Why do some people believe that only the nodes miners run matter?

[Traxo]

From @anonymint of course...

Will probably not reply to any misunderstandings or arguments spawned from this, because have too much work to do.

I have been waiting for someone to ask this question since I have the same question, and I'm just a newbie who reluctant to start a new topic.

From what I read arguments against non-mining full node, as follows:

It doesn't make the network stronger. It's actually the opposite. A non-mining full node only acts as a "witness." It doesn't have the ability to put/discard transactions in the blockchain. Thus, it only delays sending transactions to the node that really matters.

Of course it does. If a full validating node that is not a miner receives a non-valid transaction then it will not propagate it to the rest of the network.
  

True and you’re correct to imply that makes the network more resilient. Bolsters for example in protecting against DDoS attacks, because there are more nodes that an attacker would have to take down in order to partition or otherwise impact the propagation of valid data on the P2P network. You’re correct that nodes don’t forward invalid data, because doing so would allow amplification attacks and generally break the contract of mutual protection.

But on the overriding theme it appears that you and @amishmanish are trying to use that as a strawman argument in order to making an incorrect argument for the relevance of non-mining nodes.

The non-mining nodes do this work for free to protect mining nodes. The mining nodes are the only ones being paid by the consensus system. If the non-mining nodes all disappeared, mining nodes would have to set up these perpherial nodes and pay for them. Because mining nodes must have a robust P2P network in order to insure their income stream. And mining nodes probably already do control many nodes for this reason. A mining farm does not put all its hashrate behind one node on the network, lol.

So really as I already explained in my prior two curt posts in this thread, I still maintain that non-mining nodes are irrelevant.

And for propagation of new block announcements, I reiterate again that it is a measured fact that the connections are hashrate-weighted and so the mining nodes make sure they have best connectivity to the hashrate that matters and non-mining nodes have no ability to delay or impact the propagation of new block announcements if for example they disagree with something such as a protocol change in a fork.

Full validating nodes also assure censorship resistance and can give checks and balances to miners' nodes.

Censorship can never be objectively proven. You seem to not be aware of the inherent limitations of triangulation due to lack of perfect network synchronization that is a fundamental fact of physics in our universe.

Non-mining nodes do not matter at all w.r.t. to the consensus, as will be further discussed below.

I stated that running a non-mining full node provides an objective perspective on the chain. But validation of Nakamoto proof-of-work can be done offline. Propagation order doesn’t matter, so validation doesn’t need to be live.

On the other hand, if you leave only the miners to run full nodes while the rest of the world is supposed to assume they are honest, it changes everything.

I’m sorry that you force me to be argumentative. Perhaps you’re not aware of all the following points?

AFAICT, you’re again making strawman arguments.

If miners were to accept willy-nilly protocol errors (as opposed to rallying in unified hashrate around a fork of agreed protocol changes) such as minting more coinbase reward per block than allowed by the protocol, then incentives compatibility would be lost and the longest chain rule would be ambiguous because there would no longer be an exclusive incentive (i.e. no single contract) to mine on the longest chain. Miners can’t do this because they would destroy their income stream because the chain would fork off into dozens or more forks that never reconcile into a longest chain. Thus no one could spend. The consensus would not unambiguously progress forward. The only viable way for miners to fork the protocol, is by agreement of a majority of the hashrate. Period. The non-mining nodes are irrelevant. As for the politics, I discuss that below after a tangential paragraph...

Btw (and slightly off-topic), Nakamoto proof-of-work becomes incentives incompatible and will no longer converge on a longest chain when the transaction fees rise to become much larger than the block rewards. And Byzcoin is not a solution to this insoluble dilemma. This is why proof-of-work must be run by an oligarchy of miners otherwise it will fall into tragedy-of-the-commons clusterfsck. This tragedy-of-the-commons is also caused by the insoluble problem that no choice for a block size (not even Monero’s adjustment algorithm with tail reward) can resolve the game theory errors in the design. Thus the only way Nakamoto proof-of-work will continue to be incentives compatible is with an oligarchy of mining running it and extracting the maximum transaction fees that the market can bear. This is why none of us will be transacting on-chain in the future when transaction fees are $50,000. These are facts. Review the cited links if you’re not aware of all the details.

So the bottom line is that proof-of-work was designed to become fully centralized. See also the Decentralized section of @anonymint’s latest blog.

So your valid concern is that fully centralized mining could if not validated by users do some protocol errors. I never argued against this point. In my first post in this thread, I stated that running a non-mining full node provides an objective perspective on the chain. But validation of Nakamoto proof-of-work can be done offline. Propagation order doesn’t matter, so validation doesn’t need to be live.

You choose to keep ignoring the point being made on the technicality of "non-mining nodes cannot append onto the blockchain". Everyone knows that. Where do you think bitcoin derives it value from? Bitcoin does not derive its value from miners or the longest chain. It derives value from the usage and non-third party trust ensured by the PoW security that miners provide.

I do not see where I ever ignored any valid point pertaining to this thread. You seem to be implying that a user activated hard fork could work. Incorrect. I already stated that the only way it can work is by changing the proof-of-work hash function. And note that changing the proof-of-work will make the security initially very low. If the miners decide to go rogue for whatever reason they decide to, then the non-mining nodes can’t do anything about it other than announce the protocol errors to the community.

