12 Ways to Measure the Bitcoin Network's Health

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Sunday, September 27, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/12-ways-measure-bitcoin-networks-health/

The ultra-resilient bitcoin network is the world's largest distributing computing project in terms of raw computational power, having long ago surpassed 1 exaFLOPS (1,000 petaFLOPS) – over eight times the combined speed of the top 500 supercomputers.

Although since increasing to an amazing 3.2 zettaFLOPS (3,200 exaFLOPS), the project was quietly removed from Wikipedia's list of distributed computing projects. This is probably due to the fact that the exaFLOPS estimate breaks down with bitcoin's specialized ASICs, since they are not capable of floating-point operations.

Instead, the estimate may be used for estimating how well other supercomputers and distributed networking projects would be able to mine bitcoin, since supercomputers have the capability to perform the integer operations used in hashing.

Therefore, today's fastest supercomputer, China's Tianhe-2 with a performance of 33.86 Pflop/s, would measure at about 0.001% of the bitcoin network.

Monitoring network health

As bitcoin matures and starts to compete with legacy retail payments networks like Visa and MasterCard, and wholesale networks like Swift, the health of the decentralized network becomes vital to its performance capabilities.

Community site Bitcoin.org does an excellent job of maintaining the historical archive of network status alerts and vulnerabilities.

The assembled report below lists the critical statistics for monitoring the ongoing health of the distributed bitcoin network, covering the measurements important for reachability, scalability, security and transaction processing speed.

1. The Bitnodes Project

Bitnodes estimates the size of the bitcoin network by finding all the reachable nodes in the network. The current methodology involves sending getaddr message recursively to find all the reachable nodes in the network starting from a set of seed nodes. It performs this polling every 24 hours and displays the results on a world heat map of countries, including rankings and version of bitcoin reference client.

Source: Bitnodes

The Bitnodes Project launched in April 2013 with the Bitcoin Foundation’s sponsorship as a community resource. The project's latest report can be seen here.

2. Data Propagation

Source: BitcoinStats

The information exchange in the bitcoin network is all but instantaneous. Exactly how fast is information being propagated in the network though? Maintained by BitcoinStats, the propagation evolution chart shows the 50th percentile of the inv-messages received by peers (ie: the plot shows the time since a transaction or block enters the network until a majority of nodes has received and processed it).

3. DNS Bootstrap Servers

DNS seeds are used by almost all bitcoin clients to identify a set of nodes to connect to when starting. The seeds are run by volunteers using a multitude of mechanisms to ensure the returned seeds represent a good sample of nodes currently online.

Source: BitcoinStats

Except for bitseed.xf2.org, the seeds aim to return nodes that are currently online and reachable. Also provided by BitcoinStats, the chart shows results from regular bootstrap attempts using the seeds with the plot representing the average hourly connection success rate for each of the seeds. The closer to 100%, the better the seed is.

An auxiliary chart with response time of DNS seeds to queries is also provided, which indicates the response times in milliseconds (ms) elapsed between sending the query and receiving a response.

4. Network Hashing Rate

Provided by developer Pieter Wuille, this series of graphs display hashing difficulty and the estimated number of terahashes per second (computation speed) that the network is performing for various time windows (1 terahash equals 1,000 gigahashes).

Calculated by dividing maximum target by current target where target is a 256-bit number, difficulty measures how difficult it is to find a new block compared to the easiest it can ever be. Difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks (or two weeks) and to find a block, the SHA-256 hash of a block’s header must be lower than or equal to the current target for the block to be accepted by the network.

5. Hash Rate Distribution

This pie chart from Organ Ofcorti is an estimation of hash rate distribution amongst the largest mining pools at a weekly interval. It is important to monitor because the integrity of the network depends on a single actor not exceeding 50% of the overall hashing power.

Source: Organ OfCorti

A table of solved block statistics lists all statistics that can be derived from the number of blocks a hash rate contributor has solved for the past week. Block attributions are either from primary sources such as those claimed by a particular pool website, or secondary sources such as coinbase signatures, or known generation addresses.

When dependent on secondary sources only, data may be inaccurate and miss some blocks if a particular block-solver has gone to some trouble to hide solved blocks and this will result in an underestimate of the block-solver hash rate.

An alternate chart across 24-hour, 48-hour and four-day time horizons is provided by Blockchain.

6. Selfish Mining Indicator

Produced by Coinometrics, this metric attempts to measure the likelihood and prevalence of bitcoin miners engaged in a subset behavior of the 'Selfish Mining' strategy, as described by Ittay Eyal and Emin Gün Sirer in their paper, Majority is not Enough: Bitcoin Mining is Vulnerable.

Source: Coinometrics

Since the bitcoin protocol relies on miners following the rules laid out by the software, as soon as miners have found a block they need to announce it to the network.

