Gavin to Satoshi, 2010 -- "SOMEBODY will try to mess up the network (...)"

[BillyBobZorton]

Decentralized network = as much nodes as possible run by different, independent entities ideally as physically widespread as possible (people, instead of single rich entities running thousands of nodes, which is only achievable by maintaining a conservative blocksize)

Centralized network = blocksize too big to guarantee that people can run their own nodes

Increasing blocksize = objectively making it harder on average for the people to run nodes = objectively centralizing the network by doing so

Not that difficult to understand.

*This does not mean 1MB should be forever, but BUcoiners aren't considering the tradeoffs as usual.

Myth.   Bollocks.  Non-mining nodes are simply miner-chain proxies.  You are right that a "decentralized network" consists of independent nodes, but a crypto currency is not a "decentralized network" but a "decentralized block chain".  And that is built by miners.

After all is said and done, the "network" doesn't matter, the block chain does.  The crypto currency is the block chain, not "the network".

A (hopefully) decentralized network is for instance, Tor, and matters for communication.  But a crypto currency is not about communication but about a consensus ledger: the block chain.

The only way in which a "decentralized network" matters, is if there were some difficulty in the *network connection* to *obtain the block chain*.   For instance, if the Great Wall of China were blocking some miner nodes, and one has to get through via a P2P way in some or other way.  THEN the "decentralized network" matters.  But if there are good internet connections, and you don't need anonymity of communication (like with Tor), then that decentralized network doesn't matter.

Because the crypto currency is the block chain: the consensus ledger.  And that is built by miners.  Not by non-mining nodes.
And you can obtain it directly from the miner if you want to.  You don't need the P2P network for that.

Nonsense. A "decentralized blockchain" is only decentralized if its network is decentralized too, otherwise it's basically JihanCoin, but I guess that's what BUcoiners want.

Bitcoin is exactly like Tor, a censorship resistant tool, otherwise it would have no value, since we already got Paypal and so on. The fact that the network is backed by decentralized computers all over the world is what makes it strong against a global attacker (the government when they remove cash will be the most obvious and biggest global attacker). The fact that there is a conservative blocksize to allow for this to happen and then the fees getting increasingly more expensive is a feature. Unfortunately decentralized onchain transactions are expensive, which is why LN is the only way out if you want to scale globally. Ideally we would scale globally onchain but that is impossible. Segwit and additional blocksize increases will happen would allow to scale onchain along the way too but forget about any relevant amount of transactions onchain cheap and fast within a decentralized cryptocurrency, that is the actual myth.

If bitcoin stays as it is forever it is good enough for me as gold 2.0 anyway.

[tvbcof]

Oh geez, sorry I should have said "you believe we're either paid shills or stupid" right?

Yes.  That's better.

That's fine.  You're entitled to your opinion.  Meanwhile the rest of us are discussing the actual issues of the debate.

Highly dubious claim.  Most of these 'actual issues' were 'discussed' years ago and very few are new or original.  Seems to me that the ones which are perceived to have some traction among the newbie class are recycled ad-nauseum even though they've been put to bed multiple times.

[jonald_fyookball]

Oh geez, sorry I should have said "you believe we're either paid shills or stupid" right?

Yes.  That's better.

That's fine.  You're entitled to your opinion.  Meanwhile the rest of us are discussing the actual issues of the debate.

Highly dubious claim.  Most of these 'actual issues' were 'discussed' years ago and very few are new or original.  Seems to me that the ones which are perceived to have some traction among the newbie class are recycled ad-nauseum even though they've been put to bed multiple times.

You are correct:  The issues aren't new at all.  We still need to increase the blocksize.
Now more than ever with the recent congestion.

Put to bed?  Hardly.
 
Core and blockstream intentions now more clear than ever to more people, and
the community is not accepting core's roadamp.  Meanwhile BU has more support
than XT and Classic and increasing.

[AngryDwarf]

seems dinofelis is on a scripted mission

objective try to brainwash sheep into thinking nodes are not important.
-snip-

On this rare occasion, I definitely agree with you. Their rhetoric is quite obvious at this point.

Thank you both for reminding me about the importance of nodes. I almost swallowed the logic.

[FiendCoin]

BU supporters are something else, one has to wonder if they are paid shills? I just can't understand how any rational person can be pro BU?

