Bitcoin Forum

How can a privately funded entity organize themselves by hiring Core devs with the intention of driving the future rules of the network?  Doesn't this bother most of you free loving bitcoiners?

Time to organize a new group of honest core devs having no paycheck affiliation with anyone. 

All this "bitcoin is free and open source" idealism will be stopped sooner or later. :(
I quess that those honest core devs are big bitcoin holders and big miners, so they can`t be bribed by some big company.

If the fork does not happen, I predict there will be an organized alt-coin with a new genesis block created and a lot of financial backing to market it.

I suspect however the fork will happen.

http://nodecounter.com/#bitcoin_classic_blocks

BU is gaining momentum.

blockstreamers love their monero and zcash as the alternative.

oh a blockstream investor thats cartel'd companies like bitpay, bitpesa, coinbase, xapo, purse, shapeshift. also loves zcash

https://i.imgur.com/Vd53dRM.png

I remember everyone complaining before about the bitcoin foundation which funded developers.

But that was better than this.

I can get behind a new group of developers with no outside agendas, only what's best for Bitcoin. However, even with a neutrally funded group of developers, a few "elite" miners can still block any improvement they don't like. This is something that really needs to change.

 

According to the original bitcoin whitepaper:


Are you saying this needs to change?  If so, how?

Are you serious? Oh wait, of course you, you support BU  ::)

The current consensus mechanism is failing due to centralized mining. When only a handful of people can give the yay or naw on improvements despite what the majority may want, it is a problem. I know you don't see it that way and you are ok with centralized mining and control in the hands of a few. We have argued this over multiple threads already.

We need a new consensus mechanism for Bitcoin improvements.

consensus works

the problem is. CORE BYPASSED consensus and INTENTIONALLY only gave pools the vote. rather than nodes then pools.

politics aside, i'm asking you:  If not this mechanism described in the white paper, what's the alternative?  Do you have a better idea?   Or you just wish you had one?

I wish I knew what the answer was, I just know the answer is not centralized mining with BU. I am open to suggestions, hopefully some people smarter and more technically inclined than I am can find one before it is too late.


Maybe we need to go back to this then.

Whatever. You know know the Core developers do not have total power on Bitcoin. The people supporting bigger blocks and the Gavinistas can always campaign to fork the network away from Core. If you think there was someone at fault it is the mining pools for not supporting what you want.

How does BU make mining more centralized in your view? 

Just take Ton Vays and do a little scam show about this...

I believe Tone Vays is for Core and the Segwit and LN solution, I do not know if he likes Blockstream though.

He may have missed some of his "Bitcoin oracle predictions" but he is with the scene long enough to know what is going on somehow.

Money talks and bullshit walks, so show us the money to fund this. The Developers follow the money, just look at Mike Hearn and Gavin. The Bitcoin foundation's money dried up and then they jumped onto the next available cash cow. You forget about ideals and principle, if the money on the table is good enough. ^hmmmmmm^

This will get interesting, if a big company or a bank start to target the Core developers. Will they sell out like Mike Hearn?

If we were to organize a new group who will lead it and where will we get the funds to move and operate. It is hard to do that kind of thing and a huge amount of capital is needed to finance this kind of movement. Compared to the billionaires financing blockstream we are a bunch of ants going against an ant exterminator. The only way I guess is just to observe and wait and to earn from bitcoins as early as possible.

cough
hyperledger
cough

oh wait is that blockstream i see in hyperledgers "members" list..
https://www.hyperledger.org/about/members
hyperledger.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/hl_blockstream-300x184 dot png
hang on isnt hyperledger managed by IBM and linux partnership...

so knowing blockstream is in the hyperledger banking cartels hyperledger project..
ask yourself the question about certain core developers (maxwell, Matt corallo, rustyrussel, etc)


wait i seem to have not emphasised something, or people didnt get the hint..
https://i.imgur.com/Vd53dRM.png

