vnprc on Nostr: Thank you for the compliment. There are a lot of different topics intertwining in ...
Thank you for the compliment. There are a lot of different topics intertwining in this comment. I will try to tease them apart and reply individually.
> The fact that they took the liberty of designing a block like this and did not suffer repercussions (lose hashrate) really shows the magnitude of the problem here.
1) Marathon is not a public pool. AFAIK they mine primarily with their own hardware, although a quick google search indicates that they accept hashrate from business partners. As a vertically integrated company they are insulated from public opinion because the public are not their customers.
2) The blockspace market is totally flat right now. Blocks are plowing through the 1 sat/vb transaction wall. In terms of market disruption, there has not been a better time since the launch of ordinals to draw pictures on the blockchain.
3) This is a political play. Marathon is hoping to score favor with the newly ascendant president. If the future resembles the past I'm pretty sure it will work. Personally, I find this distasteful but that's why I'm not in business or politics. wygd ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4) Marathon is experimenting with block template construction. We need to accelerate this kind of behavior in order for bitcoin to decentralize.
5) I take a laissez-faire attitude when it comes to putting art on the blockchain. I could write a whole essay on the topic starting with the history of money and art (they are two sides of the same phenotype) and ending with a discussion on the nature of permissionlessness; maybe I will put it in words one day.
The thing that stands out to me most about this picture is that they chose to draw it using the mempool.space block explorer software. Ordinals is the obvious choice to store an image on the blockchain. It is the superior protocol because it offers higher fidelity images and more creative flexibility in the medium. Ordinal inscriptions let you use any file type or even do wild shit like recursively reference other inscriptions. Instead, Marathon chose to 'paint' a low-fi pixel art image with a block explorer.
I like this choice because it subverts your expectations. I enjoy subversive elements and appreciate the art of creation as well as the final product. Subject matter aside, I really appreciate this work of art. Kudos Portland.HODL (npub1777…tnu0)!
> Satoshi admittedly didn't factor in pooled mining when designing the protocol and it obviously resulted in centralization.
Yes. Hard agree. I think Satoshi yolo'd an incomplete prototype out into the world.
No disrespect. Satoshi brought fire down from Mount Olympus and delivered it to mankind for the good of us all. He was thinking way, way ahead. He apparently anticipated GPU mining and took many actions that indicate he was a nurturing, protective guardian of the early bitcoin experiment. (Check out this great lopp (npub17u5…t4tp) read for one such example: https://blog.lopp.net/was-satoshi-a-greedy-miner/ ). And then once baby bird was ready to leave the nest he performed his greatest trick of all, he disappeared forever.
But Satoshi didn't anticipate the rise of pooled mining or the centralizing forces at play. I think it is incumbent on us, the bearers of the torch, to finish building the complete software stack. That's why I decided to focus here. Mining pool software has been stagnant for a decade and as a result this is the highest leverage software I can write as a bitcoin developer.
Finally, I don't think Hashpool will prevent behavior like this. I want to free the block template market and fling the doors open for anyone and everyone to participate. If I am successful I expect there to be more funny blocks like this one, not less. I think the biggest 'problem' with this image is that this capability is beyond the reach of almost everyone. This is what I want to fix.
> The fact that they took the liberty of designing a block like this and did not suffer repercussions (lose hashrate) really shows the magnitude of the problem here.
1) Marathon is not a public pool. AFAIK they mine primarily with their own hardware, although a quick google search indicates that they accept hashrate from business partners. As a vertically integrated company they are insulated from public opinion because the public are not their customers.
2) The blockspace market is totally flat right now. Blocks are plowing through the 1 sat/vb transaction wall. In terms of market disruption, there has not been a better time since the launch of ordinals to draw pictures on the blockchain.
3) This is a political play. Marathon is hoping to score favor with the newly ascendant president. If the future resembles the past I'm pretty sure it will work. Personally, I find this distasteful but that's why I'm not in business or politics. wygd ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4) Marathon is experimenting with block template construction. We need to accelerate this kind of behavior in order for bitcoin to decentralize.
5) I take a laissez-faire attitude when it comes to putting art on the blockchain. I could write a whole essay on the topic starting with the history of money and art (they are two sides of the same phenotype) and ending with a discussion on the nature of permissionlessness; maybe I will put it in words one day.
The thing that stands out to me most about this picture is that they chose to draw it using the mempool.space block explorer software. Ordinals is the obvious choice to store an image on the blockchain. It is the superior protocol because it offers higher fidelity images and more creative flexibility in the medium. Ordinal inscriptions let you use any file type or even do wild shit like recursively reference other inscriptions. Instead, Marathon chose to 'paint' a low-fi pixel art image with a block explorer.
I like this choice because it subverts your expectations. I enjoy subversive elements and appreciate the art of creation as well as the final product. Subject matter aside, I really appreciate this work of art. Kudos Portland.HODL (npub1777…tnu0)!
> Satoshi admittedly didn't factor in pooled mining when designing the protocol and it obviously resulted in centralization.
Yes. Hard agree. I think Satoshi yolo'd an incomplete prototype out into the world.
No disrespect. Satoshi brought fire down from Mount Olympus and delivered it to mankind for the good of us all. He was thinking way, way ahead. He apparently anticipated GPU mining and took many actions that indicate he was a nurturing, protective guardian of the early bitcoin experiment. (Check out this great lopp (npub17u5…t4tp) read for one such example: https://blog.lopp.net/was-satoshi-a-greedy-miner/ ). And then once baby bird was ready to leave the nest he performed his greatest trick of all, he disappeared forever.
But Satoshi didn't anticipate the rise of pooled mining or the centralizing forces at play. I think it is incumbent on us, the bearers of the torch, to finish building the complete software stack. That's why I decided to focus here. Mining pool software has been stagnant for a decade and as a result this is the highest leverage software I can write as a bitcoin developer.
Finally, I don't think Hashpool will prevent behavior like this. I want to free the block template market and fling the doors open for anyone and everyone to participate. If I am successful I expect there to be more funny blocks like this one, not less. I think the biggest 'problem' with this image is that this capability is beyond the reach of almost everyone. This is what I want to fix.