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moltuae 13th July 2017 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ainarssems (Post 130042)
Mark, are you running all PC's on Windows or Linux as the licencing costs can mount up for several machines.

Haven't tried this but apparently there's a Linux distro specifically made for mining: http://ethosdistro.com/

moltuae 13th July 2017 02:13 PM

Handling splits: UASFs, BIP148, etc.:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2012799.0


Quote:

Although it hasn't happened before, and it is very undesirable, it is possible for Bitcoin to split into two non-negligible separate currencies.

Why is this possible? / What causes a split?

There is no actual BTC in your Bitcoin wallet: there are only private keys which are used to unlock and then transfer ownership of BTC stored in the Bitcoin system. BTC never actually leaves the Bitcoin system. A split creates a clone of the original cryptocurrency, but with modifications preventing the two cryptocurrencies from actually being the same; after the split, you cannot send coins from one side of the split to the other. After the split, your private key can be used to unlock your coins on both the original system and the modified system.

It's like if someone got their hands on a copy of the google.com database and created super-google.com starting with the google.com database but with different features. You could use the same login credentials to login at either google.com or super-google.com. But after the clone was created, if you received mail.google.com email, it would not show up at mail.super-google.com, and vice-versa. Similarly, you can use the same private key to spend money on the original currency or the modified currency, but after the split they diverge.

Anyone can create a split. It only requires a few lines of code changes. But splits only matter if people of economic significance actually use the split (ie. they must run the modified software).

Splits happen in the following situations:

- In a contentious hardfork.
- In a user-activated softfork (UASF) which lacks both majority mining power at the time of activation and near-unanimous support from the economy. If it has one or the other, then a split does not result.
- In a BIP9-style miner-triggered softfork where a very large number of miners are lying about their enforcement of the softfork. (Unlikely.)

What happens to my bitcoins in a split?

It's similar to a stock spin-off. You have x BTC beforehand, and afterward you have both x BTC and x "BTC-X". But very importantly, your wallet will not magically know that it is now able to unlock both currencies. If your wallet is not updated to account for the split, then you will only be able to spend one of the currencies, probably the more "status-quo" one. Another possibility is that your wallet could be updated, but only to support a different currency than it would've otherwise, not to support both. It is not unreasonable for wallets to support only one currency, since they really weren't originally designed/intended to support multiple. But if your wallet only supports one of the currencies, then you will usually end up throwing away some or all of the other currency when you next send coins after the split, as a side-effect of the transaction -- this is called "replay".

Value is unpredictable. Like a stock split or spin-off, you'd vaguely expect the value of BTC immediately before the split to equal the sum of the values of "BTC" and "BTC-X" immediately after the split. But if a split like this is anything close to a 50-50 split (in relation to economic adoption/value, not node or miner adoption), then the whole thing will probably be unbelievably, catastrophically messy, which may result in the combined value crashing. On the other hand, if the minority currency is pretty small and things don't get too messy, the minority side could be speculatively overvalued (similar to altcoins) without affecting the majority side too much, causing the combined value to rise somewhat.

Which side of the split is the real Bitcoin?

That depends on a wide variety of factors, and to some degree it is subjective. The most important factor is which currency people/businesses/exchanges accept: if for example one currency is accepted by 95% of the pre-split economy, and the other is accepted by only 5% of the pre-split economy, then the 95% one is probably truly Bitcoin, and the other one can be considered a Bitcoin-derived altcoin. Note that mining power has very little influence here.

Some might say that both currencies post-split are valid incarnations of Bitcoin, but it is my philosophy that only one Bitcoin can exist at any one time; any uncertainty is only a temporary feature, and at least in hindsight there will be a single unbroken path from Satoshi's original Bitcoin to the current one.

What should I do to secure my bitcoins?

First of all, remove all bitcoins possible from banks/exchanges/"hosted wallets". If you can't export your private keys, then you don't actually control the bitcoins. This is a good idea in general, but it's especially important in case of splits. If you're using a Bitcoin bank, then you will have no control over what happens to your coins. Quite possibly, the bank will end up stealing/losing one of the currencies that you should have access to, either through greed/malice or technical incompetence, and the currency they throw away might well be the only one that ends up having any long-term value.

