Episode #53: Tough Math
This week we get James D’Angelo in the studio to explore his new data and stance that miners are in trouble. His math holds up though and we find out the problem with proof of work is that it is completely mistaken. Satoshi made a fundamental mistake and we’re just going to have to get over it. And his mistake was right there in the whitepaper; it says, “one CPU is one vote”. And there’s nobody who is going to deny that one CPU is no longer one vote. What we really have to come to terms with is it’s basically centralized from the very day in 2012 when there was a high number of miners and ASICs came in and mining started to centralize. And it’s centralizing exponentially; we don’t know the numbers but I think almost everyone can feel it. Also, 10 year future predictions! And for all you technophobes out here don’t get confused. This is remarkably simple math, very easy to understand and after listening to this episode you’ll be able to explain this phenomenal new technology to your techie friends.
Dee
Calm down! Didn’t Missy Elliot warn you of the perils of being a one-minute man?! You gotta go slow man, work the rhythm before you just jam in the content and leave a mess all over everyone.
You have to take down our show slow like a fine whiskey. You should listen again…and then go listen to the other episodes too.
Bitedge
3 minutes in and 0 content, closed tab
Corey
Thanks for spending the time to inform us on how much time you didn’t spend with us. 😛
You’ve got a lot of patience, and I bet you love small talk and banter.
Dee
The content works exponentially, you should have waited to the ten minute mark…content out the wazoo. Imagine what kind of mind-blowing content you could have had at the 1 hour mark?
Rob
“If you can’t do basic arithmetic you should be culled”.
Lol the intro to your show says there’s two of you. You should check your math guys.
Corey
I would say that manipulating scientific notation (or exponentials), although simple, isn’t basic arithmetic. I’m also sure you’ll say I’m retarded for not doing the mental math, oh well.
I wasn’t trying to be accurate, only getting an order of magnitude kind of thing to prove a completely different point, which I hope you didn’t miss. I will say, had I said what I was thinking without my terrible mental math exhibition, it would have come off much easier to understand.
The written form of language allows us to be much more eloquent. Having a recorded conversation… not so much. We’re working on it.
P.S. if you’re worried about my “math skills,” I’d be happy to discuss esoteric math topics with you.
Dee
Hey Rob,
That intro is an inside joke between us, but if you keep listening then maybe one day you will know the secret. In fact, the lore of that line, “Just two guys,” is deeply embedded in the interwebs. If you find the answer $10 in BTC goes to you my friend. Yay for incentives to get to know us!
Gustavo
Enjoyed the show guys,
Thinking about mining and the price of bitcoin and decentralization… Do you guys think that an increase in the price of bitcoin, i.e. 1trillion market cap, or more, would have a negative effect on mining? To the point that it would not be worth it for big miners to mine because the resources put into operation do not correlate to greater returns. It tapers off. Kind of like banks with a lot of cash but no ways to put that cash into play.
Thanks
Gustavo
Corey
My answer got too long, so I just published it on our blog.
https://medium.com/the-bitcoin-podcast-blog/we-got-an-interesting-question-on-one-of-our-latest-episodes-on-the-topic-of-mining-and-how-the-dc475ab79bea#.98wjvs53u
Victor T
It’s painful listening you guys trying to figure out the math. Here’s some help: the smallest unit of bitcoin is a satoshi, which is 0.00000001- – that’s 10^-8 or 1 hundred million satoshis == 1 BTC. Take that multiply it by 21 million: 21(10^6) x 10^8 == 21(10^14). So that’s 2.1 quadrillion units.
21 00 000 000 000 000
Corey
Thanks for the specifics, I wasn’t trying to be accurate, only getting to a point, which I hope you didn’t miss because you needed to correct me. What was important is that Bitcoin will always allow for arbitrary amounts of value to be moved, regardless of the price of a single bitcoin.
People aren’t even capable of physically conceptualizing these large numbers, which is why scientific notation was even invented. A good read about this can be found here http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/7-3-billion-people-one-building.html.
Dee
Thank you for the help with the math. And, thank you even more for the listen. In fact…you should listen to all of our past episodes and our future episodes to catch such monumental flubs.
Thank you Victor T, I am forever humbled by your infinite math prowess.
DHR
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