1 year ago
In the past 72 hours, Antpool has dominated 26.48% of Bitcoin’s wide hashrate, intimately followed by Foundry USA astatine 24.95%. Together, these 2 mining pools wield 51.43% of the prevailing 502 exahash per 2nd (EH/s) full hashrate. This level of attraction successful bitcoin mining pools has been unprecedented since 2013, reminiscent of the epoch erstwhile Ghash and Btc Guild were the starring forces successful hashrate dominance.
Bitcoin Mining Power Shift: A Return to Dominance by Few Players
Years back, the absorption among bitcoin advocates was heavy connected the centralization of bitcoin (BTC) mining pools, a taxable that sparked sizeable debate. Nowadays, though immoderate voices inactive raise concerns implicit miner centralization, these issues person mostly faded into inheritance noise.
For example, successful the past 3 days, Antpool and Viabtc collectively generated 51.43% of Bitcoin’s full hashrate, reigniting immoderate discussions astir this concentration. In 2023, the attraction of miners mirrors the concern successful 2013, erstwhile mining pools similar Ghash and Btc Guild held a commanding 55% share of the network’s full hashrate.
A notable incidental successful March 2013 progressive an accidental fork, starring to a bulk hashrate being utilized to revert the Bitcoin software to a erstwhile version. Btc Guild, controlling 20-30% of the hashrate, collaborated with developers to rotation backmost the software, sacrificing their proof-of-work since the blockchain split.
This enactment sparked important treatment successful the community. Arvind Narayanan and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote astir the event, with Buterin highlighting that the “incident opens up superior questions astir the quality of the Bitcoin protocol and puts into the spotlight immoderate uncomfortable facts astir Bitcoin’s conception of ‘decentralization.’”
Today’s miner centralization echoes that of 2013, sans the chain-splitting episode. Current dominating mining pools astir replicate the hashrate power seen successful Btc Guild and Ghash. This wasn’t the lawsuit successful 2016 erstwhile the apical 2 pools (Antpool and F2pool) lone had 32.25% of the hashrate.
Similarly, successful 2017, 2018, and 2019, this level of centralization was not observed. However, successful 2020, 2021, and 2022, bitcoin mining pools began to centralize again. In June 2022, Foundry USA and Antpool had a combined 38.47% of the full hashrate.
Transaction Filtering Becomes an Issue
Over the past 3 days, Antpool and Foundry collectively predominate 51.43% of the hashrate among much than 40 pools. Fascinatingly, an altcoin featured connected respective centralized exchanges mightiness spot its deposits halted oregon look delisting owed to concerns that the blockchain whitethorn acquisition a important reorganization.
Concerns person shifted from imaginable 51% attacks to censorship wrong the hashrate and statement discussions among bitcoiners. For instance, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has been blacklisting crypto addresses, and miners person the discretion to prime which transactions to process.
In May 2021, the North American mining institution Marathon produced its archetypal OFAC-compliant artifact but aboriginal abandoned this signifier aft Taproot’s introduction. Recently, it was discovered that F2pool was filtering transactions linked to OFAC-sanctioned addresses but ceased this aft assemblage pushback.
F2pool remains the 4th largest mining excavation currently. Moreover, Ocean Pool, supported by Jack Dorsey and led by Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr, faced criticism for censoring transactions related to coinjoin privacy methods and Ordinal inscriptions. Despite a flimsy dip successful hashrate pursuing the backlash, Ocean’s hash power has stayed implicit 450 petahash per 2nd (PH/s).
Essentially, the evolving scenery of bitcoin mining, marked by fluctuating centralization and emerging concerns implicit transaction censorship, reflects a dynamic ecosystem and 1 that should beryllium monitored with vigilance astatine each times. While the assemblage grapples with challenges to Bitcoin’s decentralization ethos, decentralization advocates indispensable guarantee the ongoing statement continues regarding the network’s integrity and the aboriginal of bitcoin mining.
How bash you presumption the 2023 mining centralization reflecting the patterns observed backmost successful 2013? Share your perspectives and insights connected this taxable successful the comments conception below.
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