Received: from sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.192] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-3.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1VBWg6-00006Y-MA for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Mon, 19 Aug 2013 21:07:54 +0000 Received-SPF: pass (sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com: domain of gmail.com designates 209.85.217.174 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.217.174; envelope-from=gmaxwell@gmail.com; helo=mail-lb0-f174.google.com; Received: from mail-lb0-f174.google.com ([209.85.217.174]) by sog-mx-2.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.76) id 1VBWg4-0008BD-T8 for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Mon, 19 Aug 2013 21:07:54 +0000 Received: by mail-lb0-f174.google.com with SMTP id w20so3379695lbh.19 for ; Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:07:46 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.152.20.36 with SMTP id k4mr3357950lae.33.1376946466159; Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:07:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.112.89.72 with HTTP; Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:07:46 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:07:46 -0700 Message-ID: From: Gregory Maxwell To: "Goss, Brian C., M.D." Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Spam-Score: -1.6 (-) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. -1.5 SPF_CHECK_PASS SPF reports sender host as permitted sender for sender-domain 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (gmaxwell[at]gmail.com) -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature 0.0 LOTS_OF_MONEY Huge... sums of money X-Headers-End: 1VBWg4-0008BD-T8 Cc: "bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net" Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposal: remove "getwork" RPC from bitcoind X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 21:07:54 -0000 On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 1:22 PM, Goss, Brian C., M.D. wrote: > What if we have a massive (like many orders of magnitude) drop in network= harsh rate? Might such a function be useful to salvage the (non-functioni= ng) network? Same for IRC bootstrapping. How do we pick ourselves up off t= he ground in case of the equivalent of a great depression in network hash r= ate (or some jerk spending $100M just to drive the difficulty up and then t= urning his hardware off?). [Aside: When replying to the digest, please try to trim it] It appears that we will soon be at a hashrate where all the desktop CPUs in the world couldn't really make a dent in it... certainly not desktop cpus using the slow integrated cpu miner, which is much slower than external optimized cpu miners. But this is why I suggest packaging up a modern mining tool that supports CPU/GPU/FPGA/ASIC mining against a current bitcoind. Doing so would reduce the difference between testnet and mainnet, and provide an actually useful tool for contributing directly. Though again, I note, that Jeff's patch doesn't actually remove the integrated miner (I think it should=E2=80=A6). Just the getwork support fo= r external miners which don't use getblocktemplate... and if you're going to download one of those you could go download bfgminer instead.