Is POW systematically doomed to get a huge monster in its midst?

[Last of the V8s]

And Core did screw up since then; the accidental hard-fork in 2013 being the most prominent example I can think of. That was the biggest chance to discredit the devs, and it wasn't taken.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152027.0;all
    
In re Bitcoin Devs are idiots
March 12, 2013, 01:24:05 AM

[1714768477]

1714768477

[goddog]

there is a big difference between p2sh and p2wsh/p2wpkh

Don't you think that nigh on 8 years of failing to convince anyone of the reality of this attack (and let's not forget 8 years of network upgrades...) discredits this immutability argument? You're saying "the longer we wait, the more likely everyone is to want to return to the 2011 Bitcoin software, where the miners get awarded an extra 5 million Bitcoin", but maybe it's more like that the longer we wait, the more insignificant and bizarre the whole idea is.

thats a good argument.

but wouldn't BCH gain more traction from that? They have all the "anti-segwit" marketing themselves, tons of people would fall for that and move their coins into BCH, so they would have another task: To kill BCH (assuming the September stress test doesn't do that already).

I think you are wrong, BCH will gain only from an LN FAIL, not from a segwit theft.
In example, I will never fall with bch, because I know, if blocksize is not limited, I will never be able to run a full node.
And I think, if I can not run a full node it is better to simply use visa.
Also I think a segwittheft coin will not survive for long time talking about immutability as I know technology will be improved a lot in the future and an immutable coin will have to upgrade to survive, so it can not really be immutable. A coin have to evolve.

[Carlton Banks]

I am the fool who is over here giving you fools one last warning. So you will have no one to blame but yourselves. Because I have been allowed to speak.

Priceless

How about this? Instead of giving us your warning over and over and over again, come back when anything you've ever said actually happens, you've been the same stuck record about the P2SH Jubilee since 2011, and reality proving you wrong every day for 6 years doesn't seem to dampen your enthusiasm.

Just like your super secret killer cryptocoin design: you're all talk, and nothing ever happens. Do. Something. Real.

[locsta123]

Well I think the OP is onto something to some extent we are at a crossroads right now where crypto could become mainstream there are many more big players in the game they don't outnumber the small players but they definitely out power the small guys (just like our current economic system)

I like POS but I also think it doesnt completely solve the decentralization issue although I think it makes it much more fair when it comes to distribution because anyone with any amount of money can stake coins the same can't be said for mining right now you will have to spend at least $1000+ to buy an asic miner to even put a dent in the mining pools. But that is also why I like CPU only mineable coins like zoin

[Wind_FURY]

But achow made a practical reply.

If segwit activates, any attempt to steal anyone's Bitcoin by stealing segwit outputs will be considered invalid and any blocks that contain said transactions will be invalid and thus will be a hard fork. With a hard fork, anything goes. Anyone can make a hard fork and confiscate anyone's coins on that fork, it is, after all, a change in consensus rules where you can make the consensus rules whatever you want. "The Real Bitcoin" is no different. In fact several forks have been made from Bitcoin which no one really cares about, and "The Real Bitcoin" will just be another one of those. If there is no economic activity and no users actually use a coin, it is worthless and no one will care about it. Currently ALL miners are signaling for segwit per the BIP 91 rules. No miners are using "The Real Bitcoin" and no major businesses, exchanges, or users are using it. In fact, the vast majority of users (including businesses and exchanges) and miners are supporting segwit.

So sure, you could hard fork and steal coins spent in Segwit transactions, but no one would care because it would be a hard fork and it would just become another altcoin that no one ever thinks about.

Also, you could just steal all P2SH coins now. P2SH was released after "The Real Bitcoin" made their fork. And it would get you more coins much sooner. But no one would care if you did.

Miners are also incentivized to not hard fork and steal coins. Besides the fact that stealing coins means that they will be damaging the value of the chain they forked from, miners are also then taking the risk that the fork that they switched to will be completely worthless. It is far more profitable to continue to mine the chain which the majority of the community backs and will be using than it is to mine some fork which will likely be worthless with no users on that fork. There will be more transactions on that chain and more value with it as people are actually using it. Furthermore, any miner who did choose steal anyone's coins would come under significant criticism from everyone in the community and that would be terrible for their reputation.

