# HG changeset patch # User Christian Urban # Date 1499345478 -3600 # Node ID 9a6480cb6e37f7346099ee1dfe5e3b027113c80a # Parent 0fbfb0a86fa8e5289fee9935fe26aaa8d42e3f6a updated diff -r 0fbfb0a86fa8 -r 9a6480cb6e37 handouts/ho08.pdf Binary file handouts/ho08.pdf has changed diff -r 0fbfb0a86fa8 -r 9a6480cb6e37 handouts/ho08.tex --- a/handouts/ho08.tex Thu Jun 29 16:48:10 2017 +0100 +++ b/handouts/ho08.tex Thu Jul 06 13:51:18 2017 +0100 @@ -588,6 +588,19 @@ \url{https://blockchain.info/pools} \end{center} +\noindent Here is an interesting problem: You are part of a lottery +pool, if you chip in some of the money to buy a lottery ticket. In +this setting it is clear when you are in or outside of the pool. But +how do you make sure people work hard in a mining pool in order to +justify a fraction of any reward? If evil me had its way, I would just +claim I do work and then sit back and relax. Or even if I do some work +for a mining pool and I happen to find a correct salt, I would keep it +secret and submit it to the bitcoin network on the ``side''. Actually, +the idea of mining pools has opened up a full can of interesting +problems. + + + \subsubsection*{Bitcoins for Real} Let us now turn to the nitty gritty details. As a participant @@ -944,10 +957,34 @@ \end{center} \noindent where the author proposes ways of publishing information -that is censor resistant as part of the blockchain. The idea is that +that is censor-resistant as part of the blockchain. The idea is that if a government wants to use Bitcoins, it would also have to put up with plain-text data that can be included in a transaction. +Ken Shirrif in his blog at + +\begin{center}\small +\url{http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoin-mining-hard-way-algorithms.html} +\end{center} + +\noindent writes that every day the electricity consumption of mining +for bitcoins is roughly 15 Mega Watts---the energy consumption of a country +like Cambodia. He writes: + +\begin{quote} + \it{}``The difficulty of mining a block is astounding. At the + current difficulty, the chance of a hash succeeding is a bit less + than one in $10^{19}$. Finding a successful hash is harder than + finding a particular grain of sand from all the grains of sand on + Earth. To find a hash every ten minutes, the Bitcoin hash rate needs + to be insanely large. Currently, the miners on the Bitcoin network + are doing about 25 million gigahashes per second. That is, every + second about 25,000,000,000,000,000 blocks gets hashed. I estimate + (very roughly) that the total hardware used for Bitcoin mining cost + tens of millions of dollars and uses as much power as the country of + Cambodia.'' +\end{quote} + \end{document} bit coin diff -r 0fbfb0a86fa8 -r 9a6480cb6e37 pics/nsautah1.jpg Binary file pics/nsautah1.jpg has changed diff -r 0fbfb0a86fa8 -r 9a6480cb6e37 pics/nsautah2.jpg Binary file pics/nsautah2.jpg has changed