Selfish mining defies this rule, because certain miners, once they have found a block, can withhold it from the network and start working on their next block. Once they have a number in their hidden chain, they can release them to invalidate the blocks that the network thought were part of the main chain.

The lower the probability that at least k (actual distribution) blocks will be found in the time represented by the first bucket, the more likely that miners are engaging in quick succession behavior under the Selfish Mining strategy.

Coinometrics explains:

"One way to estimate the likelihood of such a strategy being implemented is to measure the distribution of the time between blocks against the expected distribution. The rate of creation of bitcoin blocks is determined by how quickly the first miner solves for a hash meeting the difficulty requirements of the protocol. Every attempt to meet this difficulty has a set probability of being correct. By definition, the probability is independent between hashes. As a result the rate at which blocks are generated should follow an exponential distribution."

7. Orphaned Blocks

Source: Blockchain

Orphaned blocks are valid blocks which are not part of the main bitcoin block chain. They can occur naturally when two miners produce blocks at similar times or they can be caused by an attacker with enough hashing power attempting to reverse transactions.

Initially accepted by the majority of the network, orphaned blocks are those that are rejected after proof of a longer block chain is received that doesn't include that particular block. In other words, a user could see a transaction as having one confirmation and then revert to zero confirmations if a longer blockchain was received that didn't include the transaction.

8. Double Spends Monitor

Blockchain maintains a real-time monitor for double spends detected in the last 500,000 transactions utilizing a 10-minute cache. This could be used to alert users to potentially malicious transactions on the network.

9. Unconfirmed Transactions

Source: Blockchain

Blockchain also maintains this live updating list of new bitcoin transactions waiting to be included in a block. The monitor displays total number of unconfirmed transactions, including total fees and total size in kilobytes.

10. Average Transaction Confirmation Time

Source: Blockchain

This measures the average (mean) amount of time in minutes that it takes for a transaction to be accepted into a block. Reasonable estimates differ on the amount of time and confirmations for a transaction to be considered cleared and ‘good’, but that appropriate risk level would be associated with the transaction’s value.

11. Block Chain Total Size

Source: Blockchain

The block chain total size is important because of the storage space considerations as it grows as well as the time it takes for initial synchronization after installing the reference client for the first time. This measurement shows total size of all block headers and transactions not including database indexes.

12. Average Block Size

Source: Blockchain

Measured here in fractions of a megabyte, the block size will become a heated debate once the bitcoin network starts approaching its current throughput limit of approximately seven transactions per second.

Ultimately important for scalability, the stated block size limit will have to be increased, linked to another variable, or remain the same with more confirmations pushed off chain, each path having corresponding implications for decentralization of the system.

Please let us know in the comments section below if we have omitted any measurement critical to network operations or if any references are out-dated.

CFPB Warning Ignores Bitcoin’s Consumer Protections

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Monday, August 18, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/cfpb-warning-ignores-bitcoins-consumer-protections/

Last week's advisory from the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warning consumers about the risks of virtual currencies such as bitcoin diligently listed several obvious risks, but simultaneously omitted the very consumer protections provided by certain cryptographic monies.

Citing malicious hackers, potentially high mark-up fees, exchange-rate volatility, lack of governmental insurance, and risk of private key loss is laudable given that so few market participants conduct proper due diligence before jumping in to a new alternative. The majority of companies involved in the bitcoin ecosystem have been highlighting these risks for years.

To be fair, the CFPB charter may not include stressing the particular benefits of some payment methods over others. However, when the words 'financial protection' are in your agency's official name, it appears disingenuous to intentionally omit features from what may be one of the world's most protective financial instruments ever designed.

Who benefits most?

Bootstrapping a competing free-market alternative in a field of national currencies with so many pre-existing and unfair legal tender advantages resembles the solving of the great chicken-or-the-egg debate: which came first, the merchant or the consumer?

A recent New York Times article on bitcoin merchants sparked an instructive debate about whether bitcoin was mostly a payment method benefiting merchants or if consumers also gained substantial benefits from the digital currency.

Merchants need an incentive to accept the new currency before consumers can spend the new currency. And similarly, consumers need reasons to hold the new currency before merchants can accept it. The CFPB advisory warning does little to instill confidence in the latter.

Therefore, in order to better assist consumers, I will describe some of bitcoin's superior attributes in the area of financial protection:

1. Protection from counterfeit bank notes
As the most counterfeit-proof currency in existence today, bitcoin protects consumers from the risk of accepting or receiving counterfeit bank notes in commerce, which continues to plague the world's fiat note issuers. By virtue of the innovative bitcoin block chain, transactions are chronologically recorded in a shared database preventing double-spending and it is computationally impractical to modify once recorded in the chain.