Possible splits are usually predictable some time in advance (see the next section). If in doubt, avoid sending transactions or trusting received transactions 12 hours before and up to a few days after the split time, and check the forum for more news. If a major split happens, I will very likely make a post and news item explaining how to handle the situation. Coins at rest are not at risk.

Generally, after a split:

- If you want to completely ignore (ie. discard) one of the currencies, and your wallet is already set up to ignore that currency, then you don't have to do anything.
- If you want to completely ignore (ie. discard) one of the currencies, and your wallet is set up to support only that currency, then you might be able to change the software's settings after the split, or you might have to switch to different wallet software.
- If you want to use both currencies at the same time or sell one of the currencies, then you will probably have to follow a somewhat-complicated series of steps possibly involving running some extra software in order to cleanly split your coins and eliminate the possibility of replay.

What are SegWit, BIP148, UASFs, and "UAHF", and how do they relate to this? / When might a split happen?

SegWit is a set of changes to Bitcoin which increases the max block size, among other improvements. Under its initial BIP141/BIP9 deployment plan, there is almost no chance of a split.

A user-activated softfork (UASF) is a general method of deploying softforks (like SegWit). UASFs have been done in the past, both by Satoshi and after Satoshi left. Unlike the BIP9 deployment method originally planned for SegWit, a UASF does not require any miner cooperation. A UASF can fail, but only through insufficient economic adoption, not by any miner action. However, splits are more likely with UASFs than with BIP9 deployments, especially when the UASF is done on a compressed schedule. (For ideally-low split risk, a UASF would take about a year to activate.)

BIP148 is one specific UASF. It is intended to activate SegWit. It activates and may cause a split on August 1. If it succeeds economically, it will activate SegWit by November.

The large Bitcoin miner Bitmain announced that they might engage in a (nonsensically-named) "user activated hardfork" ("UAHF") shortly after BIP148 activates if BIP148 has any success. This would definitely cause an additional split, resulting in up to three currencies: BIP148-Bitcoin, Bitmain-coin, and (depending on the degree of BIP148's success) status-quo-Bitcoin. As mentioned previously, if you have x BTC before the split, you'll be technically able to claim x of all three of these currencies after the split.

The next time when a split is predicted to possibly happen is therefore August 1, 2017 at midnight UTC.

MikkiJayne 14th July 2017 08:16 AM

I guess the continuing decline in both BTC and payout is all related to this?

It appears to me that GPUs are becoming irrelevant as they can only work on algorithms for crashing currencies? Scrypt for LTC looks like the only profitable one at the moment but that seems to only work on asics? Those Antminer L3s may well be a good investment...

moltuae 14th July 2017 09:34 AM

It's certainly a "bearish" market at the moment. It seems a lot of investors are anxiously waiting for the outcome on August 1st. It's affecting the price of most altcoins too, meaning there's some bargains to be had right now.

Most predictions are (perhaps unsurprisingly) that the price of Bitcoin will continue to fall in the lead up to August 1st, then sharply recover, assuming SegWit deployment is successful (which it should be, since it's been well tested, both on the Bitcoin testnet and with its recent successful deployment on Litecoin). Goldman Sachs predicts a sub-$2000 drop, followed by a rise to $4000 before the end of the year: http://uk.businessinsider.com/bitcoi...n-sachs-2017-7

So assuming prices do recover and continue to rise further, what you're mining now might be worth a lot more in the near future if you hold on to it.


NiceHash's profitability does have its ups and downs though. I experimented this week mining Zcash directly to a pool with a couple of 1080Ti cards. It's difficult to compare directly because prices fluctuate so much but profitability seemed slightly better than with NiceHash, somewhere in the region of 10-20% more per day. You will be making Zcash rather than Bitcoin of course though, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. You could keep it and invest in Zcash or trade it for Bitcoin.

If you want to try it, I'd recommend Flypool, they provide all the miner links and config info on their site: https://zcash.flypool.org/

David's8 14th July 2017 04:55 PM

Are you just making this stuff up Mark?:ROFL: I have absolutely NO idea what you are talking about. Although not an engineer, I can understand what engineers mean and the principles involved and I have a passing acquaintance with medical terminology. I can also pretend to make (some) sense out of quantum mechanics and multi-verses and have read Richard Feynman's "6 Easy Pieces" on physics but I havent a clue what you are talking about!!

