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Bitcoin has already seen some unfortunate consequences of running on an open network. Chinese mining syndicates hold a significant share of control over the Bi
by cbeach 11y ago
Bitcoin has already seen some unfortunate consequences of running on an open network.
Chinese mining syndicates hold a significant share of control over the Bitcoin network, and are therefore able to control the destiny of Bitcoin. They decided against the Bitcoin XT fork, for example and stand in the way of its adoption.
All democratic, naturally. Possibly a good thing for Bitcoin stability.
But can you imagine American banks ceding control of their settlement infrastructure to a network / protocol whose rules could be dictated by China?
- jsprogrammer 11y agoIf a disagreeable change is made, you can always just fork to a new chain. Are banks scared that the mining syndicates will hunt down and attack their forked chains? What good would that do anybody?
- TD-Linux 11y agoThe rules can't actually be dictated by the miners - e.g. they can make invalid blocks but clients won't accept them. They can censor transactions, though that can only delay it until a non-colluding miner includes it. The Bitcoin XT chain fork is a bit different in that it explicitly tied itself to miner voting. That's not necessary, you could really tie it to anything.