2. Protection from financial surveillance
Just as massive digital surveillance of our email correspondence, telephone conversations, instant messaging, and web surfing habits has escalated in the last 20 years, so has surveillance of our income, spending, and financial transactions. Individuals and corporations are under the financial microscope now more than at any time in history – a fact that has significantly eroded any remaining vestiges of financial privacy. As we move from a paper money world to a digital money world, maintaining our analog equivalent rights becomes a necessity.

Governments crave this information in the name of preventing money laundering, fighting terrorism, collecting taxes, and fighting the drug, gambling and pornography wars. Bitcoin restores the balance with financial privacy and financial sovereignty by placing responsibility for how transparent we want to be in the hands of the user where it belongs, hence user-defined privacy. This is also permission-less privacy and, if opted for, it includes total balance privacy in addition to transaction date, type, amount, and recipient privacy.

3. Protection from identity theft
Bitcoin provides excellent protection from both identity theft and fraudulent charges, primarily because it functions as a push-method rather than a pull-method for personal financial details. Since account details and identity are not transferred to the merchant for payment purposes, the potential for malicious hackers and internal corporate security breaches are reduced to zero. With current payment methodologies, however, identity theft and resulting consequences to the victims are significant negative issues.

4. Protection from physical loss of assets
In this sense, bitcoin is virtual, however the comparison is to trusting the safekeeping of your assets to a third party like a financial institution or wallet provider. Of course, when utilizing a third-party, a host of new risks is introduced which government regulation and government deposit insurance seek to address. But, not using bitcoin because it doesn't come with government assurances is like not flying because you might fall out of the sky.

Bitcoin possesses the option of simply not having to trust a third-party intermediary and, in this way, it resembles a digital bearer instrument such as gold or paper cash. However, bitcoin's unique exceptions include the ability to safely backup your assets multiple times and to transfer them digitally without sacrificing their bearer nature.

5. Protection from cross-border restrictions and excessive fees
Some money services businesses and financial institutions charge exorbitant fees just to execute a simple monetary transfer often preying upon those that are most financially vulnerable. Other countries severely restrict the amount and type of national currencies that may enter their borders causing hardship for many American citizens and residents needing to transfer living funds to family members overseas. Without requiring an intermediary, bitcoin insulates individuals and businesses from these detrimental restrictions and fees.

6. Protection from payment blockades
Blockades such as these are typically enacted in the name of 'political correctness' as witnessed by the aggressive payment blockade against WikiLeaks in 2011. As the US government leaned strongly on payment processors Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal to discontinue donations to the whistle-blowing site, donations in bitcoin continued to provide a valuable method for WikiLeaks to maintain an ongoing financial stream for operations.

7. Protection from government-sponsored inflation
As the so-called 'hidden tax', inflation represents one of the most insidious methods ever devised by governments to boost their wealth at the expense of the fleeced middle-class. Without significant assets to appreciate and keep pace with government-induced inflation, it is the poor and middle-class that suffer the most during inflation, despite the fact that the decline in purchasing power may only be noticeable over a longer time horizon. Bitcoin, with its fixed and predictable supply, provides a store of value alternative to the currency of nations with printing presses run amok.

8. Protection from confiscation
Arbitrary and capricious confiscation of assets has emerged as a new trend among debt-saddled countries in the euro zone. Cyprus and Spain are two examples, but any government with control over its banking system assets has the potential to enact a 'deposit levy' or a 'wealth tax' if revenues from taxation are insufficient to meet ongoing government obligations. The protections afforded by bitcoin in this area prevent loss of wealth due to random government asset seizures.

Let the buyer beware

Today, I was reminded that Confucius once said: "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name." So, let's not forget the ongoing bitcoin word game played by governments and other wordsmiths.

 

Confucious said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” - See more at: http://blog.gryfencryp.to/2014/08/17/cryptocurrency-and-the-return-to-free-markets/#sthash.v7h8EVMU.dpuf

Confucious said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” - See more at: http://blog.gryfencryp.to/2014/08/17/cryptocurrency-and-the-return-to-free-markets/#sthash.v7h8EVMU.dpuf

Confucious said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” - See more at: http://blog.gryfencryp.to/2014/08/17/cryptocurrency-and-the-return-to-free-markets/#sthash.v7h8EVMU.dpuf

Confucious said, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” - See more at: http://blog.gryfencryp.to/2014/08/17/cryptocurrency-and-the-return-to-free-markets/#sthash.v7h8EVMU.dpuf

While we should definitely heed the risks within a digital currency environment, just as we heed the risks inherent with physical money, we should be equally aware of the additional financial protections provided by bitcoin that are so critical for maintaining a free society. Caveat emptor!

Bitcoins Affected by New York's BitLicense May Trade at Discount

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Wednesday, July 30, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-affected-new-yorks-bitlicense-may-trade-discount/

With New York's BitLicense scheme officially three months away, sophisticated traders are already devising strategies to profit from the potential arbitrage opportunities.

