I created this post to try to explain what bitcoin is using a different approach. All explanations introduce bitcoin as a digital currency, a (crypto) currency based on a distributed blockchain database (ledger). I would like to change the initial point of view and describe bitcoin as a distributed database of the blockchain type, where its use as a cryptocurrency is only one of its use cases.
The purpose of this post is purely informative, feel free to copy, reuse or translate my ideas even without citing this post.
Some technical concepts are explained in a deliberately simplified or imprecise way. These are approximations necessary not to open too many technical brackets. The goal is to give a first general explanation to those who still don’t know anything about bitcoin.
CHAPTER 1. What really is bitcoin
Bitcoin is a decentralized database whose transactions are irreversible and written data considered immutable. This database is freely accessible to all through an open protocol with known specifications and open source code. Anyone can read the data of this database or contribute to making it secure by validating transactions.
Every 10 minutes the network validates a data block of new transactions, this block is appended to the chain of previous blocks with cryptographic validity rules. This chain contains the data of all transactions from the start of the bitcoin network (which took place in 2009) to date. This data structure is the blockchain.
What makes a blockchain immutable and incensurable is the fact that this data structure is decentralized, i.e. distributed / replicated on a large number of computers around the globe. Data integrity is guaranteed by the consensus reached by thousands of eyes that observe the validity of the blockchain.
Each of these blocks has a limited maximum size, this in order not to increase the size of the whole blockchain excessively over time. The consequence is that the number of transactions managed by the bitcoin network is extremely low: 7 per second.
If there were not this limit in the protocol, the size of the entire blockchain would grow dramatically and only a few large data servers could afford to install a Bitcoin node. The network would be managed by a few actors who could agree to modify the transactions considering these modifications valid.
Therefore to have data immutability through decentralization, such data must be a precious and limited resource.
This data, the blockchain, which is also called the distributed ledger, must remain limited in terms of disk space occupation (must not grow by TB and TB). Otherwise it would become a ledger less and less distributed because few could afford to download and save on their hard disk the entire blockchain.
Who has the right to make one of the few transactions that the network can validate every 10 minutes?
The network provides tokens, limited in the maximum number (21 million), called bitcoin or BTC. To make a transaction you need to send BTC tokens from one address to another. By sending BTC you must also indicate how many you want to leave as a “tip” for the computers that validate transactions (miners). These tips are the ‘fees’ that reward miners for their work in securing the network by providing computing power to validate the required transactions.
In the first years of the network’s life, for each validated block, in addition to the fees, new bitcoin are assigned to the miner who first validated the block. This mechanism serves to assign the new bitcoin generated to someone for the first time, to provide a startup to the system. In 2009 when the network was started, no one owned any BTC. When all 21 million total btc have been assigned, the miners will receive, as a reward for their work, only the fees attached to the transactions to be validated.
Being able to insert data into the blockchain has a value since you write immutable and therefore precious data. Being able to enter data into the blockchain is also a privilege since every 10 minutes (each generated block) a limited number of ‘slots’ will be made available to carry out transactions. Those who attach more fees to their transactions will be preferentially chosen by the miners to be included in the next block.
So if a data written in the blockchain has a certain value, the token (BTC) necessary to be able to write in the blockchain also has a value itself. Bitcoin are a precious trading commodity. This makes bitcoin tokens with a non-zero intrinsic value.
If the bitcoin blockchain is the most “indelible” blackboard in the world, bitcoins are the special chalks to write something on.
CHAPTER 2. What is the intrinsic value of bitcoin ?Many believe that bitcoin has no intrinsic value. Several people think that bitcoin are digital tokens for their own sake, with no real underlying.
Bitcoin are limited in their maximum number and there will be no more than 21 million, from this point of view they are similar to gold or other rare metals. However, some point out that gold in addition to having a value because it is rare also has real applications (eg. Jewelery and industrial applications) while with a bitcoin you cannot do anything practical, simply mine it or buy it, own it, and possibly resell it or send it to someone else.
Told in this way, it would actually seem that bitcoin is a simple digital precious object for its own sake to which value is attributed only as rare.
But from the perspective of looking at Bitcoin as an immutable database, rather than as a digital currency, it becomes immediately clear what the intrinsic value of bitcoin is:
Through bitcoin you can write access to the most secure blockchain in the world.
What do we mean by “safe”? A blockchain is all the more secure the stronger and stronger and guaranteed the immutability of its data.
