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So it's not up to the miners and the consensus to decide what's best for the network? The leadership can decide the rules of a new fork unless everyone else coo

So it's not up to the miners and the consensus to decide what's best for the network? The leadership can decide the rules of a new fork unless everyone else coordinate to oppose it? Edit: What prohibits the leadership to do an arbitrary fork? How do cryptographic protocols factor the fact that leadership can just say 'no' and do the opposite and the chain will follow. Especially the word 'secure' in every coin looses it's meaning isn't it?

ascendantlogic 5y ago
It is up to the consensus. If enough people opposed a release and were able to coordinate their own fork then they are still free to do so. > The leadership can decide the rules of a new fork unless everyone else coordinate to oppose it? You are 100% free to not install the latest upgrade on your node(s). Unless you have enough people who agree with you and coordinate their refusal to upgrade you will be a network of one that goes entirely unused. This is exactly how decentralization is supposed to work. You have to obtain some level of consensus to get anything done. This isn't a situation where "everyone" has too coordinate to oppose something, just "enough" people to form a fork that has enough hashpower/security to attract users. Even if a large enough minority of miners were able to coordinate a new chain, fork the code, make the necessary code changes and start their own version of Ethereum they still have to get people to use their network.
- ithinkso 5y ago
  Sounds like 'you are in your right to opt out of our policies if you disagree with an upgrade, it will immediately terminate all of your mining' And then saying that most people support you because only small percent of people opted-out
  - ascendantlogic 5y ago
    How did you expect a decentralized, consensus-driven network to operate without some level of consensus? You think 1 node forks should be as viable as 10,000 node forks?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - cinquemb 5y ago
    There are other evm compatible chains out there that people use: bsc, matic and avalanche c-chain come to mind. They all on some level opted out of some of the assumptions in go-ethereum.
  - strombofulous 5y ago
    In think there's a subtle difference. A side effect of Bitcoin's rules is that people with more hashing power have a disproportionate amount of weight in deciding the future of the protocol. Eth solves this by putting a hard deadline on some replacement being chosen. This can be the current maintainer's updated fork, or it can be a fork someone made that's identical to eth today with the date pushed back a few more years.
    - wmf 5y ago
      95% of Bitcoin miners voted to increase the block size and it didn't happen, but you're right about the benefit of the ice age.
      - uncletammy 5y ago
        A thousand times this
      - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
        You mean 95% by people, not by mining capacity, presumably. How is that determined, do you have a reference?
        rssoconnor 5y ago
        I don't know about 95%, but from https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/2x-or-no2x-why-some-want-hard-fork-bitcoin-november-and-why-others-dont https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/2x-or-no2x-why-some-wa... > Over 90 percent of miners (by hash power) are currently signaling support for SegWit2x.
        elif 5y ago
        I believe he means 95% of miners and my memory tells me something similar. At a certain point it was only blockstream and their reddit who really opposed bigger blocks, and it turns out that is sufficient to stifle Bitcoin progress. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/New_York_Agreement https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/New_York_Agreement this was the era if you are looking to do research.
wmf 5y ago
Besides miners and developers, exchanges are a major stakeholder. If exchanges declare that a particular chain is Bitcoin or Ethereum, others tend to agree. Also see https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html
zeven7 5y ago
Why the hell should I trust the miners more than the leadership? You say this like the leadership is this big, scary, shadowy group. The Ethereum leadership is one of the main reasons I invested in the coin. I love the leadership, and I trust them to make good decisions for the ecosystem.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  'Ethereum leadership' did a rollback once, so there is zero reasons to believe they won't do this again if this will be in their interests. You see, 'code is a contract', but then it isn't.
  - delaaxe 5y ago
    In “their” interest, as in, in the interest of thousands of people that got rug pulled because of a hack
    - tobltobs 5y ago
      Code is law ... until it doesn't suit my interest.
    - NationalPark 5y ago
      I think he’s talking about the DAO situation which was not a hack, the contract executed exactly as it was written. But it was also a long time ago.
      - zeven7 5y ago
        All hacks are code executing exactly as it was written.
        NationalPark 5y ago
        Not necessarily, a large class of exploit has to do with manipulating the call stack.
pjc50 5y ago
At this point you realize that value is fundamentally a human creation, dependent on the belief and action of other humans, and there's nothing crypto or burning a power station's worth of electricity can do to change that. The only thing prohibiting arbitrary forks is the risk of loss of trust in the leadership. And there's no guarantee of their long-term trustworthiness; what does succession planning look like among the dev team? What will you do when they retire?