Who is going to fund the new group? There is no need to have the names of organisation funding Core development public even Satoshi that gave us this beautiful gift till today remain anonymous. I think your arguement are flawed in some ways. I will agree that the governance decision should be made more transparent but both miners and development team are guilty of this

we need to return to the mindset that we do not need a governance of DEVS

nodes are the boss.
pools are the secretary
devs are the workers

people have forgotten that what node they run dictates the rules of bitcoin by majority.
instead they have sheep slept themselves into what DEVS preach is what peoples should run.
instead they have sheep slept themselves into what DEVS have bypassed should be blamed on who they bypassed it to.(core 'soft fork it to miners then blame the miners')
(never to blame a dev, but give the devs the kingdom at the same time)

TO ALL:
if you think that core is king. then you have already centralised yourself into making core take over what was an open network. while pointing the finger at someone else.

tl;dr (to long, didnt read)
if you are running core simply because you love blockstream CTO maxwell. but never actually read the code. and instead just had 'trust and admiration' then you are the problem not the solution

And now put some numbers behind, how much their investments / risks really are and how much they have so say because of that ? 

Don't forget people:

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/c3/c36aa6221d5bfe47b66e083e823d0796bfeb24423ee3ee8915b43d04a1f3edfe.jpg

There are various reasons for which people may or may not think that. Running Core does not necessarily mean what you're trying to say that it does; some people are just okay with status quo.

Nope.  Nodes don't mean anything. The interaction between cryptographic proof of work on one hand, and users spending money in the market, is the boss.   Nodes are means of communication between miners and users.  They could do it by e-mail if really needed.  A network of other-minded nodes doesn't matter.  As a user (that is, as someone wanting to spend value on bitcoin, or transfer bitcoin for value), you only need to have the block chain that your counter party is also agreeing upon using.  You don't need a network of other nodes for that.  You only need your wallet, the counterparty needs his wallet, and both of you needs access to the common block chain that you've both agreed upon using, and which is produced by the miners sticking to the protocol you want.

Whether there are 4000 other nodes, preferring another block chain, or whether there are 100 000 such nodes, doesn't matter for you to have access to your preferred block chain, and for your counter party to have access to its block chain with a wallet.  Oh, yes, and you have to be able to send your transaction to a miner to include it in the block chain, because that's what your counter party is waiting for.

In this essential scheme of a crypto currency, you don't need "most of the other nodes".  So their preferences don't matter.

What matters is the miners making block chains, and the users spending value on coins when transacting, and a means of communication for the miners to give their block chain to the user, and a way for the user to give their transaction to the miners.  By e-mail if necessary :)

Proof.  Suppose you adhere to bitcoin as it is now and so do I.  Suppose that on one hand, there are miners still working on bitcoin as it is now, and that you and I adhere to it, too.  Now, suppose that 95% of the nodes are "against" it, and implement, say, segwit, but you, I, and those miners don't like that, and continue the old chain.

Suppose that I cannot get a connection to the miners.  But suppose that I make my transaction with my wallet on my off-line computer, and I send that transaction to a miner by e-mail.   Suppose that 10 hours later, I download by FTP, 60 blocks that follow up on the last block I have on my off-line PC, and that my transaction had 59 confirmations in that piece of chain.  I tell you to download that too.  You now have my transaction ; you are pretty sure that the miner has been mining "for real".  You check it with your node software that all blocks are valid.

You have accepted my payment. 

We didn't need the node network.  Whatever most nodes do, whatever they censor, whatever they do, you and I don't need it.  We only needed the miners, and the communication with the miners.

