Monitoring the Crypto Bubble

Where do you think we are in the crypto bubble?

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mmm....shiney! said:
This sums it up.
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Yes, I disagree with you. Normal human experience. Again, we don't all have to be laser eyed Bitcoin bulls.

Cardano & Ethereum are secure networks (especially Cardano, it's never been hacked), they're PoS? So they're sacrificing nothing lol.
 
IPDA said:
Yes, I disagree with you. Normal human experience. Again, we don't all have to be laser eyed Bitcoin bulls.
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No one is talking about being a BTC laser-eyed bull. There's a time for a bullish outlook and a time for a bearish outlook.

Peter Schiff will always have a bearish outlook on BTC because his negative thesis of BTC influences his thinking.

IPDA said:
Cardano & Ethereum are secure networks (especially Cardano, it's never been hacked), they're PoS? So they're sacrificing nothing lol.
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The Ethereum and Cardano networks are not as secure as the Bitcoin network because they are POS. Power can become concentrated in the hands of a few, this is next to impossible with the Bitcoin network. You can't have speed and security, there's a trade off.

And Cardano is a an Asian masseuse, the devs have always been promising to "love you long long time" yet don't deliver.

So forgetting Cardano, does Ether posses the same characteristics as BTC and challenge it for the #1 token?

1. It's a monetary good. (No)
2. It's the most decentralised and secure network. (Nope)
3. It doesn't seek to solve problems that other cryptocurrencies are designed to. (It pioneered smart contracts)
4. It is the most widely adopted digital asset for investment allocation. (Nope)
5. It's scarce. (Nope)
6. It is the most liquid. (Nope)
7. It was the first successful ecosystem designed to support the exchange of value at a peer-peer level without the need for a centralised authority to approve the transaction. (Nope)
 
mmm....shiney! said:
... The Ethereum and Cardano networks are not as secure as the Bitcoin network because they are POS. Power can become concentrated in the hands of a few, this is next to impossible with the Bitcoin network. You can't have speed and security, there's a trade off.
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This is incorrect. Bitcoin has been vulnerable in the past:

http://qz.com/165273/the-existentia...oosters-said-was-impossible-is-now-at-hand/#/

and power is concentrating again today:

https://cryptonews.com/news/us-domi...th-over-40-of-global-hashrate-at-end-of-2024/

On top of that, miner profitability is the lowest it's been in years:

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/20...-december-for-second-month-in-a-row-jp-morgan

The governance of the Bitcoin Network is still largely controlled by a few key developers:

https://www.amazon.com/Hijacking-Bitcoin-Hidden-History-BTC/dp/B0CXWBCWDR

Cardano on the other hand has transitioned to a decentralized governance model:

https://www.coinspeaker.com/cardano-eyes-plomin-hard-fork-amid-push-for-community-governance/

Cardano and newer blockchain systems like Polkadot, SUI, MultiversX, etc. are even faster and still secure. MultiversX's sharding technology has largely solved the Blockchain Trilema.
 
mmm....shiney! said:
No one is talking about being a BTC laser-eyed bull. There's a time for a bullish outlook and a time for a bearish outlook.

Peter Schiff will always have a bearish outlook on BTC because his negative thesis of BTC influences his thinking.



The Ethereum and Cardano networks are not as secure as the Bitcoin network because they are POS. Power can become concentrated in the hands of a few, this is next to impossible with the Bitcoin network. You can't have speed and security, there's a trade off.

And Cardano is a an Asian masseuse, the devs have always been promising to "love you long long time" yet don't deliver.

So forgetting Cardano, does Ether posses the same characteristics as BTC and challenge it for the #1 token?

1. It's a monetary good. (No)
2. It's the most decentralised and secure network. (Nope)
3. It doesn't seek to solve problems that other cryptocurrencies are designed to. (It pioneered smart contracts)
4. It is the most widely adopted digital asset for investment allocation. (Nope)
5. It's scarce. (Nope)
6. It is the most liquid. (Nope)
7. It was the first successful ecosystem designed to support the exchange of value at a peer-peer level without the need for a centralised authority to approve the transaction. (Nope)
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Gotta luv this cos it is funny
 
I think the anti-bitcoin people on this forum can't be bothered to do actual research. The stakeholders in any cryptocurrency network are the users, the nodes, the miners for (PoW) and the validators for (PoS). You are mistaking 'taking over the network' for miners are being concentrated, which is less of an issue than if the nodes became centralised. Just think of the ultimate centralised node (A central bank).
 
