And we are talking about users that want/need to transact. So what you are imagining, is that users are going to download, themselves, new software of which they KNOW that it will not agree with what miners are producing, to stop their own ability to transact, and think that:
1) they will do so and put themselves out of the system that way
2) this will affect the miners in any way
is totally misguided.
Please cite in any of my prior statements where users or verifying node
operators are downloading ad implementing protocol violating rules.
This is the very idea of a UASF.
Again, I ask you cite where I stated anything that would need new rules
or new nodes. Everything I stated is occurring as we speak and has occurred
since 2010. I'm talking about verifying nodes, not UASF.
I know you are paranoid of UASF, but I'm not talking about that.
What you are describing without overwhelming community consensus is
an attack on the network.
There is no notion of "attack on the network", "valid", "good", "bad", "correct" or not, by definition, in a decentralized consensus system. Things just happen. Of course, certain happenings have the name of an attack, because the system was initially said to have a given purpose, and any different behaviour from that stated purpose can carry the name of "attack", but it is just one of the behaviours and properties of the system.
For instance, the famous "51% attack" is a potential consensus behaviour. If tomorrow, we *observe* that pieces of chain of, say, 50 blocks, are orphaned, then we could consider that to be a manifestation of one of the behavioural properties of the bitcoin system which carries the name of "51% attack". But nevertheless, the consensus protocol and the consensus chain would be the new one. It is called an "attack" because it would make the system not function as its initially intended way of functioning, but hey, it is part of its dynamics. It would imply also that certain "confirmed" transactions have now disappeared from the consensus (they were older than 6 blocks, and younger than 50 blocks when the forking happened). If that was the "intention" of the "attacker", then his attack succeeded. But one cannot fathom "intentions". It is just part of the possible behaviours of that system, and "attacks" are part of that. An attack that got accepted by a majority of miners, is then by definition, part of the consensus.
Well I disagree with your interpretation of things.
Satsohi clearly thought those things were attacks.
Security experts would consider those things attacks.
Your argument is comparable to "when hackers or malware enter into nuclear
power plants in order to implement code actions that will cause that facility
to go into an uncontrolled systematic meltdown, which will affect tens of
thousands of people somewhat immediately, and tens of millions to
hundredths of millions for multiple generations with diseases and
environmental effects, you are saying that isn't an attack on that nuclear
facility, humans, or the environment, but is only the "behavioral definition
of that nuclear system." With such a viewpoint of things, even murder of
another human being is the behavioral definition of humans, so according to
your argument, murder is natural and not an attack on that other individual
and their rights. From this point forward, no one should take any of your
arguments seriously or legitimately contemplate it's soundness.
This argument type, in order to circumvent my argument, should be reexamined
since it leads down a road that is not healthy for Bitcoin, nor for life in general.
This thinking is neither creative nor genius, it is blatantly malicious to life and
intelligent advancements. It is no wonder you would take the position that PoW
is the only "power" system within Bitcoin, your thinking is already twisted.
A decentralized system, by definition, has no defined purpose, and hence no "good" and "bad". No "valid" or "invalid". If it were, it would mean that there's a central authority DEFINING "valid" and "invalid", and it wouldn't be a decentralized system without authorities. As such, one has to accept in a decentralized system, that whatever happens, is what is "supposed to happen" and part of its behavioural definition.
It is a bit like a natural system: there is no "valid" and "invalid" way of behaving under gravity. We can only *discover* how gravity works, but we cannot determine that a certain planet had an "invalid" behaviour. If it behaves that way, that IS the valid behaviour, and if ever our theories of gravity (our "validating nodes") say that this motion is not what it should be, then our theories are wrong, and not nature.
Of course, from the moment that there IS a central authority, everything changes: that central authority can impose its rules, and if those rules are violated, have enough power to take corrective action (put in prison, confiscate belongings, manipulate communication.... but it needs POWER over the other actors in one or another way). Only a central authority can define "valid" and "invalid". Hence, the notions itself of valid and invalid only make sense in a centralized system.
