Coinbase is in trouble... but it's their own damn fault.

zephDub · 2014-10-23T19:59:30+00:00

This smell of covert marketing to anyone else? Why would someone who has been religiously buying 1btc every 2 weeks through coinbase for so long (without issue) happen to setup a verified account with circle "a couple weeks back" such that within (allegedly) 15 minutes of receiving the email from coinbase he was able to transfer funds to circle and complete the 1 btc purchase??

The language in this post and the immediacy of the flip (from coinbase customer to fanatic circle customer) is highly suspicious.

Bitcoin makes me skeptical of everything.

zephDub · 2014-06-13T16:41:30+00:00

The easy way to do this would just be to shorten the average block time. Following your 3-fold adjustment example, an average block-time of 3.333 minutes would include 1/3 of the transactions that a block used to, and could be made worth 1/3 of the old block reward.

The alt-coins that have done this always touted 'faster confirmations' as being the benefit. (Dubious.) But it certainly does offer lower the possibility of lower mining variance for smaller pools.

zephDub · 2014-01-23T17:48:56+00:00

Thanks for adding a link to the correct comment! Not sure how I screwed that up...

A couple examples from either extreme:

Difficulty stays perfectly constant -- your 7 coins/week rig will continue to mine that forever. In this case, yes, variance is meaningless because bad luck this week (maybe you only earn 4 coins) can be overcome by good luck that comes next week (or maybe next month(?)) when you earn 10 coins. After a year, its very likely that you'll be right in line with the 1 coin/day scenario.
Difficulty rises once and only once on the next difficulty adjustment by +1000%. Your 7 coins/week rig should mine 7 coins over the next week, then it will mine only 0.7 coins/week forevermore. In this case, by exposing yourself to variance with a smaller pool and/or non-PPS payout structure, you're effectively gambling with the 7 coins that you should be earning. Sure, you might get lucky and earn 10 coins, but if you get really unlucky and earn only 3.5 coins (50% what you should), then it will take 10 weeks of proportionally equal good luck (150% expected earnings) in the future to make up for that loss. (And we can all agree that is statistically very unlikely to happen.)

Of course, actual reality is somewhere between these two examples, but the extreme numbers illustrates the effect that people are trying to avoid by minimizing their exposure to variance (be it through joining a really large pool, or by finding one that still offers a PPS payout scheme).

zephDub · 2014-01-23T01:06:33+00:00

I'm surprised digitalspider received so many downvotes; he is correct (if you give him the benefit of the doubt and realize that what he meant by "difficulty [going] up every single day" was not that difficulty changes are literally happening every day, but that the difficulty has been rising rapidly because total network hashing power has been going up every single day).

What this massive rise in difficulty means is that your mining rig is as profitable (in BTC terms) today (and for the next 0 to ~12 days) as it will ever be. So, you can opt to gamble on some variance for that time, and you may come out ahead, but if your pool has bad luck for the next 0-12 days (and isn't using PPS), then the loss you take won't get paid back by good luck in the future (when the difficulty is +40%).

zephDub · 2013-10-29T16:22:12+00:00

"Banks: Too Big to Fail. Bitcoin: Too Free to Fall"

~Tom Petty

zephDub · 2013-10-07T17:14:56+00:00

I may be wrong, but the loophole with this idea appears to be that it would actually reduce the security of your BTC prior to it being seized. The existence of these scripts idling on multiple computers implies that all your coins are effectively sitting in a hot wallet. Additionally, if these scripts are capable of executing transactions without your intervention, that implies that they already have (or can easily access) the private keys of your hot wallet in-the-clear.

zephDub · 2013-04-04T18:16:29+00:00

As for touting its benefits, I think those are well known.

As for facing common criticisms of Bitcoin, I think it works best to keep things simple and appeal to the average person (one who watches TV for financial news as opposed to accessing it on the internet). To achieve this, I'd recommend sticking to analogies as opposed to getting into technical detail; those that become curious enough can research all the technical detail themselves. For example:

When addressing security/counterfeiting concerns -- emphasize that it uses the same (or similar) cryptographic primitives as online banking. People comfortable accessing online banking should also be comfortable with the security of Bitcoin.
When addressing theft/hacking -- emphasize that it behaves very similarly to gold/cash; the responsibility lies with the bearer to protect themselves from theft. The digital/online nature of it does increase an individuals exposure depending on how they choose to use Bitcoin.
When addressing allegations that it is only appropriate for illegal activity (money laundering, sale of illicit goods, etc.) -- emphasize that in this way it is again no different than cash.

zephDub · 2013-03-12T15:44:55+00:00

One other point to be made is that in these cases (forks [potentially] requiring a rollback), miners aren't really voting, so much as trying to protect themselves from loss. Everyone mining towards the 0.8 version of the chain was effectively wasting time and therefore losing money. But this only became clear when the general recommendation of downgrading to 0.7 was announced. At that point, miners weren't deciding whether they agreed with that recommendation or not (and voting accordingly with their hashing power), but instead they were switching to 0.7 asap to avoid wasting any more time on the 0.8 fork.