If talking about "game theory" would it not be against the self interest of the miners to "steal" Segwit outputs if they can do it?

I believe achow101 is the mod here (presumably the same individual as you quoted). He has been very cordial and civil in his discussions which I appreciate and respect.

Yet he was incorrect to conclude that Satoshi’s protocol is a hardfork from itself. He may have been convinced otherwise since he made that reply? Although apparently he is a Core contributor, so I don’t know if can change his opinion or if he can comment on it. I am not trying to pressure him. He presumably has to walk a tightrope because he is also a (n apparently upstanding and fair) mod here.

Core soft forked. If Satoshi miners choose to take P2SH donations because they are ANYONECANSPEND in the Satoshi protocol, then if Core miners reject Satoshi’s protocol, then Core is the protocol that has forked off. I had already explained this point.

I already read it. What would happen is a chain split. In the TRB chain all coins stored in a Segwit address can be stolen and all Lightning channels can be wiped out. In the main Bitcoin chain everything will be the same as if nothing has happened.

We already know what your answer is on "But which chain would be followed by the economic majority and the miners?" I respect your opinion and I will leave it there. But I am confident the Bitcoin Core protocol will be followed by the economic majority and by most of the miners.

[aliashraf]

Although last few posts were interesting, I think the issue with SegWit and @anunymint's "Satoshi fork" proposal/speculation against SegWit is off-topic.
Forks are happening and will happen but the topic's question about PoW being doomed to centralization or not has remained open.

Actually, @anunymint and I debated this subject indirectly in discussing my proposal for fixing mining variance and proximity premium flaws in PoW.

Talking about centralization of bitcoin and cryptos is deceptively simple. A naive perception based on common sense can lead us to where OP has started this topic with:

It is as Karl Marx described it, that in a national economy the big established players all tend to grow in power and size into a monopoly, and it is as we know it from the equally named board game "Monopoly" (picture) the player that owns a big share, of the total size early over time grows automaticallly bigger and bigger, creating ultimately a plutocratic society that creates not as many winners as possible but that seeks to create as many loosers as possible for the benefit and power of monopolistic and plutocratic or oligarchic few. That society might then be vastly influenced by those big players, media, legislation, elections etc. nothing published really matters anymore as the strings are pulled by forces that grew with the system and are now ruling it.

Can this also happen for cryptocurrencies or more specific POW systems?
Yes it is likely to happen and it is already observable, lets start:
Tendencies to manipulate the media:
I wrote an article about the systematic pump and dump schemes and the "bull calls" that are being issued now in the american cryptomedia

Until now we have the same naive story about Capitalism and its tendency toward forming oligarchies and monopolies, and nothing yet about PoW specifically.
But suddenly, without any preliminary steps, OP continues

but it also reveals of a tendency to create vast and big influencing associations. Thinking that to the end, it is logically to understand that associations regarding hashpower in the worlds total POW system will be created out of interests to achieve certain economic goals, similar like caribbean pirates the worlds pow system might get its miner associations, which could hide their secretive coordinating core somewhere unknown and far away from legislation and police in an offshore sector. Such a secretive hashpower coordinating association will then for their reasons behave like a cancer, trying to feast on the smaller POW coins first, then grow in size so it can attack later the bigger ones. The profits from 51% attacks might even be a secondary goal, that delivers the profit, but the true goal being the destruction of trust which that particular POW system had in the first place. Take Verge as an example which lost a lot of trust and confidence after a 51% attack.

According to OP (and his paw, @anunymint), PoW encourages/pushes for a tendency towards creating such 'associations' and no longer deserves to be understood and propagated as a decentralized post-capitalistic whatever alternative (monetary system).

Instead

It would mean that a honorable POS system would get a chance to regain popularity again

Op continues:

Our Fazit: The POW concept will get its huge pool shark that will haunt it, that's unavoidable and Bitcoin marketed as decentral will become central, but a quite low quality unpopular cryptocurrency that will stand for its unpopular ressource waste, caused by its core association of miners, bitcoin isn't made for the longterm, and its even more not made to enrich the collective. It is a zero sum game of its miner cartel against everyone else, using the mass media, and the illusion of decentrality.