If implemented in the regulation's final version, the physical address and identification requirements (Sections 200.12 and 200.15) for both sides of a transaction will dilute the inherent privacy of the overall bitcoin network.

Due to potential IP address blocking and other techniques to identify and block New York-based traders, the exchanges operating within the jurisdiction may end up 'ring-fencing' themselves and their customers' bitcoin.

Of course, this was not New York's intention, but if other parties begin to shun 'New York' bitcoins, then those parties that do choose to accept them may only accept them at a discount, making it costly to transfer 'non-private' bitcoins out of New York.

Tainted by government

Typically, we refer to a loss of essential fungibility occurring as a result of some type of positive coin validation required by the government. In this case, it would be the government-approved coins that would be tainted. Perhaps, New York could mandate complete fungibility of their exchanges' coins through legislation, but that would imply subsidizing the exchange rate.

Arthur Hayes, CEO and co-founder of BitMEX (Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange), who has strong derivatives experience with an institutional trading background, explained:

"These regulations are going to make some savvy traders a lot of money. Because there is a premium placed on privacy, the 'clean' coins trading on exchanges with BitLicenses will trade at a discount to coins trading on exchanges that operate in more laissez-faire jurisdictions. Traders with the ability and risk appetite will be able to arbitrage the price differential."

Based in Hong Kong, Hayes is launching a bitcoin futures and options exchange similar to the currency futures exchanges that sprouted up in Chicago after the 1971 collapse of Bretton Woods.

Hayes recently participated on CoinSummit's derivatives panel in London, where he said he is counting on large speculators and commercial hedgers to utilize exchange-traded futures and options as a risk management tool for bitcoin.

Jurisdictional differential

Just as WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil contracts vs North Sea Brent crude oil contracts trade at a differential and Chicago wheat contracts vs Kansas City wheat contracts trade at a differential, certain jurisdictional bitcoins can trade with a differential. For now, only a single-type bitcoin futures contract will be traded on BitMEX.

Indeed, newly mined 'virgin' bitcoin have commanded a premium for some time now in certain circles. In 2013-14, Mt. Gox coins frequently traded at either a premium or discount to other bitcoin depending on politics and exchange liquidity.

With physical bitcoin over the counter or with person-to-person trading, Hayes describes a likely scenario:

"The best example would be citizens of New York who wish to anonymously buy Bitcoin. Buyers will need to pay an increased fee to a trader who does not possess a BitLicense. The fee will cover his or her costs of acquiring coins outside of New York, and extra profit for the trader compensating him or her for the extra risks taken."

Bitcoin black market

Free markets solve political and structural problems to increase liquidity, and currencies are no different.

Today, one of the best examples of this is the 'blue dollar' exchange rate in peso-ravaged Argentina, which trades at a 60% premium to the official US dollar exchange rate with the central bank.

The BitLicense-based exchange rate may be the closest thing to an official central bank rate for bitcoin and maybe this is a conscious attempt to develop an institutional wholesale market.

Ultimately, it could be a bonanza for those that find themselves with the unofficial bitcoin, just like the happy tourists to Argentina.

It's quite possible that, at the end of the day, we will see a three-tier rate structure for bitcoin:

1. Virgin bitcoin
2. Free market bitcoin
3. Tainted jurisdiction official bitcoin

Hayes added, "At the end of the day these regulations will do nothing but push more trading off exchange and make it more expensive for honest people to obtain financial privacy."

Beyond New York: What Lies Ahead for Bitcoin

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Thursday, July 24, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/beyond-new-york-lies-ahead-bitcoin/

According to the proposed 17th July bitcoin regulation from New York State, the public now has 45 days to comment and then a 45-day grace period prior to full adoption. But what's after 17th October? More importantly, what's after New York?

The poor regulators are in a quandary. It's hard not to be sympathetic sometimes. They are practically in a no-win situation, because regulators must use their tools to regulate, but the more they do, the more they inadvertently encourage market-based responses.

With the New York framework for bitcoin businesses, financial regulators need to demonstrate that they have not ceded control of the payments mechanism and the wholesale money transfer business, while simultaneously trying not to be accused of squashing technological innovation.

If improved financial privacy is considered a bitcoin innovation, then, yes, government choke points do stifle innovation.

Sitting on a razor's edge, their actions can either propel bitcoin more into an off-the-books counter-currency or retard US monetary progress for decades as more nimble jurisdictions exploit the economic benefits of cryptographic money. However, in the regulator's mind, they have no good options and permitting unimpeded bitcoin growth is unacceptable – so act they must.

Regulators and their red herrings

It is this general desire for enforcement action that so fatally misses the mark, because it blindly ignores the societal consequences of the great cryptocurrency wealth transfer and the temporary turmoil for the wave of people caught ill-prepared.

If anything, governments should encourage greater bitcoin savings and user-friendly open-source software. Seismic shifts that will transform existing financial and political institutions are now occurring directly underneath our feet.

