📅 Original date posted:2015-12-20
📝 Original message:On 12/19/15, Emin Gün Sirer <el33th4x0r at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Chris Priest is confusing these attacks with selfish mining, and further,
> his characterization of selfish mining is incorrect. Selfish Mining is
> guaranteed to yield profits for any pool over 33% (as a result, Nick
> Szabo has dubbed this the "34% attack") and it may pay off even
> below that point if the attacker is well-positioned in the network;
> or it may not, depending on the makeup of the rest of the pools
> as well as the network characteristics (the more centralized
> and bigger the other pools are, the less likely it is to pay off). There
> was a lot of noise in the community when the SM paper came out,
> so there are tons of incorrect response narrative out there. By now,
> everyone who seems to be Bitcoin competent sees SM as a
> concern, and Ethereum has already adopted our fix. I'd have hoped
> that a poster to this list would be better informed than to repeat the
> claim that "majority will protect Bitcoin" to refute a paper whose title
> is "majority is not enough."
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-network-vulnerability/
just sayin'...
But anyways, I agree with you on the rest of your email. This is only
really an attack from the perspective of the mining pool. From the
user's perspective, its not an attack at all. Imagine your aunt who
has bitcoin on a SPV wallet on her iphone. Does she care that two
mining pools are attacking each other? Its has nothing to do with her,
and it has nothing to do with most users or bitcoin either. From the
bitcoin user's perspective, the mining pool landscape *should* be
constantly changing. Fixing this "attack" is promoting mining pool
statism. Existing mining pools will have an advantage over up and
coming mining pools. That is not an advantage that is best for bitcoin
from the user's perspective.
Now, on the other hand, if this technique is used so much, it results
in too many pools getting shut down such that the difficulty starts to
decrease, *then* maybe it might be time to start thinking about fixing
this issue. The difficulty dropping means the security of the network
is decreased, which *does* have an effect on every user.
Chris Priest [ARCHIVE] /
npub18d…xccej
2023-06-07 17:47:10
in reply to nevent1q…js7y
Author Public Key
npub18df3zgqr9zt5ah42zpd34rmq6fp7v57vvwmtk20krhrfdczp38ks5xccejPublished at
2023-06-07 17:47:10Event JSON
{
"id": "1961342bf5565854a37d2c155a9a93611fadebc6d47d59581eb79ddf6c729d8b",
"pubkey": "3b5311200328974edeaa105b1a8f60d243e653cc63b6bb29f61dc696e04189ed",
"created_at": 1686160030,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"29b7621364af8f1f611558ed33ab90fd2b7daff5f620fc02b9ca3019fe1123e5",
"",
"root"
],
[
"e",
"73a949ae2c1960de0a8319e7bfc206fbef4e232fd6d6b0f0f994251126bf299c",
"",
"reply"
],
[
"p",
"b68afd106d166cdb4d51d8e16c275c09e0a49020fb6f311509c56b6743b37a84"
]
],
"content": "📅 Original date posted:2015-12-20\n📝 Original message:On 12/19/15, Emin Gün Sirer \u003cel33th4x0r at gmail.com\u003e wrote:\n\u003e\n\u003e Chris Priest is confusing these attacks with selfish mining, and further,\n\u003e his characterization of selfish mining is incorrect. Selfish Mining is\n\u003e guaranteed to yield profits for any pool over 33% (as a result, Nick\n\u003e Szabo has dubbed this the \"34% attack\") and it may pay off even\n\u003e below that point if the attacker is well-positioned in the network;\n\u003e or it may not, depending on the makeup of the rest of the pools\n\u003e as well as the network characteristics (the more centralized\n\u003e and bigger the other pools are, the less likely it is to pay off). There\n\u003e was a lot of noise in the community when the SM paper came out,\n\u003e so there are tons of incorrect response narrative out there. By now,\n\u003e everyone who seems to be Bitcoin competent sees SM as a\n\u003e concern, and Ethereum has already adopted our fix. I'd have hoped\n\u003e that a poster to this list would be better informed than to repeat the\n\u003e claim that \"majority will protect Bitcoin\" to refute a paper whose title\n\u003e is \"majority is not enough.\"\n\nhttp://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-network-vulnerability/\n\njust sayin'...\n\nBut anyways, I agree with you on the rest of your email. This is only\nreally an attack from the perspective of the mining pool. From the\nuser's perspective, its not an attack at all. Imagine your aunt who\nhas bitcoin on a SPV wallet on her iphone. Does she care that two\nmining pools are attacking each other? Its has nothing to do with her,\nand it has nothing to do with most users or bitcoin either. From the\nbitcoin user's perspective, the mining pool landscape *should* be\nconstantly changing. Fixing this \"attack\" is promoting mining pool\nstatism. Existing mining pools will have an advantage over up and\ncoming mining pools. That is not an advantage that is best for bitcoin\nfrom the user's perspective.\n\nNow, on the other hand, if this technique is used so much, it results\nin too many pools getting shut down such that the difficulty starts to\ndecrease, *then* maybe it might be time to start thinking about fixing\nthis issue. The difficulty dropping means the security of the network\nis decreased, which *does* have an effect on every user.",
"sig": "9a640ac960e36cf48f2ef3bc2f6baf8e8472eda9b8ff429585e88b0e96b5f141ea8f957ec208e8a90d4d0569e1eed37afe8640a5945c911c1f5c6ac77144d2d9"
}