From being able to write data on the Bitcoin blockchain we can imagine the most immediate use cases of the network itself that can come to mind:
1. The blockchain as a notarial tool, example: Proof of existence of a digital document or other proofs based on timestamps.2. Creation of a scarce digital token and therefore of value (bitcoin as a digital substitute for gold), a sort of “store of value”.3. Use of the bitcoin token as a digital currency capable of functioning in the absence of intermediaries.Points
2 and
3 are potentially questionable by detractors:
Bitcoin has value as long as there are people who give it value, we do not have a guarantee in the strict sense deriving from its mere being scarce.
Bitcoin as a currency is limited by the limit of 7 transactions per second and by the high cost of fees. (note: this limit may be exceeded in the future by the Lightning network)
Point
1 remains which is indisputably a real use of bitcoin. In this case of use it is possible to carry out proofs of the existence of documents: the blockchain as a notarial tool. Let’s see broadly how a proof of existence of a digital document using bitcoin can work.
It is not necessary to save an entire computer document (eg. a pdf) in the blockchain but it is sufficient to calculate a unique fingerprint (hash function) and attach this footprint in a bitcoin transaction. In computer science, there are functions that, given a certain digital content (eg a file), calculate a unique footprint. The same footprint can only have been generated from a single, precise file. Unlike the file which can be of any size, the footprint generated will always be a relatively small sequence of characters. Small enough to attach to a bitcoin transaction.
A typical Bitcoin transaction provides that bitcoin are sent from address A to address B, paying the miners’ network an F fee. This is the most trivial use case in which we have a simple transfer of value between two addresses. Two different people exchange bitcoin.
However, it is possible to “attach” a short text message to a transaction and the typical way to do this is by using the op_return field.
The situation in this case is that bitcoin are sent from address A to address B, paying the miners’ network a fee F, associating a small text message M to the transaction. In this case, addresses A and B probably belong to the same person. The transaction is aimed at writing the M message into the blockchain.
Message M will indicate the unique computer fingerprint of the file for which you want to prove existence.
The conservation of the document remains your responsibility, but you can prove that this document certainly existed at least from the date of the block (each block has a timestamp) in which the transaction with its imprint was included. Taking an example, this document could contain the description of your idea and the image of your logo “I, John Smith, invented this product with this logo …”. Using bitcoin, you could prove that you had already created that idea and that logo starting from the block date in which you included the file imprint!
You don’t have to send bitcoin to anyone to achieve this, you can make a transaction where you send an insignificant amount between two of your addresses and you only have to pay the correct fee to be included in a block.
The fee obviously must be substantial. Since the space on the blockchain is limited, it is disputed and a not small fee must be paid to be awarded the inclusion in one of the next blocks (if you enter a too small fee, after a while the transaction is rejected and you can try again).
The intrinsic value of bitcoin is that it is a token that allows write access to the most secure data blockchain in the world.
There are already services of this type, I recommend looking for “Proof of existence with bitcoin” with google. A website that already implements all this and performs this service in a user-friendly way is
https://opentimestamps.org/Of course, to date the success of bitcoin and the vast majority of its transactions are due to its purely speculative use (trading in exchanges by thousands of retail investors), and the notarial use of bitcoin represents a minority percentage of transactions, but this proportion does not mean that there is no real underlying!
The bitcoin do not have an underlying raw material, they are the raw material to write on the blockchain.
CHAPTER 3. Probably you don’t need a blockchain. But if you need it then you need bitcoinWe don’t like Bitcoin, we like the blockchain. How many times have you heard this phrase?
Many influential people, interviewed in recent years, have often repeated the mantra: we don’t care about bitcoin, but we have an interest in the underlying technology, the “blockchain”. It is often repeated for one or more of the following reasons:
- Simple ignorance and / or distrust of what is not known well.
- Use of yet another buzzword (the ‘blockchain’) to seem cool. Pure marketing.
- Real bad faith. Given that bitcoin is an open standard (basically it belongs to everyone), one is afraid of not being able to put one’s own software product on the market based on its own proprietary “blokchain”.
Do I need a blockchain for my business? Is the blockchain used to trace supply chains? Let’s try to answer these questions with reasoning.
Blockchains can be public or private.
If a blockchain or a certain “enterprise solution” it is private or federated it is not really decentralized. Blockchains of this type are designed precisely with the intention of not completely losing the possibility of having central control.