Bitcoin is a great gift of technology, it was created for a great purpose and exists as a necessity. We, the people here love it. I have quite a few views about blockstream. Perhaps it is a special act or a motivational action. We see a lot of options to develop, speed up transaction processing, so, this idea is only a problem with the time, we believe it will happen. Will definitely happen

summary of my post below for all the TL:DR people
dinofelis you are just talking about end user experience of just spnding coins. you have not talked about the integrity, security, consensus of bitcoins self regulation of protecting the coins.

by having diverse nodes and INDEPENDENT DEVS makes it less likely for corruption of the rules aswell as avoiding the physical location attack, the more diverse the nodes get

i think you need to learn about bitcoin consensus and the protocol, beyond just the end-user experience

---

---

long explanation
what you are talking about is NOT about how bitcoin works at the consensus level nor the job of what the nodes do
your talking about the millions of users that rely on third parties services to not need full nodes for all the millions of 'users'.

essentially your talking about users. not the bitcoin security network protocol.

i agree 6millionish current users dont need to run a node just to spend coins. bt that has nothing to do with how the network functions.
all your doing is explaining that users can rely on middlemen, if they wanted to. rather than be an active part of the self regulating node network.

but thats where your now talking about users becoming reliant on middle men. rather than the network rules.

---

what your not taking into account are that all these lite/web wallets and market services are third parties.. but they need to communicate to full node network.
even pools run a node.
so whether your emailing a pool, or api submitting a tx via a webwallet or litewallet... the tx has to sit in a mempool and meet the rules that the majority of nodes can accept. otherwise that tx wont exist.
its either rejected at mempool/relay level due to not meeting the rules. or rjected after being in the block if the node network decide the block attributes the pool used dont meet the node networks rules.

---

what you are forgetting is what the full node network actually does.

firstly.
again, you are right the 6mill+ users dont need full nodes. as lite and webwallets can act as the middlemen talking to a server that has the full node talking to the network.

secondly.
spending coins does not mean damned all to nodes or pools.
if you want to push a TX to ETH.. ETC wont care. data is data
ETH or ETC dont get giddy with excitement more if im spending 100000 coins and less excited if your only spending 1 coin..
data is data. tx vale is meaningless to the block/rules.

BUT

what matters is what atleast 50% (preferable as close to 95% as possible) of nodes can agree on to reduce the risks of orphaning blocks.
for instance. ALL the pools worked on ETH.. but no exchange eth node, no localbitcoin eth node and no fiat OTC private trader used ETH nodes.. then the ETH miners cant spend their coins because no one there to buy them.
those blocks and coins are just invisible to the network of ETC.

so pools will follow the NODES rules of what the nodes will accept
firstly AND more importantly follow the nodes rules otherwise the block gets orphaned and the pools reward coins dont exist so the pool has wasted time making a block that ends up in the trash.
secondly
so pools can spend their reward with exchanges that see the blocks they created

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you even admit it yourself users need to make sure which chain their third party service is communicating with(or who thy are emailing to). otherwise you might aswell be emailing your transaction to the Clams network(an altcoin) rather than the bitcoin network.

your entire scenario has nothing to do with network security or integrity of validating the data. or how blocks are either accepted or rejected, it is just talking about surface layer coin USAGE, not the underlying code/protocol/security of bitcoin.

---

yes all coin users can just rely on third party services to handle the messages, api,emails on the users behalf. and the network can have just 1  pool node in the network
but then thats centralising the network where the pool can make changes and the users are then subject to that change.

however by having many nodes and many pools. ensures that changes do not occur as easily and the nodes and pools become accountable to eachother whereby changes can only occur due to mutual consent(consensus) or risk having the blocks rejected if they do not meet the nodes rules.

---

i know you are going to rebut that there could be a altcoin that is just the pools node running things. and then having many offchain communication methods like API to the websites and lite clients and email addresses.

but now users are completely reliant on one entity setting the rules for itself. which.. just makes it corruptible and nothing more than FIAT. but without the regulations.

..
bitcoin doesnt need regulators because the diversity of the network self-regulates. thats the beauty of it.

and to be ontopic.
if all nodes were running core. and all pools were running core. then there might aswell just be 1 pool node and a huge bunch of API calls to all the services(from a rule changing prospective).
because the only benefit of distributing the chain is not about protecting the rules, as such. because core can change the rules.

but purely about not having a physical location attack to take them offline.

Mining is already centralizing in China.

BU gives miners more power over Bitcoin.

If they succeed, China will control the production of mining equipment, the actual "mining" securing of the network, and the development of Bitcoin. Centralization at its finest.