It's a simple idea.

Blocksize should not be part of the protocol rules.

If the debate's taught us anything, its how dangerous it can be to have
this specification hard coded into the software.

Instead remove it and let the miners decide via the longest chain consensus.

  Others were probably just offered a slightly more profitable arrangement than your typical ad-footer-spammer. 

So you actually believe there's paid shills (because opinions different than yours couldn't possibly have merit, right?)

There is ZERO merit in centralized Bitcoin mining and control in CHINA or any other country.

BU supports centralized mining and control of Bitcoin in China, PERIOD.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

Mining will always take place where the power is cheaper. Block size isn't a factor, disk space is peanuts compared to the electricity used.

If you want more mining to take place outside of China, then find a way to lower the cost of electricity outside of China.

[AngryDwarf]

Mining will always take place where the power is cheaper. Block size isn't a factor, disk space is peanuts compared to the electricity used.

If you want more mining to take place outside of China, then find a way to lower the cost of electricity outside of China.

Or China may become a more expensive place to mine in time, so they will simply shutup shop and reopen in the next low cost country.

[FiendCoin]

Mining will always take place where the power is cheaper. Block size isn't a factor, disk space is peanuts compared to the electricity used.

If you want more mining to take place outside of China, then find a way to lower the cost of electricity outside of China.

Or China may become a more expensive place to mine in time, so they will simply shutup shop and reopen in the next low cost country.

This is about more than just the cost of electricity or what size a block should be, this is about a small group of people trying to force their will onto the rest of us. There needs to be a way for the majority to vote instead of decisions coming down to a handful of miners with their own personal agendas. If we go by nodes, BU is not very popular, nor has it ever been. Both XT and classic have had far more nodes in the past than BU.

[calkob]

I think you are grasping at straws here trying to link these statements by Gavin and Satoshi to the current blocksize debate.  I am not to worried about BU i doubt it will ever get enough support to HF and if it does than we shall see what happens.  If we have to fight for bitcoins survival then maybe its not worth it.  Bitcoin should be able to survive on its own.

[tvbcof]

Mining will always take place where the power is cheaper. Block size isn't a factor, disk space is peanuts compared to the electricity used.

If you want more mining to take place outside of China, then find a way to lower the cost of electricity outside of China.

I would generally agree, but I do suspect that in some instances government policy can have at least a temporary impact.  e.g., under more totalitarian regimes it may not be very practical to manufacture hardware unless export procedures are followed.

To your point about energy availability, I find the hypothesis that sovereign nations are being aligned globally in anticipation of a so-called 'one-world technocracy' to be credible.  One of the main tools used to engineer this leveling would be accessibility to energy.  Of course such a thing as Bitcoin would probably not be considered significantly and almost certainly not predicted.  On a macro level the policies would be a spray pattern aimed at industry and infrastructure generally.  But (if the hypothesis has a basis in reality) it absolutely factors into many corner-case things such as Bitcoin and should be considered by those who have such a corner-case interest.  For this reason it is valuable for those with a stake in Bitcoin to keep tabs on global geo-political developments.  A good real-world example here would be the Trump administration's apparent willingness to end the blockade on the use of domestic coal.

[dinofelis]

seems dinofelis is on a scripted mission

objective try to brainwash sheep into thinking nodes are not important.

i think he is new to the community and doesnt yet grasp the deeper details of consensus or bitcoin,, and has only been taught the highschool level concept.

if coinbase (non-mining node) stopped getting blocks from pool X.
pool X cant spend its reward with coinbase and thus hashing for nothing.

Coinbase's node is important of course, because coinbase is a USER: what is important with coinbase, is the wallet on it, because coinbase's wallet contains the bitcoins which backs the bitcoin IOU that people trade.  Coinbase is hence a BIG USER, and hence a BIG MARKET PLAYER.  Its wallet is extremely important.

But coinbase could directly connect its node to one of the nodes of a big mining pool.  Whether YOUR non-mining node (and 1000 other non-mining nodes of others) is running, or not, doesn't mean anything to coinbase.  However, the chain that coinbase decides to follow (by choosing a protocol), is the coin that coinbase considers being its wallet.  If miners make two coins, and two chains, then coinbase will decide *what coin* it is trading.

