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If Vitalik is correct that the only viable defense against the attack described in this article is users validating nodes en masse, then blockchain is doomed, b
by s17n 5y ago
If Vitalik is correct that the only viable defense against the attack described in this article is users validating nodes en masse, then blockchain is doomed, because you're never going to convince more than a small percentage of users to validate blocks.
Personally, I think that custodial entities such as Coinbase (or in the future, banks) can probably be relied on to not do anything too controversial.
- Ar-Curunir 5y agoIf a decentralized technology has to rely on centralized custodians for scaling, then it is not decentralized (It might still be useful, but you can’t call it decentralized or censorship-resistant or whatever)
- Closi 5y agoSo back to centralisation of power?
- greg7mdp 5y agoLooking forward to the bright future where we rely on centralized exchanges and banks!
- wmf 5y agoI don't think you're disagreeing as much as you think. A small percentage could still be 10,000 nodes or more which seems like a healthy number. (Of course, even a billion nodes can't prevent attacks if they have no economic weight...)
- s17n 5y agoYeah, I'm disagreeing with the notion that it matters whether you can run a full node on a laptop. Users casually running nodes on the hardware they have lying around is not a realistic model. Those 10000 nodes, to matter, will have to be representing economic interests that can't simply be ignored, and as such, will be able to afford whatever hardware is necessary.