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What the article is missing is the incentive structure. For example: "The number of entities sufficient to disrupt a blockchain is relatively low: four for Bit

What the article is missing is the incentive structure. For example: "The number of entities sufficient to disrupt a blockchain is relatively low: four for Bitcoin". This probably refers to the 4 largest mining pools. Yes, they could temporarily annoy some people by not processing their transactions. But it would come at a giant cost to them. They would be out of business quickly as miners can switch to a different pool in minutes. That is like saying the US economy is brittle because if Walmart, Apple, Amazon and ExxonMobil would just send everybody home and set their premises on fire, there would be a problem.

mattwilsonn888 4y ago
That's fair enough, but I believe the paper stayed in its bounds; it is correct that given the means or the willpower control could be assumed. What you should be more worried about than blatant double-spends are all the hidden ways having 51% of network control allows you to cartel, centralize, and siphon funds away from smaller, newer players in the system. https://saito.tech/the-double-spend-attack-is-not-the-same-as-the-51-percent-attack/ https://saito.tech/the-double-spend-attack-is-not-the-same-a...
etherael 4y ago
It would be easier even than that, observe what happened in 2017. Bitfinex said they would allocate the BTC ticker to the present BTC chain no matter what the hash power indicated was the actual canonical chain and that was the end of it. Contrary to popular belief, miners aren't choosing anything when it comes to BTC. They're rubber stamping the decisions of the BTC core developers, who are blessed by the exchanges such as Bitfinex, and they are collecting fees on that rubber stamp.
- JonathanBeuys 4y ago
  That sounds like the right thing to do? Why would the hash power decide what is called BTC? If Dogecoin some day attracts more hashing power than Bitcoin, then Bitfinex is supposed to assign the BTC ticker to Dogecoin?
  - etherael 4y ago
    We and a group of partners run a restaurant together. One day you decide to turn it into an apothecary for the dispensation of poisons, and keep the name and pretend that it's still a restaurant. Any mechanism which rubber stamps the above process as legitimate and collects a fee for doing so is corrupt, letalone over the objections of an enormous fragment of both customers and partners in the restaurant in question. Lack of objection or approval from those whom the change is in the interests of, or who are simply too ignorant to understand what is going on, don't change that. That is effectively what happened with BTC. The way that it was supposed to work would be that the hashpower would choose the canonical tip of the chain if there were two conflicting ideas about what the chain should actually be. BCH stuck to that ideal and through two contentious and many more peaceable forks proceeded according to it. BTC did not.
  - jtc331 4y ago
    Hash power in the context of potential forks in the BTC chain, not a different coin.
    - ntoskrnl 4y ago
      You're both already explaining the reasoning through your wording, "present BTC chain" and "potential forks". If you fork a project, even if yours becomes more popular, that doesn't mean you get to take over the original name.
      - etherael 4y ago
        > If you fork a project, even if yours becomes more popular, that doesn't mean you get to take over the original name. That's exactly what happened with BTC. And yet almost everybody calls it Bitcoin.
        ntoskrnl 4y ago
        BCH changed the blocksize and thus became incompatible with the original network. If you're claiming that the project that kept the blocksize the same and remained backwards compatible is the fork, then I'm done here and I wish you the best of luck.
throwoutway 4y ago
Yes they’re incentivized not to, but when push comes to shove, they can basically choose their own form of “truth” and ignore/disrupt/revert transactions and others would need to fork the chain. It’s not a given which would succeed. This has happened before
- JonathanBeuys 4y ago
  No need to fork the chain. Miners can just switch pools.
- djschnei 4y ago
  Valid transactions are enforced by nodes, not miners (there are WAY more nodes than mining pools). All of a miner's incentives persuade them to mine on the longest chain, lest they lose out on potential profits. A group of nodes and miners can certainly fork if they please, but the network simply won't care. e.g. BCH/BTC
gitfan86 4y ago
But those companies only exist because the US regulatory framework allows them to exist as long as they follow the rules. If the CEO of Walmart sent out an email saying that everyone was fired and that all stores should be demolished, he would be fired by the board of directors within hours. Also other executives would respond to the email telling everyone to ignore the previous email while they see if the CEO was hacked. The entire point of crypto is to bypass the regulatory framework. In some cases that may make for a more robust system in some cases it may not.
djschnei 4y ago
Completely agree. It's impossible to inspect any aspect of Bitcoin's design without considering its incentive structures. They are the innovation in my mind. Every blockchain/crypto/Dao/<insert buzz word> forgoes one of Bitcoin's perfectly balanced incentive structures in favor of some "innovation" (speed, programability, founder/VC enrichment) which always inevitably leads to centralization and exploitable risk somewhere in the system. Every time it happens it hardens my opinion that a L1 should be like the foundation of a building - it should have one job (be hard money), it should be simply and elegantly designed, it shouldn't have any cracks (a.k.a misaligned incentive structures), it should evolve very slowly if at all, and it should be designed to be built on top of. L1 exists to anchor L1+N to the real world and that's it.
- tromp 4y ago
  > simply and elegantly designed I don't think Bitcoin qualifies as such. Sure, projects like Ethereum are far more complex, but there are projects that significantly improve on Bitcoin in simplicity and elegance. Bitcoin script in particular is not that simple and full of warts.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    I think by definition it does, which is to say, its popularity proves it. I just think there's a hindsight thing going on. I liken Bitcoin to e.g. the Model T or the first grey brick cellphones. It changes everything forever because it works very well, but also is quickly improved upon and thus eventually won't be that popular.
    - djschnei 4y ago
      No other system/project anchors a digital currency to the physical world as effectively as Bitcoin. But I do agree, eventually L2+ will be much more popular, in so far as much more people will interact with them. That's kind of the idea. L2s will still always rely on L1 for its anchor to the physical world (and thus physics).
      - 4y ago

mattwilsonn888 4y ago

That's fair enough, but I believe the paper stayed in its bounds; it is correct that given the means or the willpower control could be assumed. What you should be more worried about than blatant double-spends are all the hidden ways having 51% of network control allows you to cartel, centralize, and siphon funds away from smaller, newer players in the system. https://saito.tech/the-double-spend-attack-is-not-the-same-as-the-51-percent-attack/ https://saito.tech/the-double-spend-attack-is-not-the-same-a...