If the community decides to abandon the chain and spend their tokens to some other chain, then the miners apparently would have a reason for wanting that outcome. Perhaps they shorted their own token, so they can buy it up cheap and then stop attacking and profit on the rebound in price. There are many possible externalities and none of us are omnscient enough to fully reason about all of them a priori. For example, if the 666 coincides with Bitcoin being the world reserve currency, the world government run by the powers-that-be may not give a shit at the future juncture whether some nerds and their user activated hardfurk doesn’t agree with the global politics. For example if they debase the money supply functioning as a world central bank. Presumably at the future juncture they would have the political support to do what they want to do. The problem with your strawman theory of users uniting to defect from miner defection from ideals, is that as Vitalik had explained that altriusm-prime is an undersupplied public good. IOW, that there’s no Schelling point by which users will rally around to fight the politics. Because always users have many selfish vested interests which outweigh a collective interest. This is why democracy is always fscked.

Do you really think you are smarter than the think-tanks of the Zionists who have employed armies of those with 160 IQs. Do you think they have not thought through many of the possibilities going forward? We have some smart guys on this forum. If they dig into the details as deep as @anonymint has, they might be humbled as he has been. We’re so self-important. But we’re not! We will get our diapers changed by those powers-that-be who understand the game theory of political-economics, unless perhaps we wise up and stop pretending to ourselves that it’s so simple.

Devil in the details. Please open your mind and dig into.

[1713909249]

1713909249

[1713909249]

1713909249

[Wind_FURY]

From @anonymint of course...

Will probably not reply to any misunderstandings or arguments spawned from this, because have too much work to do.

I have been waiting for someone to ask this question since I have the same question, and I'm just a newbie who reluctant to start a new topic.

From what I read arguments against non-mining full node, as follows:

It doesn't make the network stronger. It's actually the opposite. A non-mining full node only acts as a "witness." It doesn't have the ability to put/discard transactions in the blockchain. Thus, it only delays sending transactions to the node that really matters.

Of course it does. If a full validating node that is not a miner receives a non-valid transaction then it will not propagate it to the rest of the network.
  

True and you’re correct to imply that makes the network more resilient. Bolsters for example in protecting against DDoS attacks, because there are more nodes that an attacker would have to take down in order to partition or otherwise impact the propagation of valid data on the P2P network. You’re correct that nodes don’t forward invalid data, because doing so would allow amplification attacks and generally break the contract of mutual protection.

But on the overriding theme it appears that you and @amishmanish are trying to use that as a strawman argument in order to making an incorrect argument for the relevance of non-mining nodes.

The non-mining nodes do this work for free to protect mining nodes. The mining nodes are the only ones being paid by the consensus system. If the non-mining nodes all disappeared, mining nodes would have to set up these perpherial nodes and pay for them. Because mining nodes must have a robust P2P network in order to insure their income stream. And mining nodes probably already do control many nodes for this reason. A mining farm does not put all its hashrate behind one node on the network, lol.

So really as I already explained in my prior two curt posts in this thread, I still maintain that non-mining nodes are irrelevant.

Non-mining nodes might be viewed as irrelevant by the rest of the network but the relevance of running one should matter to you. It would also be in a Bitcoiner's self interest to do and validate his own transactions instead of relying for someone else to do them for you, which what SPV wallets do.

Maintaining censorship resistance and a sovereign asset system depends on it.

And for propagation of new block announcements, I reiterate again that it is a measured fact that the connections are hashrate-weighted and so the mining nodes make sure they have best connectivity to the hashrate that matters and non-mining nodes have no ability to delay or impact the propagation of new block announcements if for example they disagree with something such as a protocol change in a fork.

I do know how that matters, and not sure if this is a good counterargument, but BIP148 made the miners move in the direction of the community.

Full validating nodes also assure censorship resistance and can give checks and balances to miners' nodes.

Censorship can never be objectively proven. You seem to not be aware of the inherent limitations of triangulation due to lack of perfect network synchronization that is a fundamental fact of physics in our universe.

Non-mining nodes do not matter at all w.r.t. to the consensus, as will be further discussed below.

I stated that running a non-mining full node provides an objective perspective on the chain. But validation of Nakamoto proof-of-work can be done offline. Propagation order doesn’t matter, so validation doesn’t need to be live.

Are you saying that mining nodes can censor my transaction if I do it from my full node?

I will wait for amishmanish to reply, before doing it myself.

Plus Traxo, tell anonymint to reply himself. Thanks.

[monkeydominicorobin]

All full validating nodes, mining or not, validate all the transactions and blocks in the network and check if they follow the rules, correct?

Then I assume that that my node is as good as a miner's node.

But why do some people believe that only the miners' nodes matter and are very quick to cite this?



Is there a technicality in how the whitepaper is written?

Plus if the miners create the block and their nodes do the only validations that matter then what's the point?

It is just a propaganda to make you doubt the tenacity of blockchain technology. If they can do that nobody is going to stop them. Just do it. Don't make false claims against distributed networks. We want action. Not empty promises and manifesto.

[mindphuq]

All full validating nodes, mining or not, validate all the transactions and blocks in the network and check if they follow the rules, correct?

Then I assume that that my node is as good as a miner's node.

No. Your node validates transactions but you need a base to validate them on, and that base is the history of the longest chain. That's why in a double-spend attack the attacker prepeares a fake history, then she does her 1st spend and issues a fork of the history that doesn't include her own transaction. Your full node will see the fork and trust the longest chain, which comes in this case from the attacker who then can spend her coins again.

But why do some people believe that only the miners' nodes matter and are very quick to cite this?



Is there a technicality in how the whitepaper is written?

Plus if the miners create the block and their nodes do the only validations that matter then what's the point?

