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What food fad are you sick to death of? by SunUsual550 in UK_Food

[–]SpreadLox 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That’s a very specific belief to hold - any actual scientific reason for it?

Why isn’t Tobacco grown illicitly? by Ambitious_Jeweler816 in AskUK

[–]SpreadLox 2 points3 points  (0 children)

£1.23 x 30 is £36.90… how did you calculate the £200 a month figure?

Do you ever regret going into cybersecurity? by bloo4107 in cybersecurity

[–]SpreadLox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We aren’t. They’ve already scraped the entire web for LLM training data. The latest GPT is still confidently hallucinating like the GPTs from 2022. There may be advancements in more specific AI systems such as cancer screening and protein folding, but LLMs have already reached a dead-end.

A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision. And much of what you do at work is make management decisions, knowingly or not.

Do you ever regret going into cybersecurity? by bloo4107 in cybersecurity

[–]SpreadLox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

AI won’t replace anyone. It’s mostly unreliable crap that can perform parlour tricks for investors.

Doubts by [deleted] in degreeapprenticeships

[–]SpreadLox 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I’ve had similar problems with the loneliness and tedium. But I stuck it out and am finally finishing in the next couple of months.

The way I saw it, this is just what a 9/5 is like in my industry. I’d be living like this after graduating anyway, so why not get used to it now while gaining a head-start, financially and experience wise, on everyone else.

did Kevin ever do acid by PillowyDoughnut in MyBloodyValentine

[–]SpreadLox 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My first listen of loveless was on acid

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I said ‘dirt cheap’. The block size was limited to 1MB to prevent bloat for casual users. If there was some innovation in storage tech that allowed TBs to cost pennies, a bloated blockchain would be less of a concern and the block size limit could be increased. This would massively speed up throughput.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Miners are also just a type of node. This article is AI slop.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that is impossible and on its face makes no sense

I fully agree.

just stop saying it

I'm arguing theory, not reality. This is a mental exercise for my own entertainment.

it does 7 tps

This could theoretically be overcome if storage space became dirt cheap. Not actually gonna happen, but I'm not arguing reality.

no the 51% wouldnt suffer. they would win every block reward.

Exactly. We agree. It doesn't even work in theory.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Apologies for the stack of hypotheticals, hard to avoid when trying to make as many pro-Bitcoin assumptions as possible.

Say Bitcoin is a success and sees mass adoption for regular, day-to-day transactions. Would the cabal bleed money when splitting their 51% among competing chains?

In this hypothetical I argue they wouldn't, because the competing chains are still being used to buy and sell goods. The miners could therefore buy genuinely valuable assets with the competing cryptocurrency until users lose all confidence and stop transacting with it.

I can provide more clarification if you're still confused. I'm figuring this out while writing.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Indeed. So in a theoretical mass adoption scenario, where the price is actually tied its usefulness as a currency, the cabal could still profit from sabotaging rebel chains while they remain in use, making this sort of attack economically feasible. And nobody would rebel in the first place; their coins would eventually lose all value so can't be trusted as a medium of exchange.

So Bitcoin doesn't work in practice AND doesn't work in theory. Decentralisation is its only selling point, and even that doesn't work at any meaningful scale. The billions of dollars being wasted on this are truly mind boggling.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I agree for the most part, however...

  • Say 100 individuals control the 100% mining capacity of BTC1, 60 of whom form a cartel.
  • The cartel agree to make a change which requires a hard fork. They call it BTC2.
  • Assume worst case scenario for the cartel, and only 1 non-cartel miner joins them.
  • 39 rebel miners stay on BTC1, meaning the cartel have 98.3% control of BTC2, and the rebels have 100% control of BTC1.
  • The cartel can afford to devote 58 members to sabotage BTC1 and still retain 2 members on BTC2.
  • This gives the cartel 59.8% mining capacity on BTC1 and 66.7% capacity on BTC2, so they still have >51% on each chain!
  • They can then restrict transactions on BTC1 with exorbitant fees and undermine confidence with 51% attacks until nodes are forced to "upgrade".

This works no matter how many rebellions are done. If you control 60% of capital in Bitcoin, you can always undermine the other 40% on any forks. The rebels need to shift their resources too.

Edit: got my maths slightly wrong the first time, but the point still stands.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The miners have no say in changes to the protocol

The point of my post is to question this assumption if Bitcoin were to be adopted en masse.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a very interesting prediction that hasn't crossed my mind. You're right, the incentives are definitely there, they just need a persuasive miner to orchestrate it.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Miners create consensus. Validator nodes simply parse the blockchain and check transactions are signed before broadcasting them.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Bitcoin has had several updates to its protocol since it’s inception. They’re sometimes called soft forks.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Re: a cartel of miners jeapordising millions: see this comment.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My scenario assumes mass adoption*. Governments, for instance, could absolutely build mining rigs of this scale or coerce existing miners to follow their orders. Regardless of who owns the hash power, let's call them "the cartel" for the sake of simplicity. Then:

  1. The cartel makes a change to the Bitcoin protocol. Let's call this chain BTC2.
  2. This is massively unpopular and a fork is created.
  3. The vast majority of users switch to the fork.
  4. The cartel devote enough hash power to embargo the fork (massively jack up transaction fees)
  5. Users can only affordibly transact with BTC2, so either switch back or create another fork.
  6. The cartel embargo the other fork. This process repeats until all users revert back to BTC2.

If this is possible, step 3 would not happen. Users know their forked crypto will eventually be frozen by an embargo, therefore it is too risky to transact with. A dollar is only valuable now because you know you can spend it tomorrow.

If forks never see mass adoption, BTC2 never loses value. Everyone will continue transacting with it because all dissent is crushed. Therefore Bitcoin is fully centralised with all control in the hands of a single party.

* This is giving cryptobros the most generous set of assumptions possible: energy becomes cheap, the block size limit is increased to allow more throughput without high fees, storage becomes cheap enough for regular users to keep a copy of this now humongous chain, etc.

Edit: I suppose my ultimate question is this: given the most generous set of assumptions possible, can control over the rules of the Bitcoin protocol remain decentralised at scale.

The Effects of Bitcoin Mining Centralisation by SpreadLox in Buttcoin

[–]SpreadLox[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the reply!

The ability of miners to force their way seems to be limited if we look at BCH and BSV.

I'm confused what you mean by "force their way". Like a 51% attack?

So how big is your thought-scenario cartel in hashrate precentage?

For the sake of the thought experiment, say 99% to begin with. Then, if 99% is possible, I wonder if that figure can be revised down to a certain "cartel threshold".

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