[Bitcoin-ml] Time to get agreement on new DAA for Bitcoin Cash

[Tom Harding]

"Miners can instead slowly draw down their bcc hashpower, keeping their
bcc block rewards constant."

Despite what you may have heard, the design of Bitcoin Cash presumes a
competitive mining environment, in which this strategy is the epitome of
unstable, and could never work.


On 10/31/2017 8:31 AM, Jason Li via bitcoin-ml wrote:
> I have a different opinion about fast acting difficulty adjustment
> algorithms for bitcoin cash, and would like to offer a word of caution
> about fixating on one problem but ignoring another big one. First, a
> disclaimer: I believe very strongly, on thermodynamic grounds, that
> price tends to follow hashpower. 
>
> We all see that the long 2016 block difficulty adjustment period
> causes unstable hash oscillations on bcc, and we can damp these
> oscillations by using a fast acting difficulty adjustment algo. Fast
> acting difficulty adjustment algorithms create an entirely new
> problem, however, by creating economic incentives for miners to keep
> bcc's hashpower suppressed. Blocks will always come in around 10
> minute intervals, so why waste extra hashpower on bcc?  Miners can
> instead slowly draw down their bcc hashpower, keeping their bcc block
> rewards constant, while using their newly freed miners to mine extra
> btc. If miners can sell their bcc quickly enough, then this strategy
> will give them additional revenue over and above what they would
> otherwise get; revenue which is siphoned away from other market
> participants, especially big block supporters. The end result,
> however, is an unstable feedback loop that in the long run tends to
> drive bcc's hashpower, difficulty, and price, relentlessly lower. 
>
> In general, I think minority hashrate coins have a very difficult time
> retaining traction, no matter what difficulty targeting algorithm they
> use.  We even have strong evidence of this claim in the altcoin mkts. 
> Unfortunately, I have no good solutions to offer bcc at this moment. 
>

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