No, you are very incorrect in multiple areas.
Valid and Invalid is defined by the rules that which we all currently abide by
in Bitcoin. Saying that valid or invalid work is only based upon the whims of
what decision a miner builds on another miner's block, is very simplistic at
the least.
There is a central authority that defines information and that is the blockchain
itself. The "blockchain" is centralized, yet is secured by decentralized
independent verifying nodes throughout the world. The "blockchain" system
that Satoshi created is not a simple ledger, that is your misunderstanding.
Your argument ignores realities that we live within, while attempting to argue
something that has never been proven true.
The whitepaper does not explain the complexities of the blockchain system
itself, and thus since you rely on that paper and statements from people who
do not understand anything beyond that 9 year old paper, you are ignorant of
the realities. The "blockchain" enforces the rules and is a centralized structure.
The "blockchain" was designed to monitor the miners, not just the token, that
was secondary when created. The public ledger provides proof for everyone,
other than the miners, in order to verify the miners' block work and that it is
valid and in compliance with the current protocol. The public ledger was not for
tokens alone, that is a secondary effect which helps facilitate proof between two
individuals transacting. So the ledger is for miner proofs and token proofs.
You do not understand the interconnect aspects of Bitcoin since Satoshi did
not publicly advise you of such in plain writing for you to blindly follow.
Your argument that there is no valid or invalid behavior in Bitcoin, contradicts
what Satoshi attempted to create. Satoshi tried to create symbiotic system of
compliance from untrusted parties through public proofs. If Satoshi envisioned
the Miner's to have 100% control to determine validity, there is no need for
public proofs. The system could have been designed to be private without blocks.
The purpose for a public blockchain contradicts your whole argument in many ways.
In addition, your example of gravity does not apply to this argument, you must use
a system with rules that has valid or invalid properties and then show me why there
is no actual difference between the two properties. You are trying to argue that in
Bitcoin, and possibly all simple and complex systems that exist in this universe,
there are no truths or falsehoods (though an argument can be made in other
discussion types, when it applies to physical reality that humans accept as being
concrete/"real", we can not argue this type of argument, especially in sciences
and likewise in Bitcoin). So, this example is worthless and a distraction.
This argument type, as applied to Bitcoin which clearly has enforcement
mechanisms and protocols that are directly programmed into the system,
invalidates your form of thinking and argument type entirely and outright. It is
one thing to be philosophical in Bitcoin in order to explain failures or successes or
how systems work within the Bitcoin system or are comparable, it is another to
make an argument that existence is illusionary, murder and birth are equivalent,
and valid and invalid bitcoin blocks are neither in compliance nor in violation.
This is not the reality that the community currently exists in. Satoshi specifically
created rules and regulations within our system before he formed the Genesis block.
The only reason why you are arguing this is so that Miners can determine all
actions 100% of the time, in 100% of all possible scenarios. What you failed to
realize is that in majority of those scenarios, there is no value in that new Bitcoin
system or it's token. When the miners take an action, as theorized by your argument,
in theory they will neutralize and void the novel properties that the system created
and thus void the monetary properties of the Bitcoin token. You only wish to be right
in your argument and have not applied this to real world possibilities and final
outcome probabilities. Your argument is that the consumer is a blind moron and
these miners will sell a lie since there are no truths anyway. Your argument is to
convert Bitcoin from a novel interesting system that's byproduct is a digital truth,
and transform it into a purposeful ponzi where the properties are illusions and scams.
It would be an act of war that has not occurred
within Bitcoin ecosystem yet. What you are advocating is the annihilation
of the trustless network and the creation of a trusted corporate platform.
On the contrary. I'm saying that bitcoin IS a corporate platform right now, if ever "miners can find an agreement" by "negociating in a room".
First, that is only based on a current viewing of transitory events.