It means that the control remains centralized, the automatic consensus between the nodes on the distributed data is never really definitive and an admin (or a limited number of admins) must be able to potentially change them. So it is better to use a classic distributed db. A blockchain-based system is extremely inefficient compared to a classic database. When decentralization is not needed, this inefficiency is an absurd price to pay. Such inefficiency is acceptable when decentralization and immutability are sought: in this case it is a fair price to pay.
Are you a manager fascinated by the word ‘blockchain’ and are you about to buy an expensive proprietary solution? You probably don’t need a blockchain-based system. But you can ask your IT engineers to design classic software based on one or more distributed databases. Develop a data access software layer with your own custom management logic to reach a consensus and resolve conflict when the data does not coincide between the different nodes on which you distribute the data. You can develop it with normal existing software technologies, you don’t need a blockchain. Private blockchains are to be avoided.
Let’s move on to the public ones (including Bitcoin).
If a blockchain is public but does not have expensive fees, either it is little used (therefore insecure) or it has a block that is too large (and therefore tends to no longer be decentralized, see chapter 1). Public blockchains with these characteristics are to be avoided. Bitcoin has expensive fees (so it’s safe because it’s used and contended) and a limited block size (it won’t become centralized over time).
Let’s go back to the example of the proof of existence of a document seen in chapter 2. Imagine you are calculating hash of a document, carrying out a bitcoin transaction while saving this footprint. You can prove (by keeping the document) that that document already existed at the time of the transaction.
Imagine you want to trace the origin of real objects instead of the origin of a computer document. Think you want to track the food chain (for example) of high quality wine on the blockchain. A human operator will enter some data concerning a bottle of champagne and ascertain its origin.
First problem: the human operator could lie and enter false data (or tamper with the automatic data entry mechanism). What is the use of inserting data that could be false originally in an immutable blockchain? Let’s suppose to trust the human operator and move on.
Talking about a digital document, it is possible give it as input to a computer function that calculates a small unique footprint (a small text that can be included in a transaction on a blockchain).
But for real world objects there is still no laser / quantum / photonic scanner / flux capacitor or other science fiction inventions that calculates the unique footprint of a real object (a bottle of wine, an apple, a chair, ..). Furthermore, real objects vary their molecular composition over time (wine ferments and reacts over the years in the bottle), the same object would have different footprints over time.
How will we be able to prove through the blockchain that a certain bottle contains exactly what is written on the label? We must trust the code written on the label and verify that this code has been registered in the blockchain. But the code was written on the label and in the blockchain by humans, that is, it is a potentially corruptible data.
You could also apply the same label with the same code to multiple bottles even those that do not contain champagne.
What is the point of being able to write on an indelible blackboard (public blockchain) things that may be originally false?
What is the point of being able to write on a blackboard that is not even completely indelible (private blockchain) about things that could be originally false?
As for a real world object to be tracked in the blockchain, we cannot insert a unique imprint like we can for a file. Even if by magic we could calculate the unique footprint of a real object, it would only have an instant value because it would change over time.
Also concluding for a product with a supply chain saved in blockchain, we must trust what has been declared, exactly as we already do today without the blockchain. It leads back to having to trust people. We might as well use a normal database.
The blockchain as a system for tracing a production chain of real objects makes no sense, but only makes sense when dealing with completely digital objects. As for our usual example of the proof of existence of computer documents (files) for which it is possible to calculate a small unique footprint and save it in the blockchain.
So when do I need a blockchain? When I have to save evidence of existence (on a certain date, the block timestamp) for important documents or in general when the objects I have to trace are purely digital and not real objects.
Which blockchain should I use? That of bitcoin because it is the one that offers the greatest guarantees of immutability.
How much will a proof of existence of a single document cost me? The cost of a transaction in the bitcoin network, which can be $ 1 as a few tens and may even increase in the future, depends on how much the blockchain is used at the time of the transaction. However, a notary would cost more.
CHAPTER 4. How secure and immutable is the bitcoin blockchain?Bitcoin is the most widespread cryptocurrency. Its blockchain is the one with the greatest number of validator nodes (full nodes, which have the entire validated blockchain in memory) and the one with the greatest computing power in the field in validating transactions (mining). One blockchain is no more secure than another based on different technical characteristics, but it is more secure than another if its decentralized network (full node + miner) is larger than the other’s network. The bitcoin blockchain is therefore the safest blockchain in the world.
The various miners compete with each other to validate transactions and get the fees and new bitcoins generated in this initial phase of the network as a reward. When all 21 million bitcoins that can be generated have been mined, the miners will only work to win the fees attached to each transaction.