A restrictive communist country will control our beloved Bitcoin. That should scare the hell out of everyone. Why do I have to spell this out for you, OPEN your eyes! If you're not a paid shill or mentally challenged, how can you support BU?

What choice we have ?

SW ?  Hacked into code and funny SF initiated ?  Sold with heavy censorship and self moderated scream & fear threads?

How could you sell this to any miners in one go with clear limits to their business but infinite scaling in 2 nd layer ?

Not clever. Now you wonder that it gets not enough hashpower ?

There are reasons for this clusterf@ck and some people in charge messed it up - not the miners, not Ver. They came after the mess was clear .

So your solution is to just give up and give in to the Chinese control of Bitcoin?

Yes I give what I can afford to give and sometimes even more. This world needs more givers than takers and we are fine.
 :-*

Point taken and I can agree with you most of the time, just not in this situation.

So what your saying is lets get a bunch of not so talented devs to work on core, on a voluntary basis and all the best blockchain developers who work for companies related to blockchain or bitcoin need not apply because they might have a conflict of interest?  great idea  ::)

Serious reasoning errors, man... You're not thinking clearly here. 
 
Your assumption that "BU gives miners more power over Bitcoin" is already questionable
as the only power it gives miners is that of self organization to form an emergent
consensus about the blocksize... Nothing more.

But that's not even the point. 

Let's say (for the sake of argument)  that BU gives miners some huge new power over investors, merchants, and non-mining nodes.
That power over other groups is not the same thing as power over other miners (which
would be centralization).

As you pointed out, centralization of mining already exists in China.  This is due mostly
to the fact that electrical power is generally cheaper in China than in other places,
which has zero relevance or correlation to blocksize.

Some of the centralization may also be due to the fact that hardware production
may also be cheaper in China, which also has zero relevance or correlation to
blocksize.

You see, the problem is that you are introducing ill defined concepts about what "consensus" should be, like a political or philosophical goal or something ; "protecting the coins".

But there are only two kinds of agents in a crypto currency.  There are the entities that use it.  Whether they are exchanges, merchants, speculators, ...., they are people that want to use a monetary function of bitcoin, and *transact* (buy them, sell them, exchange them.... whatever) against value.

And then there are the miners: people building block chains.  Miners are also users, because they do the mining to obtain coins, and sell them, or hold them and sell them later against something.  But most users are not miners (contrary to what Satoshi had in mind).

These two sets of entities are what makes a crypto currency.  The users transact against value, the miners make the block chain.  The users need the miners to make the block chain, and put their transaction on it.  The miners need the users to spend their fees and block rewards on.

And, essentially, that's it.

The entire crypto currency dynamics is a matter of the interaction of these two sets of entities: amongst themselves, and between one group and another.

Users need the block chain in order to "prove" their transactions to their counter party.  Without your transaction on the block chain, you didn't prove your transaction and the counter party will not provide the market value.  Users also need the block chain to prove their right to spend (if they are on the receiving side).  And that's all they need.  Users are entities, people, that want to transact tokens against value.  That's why they are there.  And they need a block chain to be able to prove their right to spend, and to prove their transactions.  This is the only thing that gives "market value" to a token.

Miners make block chains for the users, and obtain tokens as block rewards and fees, that they also sell to users, to obtain the market value.

As such, miners need to communicate with users to get their transactions, and users need to communicate with miners, to get the block chain.  This is all communication that is needed.

The phenomenon of consensus makes that users as well as miners agree upon a protocol of using the coins (of what are valid transactions) and of making the valid block chain.  the consensus mechanism involves proof of work and a whole set of rules that tell people 1) when A block chain is valid and 2) when there are several valid block chains, which is the preferred one.  The proof of work mechanism is such, that it costs a lot to make an alternative block chain, so if a miner makes a block chain, he has put a lot of investment in it.  He would lose a lot of money if he were not trying to build blocks on the "best block chain".  So you can accept that an active miner is always building on the best block chain around according to him.

