
Rental Attacks Mean Blockchains Must Evolve or Die - vasilipupkin
https://techcrunch-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/techcrunch.com/2018/07/22/rental-attacks-mean-that-blockchains-must-evolve-or-die/amp/
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alexbecker
Can the URL of this be changed to a non-AMP page?

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vasilipupkin
what's the difference? here is the techcrunch url

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/22/rental-attacks-mean-
that-b...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/22/rental-attacks-mean-that-
blockchains-must-evolve-or-die/)

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bmcusick
This article has it completely backwards. As is often the case, (just as Paul
Krugman gets basic tech facts wrong) tech people often don't understand
economics.

This has ALWAYS been the problem with "ASIC resistant" coins. "ASIC Resistant"
just means that you can rent an AWS instance to attack the coin because any
generic CPU or GPU will work.

Bitcoin isn't safe just because it's big. It's safe because Bitcoin mining
hardware has no purpose other than to mine Bitcoin. Which means the economics
are such that Bitcoin mining is only profitable on the fully amortized
lifetime cost of the miner, not on the marginal rental cost.

(That's because competition between miners drives the difficulty so high that
marginal revenues fall until they equal long-term marginal costs, which are
(land rent + labor + fully amortized hardware + electricity))

ASIC driven Proof-of-Work is fine as long as your coin's POW is unique. Only
by forcing miners to make a 3-5 year investment in mining hardware can you
align the long term incentives of miners and end-users.

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jayd16
So much work and waste. By design it tends towards a specialized group
controlling the system. Large miners just replace bankers and it cost more to
do anything.

Whats the point of this stuff again?

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vasilipupkin
it's an alternative currency, it's point is exactly the same as any other
currency. What's the point of euros ? why can't they just use dollars like we
do.

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jayd16
The point of Euros and Dollars is so a nation or group of nations has
democratic power over their own monetary policy. Bitcoin originally presented
the idea of a never changing monetary policy but as forks have come and gone
and power is beginning to concentrate in career miners that no longer seems to
be the case.

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vasilipupkin
power doesn't concentrate in miners any more than power concentrates in those
who create the paper to make euros or dollars.

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lostmsu
It's funny, that they mention PoS as a solution, when in PoS there's no
incentive whatsoever for participants to not mine whatever forks they are
offered to.

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vasilipupkin
slashing conditions