The sum of the computing power of all the miners (transaction validators) is measured in terms of hash / s to date we are around 150exahash. In terms of energy, the various miners use an amount of electricity equal to that of an entire nation such as Pakistan or Argentina, in order of magnitude we are around 130 terawatt hours.
An attacker who wanted to ensure control of the blockchain would have to overcome (50% + 1) all the computing power in the field scattered around the world.
A hostile entity would have to set up a gigantic mining farm, it is difficult to say how many computers would be needed, but we imagine that they should consume more electricity than the whole of Argentina.
To fraudulently modify data on a traditional database, just bribe the system admin or administrators with access to the data. To fraudulently modify a piece of data on the bitcoin blockchain, it is necessary to overcome a protective energy barrier of about 130 terawatt hours (plus the technological effort to build / purchase and manage efficient computers specific to the bitcoin mining algorithm).
The bitcoin blockchain is the “most indelible” blackboard in the world.
Suppose we want to change a piece of data written in the blockchain 5 years ago.
To change a transaction in the past, the attacker should recalculate all the blocks starting from the affected one of 5 years ago in which the change is made (this change requires a recalculation of all subsequent blocks to make them valid).
He would then have to run his huge mingin farm in silence to recalculate a different but formally valid blockchain and after getting on par with the blocks publish to the rest of the network his new block chain with more work (Proof of work) which would be recognized from within the network as the new valid chain. An enormous energy effort.
The more the total hash rate of the bitcoin network grows, the greater the economic effort required to attack the network and subvert the immutability of data in the bitcoin blockchain.
CHAPTER 5. Does Bitcoin consume too much energy for every single transaction?Does Bitcoin consume too much energy for every single transaction?
Short answer
No, because Bitcoin is the core network (Bitcoin is THE BLOCKCHAIN) of potentially infinite low-power networks that rely on its cryptographic guarantees and its resistance to attacks. A bitcoin transaction can therefore correspond to a very high number of operations on a layer 2.
Below is the detailed explanation
When they tell you that the validation of bitcoin transactions consumes as much as “an entire nation”, this is a positive thing: it takes just as much energy (extended in the time necessary to rewrite the old blocks) to subvert the data.
The more bitcoin grows in hasrate and in energy consumption, the greater the immutability of its blockchain data. The bitcoin blockchain is the “most indelible” blackboard in the world.
A bitcoin transaction is estimated to consume as much energy as hundreds of thousands of VISA transactions.
But they are not comparable things. VISA can be compared to MASTERCARD or bank transfers but not Bitcoin transactions.
This misunderstanding is also the fault of early Bitcoin fanatics who peddled Bitcoin (with a capital B, layer one, we’ll see later) as a currency. Bitcoin (level one) cannot be a currency but level two can be a bitcoin-based currency system (with a lowercase b, tokens).
Bitcoin is not a currency because it cannot handle a large number of transactions without losing decentralization (see chapter 1).
With the 7 transaction limit imposed by the maximum size of each new block generated every 10 minutes, it cannot be a currency. It could have been in the early years for a niche of users when it was little used.
However, the monetary use of the bitcoins is not a lost dream, far from it: the Lightning Network is in an advanced stage of development. It is a second level network, considering Bitcoin the first level network.
It is based on this principle: a certain amount of bitcoin is ‘stopped’ with a particular Bitcoin transaction. The bitcoins ‘stopped’ at level one will be in use in a level 2 payment system, capable of handling millions of transactions per second. From time to time there are transfers / compensations on level 1 ‘unlocking’ the bitcoins that have in the meantime been used in the level 2 payment network.
The Bitcoin blockchain is the indelible and inviolable ledger on which the Lightning Network will be based.
Opening and closing payment channels on the Lightning Network will require a transaction in the Bitcoin blockchain that will consume as much as hundreds of thousands of VISA transactions, but each Lightning Network channel will handle millions of level two bitcoin transactions. Here’s the trick.
Lightning Network will be the true payment network comparable to VISA and other similar systems.
As mentioned in previous chapters, Bitcoin is the safest blockchain in the world, the “most indelible” slate there is. A transaction in the bitcoin blockchain means writing something with indelible chalk, a chalk that smokes and overheats at the touch of the blackboard, such a thing cannot consume little energy. This blackboard is the sure reference of activities carried out outside the blackboard itself.