Anyway, I'll let you alone now. +++

moltuae 14th July 2017 07:19 PM

1 Attachment(s)
Quote:

Originally Posted by David's8 (Post 130284)
Are you just making this stuff up Mark?:ROFL: I have absolutely NO idea what you are talking about. Although not an engineer, I can understand what engineers mean and the principles involved and I have a passing acquaintance with medical terminology. I can also pretend to make (some) sense out of quantum mechanics and multi-verses and have read Richard Feynman's "6 Easy Pieces" on physics but I havent a clue what you are talking about!!

Anyway, I'll let you alone now. +++

:ROFL:

Don't get me started on quantum mechanics and multiverses! Fascinating subjects! ... though I'm merely an amateur in those fields too.

It's entirely possible I have made it all up, or dreamt it. After studying cryptocurrencies for the last few years, my head's so full of the stuff now I'm not sure what is real anymore. I've been doing IT most of my life but, I have to admit, I find this stuff mind-blowing! I still don't understand half as much about the technology as I'd like to.

If you'd like to get an idea of how complex cryptocurrency mechanisms really are, take a look a this book: Attachment 16508

I have that book in paperback, which is presently my bedside light-reading. After a glass or two of red wine, it all starts to make sense. I think I'll still need to read it several times just to understand about half of the book though.

tc4332 15th July 2017 09:07 AM

Nice and simply put Mark :love:
I used to be a lot like that in my younger years but nowadays my two brain cells have great reluctance to synchronise.

moltuae 15th July 2017 09:42 AM

If I have just half of your energy and enthusiasm by the time I'm your age Ray, I'll be happy! .... It's more than I have now! :D

ainarssems 15th July 2017 01:21 PM

I have been quite for a while but still checking in and following the thread and doing a bit of experimenting myself but have not much spare time these days. I work 10pm to 6 am, sleep 7 am to 1 pm, and look after 2 little ones under 2 years 1:30pm to 9:30pm while wife is at work. So when I am at home I can't do much as the kids either need my attention or are trying to be 'helpful' :)

Anyhow I have my old PC running 2x GTX1080Ti now and another motherboard running 4x RX480. A bit disappointed with GTX1080 Ti as 2 of them cost more than 4x RX480 and are making less money while consuming similar amount of electricity. :( Don't know if I should return them within 14 days and buy 4x RX580 instead.:Confused:

I have been messing with settings and not sure what I have done but I was messing with settings on AMD rig and while it was running dual DaggerHashimoto + Decred before it was not actually doing anything on Decred. Now it runs bith of them. It seems like dagger is more GRAM intensive and Decred more GPU intensive. power consumption has gone from ~600 to ~700W costing £8/month more but bringing in about £15 per month more.

I was set on buying L3+ but it's a bit of struggle buying enough of Bitcoin for it with credit card. With all the identity checks and limits on value :( Power supply for my old HP All in One printer had failed so I could not scan passport so did it at work but they did not accept my scan as the work scanner is et to scan black and white by default and I did not change settings. Next day I forgot to take passport with me to redo it in colour. Ended up buying new multi function printer but got a really good deal - £40 for the printer and enough ink to print 1800 pages over 6 months but I think I will do another thread on it.

Anyway I am short on Bitcoin to buy L3+ at the moment and the limit on amounts I can spend mean I will probably not be able to buy it buy the end of next week and I am afraid it might run out of stock again.

One weird problem I have noticed is that I have noticed if I log on PC using Remote Desktop and do not log out after a while I loose GPU's or it stops mining altogether. Not sure if using alternative like VNC or Teamviewer would be better. or just need to do quick check and disconnect.

ainarssems 15th July 2017 04:05 PM

Hmm, running both Hashimoto and Decred at the same time seem to needing new changes to tuning as now you need more GPU power as well so upping GPU speed returns money as well, just a question of speed, energy consumption and costs.

I am not sure what I did that started mining both but I did change pagefile size because I noticed a message that said at least 16B for multiple cards. It was at 1.4 GB and I changed it to 32B


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