Decentralization and lack of authority as a weakness

[dothebeats]

Miners make BTC the most secure network ON THE PLANET...


TRUST NO ONE, start mining your self to secure the network, I am.

Kijiiji, buy an S3, bam there you go .  Mine to help BTC worry not about profit!

Honestly, you couldn't just tell an individual to buy a miner and let it run but don't expect any profit from it. Most of us couldn't afford a miner, let alone the power bills that is tied to it. Yes, every single miner in the network helps secure the network, but not every single one of them can afford to mine at a loss. It's not being selfish or whatsoever, it's just being practical in the current times.

[Amph]

I've seen many people lately criticising bitcoin's lack of authority as a possible weakness. From what it seems, users have to put (at least some) trust to miners and pools and rely on them for things like generating blocks with updated clients, including transactions etc. Wouldn't such an issue scale up as bitcoin grows? Could it be addressed somehow?

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The thing Satoshi probably would have done, if he hadn't been frightened into the shadows, is integrate a voting mechanism into the client. The bitcoin collective would then steer and shape the currency. I think something like this is in the works now, so Bitcoin should be just fine.

isn't the nodes system already based on that, if i want to vote i run a full node, yeah it could have been better for average joe to just vote, with a simplified mechanism, without opening port, and worrying about possible security issues

but there isn't really a tangible difference

[NorrisK]

I've seen many people lately criticising bitcoin's lack of authority as a possible weakness. From what it seems, users have to put (at least some) trust to miners and pools and rely on them for things like generating blocks with updated clients, including transactions etc. Wouldn't such an issue scale up as bitcoin grows? Could it be addressed somehow?

.

The thing Satoshi probably would have done, if he hadn't been frightened into the shadows, is integrate a voting mechanism into the client. The bitcoin collective would then steer and shape the currency. I think something like this is in the works now, so Bitcoin should be just fine.

isn't the nodes system already based on that, if i want to vote i run a full node, yeah it could have been better for average joe to just vote, with a simplified mechanism, without opening port, and worrying about possible security issues

but there isn't really a tangible difference

True.. The nodes decide which chain to run and therefore have voting power.. Everybody who runs one can have a vote..

[Hazir]

Its a shame that people still don't want to be free. I think it is in human nature to be servant and have master. Why use bitcoin and pay without fees globally in a matter of minutes, when you can can pay horrendous fees to your bank or paypal. I sad that people are crying that bitcoin is not secure because it lack central bank or government sanction. It is not too surprising that in age of fiat currency lack of government support is troubling for weak minded people.

[Herbert2020]

I've seen many people lately criticising bitcoin's lack of authority as a possible weakness. From what it seems, users have to put (at least some) trust to miners and pools and rely on them for things like generating blocks with updated clients, including transactions etc. Wouldn't such an issue scale up as bitcoin grows? Could it be addressed somehow?

i see what you mean but the solution is not by removing the decentralization and make an authority to look over them. the problem is coming from the SPV mining.
if pool decentralization continues hopefully this problem would be solved and no more pools would risk doing it.

[d4n13]

i see what you mean but the solution is not by removing the decentralization and make an authority to look over them. the problem is coming from the SPV mining.
if pool decentralization continues hopefully this problem would be solved and no more pools would risk doing it.

The current peer to peer protocol has banning rules in place (although "rules" may be a overstatement).  When a peer does something bad, the other peers will disconnect.  Perhaps miners should have a similar ban policy.  SPV miner submits a bad block, they are banned from block submission for 72 hours.

That would learn them.

More than likely they would just change their miners tag to look like it came from some solo / anon miner...

[keyscore44]

The thing Satoshi probably would have done, if he hadn't been frightened into the shadows, is integrate a voting mechanism into the client. The bitcoin collective would then steer and shape the currency. I think something like this is in the works now, so Bitcoin should be just fine.

Hey man, I think your on to something... color the fee coins so that only the miner the spender selects can claim the fee.  Make mining some type of proof-of-share, the miner with the most colored shares of fees gets awarded the next block...

Lots of holes in it... but kinda a shadow of an idea in there somewhere.

One method might also be integrating a Reddit like platform and adding a new "Community Menu." The client window would display a totally self-contained forum where users/developers/merchants could offer ideas and suggestions.

Then, anytime an idea gets upvoted to the top (replacing the previous highest upvote) it would be automatically implemented by the core team which is made up of chosen and elected persons using the same upvoting process. Until something replaces the highest upvote, nothing changes.

Lots of holes in it... but kinda a shadow of an idea in there somewhere.

the problem with this sort of voting system is that it's open to abuse. someone with 100 clients could simply spam-vote their own ideas to get them implemented. not a bad idea though if it worked properly.

[yeponlyone]

For better or worse I think most humans look to centralise. That would especially be the case if humanity en masse piled into crypto.

-snip

That is probably true as central authorities have lived some quite some time if we look at history. All the more important that bitcoin will stay decentralized and manage to get through the current disputes and problems - without losing too much authority

[bitcoinmasterlord]

I've seen many people lately criticising bitcoin's lack of authority as a possible weakness. From what it seems, users have to put (at least some) trust to miners and pools and rely on them for things like generating blocks with updated clients, including transactions etc. Wouldn't such an issue scale up as bitcoin grows? Could it be addressed somehow?

This SPV mining seems to be an issue, but it wouldnt necessarily get worse as Bitcoin grows.
Hopefully pool decentralization continues and no pool will risk their reputation being caught
doing SPV mining.

Pools don't care getting caught SPV mining. They were the culprit when the 2 forks happened some days ago and they still want to proceed doing SPV mining. They only want to confirm the previous block while mining on it now. Though that still can create a fork then.
And surely bitcoin mining is similar to gold mining in america. Goldrush, only some were able to earn from it, most only suffered, like it's with todays private miners often. And at the end you will have only some big mining corporations, just like it is with gold today. It's somewhat unavoidable.