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It's only when you _badly_ want to forego the need for centralized trust that decentralized solutions begin to make sense. There's a large cost to decentralizat

It's only when you _badly_ want to forego the need for centralized trust that decentralized solutions begin to make sense. There's a large cost to decentralization, which is why Bitcoin isn't nearly as interesting as a mere payments innovation, vs. a distributed economic system that operates outside the purview of the State. Calling Bitcoin a "payments innovation", while technically true, completely glosses over its fundamental value. [1] [1] http://cointelegraph.com/news/112183/bitcoins-political-neutrality-is-a-myth-amir-taaki-interview http://cointelegraph.com/news/112183/bitcoins-political-neut...

api 12y ago
The other day I wondered if Bitcoin might not be considered a kind of AI. The fundamental value of Bitcoin is in the fact that the block chain is itself a trustable third party. Does that make it a citizen? A nation state? Still... I wonder how Bitcoin would stand up to a serious attack. Imagine the Chinese government wanted to kill it. They could build 51% worth of ASIC in secret and spring it on the network all at once, taking over the net and maybe just wrecking it. It might cost them so much it would not be economically beneficial, but if it were done for political reasons they might not care about actually profiting from it. It would be a military attack. Of course flying a plane into the Federal Reserve headquarters is also possible. At some point you have to accept that any system can be attacked.
- erikpukinskis 12y ago
  The other thing to keep in mind is that 51% doesn't let you destroy the network, it just lets you spend money twice maybe. And if the Chinese government double spent, or helped other people double spend, it would all be on the public ledger. There would be a record of the forks, and there would be people to testify "I sold X to Y and the tree forked". So it's not so much that Bitcoin would be destroyed, as a new avenue for theft would open up. Probably temporarily, as other groups would respond by fighting back with more computational power and probably with ad-hoc blocking.

api 12y ago

The other day I wondered if Bitcoin might not be considered a kind of AI. The fundamental value of Bitcoin is in the fact that the block chain is itself a trustable third party. Does that make it a citizen? A nation state? Still... I wonder how Bitcoin would stand up to a serious attack. Imagine the Chinese government wanted to kill it. They could build 51% worth of ASIC in secret and spring it on the network all at once, taking over the net and maybe just wrecking it. It might cost them so much it would not be economically beneficial, but if it were done for political reasons they might not care about actually profiting from it. It would be a military attack. Of course flying a plane into the Federal Reserve headquarters is also possible. At some point you have to accept that any system can be attacked.

erikpukinskis 12y ago
The other thing to keep in mind is that 51% doesn't let you destroy the network, it just lets you spend money twice maybe. And if the Chinese government double spent, or helped other people double spend, it would all be on the public ledger. There would be a record of the forks, and there would be people to testify "I sold X to Y and the tree forked". So it's not so much that Bitcoin would be destroyed, as a new avenue for theft would open up. Probably temporarily, as other groups would respond by fighting back with more computational power and probably with ad-hoc blocking.