The importance of coinbase's node, its choice of protocol, and hence its choice of chain (if that chain exists and is produced by a miner !  Otherwise, coinbase's node simply halts) comes from the fact that coinbase's wallet is the wallet of a big user.

[dinofelis]

I run a non-mining full node (it entertains me to do so).  I'm delighted to feel like I am contributing in some small way (8 outgoing and 52 incoming connections --> ~200GB per month).  But, I realize if I turn if off then the miners will plow forward mining without me.  The users would have to connect to a miner (or some other non-mining full node).  *If* all of the non-mining full nodes were turned off then the miners would plow forward mining without us.  The users would have to connect to a miner, period.

Bingo. That's my point.

I think maybe the point is miners don't just mine, they also handle connections from users.  If a miner just mined and didn't handle connections from users then they wouldn't have any transactions to pack into blocks.

Absolutely.   We should clearly define what a "miner" is in this respect.  A "miner" is the entity that decides *what* block to build on *which* other block out there, and puts that block at disposal on a node.  A "miner" can be a complex entity, like a mining pool and its customers with mining hardware, selling hash power to the mining pool, or a single entity (solo miner).  The "providers of hash power" are not, in this respect, "miners" as we define it here, because they simply provide hashes, and do not decide upon the block to be built (the contents of the block, the transactions ; the previous block hash, and the protocol according to which it will be built).  The miner, in this conversation, is the entity deciding that, and *hence has a node*.  

As I said before, given the cost of mining, the cost of setting up an efficient node is minuscule compared with it.  There's no point in investing a huge amount in hash rate capacity, and wasting a lot of electricity, and not have a sufficiently efficient node that has strong connections to other miner nodes, because the time wasted to learn about blocks made by other miners, wastes much more money by lost hashing (on orphaned blocks) than the bit of cost of good infrastructure in a strong node, with good network.

So we can presume that a miner node will do everything, if the "proxy network of non mining nodes favorable to him" is too weak, to set up somewhat better node infrastructure that can serve directly its clients, the users, that want to use the block chain he (and his fellow miners on the same protocol) are mining (in other words, his coin).  Especially if that user is an exchange that lists his coin !

This is a bit like torrent: if you want to distribute a file, you can count on other torrent nodes putting your file at disposal (distributed network).  But if your income depends on having this file at disposal, you will make sure that you have enough server capacity to distribute the file yourself on the torrent network, independent of all the other torrent clients refusing your file and/or putting other files at disposal.

Now, as to the users sending transactions, that's the same.  If you are a user that *wants your transaction on the block chain of your choice* and you cannot find enough distributed nodes doing so, then you can connect your WALLET directly to a miner's node, or you can connect your NODE directly to a miner's node, to send your transaction.

Again, the distributed NETWORK of bitcoin nodes is a nice thing that protects against a *communication attack*, but if direct internet links are possible to miner's nodes, and if those miners have installed sufficient network capacity, then the distributed network is *optional*, and cannot impose its will.

[dinofelis]

seems dinofelis is on a scripted mission

objective try to brainwash sheep into thinking nodes are not important.
-snip-

On this rare occasion, I definitely agree with you. Their rhetoric is quite obvious at this point.

I honestly think the brainwashing is on the other side.  I present logical arguments, you only present rethoric and ad hominem.  I indicate the way I see how it functions and I explain it, and you only present (totally erroneous) conspiration.   That's like someone writing open source code, and you arguing that it must for sure contain a virus because of some conspiracy.  Read the code !  Read the arguments and tell me where you think it is wrong, and I'll make you see that you are mistaken (or I will see where I'm mistaken, and I will learn something).

[dinofelis]

This is about more than just the cost of electricity or what size a block should be, this is about a small group of people trying to force their will onto the rest of us. There needs to be a way for the majority to vote instead of decisions coming down to a handful of miners with their own personal agendas.

No.  Because that is the Proof of Work consensus mechanism.  There is no other "voting" mechanism.  Proof of work is the voting mechanism on every part of the consensus system, and is proportional, well, to proof of work.   The "number of nodes voting" has explicitly been avoided, because that's open to a Sybil attack.  The "amount of bitcoin you hold" is not the consensus mechanism chosen (called, proof of stake).

However, the user DOES have of course a strong voting power *if there is a hard fork*: namely, in the market, by putting value on one coin, or another.   And "proof of work" (mining power) will follow the most lucrative block reward (and hence market cap).