This is why I call this perception naive. It suffers from a shallow understanding of PoW that confuses the core idea with implementation.

Bitcoin is nothing more than a variant of PoW, it is what OP, @anunymint and many people don't understand thoroughly and become disappointed and terrified when they experience the situation with pools, nicehash, ASICs, ...

PoW as a consensus algorithm is based on objectivism, it requires people to consume energy and resources to vote on the state of the ledger proportionally.
First of all, accusing PoW of having an 'unpopular resource waste' weakness is like accusing a car or an airplane of consuming energy and trying to invent a magical vehicle which is capable of doing work without consuming fuel.

Bitcoin and its successors are commonly using Nakamoto's variant of PoW based on a winner-takes-all principal that makes them vulnerable to pooling attack ("creating hashpower associations" as Op calls it) because of their known flaws being mining variance and proximity premium.

Although Satoshi Nakamoto has the privilege to be known as the first person who proposed PoW and the fist person who implemented it, he is not and shouldn't be considered as the last one who did it!

PoW is not another simple technological breakthrough, it deserves to be understood as an evolutionary project and to be improved. Bitcoin is nothing more than a beta version. It is just an unfortunate that releasing a true operational version of bitcoin has been postponed so long and instead we have these Core guys who have neither the vision nor the courage necessary to do so. Instead they are ruining the code as much as possible by complicating it adding useless features and hacks and focusing on off-chain solutions ironically: you got no balls to improve the chain? go off-chain development baby, it is safe!

I'm not here to discuss my proposal, but it is a real fact, it exists out there. Proof of Collaborative Work, PoCW is an example of how  problems in Nakamoto's implementation of PoW can be approached and probably solved and how it is possible to de-incentivize people for 'creating associations'.

Without pulling pressure,  IOW without mining variance and proximity premium there is no mining centralization threat and the only thing OP and @anunymint will be left with is nothing more than general political economics theories about inevitability of cartels and trusts in modern capitalism which could be used everywhere and whenever by whoever in a bad mood and pessimistic approach to any technological or socio-economical phenomenon.

[Wind_FURY]

But I am confident the Bitcoin Core protocol will be followed by the economic majority and by most of the miners.

Confident enough to hodl your BTC in Core addresses that begin with 3 instead of Satoshi legacy addresses that begin with 1?

You have asked me many questions and I have graciously replied to many of them. I have now asked you only one question. Will you reply?

Yes, I use Bech32 addresses for my main storage, and I also use Segwit addresses that start with a "3" for others. I believe many people are too.

Anunymint raises some good points. I am guessing similar to Peter Rizun. It points out a potential attack vector on segwit coins.

Dr. Peter Rizun - SegWit Coins are not Bitcoins

The video is worth watching even if you believe Segwit posses no risk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoFb3mcxluY

Rick Falkvinge has also made a video that said "Segwit can be reversed", which is impossible because there are 80% of total nodes that are Segwit compatible and accept Segwit blocks. If there was an attack to reverse Segwit, the network will hard fork and the chain will split into two. The main chain will behave like nothing has happened while the forked chain will reverse Segwit.

But good luck in convincing everyone to use the forked chain.

Gregory Maxwell is a liar:

"Your bitcoin is secured in a way that is physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter a majority of miners, no matter what." -- gmaxwell

Ok. I respect your opinion.

[aliashraf]

@anunymint, @Wind_FURY you guys better take care of your anti-segwit fork issue in a dedicated topic, imo.

Actually, @anunymint and I debated this subject indirectly in discussing my proposal for fixing mining variance and proximity premium flaws in PoW.

And readers should read my points there as linked, because your recapitulation here didn’t address my point that pools are largely (not totally) irrelevant to the issue of centralization because miners can move if they do not like a pool’s behavior,

It is a weak argument, so much weak that although you made it somewhere in PoCW topic, I didn't consider it seriously. Byzantine fault tolerance needs more than few players for security, you already know it as a PBFT fan, don't you?

Saying that pools don't matter in this context, centralization of PoW, is the most weird thing ever. Yet, I'm not completely convinced about you being serious in saying that.

