Aaron Foster

More content like this please. Awesome job @cbspears @wsfoxley @AsILayHodling youtu.be/221wrZi_7sE?si…

Quick Professional Update linkedin.com/posts/aaron-fo…

Fair, but for clarity, just trying to add perspective/context, but can understand how it comes across as argumentative. I do have bias and my perspective comes from the miners/hashers/hashrate rather than from a protocol/network view. It’s possible I have some cognitive dissonance around the benefits of SV2 and why every miner should be creating their own block templates - maybe we can take a step back? Genuinely asking for my own benefit, why should every miner embrace SV2 and Block Template creation instead of continuing to use SV1 and allow pools to perform this activity for them? From your perspective why hasn’t more hashrate embraced/advocated for this protocol upgrade? Do you think there is a world in which both protocols and ‘types’ of miners exist or must it be a winner take all thing?

I don't really think we're disagreeing because I don't actually think you're making an argument. Not with any internal coherence as far as I can tell. Stating, "Pools have less incentive to act nefariously than miners." doesn't make any sense on its face because pools are not incentivized in the same way hashers who contribute to pools are. The point of moving template creation back to hashers is to realign their incentives at a network level, not to answer a business question. "The Pool Hashrate centralization debate is nothing more than marketing dogma that continues to get recycled," is also a non-argument (what exactly am I marketing?) and needs to be supported by more rigorous thinking than 'the market hasn't asked for it so it must not matter'. Your reasoning seems to mix the incentives of the network and the incentives of network participants, which I think needs to be clarified.

In 2008, Satoshi made a bold prediction that we can actually test today... And it turns out they were absolutely right. Let me explain. 1/🧵🧵

Will agree to disagree Rob 🙏. The censorship risk is also dogma and fear mongering imo. Miners will proxy their vote through their hashrate. Any sort of censorship by a pool operator, could be unpopular and impact a pool operators revenue as a business. Miners are free to choose which pool operator to point hashrate to whomever they trust - as of today miners overwhelmingly trust FPPS. Merged Mining - if miners are not getting those rewards switch to a pool that offers those MM rewards? OoB Transactions - tough one because while possible, it’s only relevant during high fee markets. This goes deeper into what will happen to and be developed around transaction fee markets as a whole. OoB transactions don’t make any meaningful % to my knowledge (could be wrong). FPPS further makes this non material through the formula <- definitely worth a more in depth discussion with folks smarter than me. Don’t get me wrong It’s great that SV2 is out there and Block Template creation for miners exist as an option (more options the better), but having choice and therefore competition for miners rather than a single imperfect solution miners must adhere to is misguided. Lots of nuance in this! Would love to learn more and understand your point of view better next time I’m at BP 💪 FWIW, I’m happy to be wrong and likely will be on some of this. But just adding some counter points for folks to consider

I find this argument incredibly weak and lacking any understanding or subtlety regarding the difference between the health of the Bitcoin network, and what customers or pools want. Those are not the same thing and pretending like they are is naive at best. The risk of pool centralization from the perspective of the peer to peer network is censorship. Pools already offer services beyond the scope of template creation and FPPS payouts that are NOT necessarily passed along to hashers (merge mining, OOB transactions). Pools themselves recognize their own payout schemes are not sustainable in the long run (FPPS) as coinbase returns drop and the associated fees for miners will climb over time. The fact a large, public miner wants a convenient and SOC accredited institution handling their template creation is NOT an argument against the legitimacy of the censorship risk associated with pool centralization.

Pools have less incentive to act nefariously than miners. While Fractal Bitcoin wasn’t an attack, it was a demonstration that miners are capitalistic and will always act in their own interest and are inherently flexible to do so. Part of the reason why large miners aren’t pushing pool operator’s for SV2 or Block template creation, they simply don’t see any value - they are fine paying 0.15% to 1.00% to insure (hedge) predictable and auditable revenue. The Pool Hashrate centralization debate is nothing more than marketing dogma that continues to get recycled.

