2013-04-07 Forbes.com - Four Reasons Bitcoin Is Worth Studying

[Stephen Gornick]

Timothy B. Lee writes Four Reasons Bitcoin Is Worth Studying

Even if you think the current value of of more than $140 is a bubble, it’s clear that Bitcoin has some genuine applications. The number of daily Bitcoin transactions has soared from around 1000 at the beginning of 2011 to about 50,000 today. Figuring out the “fundamentals” that drive the currency’s long-term value seems like an interesting theoretical puzzle.
[...]
A core part of Bitcoin’s appeal is that it’s not under anyone’s control. Supposedly, nobody has the authority to change the Bitcoin money supply, cancel or reverse transactions, or otherwise change the attributes of the protocol. But in practice that’s not really true. In the wake of last month’s fork, the elites in the Bitcoin community effectively changed the rules in a matter of hours. In principle, there’s no reason those same elites couldn’t make other changes to the Bitcoin protocol.
[...]
In principle, these two pools might be able to join forces and execute a 51 percent (or 53 percent) attack on the rest of the network. But doing so might prove foolish in the long run, since that kind of power grab might undermine public confidence in the currency’s long-term viability, since a mining cartel might have the power to change the rules of the Bitcoin protocol in ways that benefit themselves at the expense of ordinary users.

 - http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/04/07/four-reasons-bitcoin-is-worth-studying/2/

There had been some discussion already in the thread below, using a sensationalist thread title, however that thread has since been locked.
   
Forbes : the Biggest threat to Bitcoin is Gavin
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=169681.0

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[Stephen Gornick]

In the wake of last month’s fork, the elites in the Bitcoin community effectively changed the rules in a matter of hours.

The article's author doesn't specify what rules changed.  The rule that was not followed was that miners always extend the longest chain.  When BTC Guild decided to abandon the v0.8 client and mine using v0.7, that wasn't a "rule change".   That was an operational change.  The developers really had no way to force that switch to happen other than to suggest the consequences if the switch back to v0.7 were to not happen.

From the logs of the first minutes after the block delta was identified as being not a problem isolated to a few people but instead a v0.8 vs. pre-v0.8 hard fork scenario, it was the BTC Guild operator who saw that Mt. Gox was using a pre-v0.8 client.  

The "elites" didn't have the power.   Gavin nor any other developer had the power to "change the rules".  BTC Guild didn't even have power to change the rules (i.e., to force everyone still on v0.7 to go with v0.8 ).

No ... the decider was ...  what side of the fork was Mt. Gox on.  

Mt. Gox currently serves as the economic majority.  Whatever for Mt. Gox was on, that's the side whose newly mined coins have value.  Mt. Gox used a pre-v0.8 client.  Therefore, mining a v0.8 client was yielding worthless coins.   It was the Mt.Gox tail that wagged the BTC Guild dog.     If Mt. Gox was on v0.8 I would bet the other merchants, miners and users that hadn't yet upgraded would be quickly alerted to install a patch that adjusted the settings so the locking issue wouldn't happen.

Here's a post on the hard fork:

Bitcoin Lied, Confirmed Transactions Died
Is there a lesson to be learned from the March 11th hard fork?
 - http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/47048259653

[DataPlumber]

In the wake of last month’s fork, the elites in the Bitcoin community effectively changed the rules in a matter of hours.

The article's author doesn't specify what rules changed.  The rule that was not followed was that miners always extend the longest chain.  When BTC Guild decided to abandon the v0.8 client and mine using v0.7, that wasn't a "rule change".   That was an operational change.  The developers really had no way to force that switch to happen other than to suggest the consequences if the switch back to v0.7 were to not happen.

From the logs of the first minutes after the block delta was identified as being not a problem isolated to a few people but instead a v0.8 vs. pre-v0.8 hard fork scenario, it was the BTC Guild operator who saw that Mt. Gox was using a pre-v0.8 client.  

The "elites" didn't have the power.   Gavin nor any other developer had the power to "change the rules".  BTC Guild didn't even have power to change the rules (i.e., to force everyone still on v0.7 to go with v0.8 ).

No ... the decider was ...  what side of the fork was Mt. Gox on.  

Mt. Gox currently serves as the economic majority.  Whatever for Mt. Gox was on, that's the side whose newly mined coins have value.  Mt. Gox used a pre-v0.8 client.  Therefore, mining a v0.8 client was yielding worthless coins.   It was the Mt.Gox tail that wagged the BTC Guild dog.     If Mt. Gox was on v0.8 I would bet the other merchants, miners and users that hadn't yet upgraded would be quickly alerted to install a patch that adjusted the settings so the locking issue wouldn't happen.

Here's a post on the hard fork:

Bitcoin Lied, Confirmed Transactions Died
Is there a lesson to be learned from the March 11th hard fork?
 - http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/47048259653

And to be clear, the rules never changed.  The community simply decided to accommodate a large number of people who weren't following them well enough, for a limited time.

[antibanker]

There had been some discussion already in the thread below, using a sensationalist thread title, however that thread has since been locked.
   
Forbes : the Biggest threat to Bitcoin is Gavin
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=169681.0

funny, huh?

the thread where Gavin talks about the CIA paying him $3000 for his services is also locked.

weird...