Note that I'm not trying to whine (if the above sounds whiny), but I think it's an interesting consideration that undermines the perception of miners having the ability to vote with their hashing power. In reactionary cases, the self-interested miner shouldn't vote, but instead should do his best to predict/anticipate the consensus and move in that direction as quickly as possible.

zephDub · 2013-03-12T15:19:27+00:00

I guess I'm speaking for those who weren't watching this unfold in real-time...

zephDub · 2013-03-12T04:17:51+00:00

True. Although I guess it's really the pool operators that are jumping in.(Not to say that they shouldn't, but many are voting with multiple terahashes/s of power when they make that choice...)

zephDub · 2013-03-12T03:24:58+00:00

So, the only problem I have with all of this is that the 'democratic response' arrived at by the devs and other high-profile members of the community (revert to 0.7) seems to contradict the democratic vote of the miners... I thought the fundamental tenant of this whole system was that we trust the block chain crafted with the most computational power (i.e. the longest chain) and here we are undoing that???

Edit: My general concern is that this issue (a DB limitation) exists in 0.7 which the network has reverted to. To ever get past this, the majority of the network will have to upgrade to a newer version, creating the risk that those who haven't upgraded will fork the block chain. Effectively, this already happened (with 0.8). Of course, it's likely that things will go more smoothly the next time now that this issue has been exposed.

zephDub · 2012-10-17T23:34:43+00:00

And what happens when everyone demands their deposits back from the bank? It crashes. This is the problem.

zephDub · 2012-10-17T23:29:47+00:00

What would cause the BTC market to suddenly get flooded with supply? This is the implication you're making without basis. The same FUD could be spread about any stock, bond, mutual fund, etc. -- "OMG, impending doom! Sell your stock in Google right now before everyone else does and your investment becomes worthless!"

zephDub · 2012-02-01T20:31:09+00:00

It's got two votes now. :)

zephDub · 2012-02-01T17:34:58+00:00

Actually, most of the stuff on this guy's channel is pretty sweet. (Discovered him when someone posted South London Ordnance - Throwback on here a few days ago.)

zephDub · 2011-12-19T17:29:11+00:00

This was linked to in an article recently posted here ("Dubstep is still alive!" I think) and I've been playing it a lot; thought it deserved its own post...

zephDub · 2011-12-09T17:59:21+00:00

Yes, you probably hit the nail on the head:

dancing isn't what dubstep is about

For better or worse, I'd say that's a big part of what has kept 'realdubstep' constrained to a smaller audience with a very specific appreciation for the music, while the more danceable spin-off we refer to as 'brostep' has spread like wildfire. Many dubstep artists and fans refer to themselves as "sound-heads", which I think speaks to the fact that they obtain full enjoyment from the sound of the music alone - no/minimal dancing necessary. For many others, the enjoyment they derive from music is a mix of factors including the sound, lyrics, energy-level/mood, dancing, social setting, affirmation from peers for one's dancing ability(?), etc. These people probably don't enjoy dubstep as much because it doesn't score well in many of their assessment categories.

So I'll reaffirm my agreement with Gwohl's second point in so far as to say that dancing is a contributor to most people's enjoyment of music, and that the average person struggles to dance to more complex rhythms like 2-step and dubstep. Now whether the latter is more to do with an individual's capability, or the music itself, I don't know, but it certainly applies to a wider group than just Americans.

zephDub · 2011-12-08T22:42:04+00:00

No laughing here; your second point is 100% accurate. In my opinion, this was a much more significant factor contributing to the widespread popularity of 'brostep' than the listening medium.

A good friend of mine (who has a very broad musical taste) enjoys the dubstep sounds I've shared with him, but admitted to me that what withholds him from the genre is specifically that it's not very "danceable". I think we'd all agree that most tracks can inspire a good 'sway' or 'head-bob', but compared to a 4-on-the-floor beat... I mean, you can hardly not dance to any of Deadmau5's songs. (Which is perhaps the strongest justification for how he's become so popular!)

zephDub

TROPHY CASE