Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by doots 3054 days ago
Michael Bedford Taylor misrepresents the most important aspect of these "ASIC clouds" and the bitcoin algorithm; the puzzle of the algorithm is incredibly simple. Every implementation of a Bitcoin miner simply generates a bunch of random guesses to the hash equation.

On page 60, graph (a) Professor Taylor uses distorted manipulative log charts for finance.

The chart on page 61 is the most insanely manipulative chart I could ever imagine to represent the history and progression of Bitcoin mining in relation to hardware speed.

Try charting

  watts per block over time.

  ROI in BTC for a core i5 over time

  newly minted coins per user over time 

Michael also doesn't understand or chooses to misinform the reader and the journal about "computational demand scaling with the number of users"

The Bitcoin network grows increasingly inefficient with any additional computer hash power added, and as more users use it, it clogs due to limited bandwidth and inefficiencies of the algorithm. Additional hardware speed does nothing to scale with network growth, actually the complete opposite occurs as it requires more (energy, computer resources) to do the same thing (transactions) per second for less (rewards per user). The result of all these aspects point towards a system of rules that exploits new, uninformed users to benefit "early adopters".

Sad but not surprising to realize this guy is a professor at the University of Washington.

Is Michael Bedford Taylor promoting something here through intentional misdirection and omission of basic facts to manipulate readers?

Would Professor Michael Bedford Taylor be under a conflict of interest if he sells Bitcoins?

3 comments

Using log charts is appropriate for data that spans multiple orders of magnitude. I don't know why you complain about distortion, unless you think the data itself is wrong?
The log chart is used to hide volatility.
I guess it depends on how you are used to eyeball volatility, but for relative swings (percentages) log charts are actually best, since constant differences in the chart correspond to constant percentages.
The built-in increase of difficulty proportional to new blocks is well known
To who?

This is an academic article, making that assumption would be negligent.

Pages 60 & 61? I count only 9 pages.
The pages have embedded numbers implying it's an excerpt from a magazine.