However, Lightning Network will only be one of Bitcoin’s second tier extensions. Another network under development is Rootstock which extends Bitcoin to manage smart contracts and de-fi stuffs. For each ‘topic’ there will be a second level network without clogging the Bitcoin blockchain, keeping it light and decentralized.
Bitcoin (layer one) is not a currency because it cannot handle a large number of transactions without losing decentralization (see chapter 1), but suitably ‘blocked/stopped’ bitcoins (tokens) can be represented on a payment network (layer two) like the Lightning Network, finally making bitcoins a true currency of millions of transactions per second.
Bitcoin (layer one) is not a blockchain with onchain support for smart contract turing complete like Ethereum, but suitably ‘blocked’ bitcoins (tokens) can be represented on a smart contract management network (layer two) like Rootstock, also allowing to use bitcoins for smart contracts and de-fi like Ethereum (but without clogging the blockchain).
Bitcoin is in fact the ‘core’ network of second level networks (sidechains) of various types yet to be imagined and built, so it must be protected with a lot of energy. The foundation of a skyscraper must be solid.
I hope the reader now begins to understand why in the first chapter I wanted to introduce Bitcoin as a particular immutable database and not as a ‘digital currency’. I suggest, to understand it better, to first see it as an immutable and decentralized database and then imagine various uses including that as (crypto) currency.
UPDATE: In March 2021, Microsoft announced the launch of an open source licensed digital identity system called ION Decentralized Identifier (DID), which is based on the bitcoin blockchain [1]. This is another example of a layer 2 network. The statements on the choice of the bitcoin blockchain are interesting:
“When we started crunching the numbers, we realized that Bitcoin was the only chain that would probably be too costly to attack.”
[1]
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/microsoft-announces-completion-of-ion-v1-and-launch-on-bitcoin-mainnet CHAPTER 6. How much will Bitcoin’s energy consumption still grow?Many are concerned that if the value of bitcoin continues to rise, the energy consumption of mining operations will continue to rise.
At first glance it is true:
If the price of Bitcoin increases, new miners will be incentivized to join the network to try to win the new bitcoins that are assigned every 10 minutes to the miner who first validates the new block.
Today a single Bitcoin is trading at around 50,000 $. If the price were to rise to 100,000 $, we should also expect a doubling of the miners competing to grab the new bitcoins and therefore a doubling of the energy consumed.
If the price of bitcoin were to reach 1 million dollars we should expect twenty times more energy consumption, the more it will increase in value and the more it will require energy. Said so it seems a monstrous thing.
This reasoning, however, is wrong because it does not consider two factors:
1. Every four years the new bitcoins assigned for each new block are halved. They were 50 in 2009, they became 25 in 2012, falling to 12.5 in 2016 and they became 6.25 in 2020. In 2024 they will drop to 3.125 and so on, halving every 4 years, tending to zero in the long run.2. The price of bitcoin will not grow forever (too good to be true). In 2009, at launch, the price was zero, with the first exchanges between pioneering users, the first prices were in the order of cents. In these 12 years, the price has reached, between various ups and downs, 50 thousand dollars each. We are still in the price discovery phase, the unit price will sooner or later stop rising and will settle in a range in which we will no longer have large volatilities of several orders of magnitude (no more x10, x100 ..).Combining these two factors we have that the price of Bitcoin will stabilize (point
2) and halving the number of new bitcoins every four years (point
1) we will have that the economic value of the reward for miners will also halve every four years. If this incentive to mine is halved every 4 years, the energy consumption will follow accordingly. The number of miners will decrease because they will have less convenience to mine.
This is the “speculative” part of the economic incentive of those who buy bitcoin today hoping that the final price they will settle at has not yet been reached.
But if the new bitcoins minted are halved every 4 years, what will the miners earn? Obviously, the fees that network users pay to ask miners to validate their transaction: this is the part of the economic incentive that is directly correlated to a real use of the network.
As the speculative part decreases in importance (assigning new bitcoins to miners who immediately resell them on the market for profit), only the part of real use will remain predominant (payment of the miners through the transaction fees included in each validated block).
At the end of this transitory period, therefore the energy consumption of the network will be a direct function of its real use and not as now driven mainly by a strong speculative component due to this infatile but physiological phase of price discovery.
If, as bitcoin detractors argue, the network will not be of much use, final consumption will be low because few users will want to transact and pay fees to do so.
If, on the other hand, the bitcoin network is actually used for many things, the final consumption may also be high but proportionally justified by real use.
