The 51% attack which happened this week is a warning sign to anyone paying attention. It's a red flag exactly like what we saw when Mt Gox was not processing withdraws. The time to push for a hard fork is right now because Proof of Work as Bitcoin is implementing it is obsolete. It's an incomplete solution compared to a more complete solution such as the Cooperative Proof-of-Stake CPoS or Delegative Proof of Stake DPoS. NXT has a solution as well and the specific challenge we have is to promote the best technologies even when it might not be in the best economic interests of entrenched elites of Proof of Work Blockchain hierarchies.
Holy crap. Is this true?
No. Ignore him, he's just panicking and trying to solve something he's not qualified to solve. And while he's at it he's polluting an otherwise very interesting thread.
How do you become qualified to solve something without solving it? Have you solved it? I assume when you talk about qualified you're talking about Peter Todd and Gavin Anddressen?
https://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/06/13/centralized-mining/http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/281ftd/why_i_just_sold_50_of_my_bitcoins_ghashio/I've made my position on the GHashio and Bitcoin design problems known. If you think I'm unqualified to speak then please ignore everything I've said and continue acting on the information you believe to be correct.
For the record it's true I was involved with Mastercoin from the beginning, am involved with Bitshares too. I'm not panicking, I'm promoting whatever I think the best technological solutions are and to me there is DPoS, CPoS, and Transparent Forging. If you understand the technology enough then you'll understand why I think that at a later date.
If no one agrees with my opinions I don't really care. I'm putting it out there because the flaws I see in Bitcoin aren't being fixed and I suspect that it needs to be hard forked just to implement CPoS. I wanted to voice my opinion in favor of a hard fork because at this point Bitcoin is promoting a level of centralization which I'm uncomfortable with because it goes against the long term strategic technological principles that I follow.
The 51% attack which happened this week is a warning sign to anyone paying attention. It's a red flag exactly like what we saw when Mt Gox was not processing withdraws. The time to push for a hard fork is right now because Proof of Work as Bitcoin is implementing it is obsolete. It's an incomplete solution compared to a more complete solution such as the Cooperative Proof-of-Stake CPoS or Delegative Proof of Stake DPoS. NXT has a solution as well and the specific challenge we have is to promote the best technologies even when it might not be in the best economic interests of entrenched elites of Proof of Work Blockchain hierarchies.
Holy crap. Is this true?
Don't take it from me, do your own research and form your own opinion. Google is your friend here.
I voiced my concerns because they are genuine concerns. I'm seeing increasing levels of centralization around mining. I'm seeing mining which was once a serious game which anyone had the opportunity to play become something that over time the chip makers will be the only players qualified to profitably participate in.
This is a problem as it removes whatever democratic nature the network could have had. It also has many people claiming that the game is rigged/unfair because the only way to get a Bitcoin now is to buy it with cash. If you have to buy Bitcoins with cash then it has no advantage over Proof of Stake anymore that I can see.
These problems are just the philosophical surface issues I have with how things are playing out, there are some technical problems which are already well addressed by CPoS so I will not go into that.