2 Pools (Foundry & Antpool) control well over 50% of the mining hash power.
Should we be worried?
Discussion
Afraid, not much can be done about this development... Looks indeed worrisome.
Organisations like nostr:npub1qtvl2em0llpnnllffhat8zltugwwz97x79gfmxfz4qk52n6zpk3qq87dze are attempting to mitigate it and others like nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m are looking at decentralising the hardware.
We need hundreds of nostr:npub1qtvl2em0llpnnllffhat8zltugwwz97x79gfmxfz4qk52n6zpk3qq87dze and nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m to truly achieve this.
Also the increasing trend for Bitcoiners to buy home miners like the Bitaxe: https://bitaxe.org/ and hopefully join smaller pools (solo mining is not going to help), may mitigate the situation over time.
But it is VERY worrying!
Yes. That's why I've said that plebs should run a miner as well as a node, even if it's just a mini miner running at a net loss. It seems like a small price to pay for decentralisation.
Plus one can stack a few non-KYC satsin the process.
I’ve been running a nerd miner. Just ordered the S21 chip Bitaxe home miner as my S19 data centre miner got retired in May, a month after the halving.
I'm have bitaxes on public-pool.io? Is this a waste of time because the pools hashrate is too small?
I’ve only had data centre miners on large pools up to now.
I have a solo nerdminer at home and I’ve ordered the latest #Bitaxe but haven’t received delivery yet.
Does anybody have experience with small pools?
#asknostr
Just found Public pool have an npub:
nostr:npub1wtgd9ccg76awlp29zl3h466l89wr7hsut0n3ucmtr95h4t29jc6srlsxp2
From this Xitter post on Aug 23 2024, it looks like public pool have about 15% of the compute power to mine a block:
https://x.com/Public_Pool_BTC/status/1826981816210710880
So if you actually want to earn rewards, you'll probably need to choose a larger pool.
My data centre S19 switched between F2Pool and BTC.com which are both smaller, but earning pools.
My income from each was about the same and profitable until May this year on an S19.
Perhaps think about nostr:npub1qtvl2em0llpnnllffhat8zltugwwz97x79gfmxfz4qk52n6zpk3qq87dze if you it is available.
They seem to be doing good things.
I am unable to verify this independently, but this note suggest the public pool is not really a pool at all:
nostr:note1qmt59qctqxvnyrdrppgdeff6p86yuk70xx3mzzd6p5a48xen4g9szuncwx
Thats a solo lottery pool, I went with nostr:npub1qtvl2em0llpnnllffhat8zltugwwz97x79gfmxfz4qk52n6zpk3qq87dze for this reason:
nostr:note14vpdc0prmrvt7ktlqkrq4cc0hze06wwakn073cm0j8ec4ketfxjsg2kj0h
and:
nostr:note1q66cm4gwldq09qegsdjmulaq4andxkqmkj3vwlmtp4yswevqqslst9rg0f
It's not good.
But what maximum hashrate percentage is acceptable?
I'm sure we've been here before some time ago. 🤔
We reached hash sovereignty in 2014 and have been un-attackable from external forces since then.
We didn't envisage internal threats. Sadly, the block / fork wars of 2017 created an unhealed division that could be a threat still.
Yes, always worry! I'm worried that there's enough fiat to buy all of the bitcoin 10 times over... The reason bad money drives the good money out is because bad money is attached to "bad" people (ie, lazy, undisciplined, grifted, etc), so the good people have to go into hiding... Like Yoda on Dagobah or Luke in the Rebellion. Also, someone has got to go back to the Jedi Temple and deactivate the Sith Signal...
Bitcoin is not susceptible to a staking attack, but any PoS blockchain is and Ethereum with its $330B means any government or fund with $165B can hijack it.
Current market cap of Bitcoin is $1.25T, current global wealth is $454B. This is a good thing as there is too much money chasing too little supply, hence NGU.
Governments cannot buy enough compute or energy to launch as 51% attack on Bitcoin, but 2 mining pools combining are there already.
Luckily pools are made up of thousands of individuals or companies who collaborate to share rewards.
For me Bitmains dominance in the mining hardware business gives them huge power, but people like nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m are gearing up to provide viable alternatives. What we need is hundreds of Jacks with hundreds of different competitive mining hardware.
I might look to re-enter the semiconductor business to help mitigate this issue soon.
Whatever happened to the bitcoin mining water heater? Plenty of 240v power, heat as a by-product, dependable warranty/replacement schedule to complement network upgrades and rollout hardware MVP... Even if the low grade mining waste heat isn't hot enough to directly overcome the phase transition of water, surely it can be coupled with those newer air-source heat pump water heaters? Combine it with a dedicated home ISP service that could run as a loss leader to gain market adoption. I really want to see freespace optics ISP be a thing... Imagine not having to run fiber everywhere...
They were based on old S9 miners. There’s a whole bunch of S19 miners being retired right now that will become heaters in the near future.