So, as a miner, what do you need ?  You need to have the best block chain, and quickly, to build blocks upon.  You cannot afford learning late about the best block chain: you waste all your hash rate.  A miner can only be successful if:
1) he learns quickly about the latest blocks on the best block chain
2) he divulges very quickly his OWN found blocks to other miners
3) he gets a good filled mem pool of user transactions

This is why a miner is fully motivated to have good network infrastructure, announce his own best block chain to everybody (and especially to other miners) and takes in user transactions.

A miner is the best source of block chain, and the ultimate destiny of transactions.  There is no better source of block chain around.  It is the *principal server* of the best block chain.

Of course, a miner also has all reasons to VERIFY the integrity of the blocks of his peer miners.  If he mines upon INVALID blocks by peer miners, he is just wasting his hash rate.  So miners have in general a strong incentive to adhere to the protocol: there is a strong mechanism of consensus amongst miners.

Now, what can users do ?  If there is full consensus amongst miners, NOTHING.   Users can just accept the single block chain that miners in full consensus, make.  Users can download the block chain from miners, and like it, or not like it, but as there is no other block chain, they can't do bloody nothing, except not use that crypto any more.  

So what do non-mining nodes mean in this respect ?  Simply: nothing.  In as much as the full non mining nodes on the network are in agreement with whatever protocol the miners use amongst themselves, they are just proxy servers of the main servers which are the nodes of the miners (the pool nodes in most cases) ; and in as much as they are not in agreement, they simply come to a halt.   Because the miners, amongst themselves, make only one single block chain.

==> even if tomorrow, all miners would collude on a different protocol, say, they all agree upon not halving the block reward next time, all full nodes will come to a halt.  The only thing that users can do, is to use a node that is in agreement with the new protocol of the miner consensus.   And the only reason why miners might NOT do this, is that amongst themselves, there is a consensus mechanism at work, that would orphan blocks AMONGST MINERS.  The first miner making a block with a non-regular block reward would get his block orphaned by *other miners*, unless they collude.  And IF they collude, and implement this hard fork, and if this is the only block chain that is made, whether there are 10, 100 or 4000 non-mining nodes "protesting", there's nothing that they can do about it.

==> as long as miners are in consensus, non-mining nodes are at most proxy servers.

It becomes more interesting if there is dissidence amongst miners: if different miners use different protocols, and build TWO (or more) DIFFERENT block chains.   Then, non-mining nodes can chose between the chains.   But in the end, users will now have the choice between two chains.  The miner community will have split in two communities, building two chains.   The user can now chose WHICH block chain he is going to use.  But nothing changed in the relationship between users, and THEIR preferred miner set, and their preferred block chain.  Users will STILL communicate with the miners that correspond to their choice of block chain.  

The set of full non-mining nodes will split into two different types: those that download and transmit chain A, and those that download and transmit chain B.  But they are STILL just proxy servers of one or other block chain.  

==> even in the case of miner dissidence, and the building of multiple block chains, full non mining nodes are still proxy servers of one of these block chains.

However, now, users can appreciate the different tokens on the different chains differently concerning their market value.  Miners are sensitive to this, because miners earn tokens on the chain they are mining.  So miners will take into account the user market value appreciation when they mine different block chains (different coins).   This is the ultimate interaction by which users impose their will onto miners: by market value.

But in all of this, non mining nodes are just server proxies to miner nodes.

dino

you do know pools spend too.
exchangees spend too
users spend too..
node users spend too.

your thinking of the end-user USABILITY..
in which case everyone is a user..(in your eyes)

but your not thinking about the underlying code/protocol/network infrastructure of bitcoin

all your grasping is the end user experience.

EG if bitcoin was a bank all your thinking about is the person and an ATM
your not thinking about the behind the scenes stuff..

.. if you are.. you are only comprehending it at a high-school 30second laymens understanding. but not the real function and features that make bitcoin stronger than banks or anything else

if you think that non mining nodes only job is just a data store.. you have been missinformed

If they (BU) succeed, China will control the production of mining equipment, the actual "mining" securing of the network, and the development (Direction) of Bitcoin. Centralization at its finest.