After all OP is the one who started this topic by accusing PoW to be doomed to centralization because of 'associations', isn't he?

yet winner-take-all centralization remains in proof-of-work (no matter how it is restructured) because^* the global elite capitalists have control over the $billion ASIC fabs and the hydropower electricity at-scale (which they can get for free and charge to the governments they control). Thus by being the lowest-cost miners behind the curtain of anonymity, the global elite will entirely control Bitcoin surreptitiously as they designed it to be. Period.
^*emphasis by me

As much as the predicate is false (PoW = winner-takes-all) your reasoning is irrelevant. ASICs are a challenge, no doubts, but a separate one. Ethereum is not 'ASICed' because of its memory hard algorithm and yet it is centralized by pools even more than bitcoin (only 3 pools control +50% Ethereum's total hashrate).
With or without ASICs, PoW is doomed to centralization because of pooling pressure flaw, as long as it is implemented as a winner-takes-all variant.

Although bitcoin has not been overtaken by a 50%+1 attack (yet), pools are very powerful players in the ecosystem and there will be no future for bitcoin as a decentralized system with them, no improvements, no evolution.

ASIC is completely a different problem. I've spent a considerable time to fight against the "inevitability of ASICs" discourse going that far to suggest a strategy for bitcoin to get rid of ASICs, but now I'm realizing that pools are far more important points of failure. So, please let remain focused on pools instead of losing the direction.

IOW total centralization of control over mining of Bitcoin is not total centralization of the economy built on Bitcoin.

Now we have something to digest

Bitcoin is meant to be a monetary system based on a public, decentralized ledger maintained by a large number of players who can not practically collude to do anything harmful against users of the system.

Like any other monetary system, an economy is built around bitcoin. Although centralization of mining does not necessarily imply centralization of this economy, it is definitely a prohibitive factor.

For traditional economies built around fiat currencies and national central banks, it has been understood that economic growth is directly related to the confidence the investors/entrepreneurs have to the system to function as it has been promised.

In under-developed countries where central banks have less autonomy and follow the governments' thirst for money instead of keeping their promise for regulating the financial market, economies collapse overnight.

Likewise, if bitcoin might fail to keep its promises like decentralization, security, immutability, anti-censorship, ... its economy would collapse not because of a stupid super-pool stealing funds but because of the sole fact of its failure to fulfil its promise.

People won't wait for centralized mining to make a ridiculous move against them, they will just back-off whenever they feel it is not what they have invested in: a decentralized system.

We have a handful of currencies managed and supervised centrally by a huge system and a network of well organized, disciplined organisations for decades: USD, Euro, Pound, Yen, etc. Banks mine these currencies transparently and keep our balances practically safe and secure and fees are not that high to be considered intolerable, ... so, why in the hell we should invest in bitcoin and build an economy when it is just another centralized system (based in China)?

Nevertheless I remain steadfast that proof-of-work can’t be restructured in any variant to provide true mathematical transaction volume scalability.

Scalability is another separate issue too.

Seriously @anunymint, isn't it better to remain focused?

[DooMAD]

If there was an attack to reverse Segwit, the network will hard fork and the chain will split into two. The mainCore chain will behave like nothing has happened while the forked real Bitcoin chain will reverse Segwit.

I made a slight correction to your summary. Core will actually fork off from the original Satoshi version 0.5.4 protocol at that juncture. As a matter of correct definitions and semantics

It's not a question of semantics.  The chain with the most people behind it is Bitcoin.  Anything else is an altcoin.  You don't get to pick an arbitrary point in history and declare that "nothing beyond this point is the real Bitcoin", because that's not your sole decision to make.  Again, 0.5.4 is an outdated client run by a small but vocal number of hardline fanatics.  That's a speck in the wind compared to the combined will of an entire network of users all over the world who couldn't give two shits what you or MP thinks.  The moment a fork occurs and 0.5.4 isn't compatible with what everyone else is running, 0.5.4 becomes the altcoin.  They can have their Thiefcoin, the rest of us will ignore them and have Bitcoin.

You don't decide what the "real Bitcoin" looks like.  That's not how consensus works.  You've been duped if you think otherwise.  But then that's only natural, because that's what drinking the trilemma kool-aid does to you.

