the two largest bitcoin mining pools in the world - Foundry USA and Antpool - require identity verification on all miners that use them
53% of global bitcoin hash rate has been doxxed between these two pools...
Discussion
Yuk
Plus 9% is Binance pool.
What's the reason they KYC their miners?
Foundry is in the US, legally they probably have to.
53% of blocks are constructed by entities that have ID verification on their miners. We need StratumV2.
We do, but in this case we just need miners to use a different pool.
In the foundry case, i think its hard for those miners to switch pools
I'm not worried about Foundry knowing about their own miners, but I am worried about a pattern of US miners seemingly feeling the need to use a KYC pool.
But then I've always been in favor of keeping US hash rate below 10% and cynically applaud the likes of senator Warren whenever they come up with another economic suicide plan with that effect.
I thought I was the only one.
They want to "protect" us from ourselves so bad, maybe we should let them.
Then they can finally learn the consequences of their ideas.
Why hard for those miners to switch pools?
Isn’t Foundry using StratumV2?
That's why I use Braiins pool.
Yeah, although blocks there are getting scarcer by the day. I’d really like for payouts to stabilize a bit more.
They called it a "bright future under the compliance" on Twitter.
Time for redistribution and more decentralisation. Also time for Stratum V2
I'm glad gave them 0 hashrate, Open firmware and non kyc mining is mandatory.
What avantages the KYC pools have over let's say Braiins pool? Why are they more popular than other pools? Or is it just big miners affiliated with the pools that are doxxed anyways because of their financing?
Maybe it's time to get a miner (for the basement).
In the winter I can use it to warm it up a bit.
KYC "clean" coins vs KYC "dirty" coins coming to an institution near you.
;)
Wen Stratum V2
This is why I use Braiins...
Are pools a route to a 51% attack?
No
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You mean unlikely or nearly impossible? If so, how you are so sure?
It’s too easy to leave a pool if they seem like a threat.
Well for a continuous fraud I agree it is super difficult. But for a one shot overnight sincronized attack I don't completely doubt 😐
How long does that “one shot overnight synchronized attack” last before miners switch and there is some sort of fork where people decide to use the honest chain rather than the corrupted chain?
I just don’t see much of an incentive for these companies to trash their business models for a couple blocks of control.
No.
If they tried this kind of thing, the miners would leave their pools very quickly.
no. the individuals in the pool can easily switch between pools
This stinks, but also makes me grateful that about 75% of the coins were mined before KYC was much of a thing in the space.
Oof.
Braiins Pool fixes this.
Don't think so. Chinese pools drive the mining industry.
Da faq. That’s lame AF. Need more pleb miners.
And still people are ok with this. Maybe we beyond repair. I don't know... Disapointing really.
great way to decentralise mining
Wtf? How long has this been the case? Why would they do that? I don’t recall any laws being passed that would make a pool feel they needed to do this. This is one of several reasons there needs to be more diversification of mining. Even if it’s small novelty mining with zero to little expectation of profitability. Geographically spreading mining needs to be a high priority imo
F2pool has been good to me lately and no KYC.
How much would you say, someone with Zero experience in mining would need to spend to get down on this F2pool and make some profits within a year??
Fucking shit... Really?
tick tock
next block
Start Phase: fair coin emission - largely done
Middle Phase: figure out sustainable relationship to miners - todays task
End Phase: ossification, Magical Michael Saylor world - future
Free network effects stopped when the core client stopped being a miner by default, even the smalest pow counts, by mass, and decentralized upredictable genuity effects of user's wirh skills that forced to deal with the incorprated default feature, imho
Which pool do you recommend?
Solo. The way it's supposed to be. Decentralized!