Explain to me what in the above statement is not true? Please provide evidence because I have reasoning errors  ::)

Ok I understand what you are saying now.  

You are saying:  China controls mining, BU gives miners more power, therefore, BU gives China more power.
I'll concede that is a logical argument, although that is not the same argument you made earlier
by implying BU actually causes or contributes to the centralization of mining:


But the main problem with your new argument is that
I don't really think BU gives miners that much new power.

Here's a few points to consider -- some rhetorical questions
which I'm providing to demonstrate
I'm neither a moron nor a paid shill:
 
1. What power does BU give miners except
emergent consensus over the blocksize? None.

2. If BU is adopted, does this really allow miners
to "control the development direction of Bitcoin"?
(if so, how?)  Or does it instead simply remove a centralized
contentious variable from the system?

3. Hasn't the Bitcoin plan since the original whitepaper
always been to have mining nodes vote on the rules with
their processing power? (See my Satoshi quote earlier in the thread)

4. Doesn't a 51% majority of hashing power already have
defacto control of the blockchain, with or without BU?

5. Don't developers, not miners have control of the direction
of development?

6. Even if you somehow take away 'development power' from China,
that's not going to help the other aspects of centralization (mining
and mining equipment) one iota, right?

I believe it will be Roger Ver and his cohorts. They will also sing to the crowd of how freedom and independence should be maintained in the development of Bitcoin. I believe they will also ask the community for donations and form a group of people to decide how the funds should be spent. In the end it will be no different from the Bitcoin foundation. But the difference will be the new core developers will be sub par compared to the ones now.

Hmm, I wouldn't think that the core devs will do something wrong. For if they do it all, then it will have an impact on growth and the price of the bitcoin. If they do so then it happened was the fall in the price of bitcoin and they will be a fugitive, as well as be scolding everyone of all time. So, why and the things that aren't necessarily thinking occurs ..?? , Core devs get a salary and also offer better so that it has the possibility of a very small
 

Idk, why would a top dev volunteer? That's like bill Gates volunteering to build computers for the poor. It makes no sense whatsoever. I'm all for freedom but at the same time I don't understand anything technical about bitcoins.

Pools are miners and users.
Exchanges are (big) users: they transact a lot of coins.
Users, well, are users.
And users that set up nodes, well, are users.

All these entities are USERS, that is to say, are interested in transacting tokens against value.

You might think that exchanges are something special.  They aren't really, they are very big users.  They receive coins, and they give you web-site IOU with which you can play on their web site.  They also sell web-site IOU for (fiat) money.  That's their ultimate goal.  And they send you coins to destroy web-site IOU.  In other words, they transact a lot with their customers: essentially they transact coins ultimately for fiat money.

Exchanges are amongst the most important users, because (unfortunately) not much ELSE of value is exchanged for crypto coins.  A little bit of services and goods, but not much.  Far most (real) crypto currency transactions is to and from exchanges.  Coinmarketcap also includes the transactions between exchange-web-site-IOU which are promised to be backed by the actual crypto currency, but these transactions are not the ones on block chains we are talking about: these transactions could take place totally independent of even an existing block chain.  Hundreds of alt coins that essentially only exist on Poloniex could continue to be traded as Poloniex IOU even if their block chains stopped entirely.  It would be like Play Station game assets, centralized on Poloniex ; not a crypto currency as such.

So, all the entities you talk about are users.  Users vote with their money, because they establish the value of the crypto token.


This "infrastructure" is not really needed, and has strictly ZERO decision power, that's what I'm trying to tell you here, and this is why the network of non-mining nodes is absolutely UNIMPORTANT, and doesn't mean zilch as "the controlling community" ; "the guardians of the consensus" or whatever things are told about it.  This infrastructure is just a proxy structure that helps (only helps) the miner network communicate with the users: miners make a block chain for the user (and the MINERS decide upon the protocol, by making the blocks, and by choosing on which other block to build), and by accepting transactions submitted by users.

