There is always some type of tradeoff being made. A lower cost to consumers can be at the expense of lower profit margins to the company, i.e., lower employee pay. Not clear to me if that’s a net win for society. But hey, progress for the sake of progress is good right!
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Replying to @lsukernik @hugohanoi
Disagree. New medicines are often founs that are better in *all* regards. Technological innovation means that things are not zero sum.
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Replying to @AriDavidPaul @lsukernik
You’re missing the point. New medicines are better because there are some exploitable inefficiencies. Whereas every hash in PoW goes to secure the ledger. One hash mined == one hash harder to revert.
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You can improve the hardware that performs the hashing function itself. But there’s no getting around the fact that to rewrite history you have to spend an equivalent amount of hash operations. 100% efficiency.
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Replying to @hugohanoi @lsukernik
1/ You're stating an assumption as though it's fact. Try this thought experiment: would it be possible to devise a PoW cryptocurrency that is *less* efficient than Bitcoin? Consider how the energy -> security dynamic changes based on miner centralization,
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Replying to @AriDavidPaul @lsukernik
Hugo Nguyen Retweeted Hugo Nguyen
It's not an assumption, it's math.https://twitter.com/hugohanoi/status/952289179387310080 …
Hugo Nguyen added,
Hugo Nguyen @hugohanoiReplying to @david_koops @TuurDemeesterLike I said, the mining hardware can be inefficient, and there’s room for improvement there (faster, generate less heat etc.). But the hashing operations themselves are 100% efficient for the purpose of protecting the ledger from being rewritten. One hash in, one hash out.2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes -
Over a large distribution, the amount of hash power required to rewrite X blocks is *exactly the same as what was required to mine those X blocks in the first place*. That's a fact and what I meant by PoW having 100% efficiency in terms of protecting the ledger against rewrite.
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Replying to @hugohanoi @lsukernik
No one disputed that. You're fixating on one tiny part of the security system. A key question is based on the structure, does the system naturally gravitate towards one in which there's a monopoly or oligopoly on hash power, and what incentives does that create?
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Replying to @AriDavidPaul @lsukernik
That's a completely orthogonal issue. Whether a PoW ledger was written by a single powerful miner, or by a diverse group of miners: that still does *not* negate the fact that to attack that ledger you need to spend an equivalent amount of hash power that was expensed.
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Replying to @hugohanoi @lsukernik
One last time: the "equivalent amount of hashpower" argument is true. NO ONE DISPUTES THAT. The point is that this is just one small part of "security."
3 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
Hugo Nguyen Retweeted Hugo Nguyen
Sure, it is not the only part, as I pointed out:https://twitter.com/hugohanoi/status/952418125508575233 …
Hugo Nguyen added,
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but not sure about "just a small part".
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