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On December 05 2013 19:51 R1CH wrote:As much as I like the decentralized mining argument, when the next and future generation of ASICs are out, mining is going to become the domain of those who can afford huge datacenters and ridiculous setups like this. This basically means only a handful of such companies will be producing blocks and thus in control of the entire bitcoin network, which is a worrying thought. What if they decide to require a minimum TX fee or only confirm blocks from their "financial partners"?
It is worrying indeed. I don't really know what to say. I think that they still won't control a large enough portion of the network for this to have an effect. Also remember that for every TX they reject they miss out on the fee. There are crude ways in which one can prevent this "selective mining". As long as not more than 50% of the network is controlled by these companies the rest of the network can enforce whatever rules they want, including excluding some parties. As I said, a crude way, but there are ways and I'm fairly sure that this is a concern that is discussed, a lot.
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Poland3751 Posts
On December 05 2013 19:51 R1CH wrote:As much as I like the decentralized mining argument, when the next and future generation of ASICs are out, mining is going to become the domain of those who can afford huge datacenters and ridiculous setups like this. This basically means only a handful of such companies will be producing blocks and thus in control of the entire bitcoin network, which is a worrying thought. What if they decide to require a minimum TX fee or only confirm blocks from their "financial partners"?
Well the solution is to start with something too weird for big companies to throw their chips in. That way a lot of initial currency will be randomly - well not randomly but geekishly randomly - distributed outside of blue collars grasp. Corporations are not too eager to gamble with their money while people do it all the time.
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I never bought any Bitcoin, but I did buy the first issue of the Bitcoin magazine which appears to be pretty damn rare nowadays lol. I don't understand the market at all so I'd never touch it personally, but these prices sure are crazy.
i just hope TL are xchanging these bitcoins into 'mainstream' currency immediately after the purchase
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On December 05 2013 19:51 R1CH wrote:As much as I like the decentralized mining argument, when the next and future generation of ASICs are out, mining is going to become the domain of those who can afford huge datacenters and ridiculous setups like this. This basically means only a handful of such companies will be producing blocks and thus in control of the entire bitcoin network, which is a worrying thought. What if they decide to require a minimum TX fee or only confirm blocks from their "financial partners"?
I think this is a really important point to think about. One possible deterrent is that bitcoin is open source. Therefore there is a constant threat that someone could simply make an alt-coin if people get fed up with current coin. Imagine you own millions of dollars worth of hardware and someone gets pissed off and changes a few lines of code, literally making all of the hardware obsolete.
Or more likely there will be a dozen alt-coins out there (as there is now), and the second bitcoin becomes too much of a hassle and with too many fees, people will start going towards low-fee coins. Then you'll have this bitcoin special interest group which will actively try to destabilize alt-coin markets, computationally attack alt-coins, create media campaigns against them, covertly create intentional pump-and-dump schemes to delegitimize them, and try to get regulations passed against them. It's going to get crazy indeed.
Then what may eventually happen when all this has run it's course is that every corporation, government, and manufacturing entity will create their own exclusive coin, which is the only form of payment they accept for their goods and services. To buy a product from x company, you need to use their coin. When x company buys something from someone or another company, they have to buy some of those coins off the market using their coins which they collect by selling products. There will be an exchange rate depending on how rare the coins are and how valuable the products of that company are. It will basically be a form of credit which backs each individual currency, similar to how credit backs modern currencies. But totally decentralized and fragmented. This will allow the money supply to expand and contract as needed. If you get born, get good at something, and gain a reputation, you can potentially create your own currency to allow you to buy things from other people. So some poor person in some third world country need not be poor simply because he can't get USD because a big corporation hasn't offered him a job yet. The monetary flows won't dictate relative wealth, but rather ability and creditworthiness. Taxation would be the requirement of paying for government services, which can only be paid in government coin.
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That's an interesting thought. Changing the algorithm slightly so the hardware ASICs become worthless would be pretty trivial, but would require the majority of the network to be on board with the changes, upgrade or decide on a switch time and even then it would would still likely cause some huge blockchain forks.