Second, there are times where miners getting together to discuss issues is
appropriate, as long as it is made public and a true record is made public. All separate
groups within the Bitcoin Community should have separate and together meetings
and discussions to determine certain aspects of the Bitcoin system. Consensus does
not come about in a vacuum, but through time and discussions. When the best possible
choice has the most backing from all groups (devs,miners, exchanges, economies,
users, etc) then an action is taken and within Consensus. So not all meetings are bad.
Back on topic, for Bitcoin to become a "trusted corporate platform" it must have a small
amount of miners all licensed and regulated by their respective governments. Your
belief either means that large miners are currently secret governmental operations,
will outmaneuver government regulation forever (not likely as blocksize increases in
short intervals of time), or are just dumb or suicidal.
But in all of this, the essentially difficult and impossible step, is for those "stepping out". For miners, stepping out means MODIFYING the protocol they are used to. For full nodes, stepping out means: installing software that is not compatible with the actually made chain.
For miners, this implies that they fork away.
For nodes, it means that they stop.
This is the strong force of immutability. For every actor, it is individually a crazy thing to do to deviate from the actual consensus protocol. For miners, it means that they might start wasting all their hash rate. For nodes, it means that they exclude themselves, and cannot transact any more.
I agree with everything other than your immutability term.
Immutability has nothing to do with what you stated otherwise.
Immutability only exists as long as there is no purposefully undoing past work to
erase or prevent a valid on-chain action.
That is your belief. You ignore that the system is cyclical. Each part of the
system feeds the fuel for the next part. When you say "the v-nodes stop
and can't transact" you are ignoring where the miners coins ultimately go
after 200 more confirmations. You ignore that the whole system will
eventually stop. You think the party goes on forever.
This is again because you think in corporate terms. There are not "two camps with two leaders". There are not "two armies facing one another, with each their general".
Each mining pool is an individual entity, and each user (whether Joe or whether Coinbase) is an individual entity, that is not in a hierarchical relationship, or in any other form of collusion, with any other entity. That is the hypothesis of decentralization: no collusion, no agreements, between individual entities. From the moment there are agreements on collective action, the system is by definition, centralized under the authority of the one organizing the collective action. So we presume that mining pools don't sit together in a room, and we presume that users (even big ones) don't sit together in a room. If they do, we have a corporate organisation.
I do not think in corporate terms, you ignore my overall argument to now talk about
mining pools and corporate terms. Those were not my arguments so you either
don't understand me or are intentionally changing the subject. Your statement above
doesn't even address my statement in anyway. I am talking about how Bitcoin is a
symbiotic organism that each sub system feeds into the next, allowing it to survive.
You are talking about only mining and ignoring all other sub systems.
Mining pools being "decentralized mining" is deceptive since it is only the final block
signal that is important. I could have 80% of the hash within a mining pool and the
20% are thousands of individuals. In theory, my 80% hash will allow me to have
majority signaling within that pool, thus that pool is not a true pool, but is effectively
my single mining facility. So in that sense, Mining Pools are equivalent to single miners
since they have possibility of being exploited.
Anyway, my paragraph that you quoted was making the point that after 200 blocks,
the miners past block reward is allowed to be moved (by the terms of the current
protocol). If a miner hardforks without verifying nodes following, that block reward
after 200 blocks, is lost to that miner since it does not exist to anyone other than
the miner(s). The miner needs the exchanges and users to follow the chain they
are building upon. But, what my argument is and that you continue to never address
is that there is no mechanism that forces exchanges or users to follow this new chain.
So, the fact that this is our reality, means that the miners do not control the chain
or the future of Bitcoin, but only have the power through PoW to determine block
inclusions and block building. The true power and control comes from the users
who are using or speculating the value, which is purchased or paid by P2P (as
Satoshi envisioned and designed) or exchanges. Thus, the miners are only an
economically enforced competitive mechanism within the full Bitcoin organism,
that is subject to the wills of the non-miners and are used by the non-miners as
a proxy to cause chain determinations. That is my point and argument. Yet you
do not ever address why I am wrong, instead you say that valid and invalid blocks
are illusions and purposefully ignore the rules of the system.
