Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies

#090 Dave Hudson: Insights from the Data Mine and Other Adventures Around the Block

Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies

Support the show, consider donating:
BTC: 1CD83r9EzFinDNWwmRW4ssgCbhsM5bxXwg
ETH: 0x8cdb49ca5103Ce06717C4daBBFD4857183f50935

Bitcoin mining and the intricate game theory that surround it is a topic that we’ve visited many times. Difficult to grasp in its complexity, it is these dynamics that determine the security of Bitcoin in the short and in the longer term. This time we were joined by none other than Dave Hudson. He is the author of the leading mining blog hashingit.com, VP of Software at PeerNova and had a long career in chip manufacturing including at Qualcomm.

We talked about dynamics in the mining market, security issues with Bitcoin’s design and his data-informed views on the blocksize debate.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • How he became interested in mining and what metrics he finds most interesting
  • How miners would be affected by a blocksize increase
  • The flaws in Satoshi’s design of the reward scheme
  • Why transaction fees will not make up for the block reward decrease in 2016 and why that will lessen the security of Bitcoin
  • The long-term role of Bitcoin as a settlement network
  • The problem with accepting 0-conf transactions
  • The future of mining and why 21 Inc’s plans seem nonsensical

Episode links:

This episode was hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Sébastien Couture, and is availble on YouTube, SoundCloud, and our website.

Next Episodes