Decentralisation is harder than you think

[figmentofmyass]

I do know what is a consensus. But consensus doesn't work. Yes, it does if we are only 10 people, not difficult, but it can't work with everybody included. And it can also work if people are ready for some compromise.
Imagine a consensus in politic, do you really think it's possible? Hell no.

the idea of getting consensus to change a protocol like bitcoin is insane. there's millions of users. there's no way 100% of users would ever agree to a hard fork, except maybe in the narrow case where the protocol is under existential threat from a bug (like if ECDSA were broken).

that's one of the strengths of soft forks. if backed by majority hashpower, they are compatible with the prior consensus. if consensus is never broken, you don't need 100% of users to agree to a fork. everyone can co-exist with backward compatible software.

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[franky1]

I do know what is a consensus. But consensus doesn't work. Yes, it does if we are only 10 people, not difficult, but it can't work with everybody included. And it can also work if people are ready for some compromise.
Imagine a consensus in politic, do you really think it's possible? Hell no.

hell yes.
politics with consensus = democracy
politics without consensus = dictatorship

the only reason politics dictatorship is limited to one vote per 4-5 years is the fact that it takes people having to walk to a polling station per vote, which is lengthy to organise. yet things like america's got talent can achieve voting using technology more often than politics hense why americas got talent does voting every year.

with bitcoin where nodes are always online voting can happen even more rapidly. it just requires devs to not biased throw out certain classes from a vote and instead accept a vote didnt go their way(35%) and instead have them compromise and re try a new proposition, rather than dig deeper with thir proposals and get buddies to social drama other fake options to pander out the opposition and sway/threaten others to accept the dug deeper proposition.

but yea.. consensus can work, but has been bypassed so now consensus(byzantine generals problem) has been sidelined so absurdly that it has now made consensus 'broke' and core show no sign of wanting to go back to a consensus system of satoshis invention as they now control and dictate the rules.
Luke JR is super happy that he gets to do that as and when he likes without opposition now

[franky1]

I do know what is a consensus. But consensus doesn't work. Yes, it does if we are only 10 people, not difficult, but it can't work with everybody included. And it can also work if people are ready for some compromise.
Imagine a consensus in politic, do you really think it's possible? Hell no.

the idea of getting consensus to change a protocol like bitcoin is insane. there's millions of users. there's no way 100% of users would ever agree to a hard fork, except maybe in the narrow case where the protocol is under existential threat from a bug (like if ECDSA were broken).

that's one of the strengths of soft forks. if backed by majority hashpower, they are compatible with the prior consensus. if consensus is never broken, you don't need 100% of users to agree to a fork. everyone can co-exist with backward compatible software.

you been sniffing too much of the echo chamber mantra.

if there was 100% agreement. there would be no soft/hardfork. as everyone would be in agreement. thus they all follow the new rule, thus no fork.. just an upgrade

in a majority consensus(majority but not 100%) the minority wont be hard forked to a different network. they would just be stalled out. same network just not receiving new blocks/data(soft fork).
the minority then decide if they rejoin. or make their own network

in a controversial hardfork where nodes are banned off the network before activation and not due to activation. well thats dictatorship at play.
in a controversial hardfork where code is activated AND THEN nodes are banned/thrown off the network due to rule incompatibility. well if pools were in that group thrown off.. then a new network would occur(hard fork)

as for the whole 'backward compatibility' where older nodes get a stripped out data thats not fit for the full relay layer, and thus forms an underclass of downstream/filtered nodes. yes thats a soft fork as no one is dictatorially thrown off the network. but activating a new ruleset by excluding a certain class from a vote before the ruleset is even activated is not consensus. its a controversial softfork

core pulled of many tricks to get sgwit1x active.. they didnt and make a more community acceptable compromise when they seen they only had 35%. thy decided to get controversial and fake consensus

[figmentofmyass]

the idea of getting consensus to change a protocol like bitcoin is insane. there's millions of users. there's no way 100% of users would ever agree to a hard fork, except maybe in the narrow case where the protocol is under existential threat from a bug (like if ECDSA were broken).

that's one of the strengths of soft forks. if backed by majority hashpower, they are compatible with the prior consensus. if consensus is never broken, you don't need 100% of users to agree to a fork. everyone can co-exist with backward compatible software.

you been sniffing too much of the echo chamber mantra.