"One-CPU-one vote" in his paper, Satoshi did not expect miningpools to take over. Originally it was intended that every user of full nodes particiates in maintaining the Blockchain by giving some of her CPU-power to the network and earning a reward for it. Today we have a mining industry that has no interest in the coin what so ever as long as they make profit from it. They don't even have to use the coin at all for anything else but to sell the reward for their profit.

Other protocols like PoS are more close to Satoshi's orignial intend, where everyone who has a wallet open stakes a part of their coins to keep the Blockchain running and by attacking the Blockchain they risk losing their own investment they have in the coin.

[goddog]

Let me re-quote myself with bolded emphasis on the point which (I had written twice before which) explains that no one benefits from running non-mining nodes because the objectivity of the blockchain can be verified offline:

sure, validation can be done offline, you can run a pruned full node with listen=0 and not accepting incoming connections, you are not givining a fk to the bitcoin network, but does not matter, you should run a full node to verify blocks for yourself. If you don't run a full node you are not using bitcoin! if you don't run a full node you are using a slow inefficent paypal with a nerd authentication system.

Lol. Those who accept UTXO with SegWit in the transaction history (even if they obtained the BTC from an exchange) could possibly have all their BTC stolen by the miners r private keysin a future long-range 50+% attack on SegWitwithou t ever touching your wallet or you. May happen or may not happen, but of course those (i.e. Blockstream/Core) who want you to adopt SegWit will try to tell you it can never happen, yet they refuse to debate me (they’ll probably fabricate flimsy reasons to ban this account also in order to hide the debate). That is why I will be very careful about the lineage of the BTC I am holding as SegWit transaction volume ramps up. Because SegWit is pay to anyone. It totally breaks the security of proof-of-work. SegWit is like a virus so the oligarchy can steal from all the n00bs who decide to spend their BTC to SegWit “pay to anyone”.

bullshit, if a miner try to steal segwit coins his block is invalid. No way they will be able to steal coins and produce a valid block. Segwit is here to stay and my full node(not miners) tell me what is it valid and what no.!
TRB don't understand softforks so it will make users think they can spend segwit or p2sh, but they can not. I don't care what miners do, I only care what my node tell me is valid or not.

Code:

If:
  2 ⨁ 3 = 10
  
  7 ⨁ 2 = 63
  6 ⨁ 5 = 66
  8 ⨁ 4 = 96

then:

  9 ⨁ 7 = ?

9*16=144

Non-mining nodes do not matter at all w.r.t. to the consensus, as will be further discussed below.

my full node matter for me! so I can verify and not trust.!!!

I stated that running a non-mining full node provides an objective perspective on the chain. But validation of Nakamoto proof-of-work can be done offline. Propagation order doesn’t matter, so validation doesn’t need to be live.

correct, My node only broadcast my transactions, I don't care others :-D

I’m 100% for decentralization and permissionless/censorship resistance. But I am not for promulgating incorrect information. If ever I am shown to be incorrect, then I will rescind, but I can’t fathom how I could be incorrect on this issue. I have studied this.

You are wrong you told segwit will allow miners to steal bitcoins LOL, calling segwit a virus, rotfl, that's a FALSE bs. please stop spreading this propaganda bs.! It is false. there are only 12 known nodes running TRB, vs 85000 full nodes running bitcoin-core >0.15! TRB nodes can not really validate blocks, as they don't understand any softfork made since then.!

[goddog]

Your reply is nonsense and incorrect.

The offline node can entirely validate all the transactions, Merkle trees, block hashes, and proofs-of-work.

There’s absolute no reason to need to be online to objectively verify what transpired, unless you’re claiming that you don’t have a copy of the longest chain that was published.

So go query as many sources as you want, asking for the longest chain they have. Then verify the longest one.

we are saying the same thing, your full node don't need to be online,
what is a full node? a full node is a software that verify all blocks. It can be pruned, it don't need to be always online, my full node is not always online, it came online when I ask for the longest chain.

IOW, only one node on the entire network has to be honest in terms of saving a copy of the longest chain. Then everyone else can objectively verify offline that is indeed the longest chain and that all the data is objectively valid.

to verify offline that is indeed the longest chain, you need a full node. An spv client can not verify the longest chain.

Incorrect. P2SH is equivalent to “pay to anyone”.

p2sh like segwit are equivalent to pay to anyone only for outaded nodes.

You are incorrect. If you put a huge booty carrot out there for the mining cartels to profit on, then they have every incentive to take your donations. Read this.

My node tell me if a block is valid or not, mining cartels can mine their altcoin as long as they want. it has no value for me.!

Dude node count means nothing at all.

Distributed != decentralized. That is a fundamental error in conceptualization on your part.

It is all about who controls the mining from behind the curtain. Of course they want you to think your safe. And you have lots of nodes. That is how they fool you into donating your BTC to them.

Watch and learn next year (or when ever the SegWit booty piles up large enough). And do not whine when your BTC is “Poof it’s gone”. I tried to warn you, but you’re hard headed.

I will repeat if it is not clear, my node tell me what is valid and what is not. Miners trying to steal segwit will mine an invalid chain and my node will never consider their chain as valid because it is not, no mater how long their chain is, if it is invalid, is invalid.!
Your coins will be stolen only if you use an spv wallet trusting mining cartels.
I don't trust mining cartels, so I run a full node(it is not always online, most of the time it is offline).!!!!

