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>It's essentially voting by adoption Unlike democratic policy, the votes for bitcoin policy are not 1 citizens 1 vote. You can claim that citizens have effect

by jayd16 6y ago

>It's essentially voting by adoption Unlike democratic policy, the votes for bitcoin policy are not 1 citizens 1 vote. You can claim that citizens have effectively no control (although they clearly do have some control). If you're not a miner you have absolutely no control. Even if you are a miner, your control is some function of your hash power.

flotzam 6y ago
> If you're not a miner you have absolutely no control. The economic majority of Bitcoin users ultimately decides what "Bitcoin" even means and can enforce that against miners with e.g. a User Activated Soft Fork: https://uasf.co https://uasf.co
- georgyo 6y ago
  I disagree. As a user, I have no real say. What ever the miners and exchanges decide if what I must use. And for the vast majority of users just don't care about which fork should be considered the true path. As a user, I have about as much control over US currency. I can be very vocal, protest, and raise awareness for what I think is correct, but ultimately almost all decisions happen with governing bodies. And in the case of Bitcoin, the governing bodies are the miners and exchanges, which have very different incentives than the users.
  - doggosphere 6y ago
    You may have diminished say in the governance process, but you can vote with your money. If enough people leave a contentious network, the price falls. If you decide to use another chain, exchanges/wallets/miners become profit incentivized to support those chains.
  - yeneek 6y ago
    I agree that you alone have no real say. The community does.
ertian 6y ago
This is an advantage of proof-of-stake: in order to 'mine', you only have to own some of the coin. It's still not one vote per citizen, but it's much closer to it--and it's more stable, since people holding large amounts of the coin are motivated to ensure it's stability and security.
- jayd16 6y ago
  Is proof of stake a plutocracy by definition or is there some other democratizing factor?
rvense 6y ago
And this is the problem. Blockchain represents a revolution against existing financial power structures. I am personally far from convinced that this will go well, since we know from history that revolutions intent on removing power structures tend replace them. Even before we factor in geopolitics, I am not extremely keen on replacing my country's already too unchecked banking sector with some entirely unregulated, supranational line-up of blue-eyed ancaps and other speculators whose main qualification is owning enough GPUs in places where power is cheap enough to mine. I really don't see that working out well for me at all, regardless of the theory of democratizing access to financial services. Money is infrastructure, and those who own the roads set the tolls.

by jayd16 6y ago

flotzam 6y ago

> If you're not a miner you have absolutely no control. The economic majority of Bitcoin users ultimately decides what "Bitcoin" even means and can enforce that against miners with e.g. a User Activated Soft Fork: https://uasf.co https://uasf.co

georgyo 6y ago
I disagree. As a user, I have no real say. What ever the miners and exchanges decide if what I must use. And for the vast majority of users just don't care about which fork should be considered the true path. As a user, I have about as much control over US currency. I can be very vocal, protest, and raise awareness for what I think is correct, but ultimately almost all decisions happen with governing bodies. And in the case of Bitcoin, the governing bodies are the miners and exchanges, which have very different incentives than the users.
- doggosphere 6y ago
  You may have diminished say in the governance process, but you can vote with your money. If enough people leave a contentious network, the price falls. If you decide to use another chain, exchanges/wallets/miners become profit incentivized to support those chains.
- yeneek 6y ago
  I agree that you alone have no real say. The community does.

ertian 6y ago

This is an advantage of proof-of-stake: in order to 'mine', you only have to own some of the coin. It's still not one vote per citizen, but it's much closer to it--and it's more stable, since people holding large amounts of the coin are motivated to ensure it's stability and security.

jayd16 6y ago
Is proof of stake a plutocracy by definition or is there some other democratizing factor?

rvense 6y ago

And this is the problem. Blockchain represents a revolution against existing financial power structures. I am personally far from convinced that this will go well, since we know from history that revolutions intent on removing power structures tend replace them. Even before we factor in geopolitics, I am not extremely keen on replacing my country's already too unchecked banking sector with some entirely unregulated, supranational line-up of blue-eyed ancaps and other speculators whose main qualification is owning enough GPUs in places where power is cheap enough to mine. I really don't see that working out well for me at all, regardless of the theory of democratizing access to financial services. Money is infrastructure, and those who own the roads set the tolls.