3 ms·

I guess I just have never found support for that in the nakamoto paper. You obviously have strong feelings about it, and I'm not trying to provoke an argument.

by dpkp 9y ago

I guess I just have never found support for that in the nakamoto paper. You obviously have strong feelings about it, and I'm not trying to provoke an argument. I just still don't understand where in the paper there is any discussion of non-mining nodes. The only place I can find mention of nodes that are not working on constructing new blocks on the network is in Section 8 re: the simplified verification protocol.

Frogolocalypse 9y ago
Perhaps it should give you pause with that belief structure when you realize the word 'mining' doesn't even exist in the bitcoin whitepaper. It is only the nodes that exist, because it is only the nodes that validate, and everything that didn't have anything to do with validation is rightly considered a secondary concern of the protocol. So there are nodes, which are peers. And there are people who need nodes for performing bitcoin transactions, and some of those people are miners, and some of them are just making good-ol-fashioned transactions. The correct term is "I am a peer, and I use this node for my transactions, which create blocks". Or "I am a peer, and I use this node for my transactions, which are payments." Download it for yourself and see. https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/ https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/
- warboat 9y ago
  Please read section 5 of the whitepaper on bitcoin network. You are not a node in bitcoin if you cannot perform proof-of-work. A non-mining node has no say in bitcoin.
  - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
    You really should learn how bitcoin works. It will lead to a lot less frustration on your part when reality delivers a different outcome to your understanding.
    - warboat 9y ago
      one day it will click for you. hopefully.
      - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
        I'm the one who understands why all of the forks you support fail mate.
tfha 9y ago
I believe the original intention was that all nodes would be mining nodes, and that there would be tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. I believe in 2008 Satoshi did not understand the full implications of ASICs or economies of scale. (S)he probably didn't even realize that ASICs existed. Regardless of the whitepaper, in our modern cyberscape the only way to be certain that the original rules (21m coins, can only spend your own money, etc.) are followed is to be confident that a wide and deep pool of users are verifying them. That is strictly at odds with heavy on-chain scaling.
- unlimitless 9y ago
  I'll just leave this here... http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/ http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/ "At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node." Satoshi was well aware of specialized hardware. If the majority of the planet were using bitcoin, it would not be necessary for every user to be a node. It would still be plenty "wide and deep" if businesses were running it. The security of SPV is actually quite good. http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/188/ http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/188/ "I anticipate there will never be more than 100K nodes, probably less. It will reach an equilibrium where it's not worth it for more nodes to join in. The rest will be lightweight clients, which could be millions. At equilibrium size, many nodes will be server farms with one or two network nodes that feed the rest of the farm over a LAN." http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/287/ http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/287/ "The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale. That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server. The design supports letting users just be users. The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be. Those few nodes will be big server farms. The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate."
- monort 9y ago
  Satoshi didn't predict mining pools, but they were fully aware that mining nodes will be in minority. It's mining pools that produce centralization problem, not mining hardware.
psyc 9y ago
Why go on and on about the paper, instead of the implementation?
etherael 9y ago
That's because you're right and he's wrong. He's a well known bitcoin core apologist, and is just talking his political position. The original intended system design at scale had no need for non mining nodes. This revisionism is a long running and well known war, here is the core political bloc in question actually attempting to justify editing the white paper to push their perspective over reality. Cancerous stuff. https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/1904 https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/1904
- libertyEQ 9y ago
  For those of us that only follow the latest on bitcoin at a high level, I think it is difficult to determine what are the points of disagreement. When I first read about bitcoin on HN in 2010, and read the whitepaper (and went to their IRC channel), I certainly don't remember thinking that non-mining nodes were that important. However, now I'm not sure, and many people making arguments on all sides seem to have good arguments at various times. I am hoping more people with good knowledge of the issues weigh-in here, rather than the over-politicized subreddits.
  - statoshi 9y ago
    To be quite honest, it doesn't matter if folks think that non-mining nodes are unimportant - they can't force folks who /are/ running full validating non-mining nodes into accepting arbitrary rule changes to the protocol. That's what's important.
    - warboat 9y ago
      If non-mining nodes don't accept it then they just fall off the network like a loud angry spectator at a football game.
      - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
        A couple of years of failed fork attempts have a different opinion to your understanding.
statoshi 9y ago
Our understanding of Bitcoin has progressed by leaps and bounds since the system has been running for 9 years. The whitepaper is not the end-all, be-all of Bitcoin. Even Satoshi did not fully realize what he built. For more details: https://www.coindesk.com/nobody-understands-bitcoin-thats-ok/ https://www.coindesk.com/nobody-understands-bitcoin-thats-ok...