💜🫂
Truth. You are a braver person than me. Electricity is just too expensive where I am and I have too little hashpower to go alone for now. Have you ever found a block solo? Must be an amazing feeling
Oh gosh no lol I just wish it was still all solo. I get were at an unmanageable difficulty but pools are the opposite of what Bitcoin is meant to be
For non KYC pools with decent hashpower, I have enjoyed F2Pool and Slushpool (now called Brains Pool). Both have nice mobile apps for monitoring. F2Pool is obviously finding more blocks atm vs. Brains bc of their hashpower, but your payout is larger from Brains but less frequent. Could be worth splitting your miners into multiple pools to help contribute to a more decentralized network. However, on average they seem to come out to similar payouts in the longer term from the S19J Pros I have been experimenting with on both pools. Hope that helps and happy hashing! Have a great weekend <3
F2pool seems to be involved in scams tho
I have yet to get hit with anything dirty from them, but I still appreciate the heads up. Will keep an extra eye on those miners and be ready to move them to a new pool if F2Pool pulls anything scammy. Any recommendations for another pool other than Braiins?
No, they all seem to be negligently harming Bitcoin at best
Some example: 
Free network effects stopped when the core client stopped being a miner by default, even the smalest pow counts, by mass, and decentralized upredictable genuity effects of user's wirh skills that forced to deal with the incorprated default feature, imho
No it didn't stop. Bitcoin moved on to other important things. It still lives on in Monero.
V2? ...tho shall not split and indirect sign... and lose denyabilty , ...otoh under pow might be shards with privacy, but there can only be one pow global coin in the universe. So all should have been under the one software bitcoin umbrella.
If you are a real Bitcoiner, you understand the importance of anonymity.
wownero fix that 😈😂
Pleb miners need to keep adding hash rate to the smaller no KYC pools.
Indeed!
Decentralise #bitcoiming and bring it back to the plebs!
Let's hope that as ASIC technology evolves its rate of improving will be reduced, so ASICs will operate efficiently much longer.
And then #homemining could compete again with #industrialmining.
🫂
I’m looking forward to my asic powered hot water heater
Monero means home mining.
Bitcoin means industrial mining.
Appreciate what is. There are trade-offs and each project needs to decide what to emphasise. One can not become everything for all that's why there is beauty in this movement as former trade-offs become trade-fors.
Both Bitcoin and Monero are important in their own ways.
Exactly...
What's the best way to do that? Just buy a miner or two from Amazon, join a pool, and start mining?
Sure. Find a reputable seller and go for it. You will want to make sure you have the appropriate power set-up and a well ventilated area where you/your neighbors won't be bothered by the exhaust heat and noise of air cooling. But they are relatively cheap compared to prices a year ago, and it has been a fun learning experience even if you don't make a ton. Happy mining ⛏️
Hopefully a "ton" is all relative to time preference. I wouldn't be looking to sell anything I mined regardless of how much I mined.
Thank you for the zap, good sir. ✌
Kaboom racks are good peeps, better than amazon
Plebs need to mine off pool with cheap hardware as well.
If billions of micro miners are fishing for lotto tickets on the open waters, it can end up incentivizing larger players to do the same.
Start earning Bitcoin while playing solitaire! Want to learn more? Check our latest habla post here:
Wow that's fuckin shit!
Just imagine not earning satoshis while playing solitaire!
Follow us and check our latest habla post to learn more:
Clear proof that a lot of work is still needs to be done to realize a decentralized proof of work
The willingness of Bitcoiners to ignore other projects that follow the same ideals, but with different trade-offs is beyond belief. Monero's P2P pool works today and miners won't KYC- ever, thanks to CPU mining. Which of course has some other downsides. But that's the nature of trade-offs.
If we want to build systems that create a stable foundation for future generations we need to understand that everything in this world is polarity that needs to be "managed" in order to not become one-sided. Nature is a perfect example in that regard.
FOUNDRY IS COMPRISED OF GINORMOUS INSTITUTIONAL US MINING COMPANIES WHO ARE ALREADY COMPLETELY TURBO KYC++ INTEGRATED INTO THE FIAT WORLD.
THE REAL ISSUE ISN'T THAT THEY ARE KYC'D (THEY ARE ALREADY WELL KNOWN)
THE REAL ISSUE IS THE CONCENTRATION OF MINING INTO LARGE PUBLIC US COMPANIES, WITH PHYSICAL OFFICES AND DOORS ON WHICH REGULATORY AGENCIES CAN EASILY KNOCK
good points. no need to shout though
Whats up with an open source mining pool repo?
nostr:npub1hte85nxymfyez0nlmmxf287nh9cujfuetxhk9vptwcdqg0pn8pxqxasw3d nostr:npub18ams6ewn5aj2n3wt2qawzglx9mr4nzksxhvrdc4gzrecw7n5tvjqctp424
#Poolstr
We gotchu
Guys, this means only one thing!