Instead of agreeing with my reasoning or disagreeing based on a misunderstanding
of mine or incorrect procedure of the Bitcoin system, you argue that miners can and
will change the rules, which doesn't prove true legitimate power but shows that if
miners can't influence or coerce, they will just change the rules of the game on
their own, in mid-game like children who lose in children's games. Satoshi never
intended that and would consider that an obvious attack to all non-miners.
Now, at any given moment in time, each of these entities has to make an INDIVIDUAL choice, between "adhering to what is running", or "deviating from what is running". For a miner, that means, forking. As long as a miner is mining according to the emergent protocol of the past, and is making blocks that most probably will be accepted by his peers, he's not deviating. From the moment he starts rejecting blocks that his peers make, or start producing blocks that will be rejected by his peers, he forks away, and tries to build an alternative chain.
I agree with everything except your term of "emergent protocol of the past".
I do not understand what that means since the protocol is not emergent in
Bitcoin currently. There may be aspects of the system that are "emergent"
but the protocol was not intended to be. Satoshi's protocol was intended to
freeze and not be adjusted, unless there are bugs/emergencies. The protocol
can not be emergent since that is an obvious attack vector through time, only
subsystems of Bitcoin can be emergent. The base protocol itself was not intended
to evolve, that is a modern day misconception that only came about around
sometime in 2015 to 2016. We can add features, scripts, subsystems, and etc,
but "evolving protocol through time" is extremely concerning. The value of the
system and token no longer becomes a known entity that is dependable and
trusted, but becomes nebulous and fully at the will of attackers and the ignorant.
Who would trust a digital asset/currency, that at any time, pushed by any party,
could change the systems rules through this emergent mechanism? You are arguing
for the exact mechanism that the financial world uses and that which Satoshi was
upset about. It is an exploit, not an advantage. Your Emergent Protocol Mechanism
will be used to erode and ultimately destroy Bitcoin.
If a miner takes that decision individually, he's most probably going to make, as a first one, a risky move. He can bet on the fact that other miners will see this and take the decision to follow him, or not, but making a bitcoin fork on your own, is risky: you may waste all your hash rate doing so. In a decentralized system, miner pools need to take these decisions individually. If they sit together in a room, the system is a corporate centralized entity.
In our current system, Mining pools being considered decentralized is an
assumption. You have chosen to trust untrustable parties. You must assume
all miners are already compromised and colluding. It would be very passive and
naive to think otherwise in the system we participate. It does not matter whether
they are business corporations or not, that is irrelevant.
If an individual user installs non-mining node software at a moment "t" in time that is not compatible with the unique chain that is being made at that very moment, most probably, at that very moment, this new software will simply not sync. If that individual user needs his node to connect his wallet to, he will not have a functioning wallet, and will not be able to transact. If he needs these transactions for his business, he kills his business.
As such, for each individual entity, the act of "deviating" is most probably a losing one. It for sure is a losing one for the node owner. It CAN be a risky but profitable bet for the miner, forking away. It is true that *users* telling a miner that if he forks away, and he can keep his chain alive (which is difficult with bitcoin, given the slow difficulty adaptation) he may win in the market, might motivate him to jump and take the risk, if he thinks that the fork will be more beneficial to him, than the original protocol. However, the nodes not being directly proportional to the user power in the market, counting node votes is a very bad market study. Probably the market behaviour is not going to change because some nodes signal something. So whether there are signalling nodes or not, doesn't change much, in fact, for the miner's decision. But again, the *decision* is entirely in the hands of miners. All the rest is just "propaganda".
Yes and No.