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On December 03 2013 22:50 RookUK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2013 21:41 boxerfred wrote:On December 03 2013 21:34 ROOTSasquatch wrote:I once did some free coaching and the guy insisted on paying me 15 bitcoins, I had no idea what they were at the time so when I reformatted my computer I didn't bother saving the wallet  . Seems like so many places are starting to use bitcoins though so It's nice that TL is too! some guy lost his hard drive with the key to a hell of a lot bitcoins. that equaled a loss of more than a million dollars if I remember correctly. you should've kept them  A different case perhaps, but there has been a story in the news here in the UK recently about a guy who accidentally threw away coins worth around £4 million today (more than $6.5 million).
Poor bastard, can't even imagine how I'd feel when I realised I'd just thrown away £4.6 million.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25138627
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Why do I have this feeling bitcoins are mostly used for money laundering and people are going to lose tons of money once the bubble pops.
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Just bought 2 shirts using bitcoin! WOOOH!
I <3 that TL has brought my two interests together, bitcoin and Starcraft2. 
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On December 06 2013 01:47 Trowa127 wrote:
I never bought any Bitcoin, but I did buy the first issue of the Bitcoin magazine which appears to be pretty damn rare nowadays lol. I don't understand the market at all so I'd never touch it personally, but these prices sure are crazy.
i just hope TL are xchanging these bitcoins into 'mainstream' currency immediately after the purchase
I really hope you took this advice lol.
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As mentioned in the OP, we're using bitpay at equivalent US / Euro rates. There's no risk to TL from fluctuating markets.
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On December 06 2013 07:07 fight_or_flight wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2013 19:51 R1CH wrote:As much as I like the decentralized mining argument, when the next and future generation of ASICs are out, mining is going to become the domain of those who can afford huge datacenters and ridiculous setups like this. This basically means only a handful of such companies will be producing blocks and thus in control of the entire bitcoin network, which is a worrying thought. What if they decide to require a minimum TX fee or only confirm blocks from their "financial partners"? I think this is a really important point to think about. One possible deterrent is that bitcoin is open source. Therefore there is a constant threat that someone could simply make an alt-coin if people get fed up with current coin. Imagine you own millions of dollars worth of hardware and someone gets pissed off and changes a few lines of code, literally making all of the hardware obsolete. Or more likely there will be a dozen alt-coins out there (as there is now), and the second bitcoin becomes too much of a hassle and with too many fees, people will start going towards low-fee coins. Then you'll have this bitcoin special interest group which will actively try to destabilize alt-coin markets, computationally attack alt-coins, create media campaigns against them, covertly create intentional pump-and-dump schemes to delegitimize them, and try to get regulations passed against them. It's going to get crazy indeed. Then what may eventually happen when all this has run it's course is that every corporation, government, and manufacturing entity will create their own exclusive coin, which is the only form of payment they accept for their goods and services. To buy a product from x company, you need to use their coin. When x company buys something from someone or another company, they have to buy some of those coins off the market using their coins which they collect by selling products. There will be an exchange rate depending on how rare the coins are and how valuable the products of that company are. It will basically be a form of credit which backs each individual currency, similar to how credit backs modern currencies. But totally decentralized and fragmented. This will allow the money supply to expand and contract as needed. If you get born, get good at something, and gain a reputation, you can potentially create your own currency to allow you to buy things from other people. So some poor person in some third world country need not be poor simply because he can't get USD because a big corporation hasn't offered him a job yet. The monetary flows won't dictate relative wealth, but rather ability and creditworthiness. Taxation would be the requirement of paying for government services, which can only be paid in government coin.
you do realize that this is a bad thing, right? fragmented currency is hell. imagine all the exchange agents who would take fees for every transaction. and the endless possibilities for speculations.
and people in third world countries aren't poor because they can't get dollars.
I really hope not every bitcoin supporter is as naive as this post makes it look like.
Also bitcoin supporters start to become annoying. Some of them sound like they are on a crusade.
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On December 18 2013 23:06 R1CH wrote:
As mentioned in the OP, we're using bitpay at equivalent US / Euro rates. There's no risk to TL from fluctuating markets.
I should have known you guys would have it done ha, my bad. I know a few people accepting direct wallet payments for services, not good. Hopefully some people learnt a lesson today.
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Bitcoin’s future is still uncertain. Steven Morell viewed it as a new currency, but the technology of the future.
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Good to know that you’re now accepting bitcoin. I read from BitcoinDaily that many businesses are actually starting to do the same. They know how cost-effective bitcoin is for business operations.
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Thanks whoever had this awesome idea
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EPT
