📅 Original date posted:2015-09-20
📝 Original message:------ Original Message ------
From: "Milly Bitcoin via bitcoin-dev"
<bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org>
To: bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org
Sent: 9/20/2015 3:02:32 PM
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Scaling Bitcoin conference micro-report
>>Larger user base won't necessarily protect against governments if we
>>still have chokepoints they can go after.
>
>
>Bitcoin will always have chokepoints governments can go after. Hackers
>already targeted routers to divert mining traffic awhile back. Bitcoin
>traffic is easily seen and blocked by ISP's. It has already been
>pointed out that laws against merchants and exchanges cannot be
>defended against any other way than to have many people use the system.
Almost none of these merchants depend on Bitcoin in any significant way
for revenue...and that's likely to remain the case for a good while.
Merchants that have chosen to accept Bitcoin are typically using a
handful of payment processors, again...chokepoints. And almost none of
them are contributing any network resources back to Bitcoin.
Exchanges are indeed serious chokepoints. But increasing the number of
users will probably have relatively little effect on this unless we also
increase the number of exchanges and decentralize the exchanges. If all
we had to do is increase the number of users, the same argument could be
used to claim that banks would be less susceptible to governmental
crackdowns if they just had more account holders.
Exchange decentralization is indeed another thing we must work towards -
but that's probably beyond the scope of the more pressing issue which is
building consensus in Bitcoin development.
>(As a developer you, of course, did not mention the threat of having a
>tiny number of developers who have significant influence over Bitcoin.
>It always amazes me the endless discussion over miners centralization
>and almost zero discussion of developer decentralization.)
I've pointed out this weakness of Bitcoin *numerous* times. That I
failed to mention it here does not mean it hasn't been discussed
elsewhere. Some of us have also been actively working towards developing
a more modular, layered architecture and better implementations that
will afford greater decentralization in software development with less
need for critical code reviews, less pushback from downstream developers
who must continuously rebase, a better process for building consensus in
the community, and simpler app migration.
>
>
>Increasing the nodes by a factor of 2 or 3 or keeping the block size
>small to increase the diversity of miners by a few percent will have
>zero effect if those other government threats were to actually happen.
>
We need to increase the basic infrastructure nodes by a factor much
larger than 2 or 3...more like 100 or 1000...and it's entirely doable
with properly aligned incentives.
>Russ
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>bitcoin-dev mailing list
>bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org
>https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
Eric Lombrozo [ARCHIVE] /
npub1az…t2krq
2023-06-07 17:40:36
in reply to nevent1q…vuf5
Author Public Key
npub1azvhdrf9fu6n0tm7yez4j6zcxcedp2ct6nrcq3z74naqs7kgpk8s5t2krqPublished at
2023-06-07 17:40:36Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2015-09-20\n📝 Original message:------ Original Message ------\nFrom: \"Milly Bitcoin via bitcoin-dev\" \n\u003cbitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org\u003e\nTo: bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org\nSent: 9/20/2015 3:02:32 PM\nSubject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Scaling Bitcoin conference micro-report\n\n\u003e\u003eLarger user base won't necessarily protect against governments if we\n\u003e\u003estill have chokepoints they can go after.\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003eBitcoin will always have chokepoints governments can go after. Hackers \n\u003ealready targeted routers to divert mining traffic awhile back. Bitcoin \n\u003etraffic is easily seen and blocked by ISP's. It has already been \n\u003epointed out that laws against merchants and exchanges cannot be \n\u003edefended against any other way than to have many people use the system.\nAlmost none of these merchants depend on Bitcoin in any significant way \nfor revenue...and that's likely to remain the case for a good while. \nMerchants that have chosen to accept Bitcoin are typically using a \nhandful of payment processors, again...chokepoints. And almost none of \nthem are contributing any network resources back to Bitcoin.\n\nExchanges are indeed serious chokepoints. But increasing the number of \nusers will probably have relatively little effect on this unless we also \nincrease the number of exchanges and decentralize the exchanges. If all \nwe had to do is increase the number of users, the same argument could be \nused to claim that banks would be less susceptible to governmental \ncrackdowns if they just had more account holders.\n\nExchange decentralization is indeed another thing we must work towards - \nbut that's probably beyond the scope of the more pressing issue which is \nbuilding consensus in Bitcoin development.\n\n\u003e(As a developer you, of course, did not mention the threat of having a \n\u003etiny number of developers who have significant influence over Bitcoin. \n\u003eIt always amazes me the endless discussion over miners centralization \n\u003eand almost zero discussion of developer decentralization.)\nI've pointed out this weakness of Bitcoin *numerous* times. That I \nfailed to mention it here does not mean it hasn't been discussed \nelsewhere. Some of us have also been actively working towards developing \na more modular, layered architecture and better implementations that \nwill afford greater decentralization in software development with less \nneed for critical code reviews, less pushback from downstream developers \nwho must continuously rebase, a better process for building consensus in \nthe community, and simpler app migration.\n\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003eIncreasing the nodes by a factor of 2 or 3 or keeping the block size \n\u003esmall to increase the diversity of miners by a few percent will have \n\u003ezero effect if those other government threats were to actually happen.\n\u003e\nWe need to increase the basic infrastructure nodes by a factor much \nlarger than 2 or 3...more like 100 or 1000...and it's entirely doable \nwith properly aligned incentives.\n\n\u003eRuss\n\u003e\n\u003e\n\u003e_______________________________________________\n\u003ebitcoin-dev mailing list\n\u003ebitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org\n\u003ehttps://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev",
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