Polar.bear.Stacker said:
... The stakeholders in any cryptocurrency network are the users, the nodes, the miners for (PoW) and the validators for (PoS). You are mistaking 'taking over the network' for miners are being concentrated, which is less of an issue than if the nodes became centralised. ...
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Miner concentration in PoW is a direct analogue to node concentration in PoS. Either scenario empowers a single actor with the means to muck around with the network. One might argue that the situation is actually more dire in PoW systems as PoS concentration might be mitigated to a degree by the slashing policy of the validator staking system depending upon the threshold levels (could be much higher than 51% miner threshold in BTC's PoW system).
 
I would also add that BTC maxis tend to dismiss PoS systems assuming they all work like Ethereum's original design. PoS systems have evolved a lot since Ethereum first moved to PoS. Check this out for example:
MultiversX's approach for consensus is called Secure Proof of Stake (SPoS). It innovates in the manner in which validator nodes are selected for consensus out of a shard and also in the steps taken by the validators to complete the consensus process as efficiently as possible. Let's take a look.

At the beginning of each round, SPoS selects validators for consensus using a randomness source that can be neither predicted, nor influenced. It is surprisingly simple, requiring only to be calculated from the previous block and to be signed by the consensus leader of the current round (also known as the block proposer). The resulting signature will be the randomness source for the next round, and due to its reliance on the immediately preceding block, it cannot be known more than a round in advance.

In each round, a new consensus group is selected to propose a block. But only one validator in the group will be the block proposer. This is the validator in the consensus group which has the hash of the public key and randomness source is the smallest, numerically. The block proposer will produce the block for the round, and the rest of the consensus group will validate and sign it.

The time necessary for random selection of the consensus group is exceptionally short (around 100 ms, often less). This efficiency is a consequence of the fact that consensus selection is deterministic once the randomness source is known, thus there is no communication requirement. This allows total round times on the order of mere seconds.

There is a security advantage to having rounds this short: SPoS is built on the premise that a malevolent actor cannot adapt faster than the timeframe allowed by a round in order to influence the block that will be proposed.

Like other Proof of Stake methods, SPoS selects validator nodes for consensus based on the amount of EGLD tokens staked by their operators. Additionally, each validator has an individual rating score that is taken into account - stake alone may only influence, but not completely determine the selection for consensus. Rating expresses the past behavior of the specific validator and is taken into account during consensus selection: validators with a higher rating are more likely to be selected. The rating of a validator is recalculated at the end of each epoch, with a few specific exceptions when rating is adjusted immediately. This way, SPoS promotes meritocracy among validators, encouraging their operators to keep them running smoothly.
...
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https://docs.multiversx.com/learn/consensus/

Understand that this security is applied to a network where validator nodes do not require state of the art GPU hardware to participate in the network:
...
Minimum System Requirements for running 1 MultiversX Node
  • 4 x dedicated/physical CPUs, either Intel or AMD, with SSE4.1 and SSE4.2 flags (use lscpu to verify)
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 200 GB SSD
  • 100 Mbit/s always-on internet connection, at least 4 TB/month data plan
  • Linux OS (Ubuntu 22.04/Debian 12 minimum) / MacOS
...
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https://docs.multiversx.com/validators/system-requirements/

IIRC, MultiversX currently has ~3,000 decentralized validators. This is just one example where BTC maxis are the ones that have done zero research when they claim BTC's PoW is better than PoS systems. They really have no idea what PoS systems have evolved into. We are at a point today where lumping all PoS systems into one blanket category is no longer honest. There is a huge gulf of technical difference out there in the evolution of different PoS systems.
 
