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> Proof of Work does not get you any votes at all. It only buys you the right to append a block of transactions to the ledger, which is the same thing as havin

by lottin 5y ago

> Proof of Work does not get you any votes at all. It only buys you the right to append a block of transactions to the ledger, which is the same thing as having 100% of the votes.

inter_netuser 5y ago
You have it backwards. Nodes decide if they will append your block to their chain. A miner that decides to mine out of consensus blocks is just burning money, and will be on their own fork with their “100% votes” that nobody else uses. Give it a try, spend a few million on mining equipment and then try forcing something on the network. It’s not a democratic system, never was.
- lottin 5y ago
  Nodes have zero decision power, as far as I understand. They just go with the chain that is the most expensive to produce.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    That’s incorrect. The proposed block must comply with the rules your node enforced, or it will not be accepted. It’s not just work, but also the entire consensus-set they must abide by. Miners cannot force new rules, if there is no consensus.
    - lottin 5y ago
      No, you're misunderstanding everything. The consensus mechanism is about agreeing about the contents of the blockchain, not about the rules that make up the bitcoin protocol.
    - drdeca 5y ago
      Eh? Can't miners refuse to include transactions that don't adhere to new conditions in addition to old ones? If 51% of miners decide to, after block #N, not include any transaction that doesn't satisfy the predicate P in any block they produce, nor mine on any chain which has a block after block #N which has a transaction that doesn't satisfy predicate P, then the longest chain will have all the transactions after block #N be ones which satisfy P, and furthermore, if the other 49% of miners are aware that this is happening, if they want their blocks to be in the longest chain, they have incentive to follow the same rules when mining. This is the logic behind soft forks, is it not?
keymone 5y ago
Nonsense. Mining gives you zero votes. Miners don’t control the protocol. Governance is not determined by hashrate. This is just another major flaw that all PoS shitcoins have.
- lottin 5y ago
  No one is talking about governance. The term "consensus" refers to the decision about which transactions to append to the ledger, and the decision is to go with whatever set of transactions the miner that has spent the most money has chosen. It has nothing to do with governance issues.
  - keymone 5y ago
    then if you're not talking about governance, you're still wrong. there's no voting, only if you insist on re-defining what words mean, at which point i won't be interested in continuing the discussion.
    - Jweb_Guru 5y ago
      Of course there is voting. Who do you think decides which transactions go in the chain, and in what order? The miner who wins leader election during this round (in Bitcoin anyway) does, and the rest of the nodes decide whether to accept its vote. The other nodes can also choose to reject this vote for a while, as long as after seeing it they don't accept a chain with less hashpower, and still follow the protocol (more or less). The leader can even opt to put no transactions in the current block, something that has actually happened on many occasions: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/67928/bitcoin-miners-are-mining-fewer-empty-blocks-in-2020-and-it-may-not-all-because-of-chance https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/67928/bitcoin-miners-are.... Obviously, the leader was making a decision here, there were not actually zero transactions to process :)
      - keymone 5y ago
        You have zero clue how bitcoin works. No, there is no voting and there is no leader election. Miners construct blocks with transactions and if they manage to find a signature - that block is appended to the chain. If somebody does it faster - they append their block. Please at least get the basics before you start arguing with people.

by lottin 5y ago

> Proof of Work does not get you any votes at all. It only buys you the right to append a block of transactions to the ledger, which is the same thing as having 100% of the votes.

inter_netuser 5y ago

You have it backwards. Nodes decide if they will append your block to their chain. A miner that decides to mine out of consensus blocks is just burning money, and will be on their own fork with their “100% votes” that nobody else uses. Give it a try, spend a few million on mining equipment and then try forcing something on the network. It’s not a democratic system, never was.

lottin 5y ago
Nodes have zero decision power, as far as I understand. They just go with the chain that is the most expensive to produce.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  That’s incorrect. The proposed block must comply with the rules your node enforced, or it will not be accepted. It’s not just work, but also the entire consensus-set they must abide by. Miners cannot force new rules, if there is no consensus.
  - lottin 5y ago
    No, you're misunderstanding everything. The consensus mechanism is about agreeing about the contents of the blockchain, not about the rules that make up the bitcoin protocol.
  - drdeca 5y ago
    Eh? Can't miners refuse to include transactions that don't adhere to new conditions in addition to old ones? If 51% of miners decide to, after block #N, not include any transaction that doesn't satisfy the predicate P in any block they produce, nor mine on any chain which has a block after block #N which has a transaction that doesn't satisfy predicate P, then the longest chain will have all the transactions after block #N be ones which satisfy P, and furthermore, if the other 49% of miners are aware that this is happening, if they want their blocks to be in the longest chain, they have incentive to follow the same rules when mining. This is the logic behind soft forks, is it not?

keymone 5y ago

Nonsense. Mining gives you zero votes. Miners don’t control the protocol. Governance is not determined by hashrate. This is just another major flaw that all PoS shitcoins have.

lottin 5y ago
No one is talking about governance. The term "consensus" refers to the decision about which transactions to append to the ledger, and the decision is to go with whatever set of transactions the miner that has spent the most money has chosen. It has nothing to do with governance issues.
- keymone 5y ago
  then if you're not talking about governance, you're still wrong. there's no voting, only if you insist on re-defining what words mean, at which point i won't be interested in continuing the discussion.
  - Jweb_Guru 5y ago
    Of course there is voting. Who do you think decides which transactions go in the chain, and in what order? The miner who wins leader election during this round (in Bitcoin anyway) does, and the rest of the nodes decide whether to accept its vote. The other nodes can also choose to reject this vote for a while, as long as after seeing it they don't accept a chain with less hashpower, and still follow the protocol (more or less). The leader can even opt to put no transactions in the current block, something that has actually happened on many occasions: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/67928/bitcoin-miners-are-mining-fewer-empty-blocks-in-2020-and-it-may-not-all-because-of-chance https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/67928/bitcoin-miners-are.... Obviously, the leader was making a decision here, there were not actually zero transactions to process :)
    - keymone 5y ago
      You have zero clue how bitcoin works. No, there is no voting and there is no leader election. Miners construct blocks with transactions and if they manage to find a signature - that block is appended to the chain. If somebody does it faster - they append their block. Please at least get the basics before you start arguing with people.