But for that to happen, there first needs to be a hard fork: if there are no two block chains available, and not two coins, the user can only accept the single, existing chain, or decide not to use that coin.  But that's it.

Of course, miners will be *sensible* to any market movement, so indirectly, users deciding to leave bitcoin might have an effect on miners.  Miners will be hesitant to make a hard fork, because they may be afraid that the new coin they make, will have a lower return on hash rate than if they continue mining the old chain.   Or they may hesitate remaining on the old chain if they think that users will massively switch to the new coin.     So yes, users have MARKET INFLUENCE on miners.  Direct market influence if there is a hard fork and two coins (there, the users really vote with their money), or indirect "market sentiment" before miners decide to fork or not.

At no point, non mining nodes play a role in this, because the consensus mechanism is not "vote by node" but "vote by proof of work".  Satoshi uses both interchangeably because he considered that every node would also mine.

[dinofelis]

seems dinofelis is on a scripted mission

objective try to brainwash sheep into thinking nodes are not important.
-snip-

On this rare occasion, I definitely agree with you. Their rhetoric is quite obvious at this point.

Thank you both for reminding me about the importance of nodes. I almost swallowed the logic.

This is remarkable as a brainwashing, isn't it.  A long, detailed explanation is swiped away with a single reminder of the Dogma without the slightest bit of logic.  Learn to think for yourself!

Again, the consensus mechanism is proof of work.   And the very proof that nodes do not determine much, comes from the simple argument that one can fire up sufficient nodes on Amazon to swamp every vote.  Someone called me out on that.  That's not the point.  I won't do it, of course, because 1) I know it is useless, and 2) it costs a lot of money.  Much less than a miner spends, but more than I spend on crypto (a few 10 dollars to play with some coins, and more if I want to buy something on the internet).

It does cost money to fire up 100 000 nodes on amazon.  But if one has strongly vested interests in one bitcoin flavor or another, (I'm not), then this cost is more than reasonable.  Why doesn't Roger Ver, or another antagonist in this debate, does so if it were so simple to "vote by node" ?

Why didn't it happen yet ?  Exactly because proof of work is the consensus mechanism, and not proof of node.

Now, I know that an "accepted truth" is hard to change in one's mind.  I also believed that the "bitcoin node network" was important.  I set up an empty node at home to "support the network" (and to study the block chain).  I'm fascinated by the dynamics of decentralized systems.  I study it since quite a while and when I learned about bitcoin, that was a great example.  My main motivation for studying it, is political: I'm an anarchist.  But the more I studied it, the more I saw that things that were "taken for granted" don't fit with the dynamical laws of the system.  And "non mining nodes are important" is one of these dogma's.   It takes a while to understand the exact dynamics of the whole.  And it is very interesting.  It is also very interesting to see how initial misunderstandings can be "locked in" because everybody repeats it.  Maybe there is a "consensus dynamics" over what is to be told about bitcoin too

[dinofelis]

Nonsense. A "decentralized blockchain" is only decentralized if its network is decentralized too, otherwise it's basically JihanCoin, but I guess that's what BUcoiners want.

Bitcoin is exactly like Tor, a censorship resistant tool, otherwise it would have no value, since we already got Paypal and so on. The fact that the network is backed by decentralized computers all over the world is what makes it strong against a global attacker (the government when they remove cash will be the most obvious and biggest global attacker).

Yes, against a *communication* attack.  But that has nothing to do with what the consensus over the ledger, the block chain, is.  That block chain is built by a community of miners.  And is used by user wallets.  As long as there is reliable communication between the miners and the user wallets, that's all a crypto currency needs. 

The distributedness of the *communication network* matters only in that respect.  If unrestricted network access is possible, then it doesn't serve much of a purpose.  Yes, I can use Tor to connect to a remote web site.  Yes, it will be difficult for an attacker to sensor that.  But if my only reason using Tor was to access the web site, and not my anonymity, then I can also connect DIRECTLY to the web site.   That is like using a VPN server.  Yes, if a direct connection is sensored in the country where I live, a VPN is useful, to avoid the "network censoring".  But if I can connect directly, and I don't care about them knowing my IP number, I don't need a VPN.