if there was 100% agreement. there would be no soft/hardfork. as everyone would be in agreement. thus they all follow the new rule, thus no fork.. just an upgrade

at what point would there ever be 100% agreement on a change? how would you ever be able to measure that? you're trying to confuse things with loaded and political terms. please try and stick to discussing what nodes are actually doing.

let's take segwit as an example.

by running my legacy node in 2017, i opted into to the consensus---i agreed to the current set of consensus rules. when segwit happened, my legacy node retained consensus with all segwit nodes. there was no chain split. therefore, segwit never violated the consensus that i agreed to. that consensus still exists today and i am still opted into it.

with a hard fork, that consensus would be broken by definition. hard forked nodes would be ignored by my legacy node because the two disagree about what the consensus rules are.

as for the whole 'backward compatibility' where older nodes get a stripped out data thats not fit for the full relay layer, and thus forms an underclass of downstream/filtered nodes. yes thats a soft fork as no one is dictatorially thrown off the network. but activating a new ruleset by excluding a certain class from a vote before the ruleset is even activated is not consensus. its a controversial softfork

your position on "downstream/filtered nodes" obviously disagrees with the design as satoshi wrote it:

The solution was script, which generalizes the problem so transacting parties can describe their transaction as a predicate that the node network evaluates.  The nodes only need to understand the transaction to the extent of evaluating whether the sender's conditions are met.

The script is actually a predicate.  It's just an equation that evaluates to true or false.  Predicate is a long and unfamiliar word so I called it script.

The receiver of a payment does a template match on the script.  Currently, receivers only accept two templates: direct payment and bitcoin address.  Future versions can add templates for more transaction types and nodes running that version or higher will be able to receive them.  All versions of nodes in the network can verify and process any new transactions into blocks, even though they may not know how to read them.

[franky1]

at what point would there ever be 100% agreement on a change? how would you ever be able to measure that? you're trying to confuse things with loaded and political terms. please try and stick to discussing what nodes are actually doing.

let's take segwit as an example.

by running my legacy node in 2017, i opted into to the consensus---i agreed to the current set of consensus rules. when segwit happened, my legacy node retained consensus with all segwit nodes. there was no chain split. therefore, segwit never violated the consensus that i agreed to. that consensus still exists today and i am still opted into it.

with a hard fork, that consensus would be broken by definition. hard forked nodes would be ignored by my legacy node because the two disagree about what the consensus rules are.

as for the whole 'backward compatibility' where older nodes get a stripped out data thats not fit for the full relay layer, and thus forms an underclass of downstream/filtered nodes. yes thats a soft fork as no one is dictatorially thrown off the network. but activating a new ruleset by excluding a certain class from a vote before the ruleset is even activated is not consensus. its a controversial softfork

your position on "downstream/filtered nodes" obviously disagrees with the design as satoshi wrote it:

The solution was script, which generalizes the problem so transacting parties can describe their transaction as a predicate that the node network evaluates.  The nodes only need to understand the transaction to the extent of evaluating whether the sender's conditions are met.

The script is actually a predicate.  It's just an equation that evaluates to true or false.  Predicate is a long and unfamiliar word so I called it script.

The receiver of a payment does a template match on the script.  Currently, receivers only accept two templates: direct payment and bitcoin address.  Future versions can add templates for more transaction types and nodes running that version or higher will be able to receive them.  All versions of nodes in the network can verify and process any new transactions into blocks, even though they may not know how to read them.

1. yes never 100%. but i was addressing your comment about 100%.. just to correct you that if in YOUR scenario of 100% that there would be no fork. but instead just an united upgrade.
i then went on, passed your limited scope.. and i digressed to show the other parameters of majority(under 100%) and then controversial(less than majority).. it was not me that was highlighting just a 100% agreement. that was you.. like i said i went and explained the multiple levels of what happens when less and less agree and i also described how things play are when nodes are thrown out before consensus(to fake a vote)
...
but in short segwit only got 35% in spring 2017 and so instead of going back to the drawing board with a new option of a varient feature. they doubled down and really pushed for their segwit1x controversially

2. what you dont realise is that downstream/filtered nodes are not just skipping transaction full verification and just saying they pass a minimal test.. these nodes are actually being handed stripped data. which if they were part of the relay layer, the main relay layer nodes would reject the blocks. so its not true compatibility. its just fake compatibility t keep an underclass online but without voting rights (you might want to look into it.. ) the block data 'compatible' nodes get is not the same data full nodes get.
presuming 'compatible nodes' are true full relay nodes and have same vote rights is a flaw in your understanding of the relay network.

