bitcoin-dev Digest, Vol 3, Issue 240

Personally, as more big companies pile up the hardware, I think decentralization will suffer. If bitcoin winds up where only those with enough money to buy expensive mining equipment are left, what is that but another form of centralization (where a few companies hold all the power over mining). I see this as more of a long term threat to bitcoin than the current blocksize debate, XT or anything else. Just my opinion.

-----Original Message----- From: bitcoin-dev-bounces@lists•linuxfoundation•org [mailto:bitcoin-dev-bounces@lists.linuxfoundation.org] On Behalf Of bitcoin-dev-request@lists•linuxfoundation•org Sent: Monday, August 31, 2015 4:28 PM To: bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org Subject: bitcoin-dev Digest, Vol 3, Issue 240

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Your Gmaxwell exchange (Mike Hearn)
   2. Re: Your Gmaxwell exchange (Monarch)
   3. Re: Your Gmaxwell exchange (Justus Ranvier)

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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 21:11:52 +0200
From: Mike Hearn <hearn@vinumeris•com>
To: Justus Ranvier <justus@openbitcoinprivacyproject•org>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Your Gmaxwell exchange
Message-ID:
	<CA+w+GKQk=tHTKrryfAYJWWDadij3k8ccfCi-yp9K7WRw9aMxkA@mail•gmail•com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I think your summary of what people actually want from decentralisation is pretty good, Justus.

> I don't believe that any Bitcoin user actually cares about
> decentralization, because none of them I've asked can define that
> term.
>

+1 Insightful

It's been quite impressive to see so many Bitcoin users and developers saying, "Bitcoin is totally decentralised because it's open source and nobody is in charge...... oh nooooooo we didn't mean you could change *those lines! *If you want to change *those lines* then *we* must agree first!"

Believing simultaneously that:

1. Bitcoin is decentralised

2. Nobody should modify the code in certain ways without the agreement of me and my buddies

is just doublethink. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150831 /d0a2bac3/attachment-0001.html>

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Message: 2 Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 20:06:21 +0000 From: Monarch <monarch@cock•li> To: hearn@vinumeris•com Cc: bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Your Gmaxwell exchange Message-ID: <602b978abcedd92fbed85f305d9d7bfe@cock•li> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

On 2015-08-31 19:11, Mike Hearn via bitcoin-dev wrote:

> I think your summary of what people actually want from
> decentralisation is pretty good, Justus.
>
>
>> I don't believe that any Bitcoin user actually cares about
>> decentralization, because none of them I've asked can define that
>> term.
>
> +1 Insightful
>

What is Bitcoin if not decentralized?

Bitcoin the most awkward, unprivate and damaging currencies ever created. It is terribly slow for general use, and it is very difficult for users to get over the technical hurdles required to use it safety. It is simultaneously the least private payment system ever conceived for general use, yet still manages to consistently help terrorists and pedophiles. Over half a gigawatt of power is used to power the miners which timestamp the network, causing hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 and radioactive particles to be spewed into the atmosphere.

Perhaps we can justify these damages as the cost of decentralization, similar to one justifying the tor anonymity network as having significant positive effects outweighing the negative. However if you are truly willing to give the goal of absolute decentralization up as unachievable or unrealistic, it would be much more sensible to replace the entire Bitcoin network with a couple of geographically distributed SQL servers and call it a day.

Without decentralization as an ultimate goal, Bitcoin is an abomination that is best dismantled.

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Message: 3 Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 15:27:53 -0500 From: Justus Ranvier <justus@openbitcoinprivacyproject•org> To: bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Your Gmaxwell exchange Message-ID: <55E4B8C9.5030606@openbitcoinprivacyproject•org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On 08/31/2015 03:06 PM, Monarch via bitcoin-dev wrote:

> What is Bitcoin if not decentralized?
>
> Bitcoin the most awkward, unprivate and damaging currencies ever
> created.  It is terribly slow for general use, and it is very
> difficult for users to get over the technical hurdles required to use
> it safety.  It is simultaneously the least private payment system ever
> conceived for general use, yet still manages to consistently help
> terrorists and pedophiles.  Over half a gigawatt of power is used to
> power the miners which timestamp the network, causing hundreds of
> millions of tonnes of CO2 and radioactive particles to be spewed into
> the atmosphere.
>
> Perhaps we can justify these damages as the cost of decentralization,
> similar to one justifying the tor anonymity network as having
> significant positive effects outweighing the negative.  However if you
> are truly willing to give the goal of absolute decentralization up as
> unachievable or unrealistic, it would be much more sensible to replace
> the entire Bitcoin network with a couple of geographically distributed
> SQL servers and call it a day.
>
> Without decentralization as an ultimate goal, Bitcoin is an
> abomination that is best dismantled.

You don't understand what value proof of work provides, or what features differentiate good money from poor money, and you can't make a defensible statement of Bitcoin's value proposition.

Because you can't do these things, you assume nobody else can do them either and therefore the only way for Bitcoin to survive is to sweep the problem under the rug and distract users with a word that means nothing (and therefore means whatever the observer wants it to mean).

This is not a strategy that can be successful in the long term.