We need to make a nostr pool, with nostr identity "verification", so no KYC at all.
Miners need to grow a pair of balls…
This is an insidious fight you stage.
Shocking
People are fucking stupid and cowtow to regulators when they get greedy.
Large miners are already doxxed.
It's the small miners that hold the line in decentralization.
That's why Monero CPU mining with all its shortcomings matters.
Nope, ASIC mining & free market competition for PoW equipment is superior in every way.
Not true. As a regular user its much more practical, convenient to use my PC when i dont use it or even say let 30% of the cpu work for monero.
With BTC you need special hardware mainly from china. Bullshit warranty, wait time, manipulation, TAX and postage .....so much crap just to mine.
With regular hardware anyone can buy its doable for everyone. I rather have milljons of people support the network than hundreds with their farms. But that's me.
What a load of crap,
Good luck mining cents meanwhile the botnet army of mining occurs on stolen computing using malware.
You have the crypto version of communism right in front of you and you can't see it...it's all theater.
Likewise, what a load of crap!
I don't care much for "earning" but more about supporting the network.
And as anything Monero just as well as Bitcoin can and will be used by criminals. So what?
Are you saying none of the BTC miners is part of criminal organisation? Yeah right! Be delusional and support big corps line Antminer who scam everyone with their miner each time.
Either way privacy by default is the way to go!
Now you're just saying things I didn't say to knock em down plus a bunch of dumb bullshit.
Enjoy your monero! Hope you're all in because it's the best thing ever! 👏👏👏👏
It's so 'great' that its users will eternally have their wealth debased by #Bitcoin
They all in it to “save the world” my arse 🤣
I do like Bitcoin but i would have preferred it was hardware that was more accessible.
Next the lack of privacy is crap. That is one reason i rather use Monero or LTC with MW.
What your lacking to understand is that LN which everyone seem to promote is the definition of centralization. Same with Asic mining. How many companies can afford the big farms ?? Not many i bet and it just became even more expensive for them,,,,
Like I said you're a communist,
Rather than relish competition, actual free market competition - you want the protocol to basically be for basement dwellers as you can't mine it meaningfully.
If I want to mine pennies worth of bitcoin I can do that too with readily available hardware.
Idk how this a point you guys try and make, it's a dumb point for people sipping dumbfuckjuice.
As for the privacy part, I've already gone over this 100x & if you don't understand - you're probably too far gone anyways.
Enjoy your "privacy" masturbation.
Antpool just started requiring KYC meaning more then half of miners are identified.
But no free market competition for different hardforks? Odd
“The purpose of the system is what it does, not what it claims to do.” -Stafford Beer-
Switch 👏 to 👏 other 👏 pools 👏
I mine with Braiins, but they haven’t been winning blocks much this month. Didn't expect their market share to be so low either.
Will stratum v2 help with this at all?
Miners used to have the good sense to switch pools.
Its very simple, we need low power miners for at home mining. I can't run a 3kW miner at home, the power bill would dox me and I can't afford it. Even a 1kW miner would be a stretch, it'd be a huge increase to my usage. I need something in the range of 500W with reasonable efficiency, meaning if newer miners are running 3kW at 110-150 the, I need something close to 15tH. Now we just needs $10'sM...
Great points Geist! Perhaps the NerdMiner is suitable for you?
Or a few other small ones.
I think the nerdminer is cool and all, but it seems like the hash rate is hillarioisly low, it still needs to be relatively competitive. It doesn't need to provide a profit perse, but it needs to be enough to pressure the kycd miners.
Thanks for the heads up on this! Very interesting.
Foundry USA has some Chinese shares as I know. And Antpool and the F2 pool are the same hand, it's Bitmain.
*in
If this was news to you, you haven't been paying attention.
If this scares you, you don't understand Bitcoin as well as you told yourself this morning.
If you think these mining pools will exist long term, you're a 🌈🐻.