The issue that you are talking about now, is whether "Miners follow the blockchain"
or the "blockchain follows the Miners". Though I do not care about UASF and have
not been discussing it, the USAF theory is partially based on what I am referring to.
So, we have two choices:
1)
Your Argument.
(a) Miners have full authority to do what they please in all scenarios.
(b) The "Consensus" only exists between the miners.
(c) The "blockchain" only exists to facilitate their consensus.
(d) The "markets" only exist to facilitate that consensus.
(e) The "users" only exist to facilitate that consensus.
Results of 1:
Bitcoin as a currency/commodity only exists as the Miner's delusion.
Value of the system and token is comparable to current financial systems.
Experiment is a failure since the Miner's dominated over the system.
The token is an illusion and all aspects serve no purpose.
2)
My Argument.
(a)The Verifying Nodes reinforce that Miners comply with current rules.
(b) The "Consensus" exists between Miners and Economic/Verifying Nodes.
(c) The "blockchain" only exists to facilitate their collective consensus.
(d) The "markets" already are included in Section (b).
(e) The "users" are already included in section (b) or (d).
Results of 2:
Bitcoin as a currency/commodity exists as a trustless consensus from diff parts.
Value of the system and token is compared to a digital truth.
Experiment continues since the Miners only move with all non-miner nodes.
The token is quazi-concrete and all aspects are reinforced and secured.
My point, though the Miners are the only subsystem that has the power to build,
pick, or move between the chains (which no one ever, anywhere, has ever
disputed), that does not mean their unilateral action and consensus between
themselves is always correct or creates a valuable future. Due to that being
plainly obvious, the conclusion is that their decision of a future action is based
upon non-miners participation in consensus before action. The non-action is
reinforced by verifying nodes "not following the non-compliant chain". The
Miner's gamble with a certain "non-compliant proposal" would only be deemed
correct by market forces which are manipulable and disconnected from the
community, who are legitimately using the Bitcoin token. The miners are placing
their future in the hands of deceptions (which makes sense from your arguments
point of view since you think all things are illusions anyway).
There should always be one chain, one token, otherwise the market will slowly
destroy the whole system. The human markets are not a true decider, it is a whore
who consumes over time. The effects of it's destruction is not known till may years
into the future. Bitcoin was not designed to have it's future determined by the
human markets. Market determination is the opposite of Consensus. Only the
token is speculative, not the protocol, not consensus, not miners, not verifying
nodes. In opposition, you have argued that all matters of the system, including
the protocol, is speculative and up for debate within the human markets. That is
not Bitcoin as Satoshi designed, that is an attack vector. You wish Bitcoin's Protocol
to be controlled by an insatiable manipulative whore.
Your faith in the human markets is a way to defer your responsibility to others, so
that when Bitcoin collapses and is destroyed by your actions and arguments for
Emergent Protocols, you can wash your hands and say, "I was not wrong, the
markets only revealed the truth to us.". So, you want the great whore to tell
you what is truth. I ask you what was the truth that Satoshi understood and
millions of people learned in 2008-2009? You are in opposition of that truth.
You are ignoring the full symbiotic Bitcoin organism just to argue that
Verifying Node have no value and that only Miner nodes matter. Overall
it is a shortsighted argument.
I'm not saying that only miner nodes matter. I'm saying that only miner nodes define what is valid, what is the consensus protocol, what is the consensus history etc.... But they don't determine market value. That's left to the users. And of course miners are sensitive to the market value.
I'm just saying that in this symbiosis, as you call it, there's no *power* role for non-mining nodes. There's utility, but that utility is mainly for its owner, and it is also a free proxy service for mining pools. But they don't master any lever arm in the power game in that "symbiosis", which I rather see as half symbiosis, half predator-prey.
No, the only difference between a verifying node and a mining node is that
miner nodes create blocks using PoW algo. Creating blocks does not
guarantee valid or invalid. That is a lie that is easily determinable because
PoW DOES NOT MANDATE VALIDITY, they are separate parts. Miners have 3
parts and Verifying Nodes have 2 parts. The difference is only block building
(thus some call them non-mining nodes, since they do all else).