The only thing that a node network can do, is make this propagation happen in a P2P way.  But as long as there is a direct connection possible between the miner network and the user, that P2P network is not even needed.  That's what I'm getting at.  And if the network is not needed, it has zero decision power. 

The USER has of course the possibility of choosing between SEVERAL different versions of a block chain *if there are miners making them*.  If MINERS decide upon a hard fork, that is, their network splits into two networks, building two different chains, then the users (including big exchanges) can decide to only accept one ; or both.  And they will then determine the respective market caps.  Users can also decide to quit the network, and to plummet the value of the coin, even if only one chain is out there. 

This is why miners are sensitive to the user value estimation.


Miners have power, because they make the block chain or the block chains, so they (and they alone) decide upon the protocol or protocols used to make the block chain (s).

Users have power because they give value to the crypto tokens on the chain(s). 

So, miners have power over users because the miners determine the protocol ; users have power over miners because they determine the value of the tokens the miners obtain (in other words, the users pay the miners).

And there is nothing else in a crypto currency.

As I said, suppose that 3 big exchanges, and 7 mining pools (having a significant part of hash rate) agree upon a protocol.  That's all that is needed.  The exchanges list the coin (and their customers play with it), ; the mining pools make the block chain and include the transactions.

Whether 4000 nodes agree or not, they don't give a shit.

Already happening.


But if those 4000 nodes do not agree with the new protocol, how much of an impediment is it for a node that updates to the new protocol to find the exchanges and mining pools?

Bill gates actually does an incredible amount of charity work but that's besides the point.

Plenty of developers work on GNU and Linux because they love it. Some of them are paid to, but even the ones who are paid to often do a considerable amount of contribution beyond what they are paid to.

Well, that only depends on what the owner of that node wants.  

1) it is "just a node": doesn't matter, but it will eventually find other nodes on the network that have valid (according to his protocol) block chains.... or not, in which case it will simply come to a halt.

2) it is a user, that is to say, someone who has coins and want to send transactions against value, or the counter party: who wants to receive coins, and provide value for it (goods, services, IOU, dollars.... whatever).  Of course that user will have to CHOOSE what coin (what block chain) he wants to use (in agreement with his counter party of course).  And so, that user has to pick one of the miners making the "right" block chain.  Miners have all interest advertising themselves to the users that want to value the chain they are building.  So normally, both having all interest to get in contact, I don't see the problem them finding themselves.  If it is a big user, say, an exchange, it is the small miner (mining pool) that will find the big user advertising himself ; if it is a small user, and a big mining pool, the mining pool will advertise himself.

3) miners have also all interest in connecting to users, but especially to like-minded miners.   So miners join automatically the strong network of like-minded miner nodes.  They have to, if they want to use their hash rate usefully and not always be late and make orphaned blocks.

Users have no difficulty finding facebook's servers, don't they ?  Users have no difficulty finding coinbase's servers, don't they ?  So I don't see how they could miss one another, if they are both eager on doing business together.

Miners find one another.  Users find one another.  Because they will advertise themselves.  This is not really "centralisation", in the sense that what is decentralized in a crypto currency, are those entities providing for the consensus.  In a proof-of-work system, those are the miners.  And nobody else.  But they are sensitive to the users as they provide market valuation, and pay the miners through their market valuation.

The elites and world political power we do everything within their power to see that they manipulation crypto currencies. They tools is to bring dishonest group for core devs and make sure those devs will follow their dictate. Of we still want a decentralized system then honest people should be allowed to do the job.

In fact, this has been, in my opinion, the biggest mistake in most crypto currencies: that the consensus protocol enforcement is rewarded, be it proof of work or proof of stake or something else.  This induces centralization by the nature of economies of scale and eagerness for rewards.

I would like to add something, that illustrates even further the "futility" of the distributedness of the non-mining node network.  You can compare the block chain to a kind of very, very heavy digital signature, not of a single transaction, but of a whole crypto currency.  Now, if you can verify for yourself the validity of a "digital signature", the only thing that matters to you is that you got it.  From whom you got it doesn't matter because the security is in the cryptography, and not in the nature of the one providing you with the signature.  The cryptography proves that the signature is valid.  The validity of a digital signature doesn't increase by "other independent entities telling you that they too, agree with the signature's validity, or not".  If it depended on peers validating, it would mean that the cryptography of the signature is broken.   Normally, the verification of a signature doesn't depend on others: you can verify that all by yourself.