Bitcoin means trust no one, I don't trust miners, I don't trust other full nodes, I will verify which is the longest valid chain and follow it.! if a chain is not valid for my node, it is an altcoin. I only trust that most people give a value to the same chain I'm following.
If people don't run a full node they can be cheated by mining cartels and give some value to a shitcoin pretenting to be bitcoin.

[goddog]

The entire thesis is that if you put a huge booty in front of the mining cartel’s nose then they can set their mining nodes to use Satoshi's protocol and claim they’re doing what is correct, because Core was a trojan horse that convinced all this stupid fools to spend their BTC to “pay to anyone”.

And remember miners are entirely anonymous. Who you going to complain to when your BTC is gone? The majority of the hashrate will have been paid a huge profit and will not agree to give it back! How will you overrun their hash power? Will you USAF on a new proof-of-work hash function to turn their mining equipment into doorstops? But then your new fork will have nearly no security. So they will fuck your new coin to hell by renting GPUs. In fact, DCC has huge mining farms of GPUs ready to go for such an attack.

The powers-that-be are outwitting you fools Wake up.

[..]

And you will have no objectivity at all about what is valid, because they can turn your low security fork into dozens or maybe even 100s of forks that are valid for your node. So no transactions will confirm. The chain will be stuck. Your node will report continuous chain reorganizations and huge orphan rate.

Dude please. I don’t have time for this. If you don’t believe me, then go ahead and try it. Lol.

miners will mine the most profitable chain. An altcoin that steal segwit transactions will never be profitable to be mined, stolen coins will have no value on the market. So there is no booty, they can claim what they want, like what it is trying to do bitcoincash. Bitcoincash have little to no hashpower, less transaction than dogecoin, no one really use it, no one really want it, it is only a stupid pump and dump coin used to scam traders and investors with zero knowledge about physics.

[Wind_FURY]

All full validating nodes, mining or not, validate all the transactions and blocks in the network and check if they follow the rules, correct?

Then I assume that that my node is as good as a miner's node.

No. Your node validates transactions but you need a base to validate them on, and that base is the history of the longest chain. That's why in a double-spend attack the attacker prepeares a fake history, then she does her 1st spend and issues a fork of the history that doesn't include her own transaction. Your full node will see the fork and trust the longest chain, which comes in this case from the attacker who then can spend her coins again.

Assuming that a 51% attack was successful. But when the network starts noticing that there's a "bad actor" in the network, won't the nodes start rejecting blocks from him?

But why do some people believe that only the miners' nodes matter and are very quick to cite this?



Is there a technicality in how the whitepaper is written?

Plus if the miners create the block and their nodes do the only validations that matter then what's the point?

"One-CPU-one vote" in his paper, Satoshi did not expect miningpools to take over. Originally it was intended that every user of full nodes particiates in maintaining the Blockchain by giving some of her CPU-power to the network and earning a reward for it. Today we have a mining industry that has no interest in the coin what so ever as long as they make profit from it. They don't even have to use the coin at all for anything else but to sell the reward for their profit.

Other protocols like PoS are more close to Satoshi's orignial intend, where everyone who has a wallet open stakes a part of their coins to keep the Blockchain running and by attacking the Blockchain they risk losing their own investment they have in the coin.

But the problem with POS is distribution. I also believe that we are underestimating the role of burning energy to create scarce coins of value.

At any rate, time to move on. There are other long replies to read. Haha.

[ranochigo]

Assuming that a 51% attack was successful. But when the network starts noticing that there's a "bad actor" in the network, won't the nodes start rejecting blocks from him?

When the network realises the attack, then it would be too late. 51% attacks are essentially an attacker building their own private chain alongside the honest chain. When the time is ripe, they will release the chain and the history of the other chain would essentially be wiped clean.

Nodes can't reject blocks as they wish, unfortunately. They could invalidate the chain but it would have to be done manually and the client would probably have to be modified. The attack can continue after the release of the chain too, as long as they can sustain 51% of the hashrate.

[goddog]

Assuming that a 51% attack was successful. But when the network starts noticing that there's a "bad actor" in the network, won't the nodes start rejecting blocks from him?

the longest valid chain is valid. 51% attack cannot be stopped without an hardfork. We can only pray that 51% is not and will never be profitable on bitcoin. A successful 51% attack on bitcoin will provoke a panic sell and the attack will be stopped because it is no more profitable.
if the attack persist after the panic sell, bye bye cryptocurrencies. It was a funny experiment.

[bones261]

The "steal all the segwit" chain would be absolutely worthless. The markets will most likely be frozen before the bad actor can close their short positions. Even if the bad actor was fast, it is highly doubtful that the bad actor will be able to recoup his costs for this 10+ month chain reorganization he will be attempting, especially in this relatively illiquid market. Also, if the bad actor's intent was to absolutely destroy Bitcoin, that will not come to fruition either. I would see an emergency hardfork in the works. I really doubt any entity is going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try and implement a "steal the segwit" 51% attack. Also, I doubt that the attacker is somehow going to make his chain plausible by trying to bribe people to accept it. How many billions is that going to cost?  

[Wind_FURY]

Assuming that a 51% attack was successful. But when the network starts noticing that there's a "bad actor" in the network, won't the nodes start rejecting blocks from him?

When the network realises the attack, then it would be too late. 51% attacks are essentially an attacker building their own private chain alongside the honest chain. When the time is ripe, they will release the chain and the history of the other chain would essentially be wiped clean.

Nodes can't reject blocks as they wish, unfortunately. They could invalidate the chain but it would have to be done manually and the client would probably have to be modified. The attack can continue after the release of the chain too, as long as they can sustain 51% of the hashrate.