Miners choose the chain in the event of a fork, but that does not mean that fork
is valid or invalid, that is semantics. Validity is determined by whether the rules
are enforced and verification of signatures occurred within the last block, not
future blocks. That is not security based but maladjusted argument based.
Validity is a proof, it has either occurred or not. When you argue validity is not
a proof, it is quite shocking and evident that your argument is nonsense.
Once again, I disagree with your interpretation of current events and how the
current system functions. I would also like to point out that you never directly
addressed my statements and advise why my beliefs are incorrect. Instead, you
continue to repeat the same thing over and over, which has been disproved by
history and current events.
Yesterday, I read a document produced by Barry Silbert and certain institutions
within the Bitcoin Community (I disagree with the terms of that agreement,
especially since the terms are nebulous and empty. An agreement is intended
to define things, not obfuscate issues more. This agreement will likely create
more damage to a real agreement or consensus than bring about any resolution.).
The fact that any miner participated and agreed with that document, and join with
those other signing entities, proves my overall argument. Every non-miner who
signed that document is effectively a non-mining node. That document is a present
day representation of why my viewpoint and argument is correct (though I disagree
with the agreement itself).
Until a miner or miners hardfork the chain without high consensus and the
community and users follow along like lost children, you will always be wrong with
your understanding as to the miner's power. That power, as intended by Saotshi
in 2007, failed and eroded within a short time after the client was released and tested.
If you wish to ignore that reality since you depend on the whitepaper being 100%
correct, since it is the only foundation of your understanding of these issues, then so
be it. But that doesn't mean you are correct, that only means you are ignorant of
things that you are not specifically told about by Satoshi.
Satoshi understood in 2010 that what we call "Nakamoto Consensus" today,
failed almost immediately. He implemented the 1MB Cap to prevent the foreseeable
failures from Miner centralization too soon and then left. Ultimately today, Miners
and Verifying & Economic Node together form our "Consensus" in order to determine
the future path. If Miners claim sole power, as per the terms of the "Whitepaper", they
will discover what Satoshi knew in 2010 and what you deny. The truth is that PoW,
though very important for the Bitcoin/blockchain system, does not actually affect the
networks consensus in any advanced way. The PoW Consensus (Miners) has been
relegated to turning a wheel in a car, driven by the Verifying & Economic Nodes.
Basically, in the most simple terms, when ASICs came about and mining became
centralized, Satoshi's original experiment failed (Whitepaper). He patched as best
he could and began our current experiment. This experiment version (Verifying Nodes
are maintained in a decentralized, independent, and non-regulatable way in order
to offset the failures and anticipated future failures from Experiment 1) evolved
naturally from the 1MB Cap being implemented.
What the average (and some advanced) Bitcoiner fails to realize is that Bitcoin only
exists today and functions at all, because he implemented the 1MB Cap to off set his
fatal error. They do not see the truth, because Satoshi did not recite it to them from
the mountain top. The truth is, there is no such thing as "honest nodes". All nodes
are deemed malicious and untrusted. Only the decentralized independently verified
ledger is "honest". Those who wish to implement the Whitepaper version of Bitcoin,
and bring back "honest nodes" are misguided at best or purposefully destructive at
worst. Satoshi is dead and so is Bitcoin Experiment Version 1. We need to accept
this and create new possibilities, not fall back to old misunderstandings and old
theories that came from lack of knowledge. We have advanced much in 9 years
and we need to move forward not back. Miners are only one part of a multi part
organism in Bitcoin Experiment Version 2. If you want a Version 3 with SegWit
and/or blocksize bumps, that is fine within Consensus, but going back to Version 1
where success or failure is contingent only on a certain percentage of "honest (miner)
nodes" is very flawed and dangerous.