So, if you get to a block chain, which is a kind of big digital signature of the whole of what the crypto currency represents, and you verify it for yourself, and you agree with it, that is all that matters.  Even if you got it from a "centralized server".  You do not need peers to acknowledge that it was valid: if they acknowledge it, you STILL want to obtain a copy to verify it for yourself, and if they don't acknowledge it, they won't even transmit it to you.  So, your peers validating it or not, doesn't contribute anything to YOU finding it valid or not.

The only point of possible contention with a "centralized block chain server" is that that server might hold back the "best block chain", to serve you a "valid, but less long" chain.  However, in as much as you see that chain growing (for yourself), you know that who-ever is doing that, is spending a lot of hash rate on a chain of which HE knows that it is not the longest and strongest, because the cryptographic proof of work can be verified by YOU.  No miner in his right mind is going to WASTE all that proof of work on a chain of which he knows HIMSELF that it is not the longest.  So there is actually no danger of being "tricked into a miner making shorter chains to cheat on you".
The miner's "web site" has all the reasons to provide you with the most up to date, longest chain he's REALLY working on.  There is no danger to be tricked there.

Friend, there are A LOT of problems with Bitcoin ATM. All I am saying is that BTU is not the answer and I wish people would stop pushing it as the savior of Bitcoin. If Core/Blockstream/SegWit is unacceptable and BTU is unacceptable then we as a community need to look else where for answers. Truthfully, I can see where people would have doubts about Blockstream (conflict of interest much?), however, to close your eyes to the possibility of the same or worse with the Chinese just boggles my mind.

I just want to state for the record, I would be saying the same thing if it was the Swedish instead of the Chinese with centralization or any other country, except the US because we are awesome  ::)

I really don't know what to tell you about China.  Bitcoin is designed to be fairly tamper free,
but if you're worried about a possible 51% attack, I wish I had an answer. 
I'm sure some very smart people are working on ideas.

Quick straw poll


Who thinks that the Blockstream based developers owned more than $70 million dollars worth of Bitcoin, before they even got the funding? ;D

+1 (me)

Carlton, why did you delete my posts from your thread asking Greg what core plans to do about BTU? You don't think core needs a plan or some PR work and a political strategy to deal with issues now and in the future?

There seems to be a lot of fear about Chinese intentions. A lot of them are quite intelligent and well educated, and they like bitcoin because of the freedom it gives them from their controlling government. That said, they will look after their own interests.

But perhaps we should fear corporate capitalism too. They have their own tactics for looking after their own interests, and they are quite familiar:

Create a crisis by creating scarcity on the blockchain, resulting in escalating fees.
Solve the crisis by providing a private solution, the lightning network.

One may consider it as an attempt to privatise bitcoin. Others views may vary.

adam back, gmaxwell and corallo having a combined 70,000 coins in 2014.. um no

probably more like 7000 coins

you forgot .. then bypass real consensus and make it so the pools vote.. then blame the pools for having the vote and start waving a victim card because all the pools didnt instantly kiss ass

Because unlike your way of thinking, some people really want to contribute and does not need a lot of money to make them feel motivated to do so. It is that kind of selflessness that made us develop and evolve in how we are today. Ironically we have seem to have been going the other direction. Selflessness has become a rare trait these days. Does that mean we have stopped developing?

Hmm, yes maybe it can just happen. because basically the bitcoin is a digital currency that cannot be undertaken by any Government and making it could be misused by core devs. Of the problem that will sometimes show up people who are not responsible for what they do, although we can still enjoy the results of the bitcoin for no one destroy the image of the bitcoin. Use of advantages in the bitcoin for your life and for investment, because it is so beneficial rather than having to think about the problem that it is not yet clear