Decentralization and lack of authority as a weakness

[alani123]

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?

[spazzdla]

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 don't see this causing any issues while scaling..?

I don't understand the problem you are seeing.

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!

[jonald_fyookball]

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.

[BillyBones]

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!

Still, most of us looking for freebies frequently in our daily life, no one wants to put some small effort to work out on, I agree with you that start mining ourselves, however still people will complain about cost incur and if they choose cloud mining, there also they find fault about less margin profit.

[jeannemadrigal2]

I don't think it is a weakness, but it means that there usually is not decisive action for problems.  This is maybe a good thing too, because more input for problem solving can mean better results.  But not always.

[MicroGuy]

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?

At some point Bitcoin needs to gain full autonomy. Physical gold doesn't have a co-dependent relationship with anyone, and neither should Bitcoin.

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.

[d4n13]

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.

[MicroGuy]

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.

[NewLiberty]

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?

On the assumption that this is an earnest inquiry and not just concern-trolling...
Where is the "weakness" in a lack of authority?
According to the designer it is intended as the lack of a weakness.

http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/4/

Re: Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper 2008-11-07 12:30:36 UTC

>[Lengthy exposition of vulnerability of a systm to use-of-force
>monopolies ellided.]
>
>You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography.

Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of
freedom for several years.

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled
networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be
holding their own.

Satoshi


---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List

Protocol engineering inevitably requires many trade-offs where one strength may traded for another or balanced based on other characteristics and the environment in which it operates.
If someone questions the lack of authority as a weakness, May I suggest you ask them to explain how this is so in the face of open-sourced software, and p2p architecture.

[alani123]

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?

On the assumption that this is an earnest inquiry and not just concern-trolling...
Where is the "weakness" in a lack of authority?
According to the designer it is intended as the lack of a weakness.

http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/4/

Definitely not a troll and sorry if it seemed so. It's a genuine question. I didn't want to bring this to a political level though, I'm not implying something like decentralisation could be exploited by the government to take bitcoin down. What in my opinion is great about bitcoin is great that you don't have to trust a bank, government ot institution etc. But what about miners? You see the effect SPV has to bitcoin right now.

[lockshop11]

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 concept of decentralization is totally different from our commen one! So most of ppl don't understand it and may think it is weak. But it is the advantage bitcoin are offering to us.

[yeponlyone]

Decentralization and lack of authority is at the very core of bitcoin. Would it slow up adoption, so be it. Should it change, it's no longer bitcoin.

It's fully enough that three people have the key for sending out security messages.

[IIOII]

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?

Ask yourself: Would it be any better if you had to trust a central authority instead of trusting a decentralized authority of miners? Surely not. Why should this issue (if it was) scale up (become bigger) with a growing network, when there's no change in rules? That makes no sense.

People who believe that central control is better are insane. A central authority can shut down everything at once. Believing in the benevolence of central authorities is sure to meet disappointment. The very reason Bitcoin was build is getting rid of central control. Otherwise you could just use Paypal and enjoy having your account frozen if you don't comply with their arbitrary policies.

[alani123]

Decentralization and lack of authority is at the very core of bitcoin. Would it slow up adoption, so be it. Should it change, it's no longer bitcoin.

It's fully enough that three people have the key for sending out security messages.

Right, this is quite contradictory to the powers miners have. They have to be trusted for mining with the right client and generating big enough blocks under the current limits to include pending transactions. I'm not saying that bitcoin should become centralised to fix that, I'm asking if it could be solved while bitcoin remains decentralised and without an authority.

[astrobitcoin]

i would say that the lack in "decentralizing culture" is the weakness of bitcoin users

[d4n13]

Ask yourself: Would it be any better if you had to trust a central authority instead of trusting a decentralized authority of miners?

First off, I am a starch economic libertarian, so see my comments in that light.  Centralization is bad!

What may be troubling some people is that free market rules are being applied to quasi-free markets.

The US is NOT a free market, the percentage to which it is not free can be measured by the percentage of regulation it is under.

Non US economies are NOT free since many aspects of them are subsidized by the Gov't.

I read a post recently about a man in Argentina that was living on bitcoin.  He took every paycheck and converted it to bitcoin as fast as he could.  All money he could save went to buying miners and he was approaching the point where he was making more money from the miners than his job.  Now the one line that caught me is the critical peace that made this possible.  He doesn't pay for electricity, or at least not all of it.  The utilities are not an open market.  The price of electricity is set by the Gov't at like about 1-2% of what we pay here in the states.  Argentina is not the only country like this.  For many years China subsidized the operational costs of companies making LiOn batteries.

So imagine if miners didn't have to pay for electricity, or had some other operational cost subsidized by the Gov't.  Now compare that to another miner who has to compete in a free market, and pay additional regulations or bribes.  There is a clear winner here.

So long term (10 yr time) we might see mining centralized in favorable countries.  So eventually we will come to a world where we have international negotiations with countries about the "free-ness" of their miners in the same way that we talk about the "free-ness" of their currency.

[gentlemand]

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

Ask most people about the true nature of money and it becomes clear that they've never paused to reflect on that subject at all. They can get behind the obvious benefits but would still struggle with the lack of someone's hand to hold if it went tits up.

That's a prime opportunity for a Paypal esque entity to sweep a new bunch of people in and feed them the changes it wants. If it has 100 million users on its books and the purists are a fraction of that then we've either got serious problems or two coins.

[Hazir]

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 don't see this causing any issues while scaling..?

I don't understand the problem you are seeing.

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!

So you are an idealist if you can mine and don't profit from it. The problem is that great majority of people can't do that. Bitcoin was the chance for single miners in the past, not anymore, now it is time of large mining farms and pools. You can't expect people to run their rigs just to help securing network. And it is hard not to trust others when bitcoin survival is dependant on other.

[countryfree]

Yes, definitely. Very few people are anarchists. Billions like authority, armies, flags, regulations and uniforms. In many countries, there are national days, with soldiers making a parade in the streets and some people say that's beautiful. I suggest they go a zoo to watch monkeys masturbating, it's the same thing, only more fun.

No authority behind BTC. Will the miners act like monkeys? No wonder some people are afraid. It's dangerous to cross the street, too. Some people should stay behind closed doors for safety.

[Beliathon]

Decentralization is the purest source of authority possible for a public ledger of accounts. This is a nonsense post, OP.