This conversation is getting altogether funnier.

pmbug said:
IIRC, MultiversX currently has ~3,000 decentralized validators. This is just one example where BTC maxis are the ones that have done zero research when they claim BTC's PoW is better than PoS systems. They really have no idea what PoS systems have evolved into. We are at a point today where lumping all PoS systems into one blanket category is no longer honest. There is a huge gulf of technical difference out there in the evolution of different PoS systems.
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Currently 430 reachable nodes.

https://egldscan.com/identities/multiversx

Ummm, BTC has over 21K.

https://bitnodes.io/

And you forgot to mention to be a validator you also need to stake 2500 EGLD, which at about USD32 a pop is somewhere around USD80K (AUD129K). Still, that's not so bad, considering......

Screenshot 2025-01-10 at 7.20.01 am.png
 
It's possible I confused the 3,000 number from a different blockchain - that's why I prefaced that statement with IIRC. The larger points remain.
 
pmbug said:
It's possible I confused the 3,000 number from a different blockchain - that's why I prefaced that statement with IIRC. The larger points remain.
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You didn't. There's something like 3600 validators on the network but only the 400 or so were active at the time.
 
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Ah. That's likely a function of the sharding technology employed by the EGLD network. As transactions increase, it shards (or delegates) tasks to more nodes. The 400 or so active nodes were sufficient to handle the transaction volume at the moment you checked.

Also, your 21k BTC nodes comment is largely irrelevant. BTC miners operate farms of nodes. From the second link in post 2985:
U.S.-based mining pools Foundry USA and MARA Pool played a significant role, collectively mining more than 38.5% of all Bitcoin blocks.
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Two companies control nearly 40% of the BTC network presently.
 
pmbug said:
Also, your 21k BTC nodes comment is largely irrelevant. BTC miners operate farms of nodes. From the second link in post 2985:Two companies control nearly 40% of the BTC network presently.
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You're conflating mining with validating.
 
pmbug said:
Understand that this security is applied to a network where validator nodes do not require state of the art GPU hardware to participate in the network:

Minimum System Requirements for running 1 MultiversX Node
  • 4 x dedicated/physical CPUs, either Intel or AMD, with SSE4.1 and SSE4.2 flags (use lscpu to verify)
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 200 GB SSD
  • 100 Mbit/s always-on internet connection, at least 4 TB/month data plan
  • Linux OS (Ubuntu 22.04/Debian 12 minimum) / MacOS
Click to expand...

Cost to set up a MultiversX validator node: $130K Australian or more? I've got no idea how much it costs to buy the stuff above.

Cost to set up a BTC node: $156 including delivery

https://zaitronics.com.au/products/raspberry-pi-4-4gb-model-b-barebones-starter-kit

And another $150 for an external drive:

https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/samsung-1tb-t7-portable-ssd-grey-sassd1tbgy

I've got no idea how much electricity one of those things consume, I've read $5/year and there's maybe 20GB of data/month.

Then you're on your way to operating a full node. More info here:

https://raspibolt.org/guide/raspberry-pi/preparations.html
 
mmm....shiney! said:
You're conflating mining with validating.
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Maybe I should have quoted different sentences for you.
...
The growth cemented Foundry USA’s position as the largest mining pool globally, with control over 36.5% of the Bitcoin network’s total hashrate.

Meanwhile, Hashrate Index reported that MARA Pool commands around 32 EH/s, contributing 4.35% of the total hash power. ...
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You may quibble with technicalities if you like, but my essential point remains. From the first link I posted in post 2985 (from 2014):
... At 3am ET this morning, a single bitcoin mining collective known as Ghash.io reached 45% of the computing power of all global bitcoin miners, just six points short of the 51% that would be required to break bitcoin by arbitrarily manipulating the record of future transactions upon which it rests. ...
... Worse, a November 2013 paper from computer scientists at Cornell illustrated that it might be possible to hijack bitcoin with far less than 51% of the world’s mining power, or as little as 33% of the global bitcoin computational pool, ...
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Foundry USA already controls enough of the global hashrate to potentially launch a "51%" attack.
 
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So as it currently stands about 65 - 70% of the BTC network's hashing power is currently not under the control of Foundry.
 
And the 21K BTC nodes are individual IP addresses. If there are a group of nodes with the same IP address eg a farm, they're considered 1 node in the data collection method.
 
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