But you forgot a very important point I made several times already and you continue to forget. That is those who hodl legacy addresses that begin with 1 will receive both real Bitcoin tokens and Core tokens. Whereas those who hodl in addresses that begin with 3 will receive only Core tokens. Even if you support Core, you would want the real Bitcoin tokens so you could sell them and contribute to fighting against it and use the proceeds to buy Core tokens. But to do that, you must forsake SegWit in the interim time.

You may have noticed that any fork which proposes a fundamental change to the founding principles doesn't even get off the ground.  Your fork would be held in the same esteem as forks that propose raising the 21 million supply, bringing "lost" coins back into circulation, anything to do with blacklisting certain addresses.  People who appreciate Bitcoin for what it is don't give those projects the slightest bit of notice.  They're irrelevant.  As is Thiefcoin.

If you have coins held in SegWit addresses, you would indeed fight against the 0.5.4 chain, but you wouldn't do it by buying 0.5.4 coins to dump them.  It would be contrary to your own financial well being to give even the slightest hint of recognition to the chain trying to steal from you.  The best way to combat a chain like that (which is clearly an affront to the underlying principles of property ownership and crypto in general), would naturally be to tell everyone to ignore the 0.5.4 chain completely and leave it to rot in the gutter.  There wouldn't be an actual economy on that chain and it wouldn't be sustainable.  So all that would remain is a niche blockchain where the sole purpose is to effectively quarantine the insane from the rest of society.  As such, I eagerly await your fork and you disappearing off to the land of make-believe to play with the other inmates in the asylum.
  

[Carlton Banks]

It's fucking amazing how you always respond by entirely ignoring the key sentences I already wrote that refute what you replied...

It's even more amazing that you keep dodging the key point under the weight of your ever bloviated responses


4.3 million BTC in P2SH addresses. Why aren't the miners forking and "donating" it to themselves in the fork? Answer the question

[DooMAD]

You may have noticed that any fork which proposes a fundamental change to the founding principles doesn't even get off the ground.  Your fork would be held in the same esteem as forks that propose raising the 21 million supply, bringing "lost" coins back into circulation, anything to do with blacklisting certain addresses.  People who appreciate Bitcoin for what it is don't give those projects the slightest bit of notice.  They're irrelevant.  As is Thiefcoin.

Correct that Core is forking off from Satoshi’s protocol and causing the security of Bitcoin to become weakened and fooling users into issuing ANYONECANSPEND transaction outputs. Thus the scammer Core altcoin will then finally be seen objectively by the formerly deluded bunny rabbits as a Thiefcoin by all users who lost their real Bitcoin when the real Bitcoin goes very high in price and the Core altcoin crashes towards 0 BTC.

Satoshi's protocol can’t fork off from itself. It is actively running now on the current BTC block chain. When the booty piles up, the Satoshi miners will take the donations and then Core will fork off. And then all the wealthy 1% who decide which chain will be the winner will of course sell their free air drop of Core altcoin fork tokens and use the proceeds to buy Satoshi Bitcoin unforked protocol tokens. Because the wealthy want security as the highest priority. And because the miners will be sharing the proceeds of the donations with the wealthy.

You have no greater claim to what Satoshi's vision was than anyone else does.  You can keep calling 0.5.4 "Satoshi's protocol" all you like, but that doesn't give it any sort of special status or privilege.  No one in their right mind is going to use it.  It exists just for the crazed fundamentalists.  If Bitcoin went to zero, the 0.5.4 chain (assuming it ever exists) would go with it.  People would simply abandon Bitcoin altogether because the project has clearly failed if any of this were to occur.  There's no conceivable way they would reward a bunch of isolated headcases who clearly have no respect for property rights, particularly if it cost them money to do so.  If you think they would, not only does it show your game theory needs some serious work, but also that your brain is so "special" that you are totally incapable of understanding how normal human beings behave.

Literally the only reason you believe you're right about this is that your ego is beyond measure.  You think so highly of yourself that, in your mind, there's no other outcome possible than the masses bending to your glorious vision.  If you were to briefly climb out of your own posterior for just a moment and observe the world for what it is, you might realise that it's not remotely plausible for any of your vivid fantasies to come to fruition.

Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation Real Bitcoin Foundation

Are you their new spokesperson or something?  Is your presence here solely to promote that loony bin because they're short on patients and need some fresh volunteers to have themselves committed?  Are the poor deluded souls getting lonely over there?  Aww, bless.

If they offer you the lobotomy, I suggest you take it.  

[goddog]

Correct that Core is forking off from Satoshi’s protocol and causing the security of Bitcoin to become weakened and fooling users into issuing ANYONECANSPEND transaction outputs. Thus the scammer Core altcoin will then finally be seen objectively by the formerly deluded bunny rabbits as a Thiefcoin by all users who lost their real Bitcoin when the real Bitcoin goes very high in price and the Core altcoin crashes towards 0 BTC.

You don't consider that the Bitcoin Core 0.16  is a better coin than what it was in 2012. And it will be better when things like shnorr and mast will be implemented. No one need a non spendable coin. No multisig means you can not buy anything from anonymous. No multisig means you have to trust. WoT means you are not anonymous, If you are not anonymous you can be banned and censored. If you have to be trusted and not anonymous you don't need a blockchain.

When I signed for bitcoin I knew it can be replaced by a better coin, p2sh was a better coin, segwit is a better coin, I hope some day we will have shnorr and mast and I hope it will be better.

Miner oligarchy will fail because they are anonymous, they have to be anonymous or someone with guns and missiles can destroy their precious farms and they end up fucked.

Note it is on my TODO list to more thoroughly research P2SH transactions that are not SegWit transactions. Perhaps I am mistaken about them being ANYONECANSPEND if they’re not SegWit. I need research that after sleeping.

https://programmingblockchain.gitbooks.io/programmingblockchain/content/other_types_of_ownership/p2wsh_pay_to_witness_script_hash.html

[goddog]

Then maybe the Core altcoin is for you, as long as you prefer to have altcoin that is much lower in value Bitcoin.

You clearly presume that those experimental features are more important to the wealthy than immutability and security, because otherwise you would not presume the features they do not want are the better coin. But I know they prefer immutability and security. And they decide which coin will be sold off and collapse in price and thus not be the better coin.

I prefer a coin I can use. I have not enought bitcoins to pay 50000$ fee, so if their chain wins there is nothing I can do to stay in their game. I have to use something else or die poor.

Oligarchies are often anonymous to outsiders. And they communicate privately because they have an economic incentive to do so.

No, they have economic incentives to fisically destroy concurrent farms or energy sources.

[DooMAD]

there's no other outcome possible than the masses bending to your glorious vision

Did you already forget that I pointed out to you in my prior reply to you, that in Bitcoin the masses do not get a vote?

Of course they don't get a "vote".  That's not how Bitcoin works.  We've surpassed the primitive concept of voting:

Who wants a vote?  A vote is just the act of asking for someone's permission, masquerading as freedom.  Plus, when voting, you're usually only selecting someone to speak for you, in effect surrendering your freedom.  Screw that.

Bitcoin (or at least, crypto in general) is better than any democracy.  It's real freedom.  You just do stuff and see if people then agree.  You don't vote on it or wait for someone in power to say it's okay.  Code what you like, run what you like.  You'll be matched up with people who agree with you and you'll build a blockchain together.  Everyone gets what they think they want while market forces and competition sort it all out in the end.  Only the most successful chain with the most economic activity and most proof of work gets to be called Bitcoin.  If people find their chain isn't as successful as others, it's up to them to build on it and make it better, or resign themselves to transacting with an altcoin and hope it has sufficient value to be worth their time.  If it's not worth it, go back to the better chain.  There are literally no barriers to stop you, despite what some here might say.  

That's all that's happening here.  People overreact and get all dramatic about it.  But it's just people with different visions of what's best, doing their own thing.  No voting required.  And it's good for Bitcoin (again, despite what some here might say).  Bitcoin will naturally adapt and grow stronger by taking the best code from the open market at any given time.  And ultimately, users still decide what that code is, there's just no point in having a stupid vote about it.  Democracy should aspire to be more like Bitcoin, not the other way around.

