I’m a software dev who is considering becoming a bitcoiner, mostly to explore its possibilities. I think a currency free from the baggage of the modern financial systems will allow great things to be done. I see lots of other people are thinking the same way (there are numerous BC prediction markets, for example).
However, I don’t want to invest time and money in a seriously flawed or doomed system.
BC appears to have at least one potentially-fatal flaw: the 51% attack. I’m unsure why it was assumed this would not be a problem? Profits from mining would seem to increase when on reaches over 50% of the world’s mining power. This would seem to encourage powerful mining pools. While current norms and other incentives may discourage black-hat miners, I don’t think it is reasonable to rely on these incentives.
Edit: In other words, is there an economy of scale in being the dominate miner?
Edit 2: While it looks like there was a successful BC double-spend, it was the result of a white-hat exploiting a bug, not a 51% attack. However, a few altcoins (e.g. reddcoin) have been the target of 51% attacks, so my research on their repercussions will start there.
In addition, BC would appear to have a number of other flaws:
The necessity for each wallet to contain the entire block chain. Edit: Apparently I was reading some dated information. This is wrong.
Governments have never seemed keen to give up their monopoly on the money supply.
The computing power wasted by mining.
It complects the generation of a public ledger with a specific currency.
Side note: After reading about BC and 51% attacks, I am beginning to think “the network effect is the mind killer” might be a more general expression of “politics is the mind killer”. There is a lot of noise out there.
Why bitcoin?
I’m a software dev who is considering becoming a bitcoiner, mostly to explore its possibilities. I think a currency free from the baggage of the modern financial systems will allow great things to be done. I see lots of other people are thinking the same way (there are numerous BC prediction markets, for example).
However, I don’t want to invest time and money in a seriously flawed or doomed system.
BC appears to have at least one potentially-fatal flaw: the 51% attack. I’m unsure why it was assumed this would not be a problem? Profits from mining would seem to increase when on reaches over 50% of the world’s mining power. This would seem to encourage powerful mining pools. While current norms and other incentives may discourage black-hat miners, I don’t think it is reasonable to rely on these incentives.
Edit: In other words, is there an economy of scale in being the dominate miner?
Edit 2: While it looks like there was a successful BC double-spend, it was the result of a white-hat exploiting a bug, not a 51% attack. However, a few altcoins (e.g. reddcoin) have been the target of 51% attacks, so my research on their repercussions will start there.
In addition, BC would appear to have a number of other flaws:
The necessity for each wallet to contain the entire block chain. Edit: Apparently I was reading some dated information. This is wrong.
Governments have never seemed keen to give up their monopoly on the money supply.
The computing power wasted by mining.
It complects the generation of a public ledger with a specific currency.
Side note: After reading about BC and 51% attacks, I am beginning to think “the network effect is the mind killer” might be a more general expression of “politics is the mind killer”. There is a lot of noise out there.
Help and insight is appreciated.