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No, if they start to play with different rules their mined blocks will be refused by everyone on the network and be worthless. That’s not what the issue is with

No, if they start to play with different rules their mined blocks will be refused by everyone on the network and be worthless. That’s not what the issue is with concentrated mining power.

arcatek 5y ago
If they start to play with different rules, one of the hard fork remaining branches (or both) will be refused by everyone on the network and be worthless. There's no telling whether it'd be the "hijacked" branch or the original one - assuming they control 50%+ of the mining power, there's a decent argument that the remaining miners would follow their lead if only to stay on the largest branch.
- capableweb 5y ago
  Developers of the core protocol would notice, add a flag and then miners/clients/exchanges who want to remain with the same dev team can signal they want to follow the "dev" chain instead of the "miner" chain. Usually forks have checkpoints as well so things can't change willy-nilly.
  - jstanley 5y ago
    If blocks in the "miner" chain break the rules of the "dev" chain, then no flag is required. You'll automatically stick with the chain that contains valid blocks, as determined by the implementation that you're running.
    - brighton36 5y ago
      Eventually the us government will decide what codebase is valid. And exchanges will immediately switch to that codebase. Probably that codebase will support kyc and whitelist/blacklist functions. Bitcoin is fiat. It doesn't have 79 protons in it's nucleus.
- dannyw 5y ago
  What miners do is irrelevant: the code known as bitcoin, with a 21M hard cap, simply will reject any block that creates more than its allowed bitcoins as invalid, the same way it rejects a random string of bytes as invalid.
  - danbruc 5y ago
    Depending on your definitions this might or might no be true but it also might be totally irrelevant. There is a protocol and system specification. There are implementations of that specifications. There is a distributed system running those implementations. And the distributed system has a state. Each of those can change and each of those or a combination of them could arguably be called Bitcoin. If everyone would run new implementations with a different coin cap, you can argue that it is no longer Bitcoin because Bitcoin is a very specific specification with a 21M coin cap, but this would have little bearing on the actual situation.
    - jstanley 5y ago
      The point is you need the economic majority to be on side in order to succeed with a hard fork. Just the top 50 miners switching on their own isn't enough.
      - thesz 5y ago
        Add 50 more - to reduce hash rate even more. Announce hard fork right after difficulty adjustment. And then, suddenly, these who have not forked will be stalled for several weeks. Instead of 10 minutes per block, the time will be 30 minutes and possibly more. And to adjust the difficulty those who have not forked would need... a hard fork? Yes, these 100 miners are pools. But where pool participants will go then? Will pools who have not forked keep pool participation fees low? Etc. The game here is not quite simple. It is much more complex than appears at first sight.
        tinus_hn 5y ago
        The difficulty adjusts automatically. Bitcoin wouldn’t have come this far if it were that fragile.
jornhub 5y ago
If they have the majority mining power they could equally well undermine the security of the original branch, rendering it worthless as well. Miners have interests, core developers have interests, bitcoin users have all kinds of interests, none of them on their own decides what will happen. Without miners there is no bitcoin, but neither is there without developers or without users. Would you feel safe having your savings stored in the original bitcoin fork, knowing there is a mining cartel that holds 50% mining power? Some users will accept reasonable changes that weere lobbied for by the miners, if that means they get to enjoy the security provided by the miners.
analog31 5y ago
Does this mean if enough people don't like you, they can cancel your money?

No, if they start to play with different rules their mined blocks will be refused by everyone on the network and be worthless. That’s not what the issue is with concentrated mining power.

arcatek 5y ago

If they start to play with different rules, one of the hard fork remaining branches (or both) will be refused by everyone on the network and be worthless. There's no telling whether it'd be the "hijacked" branch or the original one - assuming they control 50%+ of the mining power, there's a decent argument that the remaining miners would follow their lead if only to stay on the largest branch.

capableweb 5y ago
Developers of the core protocol would notice, add a flag and then miners/clients/exchanges who want to remain with the same dev team can signal they want to follow the "dev" chain instead of the "miner" chain. Usually forks have checkpoints as well so things can't change willy-nilly.
- jstanley 5y ago
  If blocks in the "miner" chain break the rules of the "dev" chain, then no flag is required. You'll automatically stick with the chain that contains valid blocks, as determined by the implementation that you're running.
  - brighton36 5y ago
    Eventually the us government will decide what codebase is valid. And exchanges will immediately switch to that codebase. Probably that codebase will support kyc and whitelist/blacklist functions. Bitcoin is fiat. It doesn't have 79 protons in it's nucleus.
dannyw 5y ago
What miners do is irrelevant: the code known as bitcoin, with a 21M hard cap, simply will reject any block that creates more than its allowed bitcoins as invalid, the same way it rejects a random string of bytes as invalid.
- danbruc 5y ago
  Depending on your definitions this might or might no be true but it also might be totally irrelevant. There is a protocol and system specification. There are implementations of that specifications. There is a distributed system running those implementations. And the distributed system has a state. Each of those can change and each of those or a combination of them could arguably be called Bitcoin. If everyone would run new implementations with a different coin cap, you can argue that it is no longer Bitcoin because Bitcoin is a very specific specification with a 21M coin cap, but this would have little bearing on the actual situation.
  - jstanley 5y ago
    The point is you need the economic majority to be on side in order to succeed with a hard fork. Just the top 50 miners switching on their own isn't enough.
    - thesz 5y ago
      Add 50 more - to reduce hash rate even more. Announce hard fork right after difficulty adjustment. And then, suddenly, these who have not forked will be stalled for several weeks. Instead of 10 minutes per block, the time will be 30 minutes and possibly more. And to adjust the difficulty those who have not forked would need... a hard fork? Yes, these 100 miners are pools. But where pool participants will go then? Will pools who have not forked keep pool participation fees low? Etc. The game here is not quite simple. It is much more complex than appears at first sight.
      - tinus_hn 5y ago
        The difficulty adjusts automatically. Bitcoin wouldn’t have come this far if it were that fragile.

jornhub 5y ago

If they have the majority mining power they could equally well undermine the security of the original branch, rendering it worthless as well. Miners have interests, core developers have interests, bitcoin users have all kinds of interests, none of them on their own decides what will happen. Without miners there is no bitcoin, but neither is there without developers or without users. Would you feel safe having your savings stored in the original bitcoin fork, knowing there is a mining cartel that holds 50% mining power? Some users will accept reasonable changes that weere lobbied for by the miners, if that means they get to enjoy the security provided by the miners.

analog31 5y ago

Does this mean if enough people don't like you, they can cancel your money?