📅 Original date posted:2013-11-05
📝 Original message:The conversations that spawned from this paper have been fascinating to
read, but I have a problem with the conclusions. To quote the paper:
"The Bitcoin ecosystem is open to manipulation, and potential takeover,
by miners seeking to maximize their rewards. This paper presented
Selfish-Mine, a mining strategy that enables pools of colluding miners
that adopt it to earn revenues in excess of their mining power. Higher
revenues can lead new rational miners to join sel sh miner pools,
leading to a collapse of the decentralized currency."
Please explain to me why any rational miner would collude to earn
slightly higher short term profits at the expense of then wiping out the
value of all their bitcoins in the long term.
Also, if you felt that this vulnerability is an immediate danger to the
Bitcoin network, why publish the vulnerability publicly rather than
first disclosing it privately to the core developers? Apologies if you
did disclose it privately in the past; I've seen no mention of it.
--
Jameson Lopp
Software Engineer
Bronto Software
On 11/05/2013 01:58 PM, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Alessandro Parisi <startithub at gmail.com> wrote:
>> this means that anytime a bug is found in Bitcoin protocol, chances are that
>> it would take a lot more time to get fixed
>
> Correct. There is significant potential that a fix can create other
> problems... and any major mistake could instantly destroy > $2
> billion worth of value.
>
Jameson Lopp [ARCHIVE] /
npub1gh…akqmn
2023-06-07 15:08:52
in reply to nevent1q…2me4
Author Public Key
npub1ghgfr3aumwuxwnwghywxpaejxpf6k9pjcnyg9lfdnztlu5pwa0ksyakqmnPublished at
2023-06-07 15:08:52Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2013-11-05\n📝 Original message:The conversations that spawned from this paper have been fascinating to \nread, but I have a problem with the conclusions. To quote the paper:\n\n\"The Bitcoin ecosystem is open to manipulation, and potential takeover, \nby miners seeking to maximize their rewards. This paper presented \nSelfish-Mine, a mining strategy that enables pools of colluding miners\nthat adopt it to earn revenues in excess of their mining power. Higher \nrevenues can lead new rational miners to join sel\fsh miner pools, \nleading to a collapse of the decentralized currency.\"\n\nPlease explain to me why any rational miner would collude to earn \nslightly higher short term profits at the expense of then wiping out the \nvalue of all their bitcoins in the long term.\n\nAlso, if you felt that this vulnerability is an immediate danger to the \nBitcoin network, why publish the vulnerability publicly rather than \nfirst disclosing it privately to the core developers? Apologies if you \ndid disclose it privately in the past; I've seen no mention of it.\n--\nJameson Lopp\nSoftware Engineer\nBronto Software\n\nOn 11/05/2013 01:58 PM, Jeff Garzik wrote:\n\u003e On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Alessandro Parisi \u003cstartithub at gmail.com\u003e wrote:\n\u003e\u003e this means that anytime a bug is found in Bitcoin protocol, chances are that\n\u003e\u003e it would take a lot more time to get fixed\n\u003e\n\u003e Correct. There is significant potential that a fix can create other\n\u003e problems... and any major mistake could instantly destroy \u003e $2\n\u003e billion worth of value.\n\u003e",
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