I also read that in case of a successful 51% attack, there is nothing a miner can do except censor a transaction. I have not studied the details but that is also relevant to the topic, or might be a good new topic. I am confused now. There's too many details to discuss.

Anonymint, give me time to digests your posts. Hahaha.

Plus I found this. Satoshi's "original vision" included non-mining nodes as a security measure.

[squatter]

Non-mining nodes might be viewed as irrelevant by the rest of the network but the relevance of running one should matter to you. It would also be in a Bitcoiner's self interest to do and validate his own transactions instead of relying for someone else to do them for you, which what SPV wallets do.

Maintaining censorship resistance and a sovereign asset system depends on it.

Censorship resistance, I think, is built on the rational mining incentive, not users running full nodes. Miners are incentivized to publish any/all transactions they can based on fee priority, because of the block reward. That's what keeps them from censoring any given transaction -- fees.

The problem with SPV wallets (aside from privacy) is that users can't know if a payment they receive is valid. Whether a payment they send is censored by the mining network is a separate issue entirely.

Are you saying that mining nodes can censor my transaction if I do it from my full node?

Sure they can. A malicious group of miners just needs enough hash power to orphan any blocks that contain your transaction from the best chain.

[I only (correctly) stated that online non-mining (full) nodes are irrelevant to the online process of consensus.

I believe this is correct. Non-mining nodes don't really participate in the consensus process. They merely validate what miners do.

But the existence of validating non-mining nodes is a powerful check on miners, since a robust network of full nodes will reject attempts at dishonest mining that break consensus rules. "Reject" isn't even the right word; they'll be completely ignorant of the invalid forks because they are incompatible protocols. Major economic nodes like exchanges are especially relevant here, because they won't risk accepting invalid coins from miners, which presumably keeps miners in line.

If a miner breaks consensus with economically relevant nodes, his future block rewards may end up worthless. That's a strong incentive not to break consensus.

They can turn your fork into mush that never confirms and has continuous chain reorganizations.

Many people predicted that would happen when Bcash forked. Instead, Bcash had to hard fork a second time because of slow block times.

Apparently, there wasn't enough incentive amongst miners to risk attacking Bitcoin. What makes you think that incentive will ever emerge?

They won’t spend anything. The attack will be very, very profitable. They recently created futures markets in their lairs which they control. Nasdaq futures being added soon as well. They do not have to spend anything to bribe other miners. They simply tell the other miners that they can keep all the P2SH SegWit booty which they confiscate in their blocks. Mining is anonymous. Every person you know who is mining will jump on the chance for free money, while they won’t tell you they defected from your unprofitable USAF. Money talks, bullshit idealistic bankruptcy walks.

For various reasons (like massive ventures with significant required infrastructure and high electricity costs), industrial miners are not anonymous. As Peter Todd points out, colluding and openly attacking the network could bring significant bad PR or even criminal charges.

Segwit transactions represent 1/3 of the network. You think when 1/3 of the network has their outputs stolen, that all users are just going to quietly eat the losses? They'll download the miners' client and start following the miners' chain? Why?

UASFs / hard forks to address such miner attacks may be extremely inefficient. However, it doesn't follow that most users will remain on a network where the majority of miners have participated in thefts of this magnitude against its users. And those "other miners" you mention? They need to weigh their long term rational interest in a healthy network against the short term incentive of "free money."

This brings me back to the rational mining incentive I mentioned earlier. In your scenario, that incentive has blatantly failed. There's no point in switching networks to follow the miner chain if there is apparently no reliable incentive to keep miners honest. If that's the case, Bitcoin's value should plummet and this whole conversation is moot. (And that's the overarching reason why miners will probably avoid ever engaging in the sort of attack, unless at the behest of a powerful nation-state)

[DooMAD]

This reply should not be intepreted as making fun of you. I appreciated your comments. I am just making fun of those who think their democracy or USAF matters one iota. Or those who even believe that voting and democracy even works. The point of decentralization is to destroy those power-vacuums where the masses are manipulated in the collective.

Then it's a good thing we don't have Democracy in Bitcoin.  We have consensus, which is better.

Democracy is a sham, since all that really matters is lobbying and bribery.  Those with the money make the rules and the people merely vote for the puppets that dance along.  Bitcoin has a strong immunity to such corruption.  People aren't just casting a vote, they're actively participating.  And the chances of lobbying ever being an issue in Bitcoin are further reduced with every new participant.  UASF is a bit of a joke because some people believe that non-mining nodes inherently have more power or influence than mining ones.  Clearly that's wrong.  But at the same time, mining nodes don't have more power or influence than non-mining ones.  Neither would be able to make a secure chain without the other.

Lol. Those who accept UTXO with SegWit in the transaction history (even if they obtained the BTC from an exchange) could possibly have all their BTC stolen by the miners in a future long-range 50+% attack on SegWit

Another reason why the proposed UASF to activate SegWit would have been utterly moronic had they gone ahead, because they would be voluntarily sacrificing the security provided by the hashrate.  But, provided the network doesn't split in a mining-versus-non-mining-node style of confrontation, the miners, in turn, rely on the "security" of the economic majority.  Hence why the mining nodes don't hold more influence than the non-mining ones.  They need each other.  Consider seriously the implications of a successfully executed (yet poorly named) "51% attack" on Bitcoin.  SegWit user or not, few people are going to stick around if that sort of behaviour was deemed a normal occurrence.  You can't attack the network in that way without harming yourself financially.  You would be attacking the source of your own income.  Biting the very hand that feeds.  Not a smart move.