ascendantlogic 5y ago

It is up to the consensus. If enough people opposed a release and were able to coordinate their own fork then they are still free to do so. > The leadership can decide the rules of a new fork unless everyone else coordinate to oppose it? You are 100% free to not install the latest upgrade on your node(s). Unless you have enough people who agree with you and coordinate their refusal to upgrade you will be a network of one that goes entirely unused. This is exactly how decentralization is supposed to work. You have to obtain some level of consensus to get anything done. This isn't a situation where "everyone" has too coordinate to oppose something, just "enough" people to form a fork that has enough hashpower/security to attract users. Even if a large enough minority of miners were able to coordinate a new chain, fork the code, make the necessary code changes and start their own version of Ethereum they still have to get people to use their network.

ithinkso 5y ago
Sounds like 'you are in your right to opt out of our policies if you disagree with an upgrade, it will immediately terminate all of your mining' And then saying that most people support you because only small percent of people opted-out
- ascendantlogic 5y ago
  How did you expect a decentralized, consensus-driven network to operate without some level of consensus? You think 1 node forks should be as viable as 10,000 node forks?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- cinquemb 5y ago
  There are other evm compatible chains out there that people use: bsc, matic and avalanche c-chain come to mind. They all on some level opted out of some of the assumptions in go-ethereum.
- strombofulous 5y ago
  In think there's a subtle difference. A side effect of Bitcoin's rules is that people with more hashing power have a disproportionate amount of weight in deciding the future of the protocol. Eth solves this by putting a hard deadline on some replacement being chosen. This can be the current maintainer's updated fork, or it can be a fork someone made that's identical to eth today with the date pushed back a few more years.
  - wmf 5y ago
    95% of Bitcoin miners voted to increase the block size and it didn't happen, but you're right about the benefit of the ice age.
    - uncletammy 5y ago
      A thousand times this
    - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
      You mean 95% by people, not by mining capacity, presumably. How is that determined, do you have a reference?
      - rssoconnor 5y ago
        I don't know about 95%, but from https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/2x-or-no2x-why-some-want-hard-fork-bitcoin-november-and-why-others-dont https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/2x-or-no2x-why-some-wa... > Over 90 percent of miners (by hash power) are currently signaling support for SegWit2x.
      - elif 5y ago
        I believe he means 95% of miners and my memory tells me something similar. At a certain point it was only blockstream and their reddit who really opposed bigger blocks, and it turns out that is sufficient to stifle Bitcoin progress. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/New_York_Agreement https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/New_York_Agreement this was the era if you are looking to do research.

wmf 5y ago

Besides miners and developers, exchanges are a major stakeholder. If exchanges declare that a particular chain is Bitcoin or Ethereum, others tend to agree. Also see https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html

zeven7 5y ago

Why the hell should I trust the miners more than the leadership? You say this like the leadership is this big, scary, shadowy group. The Ethereum leadership is one of the main reasons I invested in the coin. I love the leadership, and I trust them to make good decisions for the ecosystem.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
'Ethereum leadership' did a rollback once, so there is zero reasons to believe they won't do this again if this will be in their interests. You see, 'code is a contract', but then it isn't.
- delaaxe 5y ago
  In “their” interest, as in, in the interest of thousands of people that got rug pulled because of a hack
  - tobltobs 5y ago
    Code is law ... until it doesn't suit my interest.
  - NationalPark 5y ago
    I think he’s talking about the DAO situation which was not a hack, the contract executed exactly as it was written. But it was also a long time ago.
    - zeven7 5y ago
      All hacks are code executing exactly as it was written.
      - NationalPark 5y ago
        Not necessarily, a large class of exploit has to do with manipulating the call stack.

pjc50 5y ago

At this point you realize that value is fundamentally a human creation, dependent on the belief and action of other humans, and there's nothing crypto or burning a power station's worth of electricity can do to change that. The only thing prohibiting arbitrary forks is the risk of loss of trust in the leadership. And there's no guarantee of their long-term trustworthiness; what does succession planning look like among the dev team? What will you do when they retire?