And, while all of that happens, what do New York regulators choose to focus on?

Among many red herrings, they focus on perceived problems, like identifying physical addresses of bitcoin transactional parties and prohibiting bitcoin-related companies from maintaining profits in bitcoin.

Contrary to what the alarmist Perianne Boring states, bitcoin's fate will not be decided by lawmakers and regulators in the next 18 months. The only fate that will be decided is that of New York and any other regions that would adopt such a harsh line of regulatory thinking. In other words, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) doesn't harm bitcoin, it harms only the citizens of that jurisdiction who suddenly become disadvantaged relative to citizens in the rest of the world.

Here's what happens on 17th October: bitcoin continues to be a juggernaut, rolling over the promiscuous money printers and corrupt kingpins of the centrally planned banking system, albeit with some market-based adjustments. Markets perceive regulation as 'damage' and route around it. This is true with Internet-related damage and it is equally true with bitcoin-related damage.

Ultimately, the market will provide solutions to cases of bitcoin privacy 'damage', so I provided two handy reference guides: 'Why Bitcoin Fungibility is Essential’ and 'A Taxonomy of Bitcoin Mixing Services for Policymakers’.

Bitcoin, Tor and Financial Privacy

For starters, don't be discouraged by the New York regulatory proposal, because while exchanges and banking interfaces are useful for price discovery, they are optional for everyday bitcoin usage.

Government attempts to exploit systemic choke points is all part of the natural transition process.

Similar to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Tor Challenge to circumvent government censorship, the bitcoin community needs a challenge to support and encourage true financial privacy, compared to the sanctioned privacy permitted under the guise of consumer protection. Privacy is claimed – it is not sanctioned.

Without privacy by default in the original Satoshi bitcoin client software, additions and workarounds for various wallet implementations have been the norm.

Writing in Forbes, Andy Greenberg explains that an upcoming version of bitcoinj – the software that powers many of the most popular bitcoin apps like Multibit and Bitcoin Wallet – will route all connections to the bitcoin network over Tor’s anonymity network before reaching another bitcoin node.

Bitcoinj creator Mike Hearn said:

"The fact I use bitcoin isn’t a secret, but I don’t want all my transactions in an NSA database. When I use bitcoin in a bar, I don’t want someone on the local network to learn my balance. The way bitcoin is used today, both those things are possible."

Thanks to IP tracking, it’s "possible that the NSA and GCHQ have de-anonymized most of the block chain by now," he added.

Also, various implementations of the CoinJoin method have emerged recently, including Shared Coin from Blockchain and the Dark Wallet alpha release from developers Cody Wilson and Amir Taaki.

Relying only on bitcoin for operations and avoiding the regulatory glare implicit via banking relationships, Blockchain's modern uniqueness is in tune with bitcoin's principles, including user-defined privacy.

Despite some prior user claims to the contrary, Blockchain does not block Tor exit nodes – although individual account owners can block Tor IP access. Denial-of-service defenses may also cause some Tor exit nodes to be blocked temporarily.

In an enormously important three-minute interview, political theorist and global resilience guru Vinay Gupta recognizes that "[bitcoin] cannot be divorced from pre-existing political theory."
Gupta goes into explicit detail on the meaning of power and the significance of property rights:

"The vast majority of the people using bitcoin are politically shallow. The problem is that bitcoin has succeeded technically and is midway through the process of failing politically."

Gupta explains that the fundamental underlying issue for bitcoin and its future success is how to do strong property rights within the system and no property rights to operate the system as whole. The answer lies in what we already know about political theory and similar economic arrangements.

Foreshadowing the coming slew of ambitious regulatory restrictions, he surmises that "until the bitcoin community admits that it's got political problems rather than technical problems, they're trapped".

The Bitcoin Mining Arms Race: GHash.io and the 51% Issue

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Thursday, July 17, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-detente-ghash-io-51-issue/

Tensions over bitcoin's long-term security have eased following a hastily-arranged roundtable of mining participants on 9th July in London.

With representatives from all areas of bitcoin mining and ASIC hardware manufacturing in attendance, the most significant thing about the meeting was that it even occurred at all.

A forum for discussing these issues is critical to maintaining the integrity of the bitcoin network, as its overall health depends on smooth mining operations with a minimum amount of orphaned blocks, hard forks and dominant players capable of executing a 51% attack.

Last month, Jeffrey Smith (CIO of bitcoin's biggest mining pool, GHash.io) announced a new focus on openness, reiterating the company's willingness to "address the decentralization of mining as an industry". Thus, it was natural for Smith and GHash to convene the first forum on bitcoin mining.

According to Ittay Eyal and Emin Gün Sirer from Hacking, Distributed:

"[GHash] got brazen at 55% from 2014-06-12 11:53:05 until 2014-06-13 09:45:24 GMT, for almost 24 hours. And prior to that, it seems to have tested the waters over a period of 10 days or so, perhaps gauging the public's reaction."

With GHash, the pool operators are known and they willingly initiated this important step. Conversely, stealth mining operators such as Discus Fish do not take steps to make themselves known, although it is claimed that they operate as China-based f2pool.

Then they got brazen at 55% from 2014-06-12 11:53:05 until 2014-06-13 09:45:24 GMT, for almost 24 hours. - See more at: http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/18/how-to-disincentivize-large-bitcoin-mining-pools/#id1

The consolidated hash rate from GHash has backed off significantly, with its network statistics from 13th July displaying approximately 34.6% of bitcoin's total.


As the foundation's representative present at the meeting, I agree with BitGo’s Will O'Brien, who said "we cannot and should not rely on one or more trade organizations to set the rules. Bitcoin is decentralized, and we must build solutions that support that original framework of decision-making."
The technical solution, if there is to be one, will ultimately come from the open-source developer community ratified by the miners and users.

In the meantime, we have temporary ways to mitigate the risk of a 51% attack, such as GHash's agreement to "do all it can to limit its share of the total bitcoin network to 39.99%."


Generally, participants understood this pledge to be a very unenforceable solution fraught with potential pitfalls, namely GHash's concern that they are being punished for their own success and how meaningful the pledge will be when other mining operators approach the same self-imposed threshold.

Potential solutions

In the last month or so, there have been a wealth of proposed technical solutions to minimize the likelihood of a successful 51% attack.

Gavin Andresen first made a recommendation for utilizing P2Pool, a decentralized bitcoin mining pool that works by creating a peer-to-peer network of miner nodes.

Mike Hearn expanded on that thinking with a detailed description of 'freemining' – regaining miners' ability to select their own block content.

These are immediate solutions available today. Hearn states:

"Freeminers mine in such a way that they both reduce their payout variance but also create their own blocks, a process that always requires running a fully validating p2p node like Bitcoin Core. If you aren’t running one, you aren’t decentralising the mining process."

Newer technical solutions are most likely nine to 12 months away, given the development and testing cycles.

One of those solutions includes the Two Phase Proof of Work (2P-PoW) to disincentivize large mining pools yet enables existing miners to continue using there current mining hardware, as outlined by Cornell's Ittay Eyal and Emin Gün Sirer in "How to Disincentivize Large Mining Pools." This proposal is based on the research work of Andrew Miller and others at University of Maryland, College Park.

“Would an attack be disruptive? Sure. Would it be fatal? No.”

Another solution, proposed by mathematician Meni Rosenfeld, involves the creation of Multi-PPS, a platform that allows miners to mine in multiple pools simultaneously.

Since a small pool could find either 10 blocks in a day or 0 in a week, many miners elect to use larger pools that offer a more consistent payout. Once the payout instability of small mining pools is reduced, it makes them a viable alternative.

According to Rosenfeld, the basic premise of Multi-PPS is "that miners should mine in multiple pools simultaneously, in proportion to each pool’s strength, which has two important features," these are:

(1) The miner enjoys performance that is equivalent to that of a pool with a combined size of all pools he uses together

(2) The stable equilibrium is not consolidation in one pool, but rather, maintaining a distribution between many pools according to the merits of each.

Crypto arms race

Ittay Eyal, and Emin Gün Sirer

called Two Phase Proof of Work (2P-PoW), to disincentivize large mining pools. We - See more at: http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/18/how-to-disincentivize-large-bitcoin-mining-pools/#sthash.i9Eo2RQV.dpuf called Two Phase Proof of Work (2P-PoW), to disincentivize large mining pools.

The reality of bitcoin mining today is that we are in a crypto arms race and this ASIC-driven computational power massively strengthens the network from outside attack by malicious actors or disgruntled states.

Would an attack be disruptive? Sure. Would it be fatal? No.

In many ways, it is the price we pay for a distributed, resilient cryptocurrency, for if we wanted to abolish all uncertainty on mining, we would simply centralize the block chain and anoint a trusted party like the Fed.

The 9th July roundtable meeting was a great start. It is my sincere hope that the participants of the bitcoin mining community continue to hold a regular forum to maintain an open dialogue on the decentralization of mining.

Why the OECD Needs to do its Homework on Bitcoin

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Tuesday, July 1, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/oecd-needs-homework-bitcoin/

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently published a working paper on bitcoin and the implications of financial trust without intermediaries, authored by economist and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Financial Markets at the OECD, Adrian Blundell-Wignall.

Entitled ‘The Bitcoin Question: Currency Versus Trust-less Transfer Technology’, the paper represents one of the first official analyses on bitcoin in the context of contract law, legal tender, and plenary powers.

Besides grossly misunderstanding the economic nature of bitcoin, the general prescription for public policy would be disastrous, accelerating a 'parallel' monetary system faster than normal and simultaneously depriving millions of people of seamless participation.