That's the possibility of 51% attack
Even 30% has a good possibility of a 51% attack.
51% is just where the attack is guaranteed* to succeed.
* if we do nothing to react
Lowly pleb miner bucking that trend
What about the super low rate nerd miners? After all the point isn't to win necessarily but create an affordable miner with an army of users to secure voting positions?
Home mining, yes, but it must be done with ASICs to achieve a meaningful percentage.
I have faith with the next iterations of #nerdminers and #bitaxe projects.
💪
what fixes this?
unfortunately, only alt coins and offshore mining, imho
Bitcoin mining is now an industrial trade for better or worse, more due to economics than regulatory reasons
Lightning Network offers some privacy options to users. It will be interesting to see if US regulatory authorities make good on threat of considering LN operators "money transmitters" under longstanding current US laws.
Decentralized mining. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of computers with usb mining plugs doing 5-10gh/s
I do not see a problem in this. Rather not KYC of course. Worse case they move (again) to another country if it gets out of hand.
Exactly this.
Is this the bigger miners, trying to pre-empt a compulsion to do this anyway from the state?
i.e. if we 'regulate ourselves' and 'be good' we can be transparent, and ultimately be left alone - without the need for enforcement that might reach over and above?
Indeed. And the answer here is - you cannot comply your way out of fascism/communism.
We will all learn the hard way. It's the only way for most of us...
Shortsighted, imho. They are signing their own death warrant.
Pleb pools must grow stronger and more scattered.
nostr:note1fkqfuhn3tr9l7d3czcuslf3vays2f2y6znls4kwhyg4hyllu5dkqkeftcg
We need to decentralize mining. I know its not obvious, but relying on these big pools is a vector of attack for bitcoin.
I'm certain today's chip makers could make usb asic sticks like the blockeruptors of old. 200,000 people each running a usb asic at 5-10gh/s and linked to an independent pool could make a difference
This is scary!
When p2pool on bitcoin?
Monero is showing the way
All Monero shows me is how to have your wealth debased by #Bitcoin
All Bitcoin shows me is how to have your wealth surveillable, nonfungible, and prohibitively expensive to transact on chain in the near future #Monero
Not really. The shirtcoin is much easier to attack, that's not the way we want to go.
One day you'll understand why #Bitcoin is the way. Good luck on your journey.
Bitcoin is the way.
Nevertheless you have to be honest about problems and good solution by other projects
Centralized kyced mining is a problem (and an attack vector)
P2pool is a solution (with tradeoffs)
A voir si pour les mineurs la décentralisation est importante et la façon dont ils vont réagir.
Vont-ils s'identifier sagement ou choisir d'autres pools plus respectueuses de la vie privée ?
Not cool.
Solutions for competitive mining from home is the way to go
Where are the bitcoin heaters at?
Compliance to government ID is the way to go down to the road of hell
Why wouldn't you just use another pool. That's strange.
We never saw the 53% Attack coming.
Aren't miners supposed to migrate voluntarily to other pools?
The solution is that every bitcoiner needs to at minimum run an S9 and point at slushpool. Even if it is a net loss. The combined hash will add up.
Why is everything about drivechains these days. 😫
nostr:note1fkqfuhn3tr9l7d3czcuslf3vays2f2y6znls4kwhyg4hyllu5dkqkeftcg
Potentially one big drawback to PPLNS locking people with big expenses in.
Get out
?itok=HijmqJ_M
Reminds me of how the charts of staking pools look for shitcoins. I'm no Bitcoin magician, but it just doesn't look decentralized enough.
#noKYC #sovereignty
nostr:note1fkqfuhn3tr9l7d3czcuslf3vays2f2y6znls4kwhyg4hyllu5dkqkeftcg
This is , like, not cool man.
They can switch whenever they want.
DCG and friends have ALWAYS been an enemy of Bitcoin
what are these miners getting in exchange? what's incentivising them not to switch?
There are 2016 blocks every 2 weeks, surely income stability can't be a factor especially if you're a public miner and report quarterly earnings - even if you're a 1% hashrate pool that's about 262 blocks in a Q with reasonable certainty and even a chance of being lucky and getting more.