etherael 4y ago

It would be easier even than that, observe what happened in 2017. Bitfinex said they would allocate the BTC ticker to the present BTC chain no matter what the hash power indicated was the actual canonical chain and that was the end of it. Contrary to popular belief, miners aren't choosing anything when it comes to BTC. They're rubber stamping the decisions of the BTC core developers, who are blessed by the exchanges such as Bitfinex, and they are collecting fees on that rubber stamp.

JonathanBeuys 4y ago
That sounds like the right thing to do? Why would the hash power decide what is called BTC? If Dogecoin some day attracts more hashing power than Bitcoin, then Bitfinex is supposed to assign the BTC ticker to Dogecoin?
- etherael 4y ago
  We and a group of partners run a restaurant together. One day you decide to turn it into an apothecary for the dispensation of poisons, and keep the name and pretend that it's still a restaurant. Any mechanism which rubber stamps the above process as legitimate and collects a fee for doing so is corrupt, letalone over the objections of an enormous fragment of both customers and partners in the restaurant in question. Lack of objection or approval from those whom the change is in the interests of, or who are simply too ignorant to understand what is going on, don't change that. That is effectively what happened with BTC. The way that it was supposed to work would be that the hashpower would choose the canonical tip of the chain if there were two conflicting ideas about what the chain should actually be. BCH stuck to that ideal and through two contentious and many more peaceable forks proceeded according to it. BTC did not.
- jtc331 4y ago
  Hash power in the context of potential forks in the BTC chain, not a different coin.
  - ntoskrnl 4y ago
    You're both already explaining the reasoning through your wording, "present BTC chain" and "potential forks". If you fork a project, even if yours becomes more popular, that doesn't mean you get to take over the original name.
    - etherael 4y ago
      > If you fork a project, even if yours becomes more popular, that doesn't mean you get to take over the original name. That's exactly what happened with BTC. And yet almost everybody calls it Bitcoin.
      - ntoskrnl 4y ago
        BCH changed the blocksize and thus became incompatible with the original network. If you're claiming that the project that kept the blocksize the same and remained backwards compatible is the fork, then I'm done here and I wish you the best of luck.

throwoutway 4y ago

Yes they’re incentivized not to, but when push comes to shove, they can basically choose their own form of “truth” and ignore/disrupt/revert transactions and others would need to fork the chain. It’s not a given which would succeed. This has happened before

JonathanBeuys 4y ago
No need to fork the chain. Miners can just switch pools.
djschnei 4y ago
Valid transactions are enforced by nodes, not miners (there are WAY more nodes than mining pools). All of a miner's incentives persuade them to mine on the longest chain, lest they lose out on potential profits. A group of nodes and miners can certainly fork if they please, but the network simply won't care. e.g. BCH/BTC

gitfan86 4y ago

But those companies only exist because the US regulatory framework allows them to exist as long as they follow the rules. If the CEO of Walmart sent out an email saying that everyone was fired and that all stores should be demolished, he would be fired by the board of directors within hours. Also other executives would respond to the email telling everyone to ignore the previous email while they see if the CEO was hacked. The entire point of crypto is to bypass the regulatory framework. In some cases that may make for a more robust system in some cases it may not.

djschnei 4y ago

Completely agree. It's impossible to inspect any aspect of Bitcoin's design without considering its incentive structures. They are the innovation in my mind. Every blockchain/crypto/Dao/<insert buzz word> forgoes one of Bitcoin's perfectly balanced incentive structures in favor of some "innovation" (speed, programability, founder/VC enrichment) which always inevitably leads to centralization and exploitable risk somewhere in the system. Every time it happens it hardens my opinion that a L1 should be like the foundation of a building - it should have one job (be hard money), it should be simply and elegantly designed, it shouldn't have any cracks (a.k.a misaligned incentive structures), it should evolve very slowly if at all, and it should be designed to be built on top of. L1 exists to anchor L1+N to the real world and that's it.

tromp 4y ago
> simply and elegantly designed I don't think Bitcoin qualifies as such. Sure, projects like Ethereum are far more complex, but there are projects that significantly improve on Bitcoin in simplicity and elegance. Bitcoin script in particular is not that simple and full of warts.
- jrm4 4y ago
  I think by definition it does, which is to say, its popularity proves it. I just think there's a hindsight thing going on. I liken Bitcoin to e.g. the Model T or the first grey brick cellphones. It changes everything forever because it works very well, but also is quickly improved upon and thus eventually won't be that popular.
  - djschnei 4y ago
    No other system/project anchors a digital currency to the physical world as effectively as Bitcoin. But I do agree, eventually L2+ will be much more popular, in so far as much more people will interact with them. That's kind of the idea. L2s will still always rely on L1 for its anchor to the physical world (and thus physics).
    - 4y ago