Crapcoins like BTG can probably limp on after an attack like that, since the "value proposition" (and I mean that in the very loosest sense of the words) is purely speculative.  The bagholders will simply brush that incident under the carpet and whistle nonchalantly, hoping some fresh-meat-to-the-grinder speculator will come along to take their place.  But Bitcoin isn't a crapcoin.  There's a difference between a speculator who is only here to make a buck, compared to those who are primarily involved because they appreciate the ethos and principles behind crypto.  Those users wouldn't deem that sort of attack admissible here.  They would rather accept a successful attack as a failure of the experiment, wash their hands of Bitcoin completely and build something new from the ground up.  

A 51% attack (can someone please think up a more accurate name?) on SegWit or Bitcoin is the end of Bitcoin.  All that would be left after that are the speculators.  The majority of people who run full nodes are not the speculators.  Those who contribute code are not the speculators.  The users who most actively transact over the network are not the speculators.  The ones who provide the real economic impetus that gives Bitcoin its top spot in the cryptoverse are not the speculators.  

The value proposition of Bitcoin is that the network is transparent, neutral and that everyone owns what they own, with no centralised power to block, reverse or otherwise tamper with any transaction.  If you jeapordise that in any way, lots of incredibly expensive mining hardware suddenly fails to make ROI by a significant margin and things start to go downhill very quickly for those who own that hardware.

The most profitable chain will be the one that is the most secure. Not that SegWit crap that can be stolen by an oligarchy of miners.

The security is the paramount value of Bitcoin.

So you can see why any collapse of that security would mean that Bitcoin loses its value.  You've just countered your own argument.  Well done.

[DooMAD]

But at the same time, mining nodes don't have more power or influence than non-mining ones.  Neither would be able to make a secure chain without the other.

Incorrect. I already explained why up-thread and no need to repeat myself again.

Additionally, I repeat what I what up-thread that mining nodes would provide the non-mining nodes if they weren’t provided for free (and they probably do already provide sufficient non-mining nodes just in case).

And then the miners can transact amongst themselves.  Just them.  Alone.  If a successful attack occurred, who else would want to be on a network run by thieves?  Pyrrhic victory.  Devastating to the attacker.  As the block reward diminishes over time, miners will become more and more reliant on the transaction fees.  They need the other network participants for their efforts to remain fruitful.  Repeat yourself or don't, it doesn't matter.  You're still talking crap.  Miners are not the economic majority.  They don't provide the overwhelming transaction volume that will ultimately sustain the network.  Block rewards are finite.  Part of the design.  You should probably try to grasp at least a vague understanding of that before you attempt any further statements about how all this works.

But, provided the network doesn't split in a mining-versus-non-mining-node style of confrontation, the miners, in turn, rely on the "security" of the economic majority.

I already explained up-thread that due to the power-law distribution of wealth, then the wealthy control the economic majority. And I explained why the wealthy have a Schelling point to agree with stealing the SegWit. I will not repeat that explanation again. Find it up-thread.

Not all of the wealthy participants are miners.  If these users are stolen from, they won't store their wealth in Bitcoin anymore.  I can't understand why this point isn't glaringly obvious to you.  I fully understand the point you think you're making.  I'm just telling you that the premise is fundamentally flawed.  You're talking about a network where miners can steal what they want and there would be literally no consequences.  That somehow other network users would think that's just fine and dandy and continue transacting and storing their wealth in Bitcoin like nothing had happened.  That, in this bizarro-world of yours, rampant theft of property was totally okay and no one would care in the slightest.  It doesn't matter how tempting the "score" might be, theft will not be tolerated in Bitcoin.  Miners understand this.  Apparently you don't.

You've given some highly entertaining Chicken Little "sky is falling" tirades before, but even by your standards this is impressive.

Consider seriously the implications of a successfully executed (yet poorly named) "51% attack" on Bitcoin.  SegWit user or not, few people are going to stick around if that sort of behaviour was deemed a normal occurrence.  You can't attack the network in that way without harming yourself financially.

Again you’re comparing apples to oranges. The specific Schelling point on the SegWit issue is not comparable to any non-Schelling point protocol violation. You have not read all of my up-thread posts carefully. You are forcing me to recapitulate what I already wrote, because you’re ostensibly too unmotivated to read carefully what I already wrote (or you simply didn’t assimilate all of my points[1]). That is very unfair and disingenuous to pretend to rebut me and being unwilling to actually read all my points. Please do not do that!

Except that I clearly do fully grasp the fact that, in a theoretical 51% attack, SegWit balances are more vulnerable than non-SegWit balances.  It doesn't mean a 51% attack is more likely, though.  However profitable the attack might seem at first glance.  Unless miners have grown tired of accumulating usable coins that have value in the real world and would rather we left them to trade their completely worthless thief-tokens amongst themselves.  Tokens that would no longer be redeemable in the real world because, again, Bitcoin would be finished if a successful attack occurred.  No more top spot in the cryptoverse.  It would just be another generic cryptocurrency that merchants don't accept for their goods and services because it isn't secure.  They'd move on to something that was secure.  Whatever that "something" is will be the new #1 coin.  Chances are, the miners' hardware won't be very useful for that new coin everyone uses.  Again, a successful 51% attack on Bitcoin is a wholly Pyrrhic victory.  It destroys everything that gives Bitcoin its value.  No amount of telling us "but look how many bitcoins they could steal" is going to change the fact that it would seriously impact the value of those bitcoins.