Remember that voting is always based on what people (and usually corrupt liars at that) say they're going to do.  And you have to trust them to do it when you vote for them.  You don't get any guarantees.  You might not get what you voted for even if the person or party you vote for win.  Bitcoin is better than that.  You make an informed decision based on what has actually been made.  There's no trust involved.  It's right there for you to see it all in black and white.  No surprises, no u-turns, no failure to enact a policy because the opposition party prevented it.  If there's anything in the code you don't like, you don't have to run it.  Name one vote in history that ever achieved that feat.

Voting has no place here.  It's better without it.

People place far too much emphasis on the supposed panacea of voting.  At best, voting for an elected representative is a paltry impersonation of democracy.  When you stop and think about it, it's not really freedom at all if you need to have the permission of someone in authority to have an election in the first place.  And having to select someone from a predetermined list of candidates isn't freedom either.  Neither is votes being aggregated and grouped by arbitrary lines on a map, which those in authority can redraw to sway the result.  Once your elected representative speaks for you, they have all the freedom, you just surrendered your freedom to them.  Voting is based on what people claim they're going to do, but once the voting has finished, how many times do the election pledges actually come to fruition?  There's no guarantee of getting the things you believed you were voting for even when your preferred candidate wins.  There's also little to prevent "lobbying", otherwise known as "corruption", so money will always influence policy far more than any vote ever will.

No one gets a "vote".  But what they do get is total freedom and self-determination.  They're not going to surrender that by following a chain that would steal from them and only serve the interests of a few self-obsessed elitists.

Go ahead and build your 0.5.4 chain.  See who takes part.  I normally consider it ill-conceived to preempt what the market will do, but I think it's safe to say they won't follow that abomination of a chain.  Just like they won't follow a "Bitcoin" chain with blacklisting or an increased supply above 21 million.  You clearly perceive immutability as Bitcoin's most important aspect, but others feel that decentralisation is the more important quality (and would also argue we haven't sacrificed immutability anyway).  I don't know how you expect to maintain a decentralised system when the only participants are the limited number of fruitcakes running the 0.5.4 client.  

You can't have a decentralised oligarchy, it's self-contradictory.  Users won't support a system that doesn't support them and your chain won't survive economically without users.  Network effects have a tremendous impact on value and utility.  How do you propose your 0.5.4 chain will amass value and utility if only a few zealous cultists are using it?  Keep dreaming.

[goddog]

You can't have a decentralised oligarchy, it's self-contradictory.  Users won't support a system that doesn't support them and your chain won't survive economically without users.  Network effects have a tremendous impact on value and utility.  How do you propose your 0.5.4 chain will amass value and utility if only a few zealous cultists are using it?  Keep dreaming.

Oligarchy don't need free users. They only need poor slaves.

[DooMAD]

No one gets a "vote".  But what they do get is total freedom and self-determination.  They're not going to surrender that by following a chain that would steal from them and only serve the interests of a few self-obsessed elitists.

They do not matter. We do not want them on the reserve currency anyway.

Wrong.  You don't matter.  Speck in the wind, remember?  Bitcoin was designed to disrupt the arrogance and folly of the world's banking oligarchs, not create a bunch of new (decidedly psychotic and egomaniacal) banking oligarchs.  The minority do not decide what Bitcoin is and you are evidently very much in the minority here.  

Also, all of this is largely irrelevant anyway, since we're talking about Schrödinger's Thiefcoin.  We won't know you're wrong 'til someone does it and they're never going to.

[goddog]

It is absolutely guaranteed that the SegWit taking will happen. The only unknown is the timing.

Miners will need a lot of hashrate, or an orphaning war will begin and all of them will lose a lot of money.

[aliashraf]

It's fucking amazing how you always respond by entirely ignoring the key sentences I already wrote that refute what you replied...

ASIC is completely a different problem. I've spent a considerable time to fight against the "inevitability of ASICs" discourse going that far to suggest a strategy for bitcoin to get rid of ASICs

And you completely ignored the point I made about getting electricity for free.

And if mining isn’t uber profitable for them, then it wouldn’t be profitable for anyone, because they will always be the lowest cost miners. However I do think they are less profitable than those who use their Bitcoin for more lucrative investments and thus the global elite are actually not a threat. IOW, all they can really do is enforce the Nash equilibrium. They can’t actually do any malfeasance and this is why Bitcoin is a good approximation to John Nash’s Ideal Money manifesto.