The other aspect of the distributed node network of bitcoin is its "block chain memory".  Yes, the block chain will never be eradicated from earth, because so many people have a copy of it, that's true.  But for SURE, the miner that is mining the chain has the correct copy he's mining on.  So I don't NEED that "global distributed memory" of block chain, because the "server" I'm using has it automatically.

You can say, yes, but that miner, as a "centralized server", may trick you.  No, he can't.  Because to trick me, he has to produce a block every 10 minutes or so on that chain.  Otherwise, my node following him, will stop.  If this is not the right chain HE thinks honestly he should be working on, then to trick me, he is building a huge orphaned chain and wastes mountains of hash rate.  The risk of me discovering another miner, and leaving his chain behind, while he wasted all this hash power just to trick me, is too big for him.  So I KNOW that a miner who is putting out a growing chain, is providing me with the "best chain according to him" on which he builds.

The best information about the block chain is provided by an active miner.  The "distributed network" only makes sure that this is not forgotten if ever that miner disappears, and makes sure that in case of network censorship, one can still get at it. 
But it doesn't play a role in any form of consensus.  If the internet works well, it is not needed.

[Killerpotleaf]

seems dinofelis is on a scripted mission

objective try to brainwash sheep into thinking nodes are not important.

i think he is new to the community and doesnt yet grasp the deeper details of consensus or bitcoin,, and has only been taught the highschool level concept.

if coinbase (non-mining node) stopped getting blocks from pool X.
pool X cant spend its reward with coinbase and thus hashing for nothing.

the nodes work together to get a single agreed chain of blocks.
the nodes agree on what should go next ontop.

pools blocks do get orphaned off where by a different pool gets chosen as the better block creator.
this happens many times a week

pools are NOT the boss.
nodes are the boss

pools are just the secretary. collating data, but having to collate it in the way the boss is happy to sign off and file. if the boss disagree's he will bin their work and get another secretary.

nodes=boss
pools=secretary
devs=janitors

nodes!=boss

if there is a real disagreement about what is the valid chain the nodes will do NOTHING to solve the disagreement.
coinbase will run 2 F'ing nodes, we will take the disagreement to the markets where everyone can participate.
 
hashrate, node count, dev approval
none of this really matters, none of these actors are truly "the boss"
consider this..

minority fork, minimal node count, and disapproving devs.
thats how ETC was born.
why? because "the boss" put his foot down  

[dinofelis]

nodes!=boss

Thanks for understanding that too.  Bitcoin not being a "proof of node" coin, nodes aren't the boss, like you say.

if there is a real disagreement about what is the valid chain the nodes will do NOTHING to solve the disagreement.
coinbase will run 2 F'ing nodes, we will take the disagreement to the markets where everyone can participate.
 
hashrate, node count, dev approval
none of this really matters, none of these actors are truly "the boss"
consider this..

minority fork, minimal node count, and disapproving devs.
thats how ETC was born.
why? because "the boss" put his foot down  

I learned a lot too during the ETH/ETC split about the dynamics of consensus.  It was a fascinating experience. Maybe bitcoin people didn't follow this drama very closely and didn't learn as much about how proof of work consensus networks really work.

[Killerpotleaf]

nodes!=boss

Thanks for understanding that too.  Bitcoin not being a "proof of node" coin, nodes aren't the boss, like you say.

if there is a real disagreement about what is the valid chain the nodes will do NOTHING to solve the disagreement.
coinbase will run 2 F'ing nodes, we will take the disagreement to the markets where everyone can participate.
 
hashrate, node count, dev approval
none of this really matters, none of these actors are truly "the boss"
consider this..

minority fork, minimal node count, and disapproving devs.
thats how ETC was born.
why? because "the boss" put his foot down  

I learned a lot too during the ETH/ETC split about the dynamics of consensus.  It was a fascinating experience. Maybe bitcoin people didn't follow this drama very closely and didn't learn as much about how proof of work consensus networks really work.

hashing power is only a signpost, a best guess, as to what the consensus really is.

ETC failed to gain majority hash rate, because it failed to gain majority market share, not the other way around....

[jbreher]

Again, the amount of non-mining nodes is essentially immaterial - apart for their owners, who use it to verify for themselves the chain they want to use (in as much as one is available by miners), and do not want to depend on unverified third-party information.

Thank you. I have been trying to make this point for ages, always falling on deaf ears. It is nice to know that at least someone else gets it.