Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin Miners Blocking Transactions
grarpamp
grarpamp at gmail.com
Thu Nov 23 20:46:03 PST 2023
If you're not using privacy coins, your transactions will be canceled.
https://miningpool.observer/
https://github.com/0xB10C/ofac-sanctioned-digital-currency-addresses
https://b10c.me/observations/08-missing-sanctioned-transactions
@0xB10C
My project, miningpool-observer, aims to detect when Bitcoin mining
pools are not mining transactions they could have been mining. Over
the past few weeks, it detected six missing transactions spending from
OFAC-sanctioned addresses. This post examines whether these
transactions were intentionally filtered because they spent from
OFAC-sanctioned addresses or if there are other possible explanations
for these transactions to be missing from blocks. I conclude that four
out of six transactions were likely filtered.
In September and October 2023, the RSS feed of my miningpool-observer
instance reported six blocks missing an OFAC-sanctioned transaction.
One block was mined by the ViaBTC mining pool, another by the Foundry
USA pool, and four by F2Pool. An OFAC-sanctioned transaction is a
transaction spending from or paying to an address sanctioned by the US
Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. I
maintain a tool to extract a list of OFAC-sanctioned addresses from
the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list published by the OFAC.
[–]garloid64 63 points64 points65 points 17 hours ago (3 children)
buh buh the byzantine incentive matrix should make this literally
impossible! they're losing money by rejecting those transactions the
free market does NOT allow it
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[–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 25 points26 points27 points 17 hours ago*
(2 children)
They choose not to mess with governments and regulators . They can
sacrifice that amount of money for their peace of mind...
But how bitcoin looks like then ?
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[–]SinibusUSG 24 points25 points26 points 15 hours ago (0 children)
I'm sure the affected parties can lodge protests at the centralized
Bitcoin agency.
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[–]otherwisemilkPonzi Schemer 13 points14 points15 points 13 hours ago
(0 children)
They told me Bitcoin is immune to government control. What gives?
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[–]Nuka-Crapola 48 points49 points50 points 17 hours ago (11 children)
I am not knowledgeable enough to evaluate your claims for myself but I
am choosing to believe you regardless because this is fucking
hilarious. They can’t even do the one thing they said they could do.
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[–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 38 points39 points40 points 17 hours ago
(10 children)
It's true. Of course Buttcoiners can claim that "it's manipulation !
They can censor transactions but there always be a miner who will
accept restricted transaction ! "
Well, it's not that simple. If all significant pools agree to ban
transactions of certain type then individual miner will never be able
to do that too - because to do that he must mine a block. Comparing
hashrates of small miners to pools like ViaBTC or F2pool there is
almost zero chance he will win the competition to mine a block.
So we can assume if pool decide not to mess with governments and start
banning restricted transactions then bitcoin becomes basically a fully
censored network - in the similar way like banking system.
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[–]paul__k 29 points30 points31 points 13 hours ago (0 children)
This is one of the overlooked flaws of BTC and similar systems: there
is no guarantee of service, and there is no way to enforce
"neutrality" of the network. Miners are completely free to choose what
transactions they will process. Theoretically, they could also form a
cartel that blackmails whales by rejecting their transactions unless
they pay a ransom first. If they don't, their coins would be virtually
useless.
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[–]leducdeguisefakeception intensifies 19 points20 points21 points 16
hours ago (0 children)
in the similar way like banking system
Minus the positive side of it
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[–]The_Motarp 12 points13 points14 points 11 hours ago (1 child)
Even better, the government can threaten to punish miners not just for
mining blocks that contain forbidden transactions, but also for
building on blocks that contain those transactions. As long as a
majority of miners are within reach of the government, any block that
contains forbidden transactions can always be superseded by a longer
chain that doesn't contain that block, guaranteeing that any miners
who don't follow the rules will never get block rewards and will be
unable to pay for electricity.
As soon as you have an external authority enforcing rules all the
fancy game theory about decentralized and uncensorable falls apart.
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[–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 4 points5 points6 points 9 hours ago (0 children)
Wait until they punish miners for processing blocks where the miner
does not have full KYC details for all sending and receiving
addresses.
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[–]Fearlessthrowaway42 4 points5 points6 points 10 hours ago (2 children)
What do you say Bitcoin is actually centralized no way but butters
said Bitcoin is decentralized.
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[–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 3 points4 points5 points 10 hours ago (1 child)
It depends how you define decentralization. It's not under control of
one party but it's definitely under control.
My theory why this whole business isn't illegal is because many govt.
agencies find it useful for it's own purposes and to track people and
operations they are interested in.
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[–]Fearlessthrowaway42 1 point2 points3 points 10 hours ago (0 children)
It's a decentralized scam. I would say Bitcoin is now so big that no
government wants to make a black swan event since it would piss off a
lot of people. They are butters but butters can still vote.
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[–]marvn23 1 point2 points3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)
Do you know if there is a system that is tracking how many blocks were
mined by non-pool miners? I wonder if anyone is still trying to mine
solo as it's so improbable to actually "strike gold".
According to this
https://coincodex.com/article/31820/how-long-does-it-take-to-mine-1-bitcoin/,
you would need to invest 55M USD to buy 22k antminers to solo mine a
single block every day. Also these miners would consume a shy of 72MW
of electricity, so it wouldn't be cheap to keep them running.