IOW total centralization of control over mining of Bitcoin is not total centralization of the economy built on Bitcoin.

For traditional economies built around fiat currencies and national central banks, it has been understood that economic growth is directly related to the confidence the investors/entrepreneurs have to the system to function as it has been promised.

Seriously @anunymint, isn't it better to remain focused?

Seriously could digest all the concepts at one time or is your brain incapable of assimilating information.

I have put you on Ignore. I will not be replying to anymore of your incorrect replies. You’re a time waster.

Again?  

You are mad with me because I didn't reply to your melancholic comments about elites on the top of the food chain and how you feel safe in hands of them because of Nash's equilibrium?  (I'm sure you are kidding about free electricity)

Dude, I just tried not to make you ashamed, in my culture, we don't push on the competitors wounds and weaknesses.
This melancholy with 1% shit, it is your weakness, believe me.

But apparently, you want it, So, here you are:

You think we are fools and you are so smart because you have discovered that wealthy is powerful and can invest more and economy of scale helps it to outperform masses and,... but I think you are not smart enough to understand that it is not a "discovery" for last 200 years or so, this story has been told ever and ever and yet people are fighting and innovating to keep things more balanced and safe.

You think bitcoin is a conspiracy project for centralizing financial system even more and we are a bunch of childs and noobs who are being manipulated by crypto media (the think tank's PR).?

Dude, these ideas are too divergent to be discussed in a crypto forum, don't you get it? Aren't you smart enough to understand your divergence and find a community with a more similar discourse with yours and run your campaign there?

Bitcoin is about decentralization and bitcointalk is a place to discuss how we can achieve this goal. We have hard times and a long road ahead? No worries, we try more and take our shot. Is it that hard to understand?

We have no time to argue with neo-nazists or neo-cons or neo-f*kers, whatever about the inevitability of oligarchism, we are busy building a decentralized world and guess what? We have started from the heart and the blood: banking system and money!

So, try to catch up with the trend and participate in discussions productively or at least don't push people to mock at your ultra right understanding of bitcoin's agenda.

[goddog]

Dude, these ideas are too divergent to be discussed in a crypto forum, don't you get it? Aren't you smart enough to understand your divergence and find a community with a more similar discourse with yours and run your campaign there?

Bitcoin is about decentralization and bitcointalk is a place to discuss how we can achieve this goal. We have hard times and a long road ahead? No worries, we try more and take our shot. Is it that hard to understand?

You can not find solutions if you don't study every problem deeply. But of course this talk is more political than technical. I hope anunymint explained his point of view, and if you think evil, it is not so absurd.
That's an old discussion between capitalists and socialists. Anunymint is talking like a socialist trying to discredit the austrian school. I'm still at an early stage in studying that so I try to not comment about that.
For general culture I will leave a link:
https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly

If you mean that Satoshi miners will compete with each other to mine the donations by rewinding each other’s chains, yeah I agree that might be possible if the hashrate is too low. But a decent amount (e.g. 20%) much lower than 50% will be enough to cause other miners to want to join that chain and not fight it, because for example how many miners have 20% of the hashrate. Thus a Schelling point forms and that 10% or 20% quickly swells and becomes irreversible.

We know who that large miner will be: Bitmain.

I'm not sure about this, as you say miners talk privately, and I don't think they will like if only Bitmain will keep all the booty.

[aliashraf]

You can not find solutions if you don't study every problem deeply.

Methodologically speaking, you are wrong here. Not every argument deserves a dialogue. A dialogue can take place just when compatible discourses are involved.

In this context, saying that bitcoin is doomed to centralization because monopolies and oligarchies are inevitable is just unproductive and useless and we don't need to spend our valuable time to disprove it.

On the contrary, engaging in such a melancholic discussion gives ideas like this a credit that they don't deserve, even if you manage to disprove them.  

Cryptocurrency is a movement and has an agenda decentralization being in its core, it is ok to question the technology's approach to decentralization but being a nah sayer who has an ideological prejudgment regarding decentralization as an absolutely impossible idea (and worse, a useless one), well, it puts one out of the crypto sphere and renders any discussion with him a useless time wasting practice.