I want to defend Vitalik here and say it's unreasonable to expect him to address everything in a single blog post, there are a lot more failure modes than just

I want to defend Vitalik here and say it's unreasonable to expect him to address everything in a single blog post, there are a lot more failure modes than just malicious networks, none of which are explicitly mentioned. [1] Each of these kinds of trust fit relatively neatly into the framework he proposes though. Blockchains are designed to run on tens of thousands of nodes distributed around the world, which naturally insulates them from any one country deciding they don't want cryptocurrencies to be used within their borders. And even if every other country decided to ban Bitcoin, if America still allowed it then Bitcoin the protocol would happily continue to work within America's borders, in that sense it has 1-of-N trust in countries allowing it. On the other hand, if America or China decided they did not want Bitcoin to exist any more, and they were truly willing to do whatever it takes to shut it down, they have enough tools at their disposal to shut it down. This situation doesn't quite fit into V's framework, I think because some of the N are more important than others? [1]: - Do you trust whoever writes your client / mining software to write code without showstopping bugs? - Do you trust them to use a reliable build process? - Which websites do you trust to tell you what their public keys are, so you can check the signatures of the binaries you run? - Do you trust whoever sold you the computer you're running your client / mining software on? - Do you trust the mining rig manufacturers? - If your protocol relies on a notion of time, do you trust the time servers? - Do you trust mining pool operators not to use their hash power maliciously? - Do you trust that if someone found a way to forge signatures, the rest of the world would know?