The author fundamentally views bitcoin as something that must replace legal tender in order to be successful, so he is dismissive of bitcoin the monetary unit. Moreover, the author fears bitcoin more as a competitive alternative within a  freedom-of-choice scenario and thus outlines policy behavior that attempts to extinguish any interface with established institutions.

However, monetary freedom has already arrived, demonstrating that the state's compulsory monopoly over money is unearned and unjustified. Government powers now need to be directed at removing hindrances for participation in alternative monetary units, because excluding large swathes of society from engagement with bitcoin exacerbates the problem of inevitable integration.

This article gives a critique of the general public policy prescriptions contained in the OECD working paper:

1. A general ban on cryptocurrencies in the interbank clearing system

Bans and prohibition are totally ineffective. A ban on bitcoin would increase global awareness for bitcoin, inspiring alternative and parallel clearing systems. This result would end up harming the existing clearing system even more and it would probably take the form of denying bitcoin a currency code such as XBT. Gold currently has code XAU within the ISO 4217 standards body.

2. Recognition that bitcoin the network is separable from bitcoin the unit

A bitcoin network separable from the bitcoin unit would be neither decentralised nor secure. The technology underpinning the bitcoin network is distributed and massively decentralised for a reason – it had to be immune to plenary power shutdown and strong enough to sustain an attack from outside computational power. The bitcoin unit provides the incentive for maintaining the security and integrity of the block chain, which makes it inseparable.

3. Best practice registration to verify the owner's identity

I am assuming that this recommendation is made only for the exchange endpoints that interface with national currencies (not merchants), thereby treating bitcoin exchanges like financial institutions. Physical cash transfers do not typically demand owner identity verification, but of course when an exchange business is involved, the operating jurisdiction defines the required conditions around getting in and out of national fiat currency. In some jurisdictions, this best practices registration may be conducted on an opt-in basis.

4. Balance sheet and income statement reporting for all networks

Again, I am assuming exchange networks because the bitcoin block chain is already a publicly accessible transparent ledger of transactions. Market competition will demand exchange solvency and reporting of financial status.

5. Mandatory capital should be held by exchanges (in the form of legal tender)

Jim Harper, Global Policy Counsel at the Bitcoin Foundation, suggests that consumer protection may differ in the future bitcoin era as the assumption of government regulation providing sophisticated commercial oversight becomes challenged.

Cryptographic proof of reserves can deliver responsible public audits of exchange assets as bitcoin's cryptography-based public ledger allows an organization to prove control of bitcoin assets without revealing private information about customers or account holders.

Harper continues, "multisignature transactions are a second innovation that may remake consumer protection. 'Multisig' allows any combination of consumer and business entities to exercise control over a bitcoin-based asset."

"These innovations, and others to come, will tend to make consumer oversight of bitcoin businesses easier – and government oversight a less important part of the mix. Consumers will be better positioned to do their own monitoring and, in the best case, to enjoy cryptographic proof that they are being properly served."

6. Implement some form of backing for cryptocurrencies, such as gold

Requesting gold backing for bitcoin is one of the rookie mistakes made by new analysts, because the transportation costs, audit issues, and potential confiscation are all issues that bitcoin seeks to bypass. A gold-backed bitcoin would lead to centralisation in the way of specie reserves and would irreparably damage the incentive structure for securing the distributed block chain, which includes the process of new bitcoin issuance.

Despite the fact that our working paper author appears to support gold, he is mostly an apologist for ‘The State Theory of Money’ myth that the sovereign’s power to collect taxes and declare legal tender imbues a currency with ultimate value. Bitcoin is the primary value unit and requires backing from neither state sanction nor gold. I recently attempted to explain that logic to legal-tender poster boy Paul Krugman, in 'The Fiat Emperor has no Clothes'.

7. Use of government plenary powers to restrict contracts in bitcoin

Given today's cryptographic protocols and smart contracts with time-release amounts and multisignature transactions, it is simply infeasible to restrict private party contracts that would not require the judicial system. Potentially, contracts could be banned by statute within aggressive jurisdictions, but that would probably only drive them underground.

Blundell-Wignall references the 1935 gold clause cases where the Supreme Court decided in a 5:4 majority in all of these cases that "the power to regulate money is a plenary power". The author concludes that "the abrogation of all gold clauses was considered to be within the powers of Congress when such clauses presented a threat to Congress’ control of the monetary system." He then posits that "if bitcoins begin to undermine the financial and tax systems they will be shut down and all contracts between traders would be unenforceable."

According to law professor Henry Mark Holzer, the abrogation of gold contracts and gold clauses during the Roosevelt administration in the US marks one of the saddest periods in worldwide monetary history, because it restricted freedom to transact.