The most profitable chain will be the one that is the most secure. Not that SegWit crap that can be stolen by an oligarchy of miners.

The security is the paramount value of Bitcoin.

So you can see why any collapse of that security would mean that Bitcoin loses its value.  You've just countered your own argument.  Well done.

Sorry no. My point was fully supported by my entire argument, which you ostensibly have not read carefully.

[1] Which could be due to a lack of quality elocution on my part, but really I put considerable effort into my replies up-thread and I think they’re sufficient.

Your position is logically untenable.  Bitcoin can't be the most secure network if miners are stealing money.  That's not the definition of secure.  Try looking the word up.  No amount of accusing people of failing to understand you (because you're so unbelievably pompous to think it impossible that other mere mortals might be on your level) will change the fact that your argument is flawed.  It's undeniable that the alignment of incentives is an integral part of the security.  Bitcoin was specifically designed to make it unprofitable to attack the network.  That's what makes it secure.  Miners won't steal the money because it would demonstrably prove Bitcoin is not secure, thus it would lose its value and the miners would be left holding some near-worthless tokens and some very expensive space-heaters.  That's not a win for them, that's shooting themselves in the foot head.  Financial suicide.

To summarise, if value is derived from security, you can't attack security without simultaneously attacking value.  Repeat whatever nonsense you want, you can't refute that.

[DooMAD]

Your response indicates that you still haven’t grokked my point about the Schelling point. It doesn’t depend on the wealthy being the miners. I will not recapitulate my point. You can read it up-thread.

It doesn't mean a 51%[50+%] attack is more likely, though.

Yes it does. There’s a huge booty and a Schelling point that all the wealthy will agree to.

Unless miners have grown tired of accumulating usable coins that have value in the real world and would rather we left them to trade their completely worthless thief-tokens amongst themselves.

You’re so self-important. But really the wealthy do not give a shit about your irrelevant protest. They will take your BTC and kick you off-chain where you belong. Simple as that.

I hope the wealthy are as monumentally ignorant as you are when they carry out this supposedly inevitable feat of pure magic that defies all conventional rationale.  Since, if they have a clue in their head, they aren't going to bother.  

I love how you keep saying "Schelling point" in an attempt to make yourself look more intelligent than you are (hint:  it's not working).  

Also "[50+%]" is still grossly inaccurate as it's possible to pull off with 49% or even less.  We'll add that to the growing list of things you've demonstrated you haven't "grokked" about Bitcoin.  Just call it a "hashpower attack" (or better yet, shut up completely until you can talk sense).

We’ll observe the outcome...

Yes, just like all the other times in the past when we've observed your flair for the dramatic.  All your other "end is nigh" prognostications were wrong too.  You've attempted at least a dozen other post-mortems while the patient is still alive and kicking.

[fortnite]

but the basic reason people want to run their own node is trust. Your own node can validate all transactions. If you rely on other peoples nodes then you are putting trust in them to validate transactions on your behalf. ,,,

[Wind_FURY]

I found this blog by StopAndDecrypt, https://hackernoon.com/bitcoin-miners-beware-invalid-blocks-need-not-apply-51c293ee278b

It says the same thing of what I have been thinking, that running full nodes do matter because they validate transactions and blocks and check that they are following the rules. The same in my thoughts of its importance with censorship resistance.

Anunymint, I will quote the "on topic" parts of the blog and leave it to you to reply.

Below is a rough example of the Bitcoin network scaled down to 1000 fully validating nodes (there’s really 115,000 currently). Each node here has 8 connections to other nodes, because this is the default amount of connections the client makes without any changes made to it. My node is in here somewhere, and if you’re running one, it’s in there too. Coinbase’s nodes are in there, Bitmain’s nodes are in there, and if Satoshi is still around, Satoshi’s node is in there too.



I started with that diagram because I want you to understand that there are no differences in these nodes because they all fully validate. This means they all check the entire chain to make sure each and every transaction and block follow the rules. This will prove to be important as I explain further.

The ones on the inside are no different than the ones on the outside, they all have the same amount of connections. When you start up a brand new node, it finds peers and becomes one of the hive. The longest distance in this graph from any of these nodes to another is 6. In real life there are some deviations to this distance because finding new peers isn’t a perfectly automated process that distributes everyone evenly, but generally, adding more nodes to the network doesn’t change this. There are 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, and in 6 hops my transaction is in the hands of (almost) every node, if it’s valid.

I’m going to select “my” node from this group and drag it out, so I can demonstrate what happens when I create a transaction and announce it to the network. Below you’ll see my node all the way to the right, and then you’ll see the 8 other nodes (peers) that mine is connected to.



When I create a transaction and “send it out to the world”, it’s actually only going to these 8 peers. Since Bitcoin is designed from the ground up to make every node a fully validating node, when these 8 nodes receive my transaction they check to see if it’s valid before sending it out to their 8 peers. If my transaction is invalid it will never break the “surface” of the network. My peers will never send that bad transactions to their peers. They actually don’t even know that I created that transaction. There’s no way for them to tell, and they treat all data as equal, but if I were to keep sending invalid transaction to any of my 8 peers, they would all eventually block me. This is done by them automatically to prevent me from spamming my connection to them. No matter who you are, or how big your company is, your transaction won’t propagate if it’s invalid.

Mining a block is the act of creating a block. Much like a transaction you want to send, you must create the block and announce it to the network. Any node can announce a new block, there’s nothing special about that process, you just need a new block. Mining has gotten increasingly difficult, but if you want you can purchase specialized hardware and connect it to your personal node.