3. also before the segwit new ruleset even activated there was a controversial biased fork. some devs called it a bilateral split, amungst many names, but the devs do not deny that a controversial non consensus hardfork occured to push opposition off the network to then get a faked approval vote to get segwit1x activated.
there was no "honest consensus" / "honest node" event around how segwit1x got activated.

some people really need to do some research.. or atleast before trying to deny events happen. atleast speak to devs and realise devs do not need to be defended by lying and saying events didnt happen if said devs are happy to admit their own actions/involvement.
i see no reason for you to pretend things didnt happen. as it defends no one. and also blockdata which is immutible can prove you wrong, let alone quotes from devs themselves. so i wonder what are your motives for continuing the echo chamber of mythical nonsense that a certain group of of people want to continue pushing...

... as the only motive for such i can see is that certain echo chamber group. do NOT care for bitcoin. but only care for keeping bitcoin stifled to then promote another network(LN) where the echo chamber can only hope to become factory/watchtower nodes to be greedy income earnrs.. which if you play out scenario's of LN the echo chamber would soon learn they they wont get to be the hubs of get rich quick. as it will end up being the custodial services of the DCG portfolio that will be the big income earners.. all at the expense of making peer-to-peer self control a thing of the past, while the aim is to push the community into counterparty controlled, banking system which is not community/blockchain confirmed/validated. but instead co-custodian managed and manipulatable. thus killing off the whole point of bitcoin by making bitcoin too expensive and also too small utility to be useful

[plvbob0070]

While reading articles there were two paragraphs that questioned me

Proof of work was only ever a way to take central control out of the Bitcoin system. But decentralisation is hard – centralisation is always more efficient. So decentralisation failed by 2014, when mining had recentralised to a few large pools. Remember the 51% apocalypse in 2014?

Bitmain has controlled up to 50% of the mining (across multiple pools), makes 80% of the ASICs, and already messed with the BTC hash rate in late 2017. Nobody cared much at the time, because the crypto bubble was in the throes of full “number go up” on the exchanges.

The point of cryptocurrency was decentralisation. If you remove that, the only question left is “why on earth are you bothering with all of this.”

(There’s arguably a hypothetical use case for a centrally-administered blockchain-like currency, such as XRP, which then doesn’t have to bother with proof of work. In that case, we’re still waiting for non-hypothetical production systems that move beyond pilot stage.)

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/01/31/the-buttcoin-standard-the-problem-with-bitcoin/

It turns out that crypto communities make a lot of noise about the value of decentralization, but when you look under the covers, the entire coin comes down to a very small number of participants. For instance, Bitcoin’s blockchain is constructed by 19 mining entities, that’s it. Ethereum’s blockchain is constructed by 11. These are tiny numbers. While it’s true that each and every one of these mining entities consists of multiple sub-players, the fact is that they have come together under a unified entity and are operating together as one big business unit. There is a narrative that mining pools are internally decentralized, that there is invisible decentralization in these systems.


That argument turns out to be complete bunk. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes: they claim that there is something there that no one can see or measure or touch. The bottom line is participants in a mining pool are typically in no position to question what a pool operator is doing. They are in no position to detect when a pool operator launches an attack. So this narrative that these entities are internally decentralized doesn’t hold water. They might not be incorporated, but they are very much one group of people operating for a common cause.

https://www.longhash.com/news/interview-with-emin-gun-sirer-there-are-no-truly-decentralized-coins

Sure centralization is easier that decentralization but does it mean it's impossible? Hell no, I am confident we can still build something decentralized, we can't be perfect within a decade, that's something taking a lot of more years.

I am interested in a debate with people on this subject and the author's opinion

Let's admit that decentralization is quite harder and complicated. There's always pros and cons about centralized and decentralized. We're just used of centralization in our society. Maybe in the future and if the public adopts decentalized system, we'll get use of it too. There's always a room for improvement though.

[hxtop]

Although the establishment of a system based on decentralization is more difficult, there are many benefits to users. Therefore, I believe that an effective campain has been carried out in order to neutralize or discredit our decentralized system. But I think all of this will fail and people will turn to decentralized systems for their own benefit.