Market-based legitimacy

Ironically, the items that the author highlights with respect to legal tender and monetary contracts are precisely what the bitcoin protocol alters with its 'trustless transfer technology.' Governments will no longer maintain a monopoly position over money because an alternative exists and that alternative does not rely on legal tender status for its legitimacy – it relies on global acceptance of the mathematics behind the protocol for its market-based legitimacy.

The implications of bitcoin are quite simply "Money Without Government." We don't need kings to coin our money. Trust has become decentralised.

The die has been cast. All that remains is the jurisdictional competition to determine if any nation-state has the political will to harness and benefit from nonpolitical money.

Government Sale of Bitcoin Establishes Fungibility Precedent

By Jon Matonis
CoinDesk
Thursday, June 26, 2014

http://www.coindesk.com/government-sale-bitcoin-establishes-fungibility-precedent/

The US Marshals Service (USMS) will auction off the bitcoin seized from Silk Road to the highest bidder tomorrow. It amounts to 29,656.51 BTC contained in wallet files residing on Silk Road servers.

In total, there will be nine blocks of 3,000 bitcoin and one block of around 2,656 bitcoin offered in the auction, representing the amount stated in the forfeiture order by the court on 15th January, 2014.

Although the authorities hold more coins, the auction does not include the approximate 140,000 BTC contained in wallet files that resided on computer hardware belonging to Ross William Ulbricht that were seized on 24th October, 2013 and are known as "DPR SEIZED COINS".

Establishing equivalent value

Regardless of the morality of pre-trial asset forfeiture, the sale via auction of approximately $17 million worth of bitcoin by the USMS will establish the first governmental precedent for bitcoin fungibility, which could become significant for future bitcoin-related cases involving 'blacklisting', or 'tainted bitcoin'.

Fungibility refers to the concept that every unit or sub-unit remains equivalent and identical to any other unit or sub-unit. It is the property of a good or commodity in which individual units are capable of mutual substitution.

Blacklisting and the notion of tainted bitcoins refers to the concept that certain bitcoins may be treated different due to their origin and/or usage, thereby resulting in a valuation differential.

Each bitcoin sold in the government's auction is made without representation and also without any disclaimer or restrictions on their subsequent usage and transfer within the bitcoin block chain.
In additional clarifying statements, the auction notice says:

"The USMS will not answer any questions regarding (a) the associated criminal or civil cases that resulted in the seizure of the bitcoins being auctioned, (b) Bitcoin characteristics, uses or value, or (c) specifics of the auction process other than information provided in these documents;

The USMS will not sell to any person who is acting on behalf of or in concert with the Silk Road and/or Ross William Ulbricht, and bidders will be required to so certify;

The USMS will not transfer bitcoins to an obscene public address, a public address apparently in a country restricted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a public address apparently associated with terrorism, other criminal activities, or otherwise hostile to the United States;

The winning bidder will receive a signed Bill of Sale from the United States Marshals Service prior to the transfer of the bitcoins."

A bitcoin is a bitcoin

None of these statements carry any indication that the USMS or the Department of Justice view these coins to be 'legally different' or 'subject to special treatment' by exchanges and market participants. Conversely, the USMS is attempting to maximize its return of the sale of these bitcoin assets by specifically not disrupting their implied fungibility.

No special discounts apply to the sale and if they are bulk discounted by virtue of the wholesale bidding process, it would neither be due to the source of the bitcoin assets nor their alleged use on the Silk Road for various transactions.

“For now, a legally-orchestrated sale of bitcoin assets demonstrates that a bitcoin is a bitcoin is a bitcoin.”

Furthermore, there is no intent to blacklist or whitelist the coins for subsequent circulation, because this would negatively impact the valuation at auction. All bitcoins obtained from the auction sale process are able to be freely transferred and circulated around the world.

An interesting Scottish monetary case from the 1700s suggests that blacklisting or mandatory coin validation is a misguided premise. Fortunately, in that particular case, the judges upheld the principle of unrestricted fungibility.

The auctioned bitcoin are theoretically being sold at par to other circulating bitcoin. In the future, governments or free markets may determine that certain bitcoin addresses carry a taint or don't trade at par for some reason, but, for now, a legally-orchestrated sale of bitcoin assets demonstrates that a bitcoin is a bitcoin is a bitcoin.

Market role

As covered on Bloomberg TV, SecondMarket's Barry Silbert even organized a bidding syndicate to allow smaller investors the opportunity to obtain bitcoin at favorable bulk pricing, where 10% of any auction fees received by SecondMarket will be donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

While the government's actions and announcements regarding bitcoin fungibility play a critical role in setting expectations for the market, the globally distributed bitcoin network spans many jurisdictions and true fungibility is ultimately determined by what the market will bear. Not all market participants have to adhere to fungibility determinations in the same way.

The list of possible Silk Road bitcoin bidders can be seen here and the introductory form to participate in the syndicate organized by SecondMarket and the Bitcoin Investment Trust can be found here.