CHAPTER 7. Does it make sense to ban bitcoin mining?If, despite what we have seen, the energy consumption of bitcoin mining was not considered acceptable, would it make sense to completely ban bitcoin mining? No, it would be enough to limit it: bitcoin would still work.
A false myth is that with the increase in the value of bitcoins and with the increase in its use, it is necessary to have an increase in the computing power spent in the proof of work algorithm of bitcoin mining.
It is more correct to say that with the increase in the value of bitcoin, energy consumption tends to increase but it is not mandatory that it increases from the point of view of the functioning of the bitcoin network.
Without external intervention it tends to increase because with the increase in the value of bitcoin, a greater number of new subjects are encouraged to join mining due to the increasing revenues deriving from the sale of bitcoins obtained from it. Obviously, in addition to new potential miners who are added, we also have the same subjects already present that increase the number of their computers involved.
That said, such a trend may simply be limited to pleasure. To do this, it would be sufficient to apply an extra tax to the electricity sold to industries dedicated to mining.
States could set a certain maximum annual quota of salable energy to this sector.
This energy would be sold with an extra tax or still assigned with a public tender to those who are willing to pay more for this energy. The revenues from these taxes and any tenders would enter the coffers of the states that could reinvest them as they see fit in the ecological cause.
This kill two birds with one stone: the bitcoin network would preserved and its energy consumption would be limited in a clear manner and with economic returns for the community.
Now the reader will ask: but why can bitcoin increase in value and diffusion and at the same time continue to function even without increasing the computing power deployed in mining?
That total mining power could also decrease and everything would continue to work the same. The total computing power required is not a function of the value or diffusion of bitcoin but is a function of the difficulty of mining, a parameter that the network automatically adjusts.
The bitcoin protocol requires a new block of transactions to be queued to the blockchain every 10 minutes.
To validate a block of transactions (simplifying) you need to solve a mathematical problem. It is the object of contention in the "competition" between all the miners in the world. The first one who solves this mathematical problem can queue the validated block to the blockchain and assign himself the new bitcoins generated (and those attached as transaction fees included in the block).
The more miners there are, the more computing power is deployed and the mathematical problem tends to be solved in less than 10 minutes.
With a self-regulation system, the network increases the difficulty coefficient of this problem if the blocks tend to be solved in less than 10 minutes in order to bring the average generation time of a new block back to the desired value of exactly 10 minutes. If the blocks, on the other hand, tend to be solved in more than 10 minutes, the network automatically lowers this coefficient of difficulty.
If the number of miners dropped, the difficulty coefficient would also drop, and the network would continue to run smoothly, simply consuming less. This also with an increase in the value of bitcoin.
In summary, what normally happens in the absence of particular taxes on mining:
The value of bitcoin increases -> the number of subjects that mine increases because it becomes more profitable to mine -> a greater number of miners obviously means more electricity required.
What would happen with a mining tax with miners required by law to stipulate only electrical contracts dedicated to this activity with high taxation:
The value of bitcoin increases -> Any new subjects (or the same subjects who would like to deploy more machines) should weigh the choice with respect to a higher price of energy -> there would be an equilibrium, this equilibrium would be adjusted according to the sensitivity of each state by acting on the extent of this specific taxation.
CHAPTER 8. Who is the owner of Bitcoin?While the individual bitcoins (the tokens with which it is possible to access the Bitcoin blockchain in writing) belong to someone in particular, the network itself is a protocol open to all and the source code is open source.
It is therefore a network that belongs to everyone, it is also a bit mine, a bit yours but it is also a bit of the various detractors.
Anyone can join the network from a mining point of view, anyone can put a full node online to increase data redundancy, anyone can use their bitcoins in the network.
If desired, it is also possible to analyze the source code of the main project and rewrite personal software implementations that perform the various functions of mining, a wallet for one's bitcoins or a full node server.
The only thing that can belong to someone in particular are therefore the individual bitcoins, initially born from a new mined block, resold on the free market by those who mined them and from then on bought and resold by anyone.
The Bitcoin network in its entirety belongs to the whole of humanity, attacking it means attacking something that is also a little yours.
CHAPTER 9. What does it mean to ban Bitcoin? China and a few other totalitarian and undemocratic nations have banned Bitcoin.
They practically banned the use of a database: in China if you want to write data on the Bitcoin blockchain you can't do it.
Seen in these terms it is an absolutely absurd ban, the detractors who would like to ban Bitcoin in practice would like to ban a database, does it seem reasonable to you to ban?