuring decentralization. Since Facebook are interested in engaging into crypto I think they can help with that. They can provide the platform and their algos to ensure that the individual behind their profile is a real human, as well as that individual is active and alive on their platform. And guess what? Not only this could be profitable for Facebook as well, but one player won’t be able to create millions of accounts pop up out of nowhere without raising some flags on their side.
The current state of mining resembles a Nuclear Arms race, which is not good, because in the end it will be a zero sum game. I’m hopeful that there are ways to go beyond it. Whoever gets this right and involves the most individuals in the process will create the most recognized and decentralized system. And the most trusted one too.
Please not Facebook. The private part of Zcash, in my opinion doesn’t match with Them. To bad all is now on ASIC and whatever tot do with Them, while a couple of days ago there was Zcash at Circle. I hope that’s the news we are getting more.
So by this logic Zcash is currently in trouble also, Zcash hashrate is less then Monero and dropped 10%, I doubt it will stop there…Ohh no Zcash is doomed. The hashrates are fine not sure what you are trying to imply.
Hashrate dropping like this isnt a concern, as soon as it drops enough more miners will jump over to mine the extra coins, I dont see the issue here. Its not going to keep dropping to 0.
[quote=]
The mining game is weighted heavily in favor of the manufacturers. They get to control the hardware production, the supply, and they know more about the state of the industry than anyone else. The profitability of a miner largely depends on variables that the manufacturer controls without disclosure to anyone else.
[/quote]
[quote=]
At the end of the day, cryptocurrency miner manufacturers are selling money printing machines. A well-funded profit maximizing entity is only going to sell a money printing machine for more money than they expect they could get it to print themselves. The buyer needs to understand why the manufacturer is selling the units instead of keeping them for themselves.
[/quote]
More people need to realize this when they are buying ASICs. There is a reason the company is selling the ASICs instead of keeping them to mine for themselves. They are becomming less profitable to mine with.
Your second quote totally contradicts your first quote.
You cant have decentralization if a centralized company is in charge of who can mine and who cant. That dont even make sense if you stop and think about it for 1 second. And to trust Facebook of all companys…
Little more looks good on paper supporting dual pow with variable/relative diffs
Archimedes law of the lever proposition 6,7
Two magnitudes, whether commensurable [Prop. 6] or incommensurable [Prop. 7], balance at distances reciprocally proportional to the magnitudes.
I guess, according to the Vorick blog, its gonna have to be a new algorithm, we’re pretty lucky to get that information now and not later but Im still optimistic!
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