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> The miners "are" the network Err... no. Nodes define and police consensus in bitcoin, not miners. It is the fact that nodes, and not miners, not agreeing

> The miners "are" the network Err... no. Nodes define and police consensus in bitcoin, not miners. It is the fact that nodes, and not miners, not agreeing to changes that miners want that would lead to the centralization of the network into miners hands, that is the entire argument about scalability and blocksize. > them rejecting a change is the network saying no democratically Yes, it is the nodes rejecting change that is leading to little to no change. The nodes have overwhelmingly agreed to an upgrade, and the largest miner, bitmain, is resisting it, so there may be some truth to the assertion that miners don't want this upgrade because they perceive they will lose profit from it. The fact that the nodes are looking to 'go over bitmains head' and implement this change without the need for the largest blocking miner, that is the entire reason the 'new york agreement' was developed in the first place. But we do agree on the core issue. The lack of the ability to easily change is a feature of the design. The incentives are slightly misaligned with the implementation of asicboost, but for the most part, they function as expected.

nas 9y ago
I think you are drinking the UASF kool-aid. A fork that is not supported by the mining power is going to get easily attacked. I guess the "economic majority" could fork and change the proof-of-work so that existing ASIC hardware is useless. However, I would argue that the fork is no longer Bitcoin and that the original POW coin would continue to be used and have value. It would be a lot worse than the ETH/ETC split. I haven't followed the drama super close but I take the "New York Agreement" as the adults stepping into the room and saying enough with the crazy ideas. If they manage to get SegWit enabled and increase the block size for old-style transactions, I think Bitcoin will be in good shape for a while. I'm not sure it will go smooth though so I cashed out some of my BTC as a hedge. It seems we both agree that the difficulty of changing the design is a good feature, even though it is frustrating right now due to scaling. A dictatorship is a great system of governance, as long as you can trust him to do good. Other systems are messy and frustrating.
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  > A fork that is not supported by the mining power is going to get easily attacked. A chain that is attacked is easily going to shift to a different PoW that renders hundreds of millions of dollars of miner hardware obsolete. And the miners know it. > I would argue that the fork is no longer Bitcoin You can argue it all you like. Nodes define consensus in bitcoin, not miners. > I haven't followed the drama super close Clearly. > as the adults stepping into the room and saying enough with the crazy ideas. You mean like assuming that 80,000+ current bitcoin core reference node users are going to suddenly uninstall their node client software, and install a new unreviewed, untested node client? Because a bunch of suits got together in new york to have a pow-wow? In three months? You mean those adults? > if they manage to get SegWit enabled The only reason the nya is accelerating the adoption of segwit before aug 1 is because of these supposed uasf kool-aid drinkers. And isn't it kind of telling that this scalability that has been blocked by bitmain for a year is now suddenly good for everyone? Even though they've been blocking it for a year? > it is frustrating right now due to scaling. Take it up with bitmain. They've been blocking scalability for a year now. I'm not that concerned though. I'm happy with just the asicboost bug being fixed and no increased blocksize. Looks like I'm just going to get the blocksize anyway, and I can deal with that. But the hard-fork three months later? You can fork off onto china-coin if you want. I'll just continue using bitcoin.
  - nas 9y ago
    > Nodes define consensus in bitcoin, not miners. Again with the kool-aid. Why does the Bitcoin protocol have a POW function and miners? Consensus is defined by the chain with the most work. If you fork and change the POW, you will not have the mining power to secure it. So, it will just be another shitty alt-coin. If you can somehow get the majority of people using Bitcoin to switch over, and somehow get enough mining power to make it secure, then you have something. Thinking that the echo chamber that is r/bitcoin represents the majority of users is laughable though. And thinking that current Bitcoin with the current POW will not continue to exist, have value, have mining power behind it is just silly.
    - 9y ago

nas 9y ago

I think you are drinking the UASF kool-aid. A fork that is not supported by the mining power is going to get easily attacked. I guess the "economic majority" could fork and change the proof-of-work so that existing ASIC hardware is useless. However, I would argue that the fork is no longer Bitcoin and that the original POW coin would continue to be used and have value. It would be a lot worse than the ETH/ETC split. I haven't followed the drama super close but I take the "New York Agreement" as the adults stepping into the room and saying enough with the crazy ideas. If they manage to get SegWit enabled and increase the block size for old-style transactions, I think Bitcoin will be in good shape for a while. I'm not sure it will go smooth though so I cashed out some of my BTC as a hedge. It seems we both agree that the difficulty of changing the design is a good feature, even though it is frustrating right now due to scaling. A dictatorship is a great system of governance, as long as you can trust him to do good. Other systems are messy and frustrating.

Frogolocalypse 9y ago
> A fork that is not supported by the mining power is going to get easily attacked. A chain that is attacked is easily going to shift to a different PoW that renders hundreds of millions of dollars of miner hardware obsolete. And the miners know it. > I would argue that the fork is no longer Bitcoin You can argue it all you like. Nodes define consensus in bitcoin, not miners. > I haven't followed the drama super close Clearly. > as the adults stepping into the room and saying enough with the crazy ideas. You mean like assuming that 80,000+ current bitcoin core reference node users are going to suddenly uninstall their node client software, and install a new unreviewed, untested node client? Because a bunch of suits got together in new york to have a pow-wow? In three months? You mean those adults? > if they manage to get SegWit enabled The only reason the nya is accelerating the adoption of segwit before aug 1 is because of these supposed uasf kool-aid drinkers. And isn't it kind of telling that this scalability that has been blocked by bitmain for a year is now suddenly good for everyone? Even though they've been blocking it for a year? > it is frustrating right now due to scaling. Take it up with bitmain. They've been blocking scalability for a year now. I'm not that concerned though. I'm happy with just the asicboost bug being fixed and no increased blocksize. Looks like I'm just going to get the blocksize anyway, and I can deal with that. But the hard-fork three months later? You can fork off onto china-coin if you want. I'll just continue using bitcoin.
- nas 9y ago
  > Nodes define consensus in bitcoin, not miners. Again with the kool-aid. Why does the Bitcoin protocol have a POW function and miners? Consensus is defined by the chain with the most work. If you fork and change the POW, you will not have the mining power to secure it. So, it will just be another shitty alt-coin. If you can somehow get the majority of people using Bitcoin to switch over, and somehow get enough mining power to make it secure, then you have something. Thinking that the echo chamber that is r/bitcoin represents the majority of users is laughable though. And thinking that current Bitcoin with the current POW will not continue to exist, have value, have mining power behind it is just silly.
  - 9y ago