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That only works as long as the government stays clueless. If Solana or Angorand or whatever gets big enough and the government employs some tech-savvy people to

by api 5y ago

That only works as long as the government stays clueless. If Solana or Angorand or whatever gets big enough and the government employs some tech-savvy people to examine it, they'll figure out that there is a subset of blessed validators out there that could be legally compelled to cease and desist and that this would cripple the network. That wouldn't really work for Bitcoin or other PoW coins. They could shut down big mines and new ones would pop up. Of course they could instead invest a lot in both seizing mines and building their own and 51% the network... that's always a risk and any large enough nation state could do it.

baby 5y ago
It’s the same for Bitcoin btw. The government can just forbid any VASP to accept bitcoin and to authorize on/off ramp and trades involving bitcoin. ISPs could also block miners and bitcoin websites. The coin is censorship resistant… to a certain extent. Maybe there’ll always be someone running it, and there’ll be a black market for on/off ramp, but it will severely cripple the adoption.
- SilasX 5y ago
  True, but that failure mode doesn't exploit the network's centralization and is unrelated to how centralized it is.
  - ivalm 5y ago
    So it means centralization might not be too relevant to the government a ability to ban.
- tudorw 5y ago
  'it will severely cripple the adoption', I'm not sure it's so straightforward as that, if large numbers of governments take an authoritarian stance on independent global currencies is there not a possibility that, while impacting network efficiency, it might underpin a new found desire and need for said independent global currency and instead drive adoption of currencies that have this resilience?
  - baby 5y ago
    I think it’s worth than that for bitcoin as bitcoin relies on a connected network for security. The risk of forks is too high without that. For other cryptocurrencies based on BFT at least the network would come to a stop and safety wouldn’t be violated (no double spending).
SilasX 5y ago
Plus, the miners are in different countries that don't obey each other's court orders.
siwatanejo 5y ago
> ... any large enough nation state could do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncPyMUfNyVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncPyMUfNyVM

by api 5y ago

baby 5y ago

It’s the same for Bitcoin btw. The government can just forbid any VASP to accept bitcoin and to authorize on/off ramp and trades involving bitcoin. ISPs could also block miners and bitcoin websites. The coin is censorship resistant… to a certain extent. Maybe there’ll always be someone running it, and there’ll be a black market for on/off ramp, but it will severely cripple the adoption.

SilasX 5y ago
True, but that failure mode doesn't exploit the network's centralization and is unrelated to how centralized it is.
- ivalm 5y ago
  So it means centralization might not be too relevant to the government a ability to ban.
tudorw 5y ago
'it will severely cripple the adoption', I'm not sure it's so straightforward as that, if large numbers of governments take an authoritarian stance on independent global currencies is there not a possibility that, while impacting network efficiency, it might underpin a new found desire and need for said independent global currency and instead drive adoption of currencies that have this resilience?
- baby 5y ago
  I think it’s worth than that for bitcoin as bitcoin relies on a connected network for security. The risk of forks is too high without that. For other cryptocurrencies based on BFT at least the network would come to a stop and safety wouldn’t be violated (no double spending).

SilasX 5y ago

Plus, the miners are in different countries that don't obey each other's court orders.

siwatanejo 5y ago

> ... any large enough nation state could do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncPyMUfNyVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncPyMUfNyVM