this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
200 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37804 readers
154 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
other events could precipitate a decrease in power used per bitcoin transaction.
Again, it would take a substantial change to the code or reality. The options are to change the block size (more transactions per block), alter the difficulty curve (which is intended to limit growth in the limited bitcoin supply), alter the way blocks are solved (massive theoretical mathematical breakthrough or, possibly, a move from asic to quantum computing), or switch away from proof of work. The first increases the storage of the blockchain (substantially for a substantial reduction), rewrite - and get approval - to change the difficulty steps which had been a hallmark of the system, the third is magical thinking, and the fourth completely undermines the egalitarian ethos of the coin.
I’ve heard of no substantive move on any front to alter the plan because, for now, it working. And the true believers are generally libertarians who have faith that market forces will correct any shortcomings organically. This usually results in everything working perfectly right up until it doesn’t, at which point the wheels come off and the bus slams into the class of kindergarteners crossing the road.
the network is self-adjusting. if hash power begins to decrease, the network will decrease difficulty to maintain the target of 10 minute block times. lots of things could lead to decreased hash power. the whole network could be run with a cleverly configured raspberry pi
Which would defeat the entire purpose of a distributed blockchain. I'm ribbing you, of course, on that ;-) Bitcoin was not built for efficiency and the very basis of distributed proof of work trades efficiency for security. The more "successful" it gets, the larger the incentive to waste power in a fight to win each block reward becomes - by design.