Decentralising Bitcoin Mining with Whit Gibbs

“We believe that the strongest thing for Bitcoin’s network is to have millions of miners as opposed to 12 or 15 miners with millions of ASICs.”— Whit GibbsLocation: LondonDate: Friday 19th NovemberProject: Compass MiningRole: Founder & CEOProof of Work is the bedrock of Bitcoin. It provides the network security but is not immune to attack. One attack vector is a collusion of miners who gain a significant amount of the hashrate could theoretically block transactions and reorganise the blockchain. This is known as a 51% attack.While this is known as a 51% attack, it would likely require significantly more than 51% of hashpower to pull off this attack. However, in 2014 GHash.io were able to attain 55% of the hashrate, but fortunately, they were willing to assist the community in overcoming this potential weakness. For a number of years, China housed a large amount of the hashpower, but their seemingly reckless geopolitical decision to willingly allow for ‘the great mining migration’ to occur earlier this year, saved the community from another dangerous consolidation of mining power.Compass Mining recognised this fragility, but also a business opportunity in being able to become a recognised and trusted facilitator of retail mining, with the mission to “support the decentralised growth of hashrate and strengthen network security by helping more people, learn, explore and mine bitcoin.” To that end, they provide and support retail access to mining infrastructure while hardware ownership remains in the hands of individuals. In this interview, I talk to the Founder and CEO of Compass Mining, Whit Gibbs, about their rapid success, the associated growing pains they’re overcoming, and the technical details of connecting retail mining with physical hardware and power markets.This episode’s sponsors:Gemini - Buy Bitcoin instantlyBlockFi - The future of Bitcoin financial servicesSportsbet.io - Online sportsbook & casino that accepts BitcoinCasa - The leading provider of Bitcoin multisig key security.Exodus - The world's leading Desktop, Mobile and Hardware crypto wallets.Ledger - State of the art Bitcoin hardware walletCompass Mining - Bitcoin mining & hosting-----WBD426 - Show Notes-----If you enjoy The What Bitcoin Did Podcast you can help support the show by doing the following:Become a Patron and get access to shows early or help contributeMake a tip:Bitcoin: 3FiC6w7eb3dkcaNHMAnj39ANTAkv8Ufi2SQR Codes: BitcoinIf you do send a tip then please email me so that I can say thank youSubscribe on iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | Deezer | TuneIn | RSS FeedLeave a review on iTunesShare the show and episodes with your friends and familySubscribe to the newsletter on my websiteFollow me on Twitter Personal | Twitter Podcast | Instagram | Medium | YouTubeIf you are interested in sponsoring the show, you can read more about that here or please feel free to drop me an email to discuss options.