[DooMAD]

I would at least like to see you actually quote what I wrote about the Schelling point and actually try to rebut it.

You'll have to be more specific now that you've written about the Schelling point in every single post you've made in this thread.  Do you mean the first utterance under the Traxo alt?  Or one of the other multitude of uses?

Guess you did not buy LTC at $6 and BCH at $300 also last year?

LTC at $13, BCH for free from the fork.  Doing just fine, thanks.  Not sure what relevance that has.

IOW, they’re not economically relevant in any way. They’re easily replaceable as needed by the miners if they need to. But as long as we’re giving them for free, then the miners don’t need to expend the (very meager) resources. So yeah we just give the miners more profit.

But running a full node can help you. You get a real-time objective view of the network, if you need that real-time feature.

You can't replace legitimate network traffic, actual real-world commercial activity, with miners running some extra nodes.  That's not where the utility or network effects come from.  Having access to specialised hardware doesn't magically maintain an economy all by itself.  The people who generally feel the need to have a "real-time objective view of the network" are the ones who contribute an above average proportion of that real-world commercial activity and they don't want to rely on others to know for certain that everything is valid.  Everyone paying a fee for their transaction is economically relevant.  The network won't survive over the long term if people aren't transacting.  It's likely that people and businesses running full nodes account for a large proportion of Bitcoin's fee-paying traffic.  You can't describe them as expendable or replaceable.  Bitcoin needs those users.  It needs more users if it really is to become a global reserve currency.  Which is why scaling is necessary.  

Think your game theory through to conclusion.  If the only people transacting on the network were people running specialised hardware, Bitcoin would have far less functionality and adoption than it currently has.  It would no longer be accepted by vendors if the network only had a small number of active participants who used it solely as a store of value.  It would no longer be accepted anywhere if people didn't believe it was secure because miners had stolen SegWit balances.  No one would even think of it as a store of value if we set the precedent that stealing balances was somehow okay merely because the wealthy would deem it morally acceptable and therefore that means everyone would agree.  That's beyond a stretch.

Again, you are advocating a system where theft is commonplace, but still somehow held value and utility.  No amount of theoretical manoeuvrings will ever make that a reality.  What other "global reserve currency" can you name that only circulates amongst people running specialised hardware?  There isn't one.  You can't have a reserve currency if no one believes it has any value.  No one would believe it has value if balances could be stolen or transactions could be tampered with due to hashrate attacks being viable.  Ergo, they aren't viable.  Because Pyrrhic victory.

If there were a UASF Bitcoin with no miners and just users, that would be a weak Bitcoin.  I'm pretty sure we agree on that point.  
If there were a SegWit-theft Bitcoin with no users and just miners, that would also be a weak Bitcoin.  Why can't you grasp that simple fact?

There's a balance of influence/control/power/call it what you will between devs, users and miners.  All three are needed keep Bitcoin strong.  You can't discard any of them without consequence.

[cellard]

It says the same thing of what I have been thinking, that running full nodes do matter because they validate transactions and blocks and check that they are following the rules. The same in my thoughts of its importance with censorship resistance.

Anunymint, I will quote the "on topic" parts of the blog and leave it to you to reply.

Non-mining nodes do help the P2P network in the sense that they provide a large attack surface and maximum resiliency. When I say they don’t matter, I mean they have no appreciable economic relevance.

I already stated up-thread that the function they provide for free for the miners, would be provided by the miners any way if not provided for free.

IOW, they’re not economically relevant in any way. They’re easily replaceable as needed by the miners if they need to. But as long as we’re giving them for free, then the miners don’t need to expend the (very meager) resources. So yeah we just give the miners more profit.

But running a full node can help you. You get a real-time objective view of the network, if you need that real-time feature. But most of us don’t because we can sync and objectively validate the chain offline any time.

He is wrong to imply they all have the same kind of connections. They may have the same number of connections, but the mining nodes prioritize connectivity directly to mining nodes, so that propagation of block solutions from hashrate is minimized.

So he is not even correct to imply that the mining nodes need to beware. If the majority hashrate of the mining nodes decide to steal SegWit, then the non-mining nodes can fork off and be as economically irrelevant as they are.

Miners can't replace a proper organic array of full validating nodes, namely, nodes which are hosted by people all over the planet which never meet each other and have unknown agendas. A network with 10000 nodes run by 1 miner is weaker than 1000 nodes run by legit people all over the planet, making actual transactions, part of all the exchanges and services using said software etc.

If X miners collide to steal SegWit, im sure Y miners will find profit in not doing so out of the mere short sighted evil act of the SegWit booty (the Schelling point is not so clear to me here, thinking long term), the other will go for a PoW change if needed. So with the 95% of the community supporting the software behind SegWit (most people support Core like it or not, no one is forcing people to run Core software mostly) supporting that, with the developers supporting that, it will only need the approval of merchants and exchanges, and people means fees. At this point is dishonest miners vs everyone else, and I don't think nobody is going to support dishonest miners just like nobody would congratulate miners in how much of a good job they did on a regular 51% attack because it would damage their brand/status, people tend to ostracize these miners which is part of how Bitcoin works, so no one will list the attacked BTC chain as BTC and the current SegWit chain (with a PoW change if needed) will be known as BTC all over the world, with miners on attacked chain circlejerking alone and nobody transacting on it because there's no way in hell anyone is going to be on board with a 3-year rollback, this will set an example on how it's a bad idea to do that ever again even if theoretically possible. Just another outcome.