This is also an argument for why pool centralization is a more real risk. Satoshi never envisioned a world with pooled mining, where operators from any geography can hash a template created by a third party crated anywhere in the world. 9/🧵

Mining Pools are voting/trust proxies for hashrate producers of all sizes. Majority of Miners are capitalistic in nature - should any Mining Pool/Block creator act nefarious to the detriment of a Miners Revenue they will switch (vote) for another Pool - but it would be absolutely suicidal for any mining pool act in a way that doesn’t benefit its users. There are more pools operating today than 4 years ago, with technical barriers to entry becoming less and less each year offering various benefits and levels of trust to reconcile a miners hashrate. The Mining Pool centralization argument is tiresome imo. SV2 does offer some basic stratum protocol improvements but I can assure you very few miners have asked me when they can start creating their own Block Templates - at present they simply do not care and want to earn as much BTC revenue as possible.

@hash_bender Sorry, was desperately trying to query why SV2 and Knots make sense.

This is the equivalent of us-east-1 going down

@HodlersOfficial @CdnBitcoinConf @Shot_By_Vucci Hope the Ref plays next year. 😅

Big THANK YOU to these guys for playing in another memorable Hodlers Cup hockey game at the @CdnBitcoinConf 🇨🇦🇺🇸🏆 Team #Bitcoin has some elite hockey players if you didn't know! 🏒⚡️ 📸 @Shot_By_Vucci

@blockspace Isn’t some of this debt on the balance sheet of Bitcoin Miners earmarked for the pivot to Data Centre development?

new miners just like the old miners

@MidwestHODL @TFTC21 @LukeGromen Agreed 😅

@TFTC21 @LukeGromen This is wrong. You can easily find entry level welder jobs at $25/hr. No one is paying $500K for a newbie out of trade school.

A strong America pays welders like bankers. "I will say we are on the right path when I'm seeing stories about welders making 500-600k/yr out of welding school." - @LukeGromen

Had a blast attending the Hodlers Cup last week in Montreal as part of the @CdnBitcoinConf Despite being injured was able to stand behind the bench to support team Canada. Sadly Team Canada lost 9-0 and is now 0-2 in the series. Next Year comrades! Credit to @Shot_By_Vucci for the photos and Corey at @HodlersOfficial and team for organizing!

@AndrewBurchwell GM 🙏

10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.

@jamesmcavity @intangiblecoins Nihao as the kids say these days.

@intangiblecoins GM!

on one side of the OP_RETURN debate, you have a group comprised of the most skilled, diverse, and dedicated bitcoin developers in it’s history on the other side, you have a catholic religious zealot who rolled his own custody solution, got hacked, then ran to the FBI for help while doxxing the entire bitcoin dev community in the process; who doused all his food in peroxide during covid and was probably one of the most alarmist about the pandemic; who earnestly compares using bitcoin for data as “rape”; who created his own poorly maintained fork of bitcoin core that is objectively dangerous to operate with real funds; who can’t maintain eye contact or engage in honest debate, simply responding “liar” to those with legitimate opposing arguments; who has a history of engaging in bad faith with the bitcoin community and of generally pissing off everyone; and has his own (2nd attempt at a) mining pool that claims to be decentralized and filter arbitrary data transactions but fails at both. tough choice 🥴

@Mario_Guti713 At what point does one switch form months to years? 2?

My 21 month old speaks better french than I do.

@RG_Leachman But what about the ticks Ryan?

Public lands. You can just go places. Average city dweller will never experience this level of freedom and that’s a shame

@danbrownbuilds Nothing beats the aesthetic of the Sky Dome Daniel.

Wow

@joe_tulane Judging by the thickness of the coozie, that will keep a drink colder longer than a Canadian (or Buffalo) winter.

If you don’t slap koozie… you should.

📈 @ethan_vera explained how hashprice became the foundation of Bitcoin mining hashrate derivatives at @BitcoinConfAsia . Cash settlement lets miners hedge revenue even when operations go down, a key unlock for managing risk. 👉 Check out our derivatives products: luxor.tech/derivatives

@BTCFredericton @CdnBitcoinConf Winner gets Alaska!

Team Canada straps them up again against USA at the @CdnBitcoinConf Oct 16! The battle of the 51st state: final negotiations!

🚀 Luxor is partnering with @canaanio to provide financing for Avalon® A15 Pro miners, opening new doors for institutional adoption and scalable Bitcoin mining. Learn more: prnewswire.com/news-releases/…