But with enough money and severe lack of judgment, you can still pay
your way around of such censorship.
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[–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 3 points4 points5 points 11 hours ago (1 child)
You can check https://miningpoolstats.stream/bitcoin
You can see there which pools mined blocks. It's also visible that 0.1
% of mined blocks founder is defined as UNKNOWN and you can also see
two or three addresses there that also have a very small share in
blocks finding. This is the percentage share of block mined by
something that isn't a known pool (could be solo miners or small
private pools).
So yes , sometimes you can see a block mined by someone else than one
of major pools. Still they must have significant amount of hashpower -
this isn't definitely mined on one ASIC maschine in someones garage...
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[–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 2 points3 points4 points 9 hours ago (0 children)
If other miners ignore that block and continue to mine off of the
previous one, the underdog miner who finally won one will find his
block orphaned and his reward will be zero.
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[–]AmericanScream 9 points10 points11 points 15 hours ago* (6 children)
Can you tell us more about those transactions? Are the wallet owners
identified? How did their fee rate compare with the standard free rate
of included transactions? How much were the transactions and where
were they going? (Reading some of this blockchain data doesn't always
seem intuitive)
>From what I see, these transactions also seem to be of trivial
amounts, so perhaps they're just test transactions?
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[–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 14 points15 points16 points 14 hours ago (5 children)
Yes, the wallet owners are identified. The list is updated constantly.
For example address 3PKiHs4GY4rFg8dpppNVPXGPqMX6K2cBML is identified as :
WANG, Hongfei (Chinese Simplified: 王洪飞), China; DOB 02 Dec 1991; POB
Hebei, China; nationality China; Email Address shuokangw at 163.com;
Gender Male; Digital Currency Address - XBT
3PKiHs4GY4rFg8dpppNVPXGPqMX6K2cBML; Phone Number 8615927270571; alt.
Phone Number 8613313017588; alt. Phone Number 8615030111720; National
ID No. 13053119911202021X (China) (individual) [ILLICIT-DRUGS-EO14059]
(Linked To: WUHAN SHUOKANG BIOLOGICAL TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD; Linked To:
YAO, Huatao).
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[–]Stenbuckp***s 23 points24 points25 points 14 hours ago (4 children)
Permissionless - oops need permission from the miners
Uncensorable - lol guess not
Anonymous - rofl the thing is publicly associated with his DOB, email,
name, phone number, company and crime.
Fast - no
Low fees - LOL
Decentralized - not in this life
Secure - lmao
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[–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 16 points17 points18 points 14 hours ago (3 children)
3PKiHs4GY4rFg8dpppNVPXGPqMX6K2cBML
The best thing is : when you buy bitcoins you can receive coins that
are connect with restricted addresses in the past and that could
result in some serious effects for you. You could be investigated as
someone who is involved in "illegal things" ...
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[–]jimicus 7 points8 points9 points 10 hours ago (2 children)
Don't even need to do that.
You could receive coins that have been through a laundry. At which
point you have zero evidence where the money comes from, and any
reputable bank will run a mile in the opposite direction because
you'll fail anti money-laundering checks.
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[–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 2 points3 points4 points 8 hours ago (1 child)
It's a bit different but i get your point...
Banks doesn't deal with bitcoins they deal only with fiat currencies.
It's the crypto exchange that can block your bitcoins cause they will
have perfect excuse to steal it - sorry mate , our security systems
detected that your bitcoins was processed through mixer and were
involved in illegal activity - we will confiscate it till you provide
us proof everything is ok (which is obviously impossible so we can
keep your bitcoin forever or sold it to another stupid customer)
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[–]jimicus 2 points3 points4 points 7 hours ago (0 children)
Which will doubtless lead to cries of "Won't someone regulate the exchanges!"
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[–]inputwtf 7 points8 points9 points 14 hours ago (0 children)
You gotta share this with the Crypto Critics Corner podcast
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[–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 6 points7 points8 points 9 hours ago (0 children)
The miners who believe a 20 dollar fee is more valuable to them than
avoiding a DOJ raid and corresponding prison sentence sure do have
their priorities straight.
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[–]eigenman 2 points3 points4 points 12 hours ago (0 children)
Interesting project. I'll check out your site.
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[–]CommitteeSalt8099 2 points3 points4 points 11 hours ago (0 children)
Doing the lords work!
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[+]PanneKoppPonzi Schemer 6 points7 points8 points 16 hours ago (0 children)
good job
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[–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 1 point2 points3 points 9 hours ago (2 children)
Are these transactions censored indefinitely or did some miner
somewhere eventually process them?
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[–]Plastic-Pressure-207[S] 1 point2 points3 points 8 hours ago (1 child)
I guess as long as they will be in the mempool there is chance that it
will processed. It just must wait till the block will be mined by
miner that does not censor the transactions. That can take long time.
In theory if every miner decide to censor then this transaction will
never be processed.
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[–]ApprehensiveSorbet76 0 points1 point2 points 7 hours ago (0 children)
Whoever decides to process it becomes an instant target of US
authorities, and if authorities know the token transfer is used to
finance military conflict against the US then it tends to become a
very serious crime. But hey, there is a 5 dollar fee as an incentive.
lol
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