by dpkp 9y ago

Frogolocalypse 9y ago

Perhaps it should give you pause with that belief structure when you realize the word 'mining' doesn't even exist in the bitcoin whitepaper. It is only the nodes that exist, because it is only the nodes that validate, and everything that didn't have anything to do with validation is rightly considered a secondary concern of the protocol. So there are nodes, which are peers. And there are people who need nodes for performing bitcoin transactions, and some of those people are miners, and some of them are just making good-ol-fashioned transactions. The correct term is "I am a peer, and I use this node for my transactions, which create blocks". Or "I am a peer, and I use this node for my transactions, which are payments." Download it for yourself and see. https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/ https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/

warboat 9y ago
Please read section 5 of the whitepaper on bitcoin network. You are not a node in bitcoin if you cannot perform proof-of-work. A non-mining node has no say in bitcoin.
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  You really should learn how bitcoin works. It will lead to a lot less frustration on your part when reality delivers a different outcome to your understanding.
  - warboat 9y ago
    one day it will click for you. hopefully.
    - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
      I'm the one who understands why all of the forks you support fail mate.

tfha 9y ago

I believe the original intention was that all nodes would be mining nodes, and that there would be tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. I believe in 2008 Satoshi did not understand the full implications of ASICs or economies of scale. (S)he probably didn't even realize that ASICs existed. Regardless of the whitepaper, in our modern cyberscape the only way to be certain that the original rules (21m coins, can only spend your own money, etc.) are followed is to be confident that a wide and deep pool of users are verifying them. That is strictly at odds with heavy on-chain scaling.

unlimitless 9y ago
I'll just leave this here... http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/ http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/ "At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node." Satoshi was well aware of specialized hardware. If the majority of the planet were using bitcoin, it would not be necessary for every user to be a node. It would still be plenty "wide and deep" if businesses were running it. The security of SPV is actually quite good. http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/188/ http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/188/ "I anticipate there will never be more than 100K nodes, probably less. It will reach an equilibrium where it's not worth it for more nodes to join in. The rest will be lightweight clients, which could be millions. At equilibrium size, many nodes will be server farms with one or two network nodes that feed the rest of the farm over a LAN." http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/287/ http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/287/ "The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale. That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server. The design supports letting users just be users. The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be. Those few nodes will be big server farms. The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate."
monort 9y ago
Satoshi didn't predict mining pools, but they were fully aware that mining nodes will be in minority. It's mining pools that produce centralization problem, not mining hardware.

psyc 9y ago

Why go on and on about the paper, instead of the implementation?

etherael 9y ago

That's because you're right and he's wrong. He's a well known bitcoin core apologist, and is just talking his political position. The original intended system design at scale had no need for non mining nodes. This revisionism is a long running and well known war, here is the core political bloc in question actually attempting to justify editing the white paper to push their perspective over reality. Cancerous stuff. https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/1904 https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/1904

libertyEQ 9y ago
For those of us that only follow the latest on bitcoin at a high level, I think it is difficult to determine what are the points of disagreement. When I first read about bitcoin on HN in 2010, and read the whitepaper (and went to their IRC channel), I certainly don't remember thinking that non-mining nodes were that important. However, now I'm not sure, and many people making arguments on all sides seem to have good arguments at various times. I am hoping more people with good knowledge of the issues weigh-in here, rather than the over-politicized subreddits.
- statoshi 9y ago
  To be quite honest, it doesn't matter if folks think that non-mining nodes are unimportant - they can't force folks who /are/ running full validating non-mining nodes into accepting arbitrary rule changes to the protocol. That's what's important.
  - warboat 9y ago
    If non-mining nodes don't accept it then they just fall off the network like a loud angry spectator at a football game.
    - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
      A couple of years of failed fork attempts have a different opinion to your understanding.

statoshi 9y ago

Our understanding of Bitcoin has progressed by leaps and bounds since the system has been running for 9 years. The whitepaper is not the end-all, be-all of Bitcoin. Even Satoshi did not fully realize what he built. For more details: https://www.coindesk.com/nobody-understands-bitcoin-thats-ok/ https://www.coindesk.com/nobody-understands-bitcoin-thats-ok...