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Bitcoin mining is no longer profitable (www.pcworld.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago* (8 children)

The network was built to adjust

Then why doesn't it adjust to avoid negative social and environmental effects? Probalby because it's not possible to adjust bitcoin's algorithm, only some parameters, and because miners don't have enough intensive to abandon bitcoin for something less destructive.

My understanding is it's not possible to modify nor fix bitcoin's core algorithm, which include the difficulty and consensus logic.

A hard fork is possible, which means leaving the bitcoin network and setting up an alternative (hopefully better) network with a different algorithm.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    lol it can’t adjust on public approval. It’s software that runs. It’s valuable. If it wasn’t, people wouldn’t run it.

    It can hard fork with a consensus mechanism change anytime someone writes one and people decide it’s the best path forward. Ethereum decided this and did this.

    That’s not happening with Bitcoin because those that understand how it works agree it’s the best system to use.

    I use Bitcoin as a store of value, and Solana for day to day stuff and financial investments like lending and liq providing. That’s my preference, for now. It’s a very fluid industry, nothing is set in stone, although Bitcoin appears to be pretty solidly the preferred secure store of value.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago* (6 children)

    lol it can’t adjust on public approval. It’s software that runs.

    It can. Software is written by people. Its authors can build it with an update mechanism.

    Crypto currencies such as Tezos have a vote-based update mechanism and a community that periodically submits algorithm changes for approval.

    Bitcoin doesn't have a update mechanism that allows smooth changes. Its take it or leave it (aka hard fork). Peole can move away from it, and it's sad that so many still haven't.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (5 children)

    It’s the same with all the chains. An algorithm change is a breaking change. If you don’t implement it, your validating node will not continue with the rest.

    Bitcoin has the BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) process. BIP-52 is an example of a proposal to change the algorithm due to energy concerns.

    If the humans reach consensus it will change. However, I maintain that software can’t be programmed to adjust for social concerns - the humans have to change it.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago* (4 children)

    Good point, with BIPs the Bitcoin community is more adaptive than I gave it credit for.

    It still doesn't prevent soft nor hard fork. My understanding is that a change in Bitcoin's consensus logic require ALL users/miners to take action to deploy the new software to avoid hard forks. That's impossible in practice. So a BIP to change the consensus logic, either tweaking or replacing PoW, would necessary cause a hard fork even if it's approved.

    Not all chains handle this the same way nor suffer from this. For instance, using Tezos means automatically accepting algorithm changes after they are approved. This makes hard forks much less likely.

    Tezos incorporates a built-in, on-chain mechanism for proposing, selecting, testing, and activating protocol upgrades without the need to hard fork. This mechanism makes Tezos a self-amending blockchain and allows any user to propose changes to the economic protocol, which defines the possible blockchain operations and how they are processed.

    Bitcoin sure have more hype and higher price, but appears to have more difficulty evolving compared to others.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (3 children)

    Tezos would still require all nodes to upgrade to the code which contains the new algorithm. It can’t just automatically know what the new code is. It then can schedule these to activate at a certain block using a signaling system of some sort. If some nodes didn’t upgrade, this would cause a hard fork if the version they are running doesn’t have the new version required to run the new algorithm

    Its behavior and process as outlined in the link you sent is no different from other chains.

    Bitcoin uses version bits to perform these types of upgrades (see bip 9 implemented in 2016)

    Ethereum uses something similar. Solana’s activation mechanism is called “feature gate activation”.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Tezos would still require all nodes to upgrade to the code which contains the new algorithm. It can’t just automatically know what the new code is. It then can schedule these to activate at a certain block using a signaling system of some sort.

    Code proposal, vote on new code activation of new code, are all Tezos on-chain operation. These operations include a hash of the new code to be deployed. There's some off-chain work happening to update tools, which I guess include compiling said code. So you're right, some off-cain action is needed for deployment https://www.tezosagora.org/learn#an-introduction-to-tezos-governance

    My understanding is that compared to BTC governance, a larger part of the process happen on-chain. Also there is a relatively smaller portion of nodes (baker) involved in creating/verifying blocks that must update. This allowed various protocol changes without forks over the years.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    It’s no different. A new version of the consensus code needs written and deployed.

    That page you linked is the same on all chains. All have a proposal, discussion, implementation, waiting period (for code to be deployed), and activation. That’s just blockchain 101

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    same on all chains. All have a proposal, discussion, implementation, waiting period (for code to be deployed), and activation

    I though most of those steps didn't occur on-chain in the case of bitcoin. But I could be mistaken.

    Would you mind sharing a link with the equivalent information on bitcoin, ie its governance process and how each governance operation (proposal, vote, activation ) is handled by the chain?

    I'm looking at BIP-1. It explains how to submit a proposal via mailing list and versioned repository, ie off-chain.

    Also looking at BIP-9. It does rely on the chain for governance, and allow polling for the most popular soft-fork. But it focus on exclusively on testing soft forks, which severely limit its usefulness.

    allowing multiple backward-compatible changes (further called "soft forks") to be deployed in parallel.

    It seems BIP-9 doesn't provide a solution to propose/vote/activate the larger non-backward-compatible changes, ie doesn't help prevent hard forks. And big social and environmental issues affecting bitcoin probably require such large change.

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