Satoshi Nakamoto White Paper

[Linyihang]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

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[ranochigo]

Satoshi isn't Bitcoin and he should not dictate what Bitcoin is and what direction should development go. He doesn't have the benefit of hindsight and cannot possibly predict whatever would've happened in the years to come and expect Bitcoin to continue the direction that he wanted. Development of Bitcoin should be fluid and evolving as time goes by.

Whether Bitcoin is decentralized, I would say that it still is. There isn't anything that we have done to break the balance between decentralization and utility.

[SamReomo]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

No, Bitcoin hasn't gone against Satoshi Nakamoto's original intentions and it's currently still the same Bitcoin it used to be when Satoshi created it. I know you're trying to say that now centralized exchanges are somehow as main way to purchase Bitcoin and something like that, but that doesn't mean that Bitcoin is centralized itself. Those are just exchanges which someone may need to use in order to purchase Bitcoin and by the way it can still be purchased from decentralized exchanges.

Regulators have always been trying to regulate Bitcoin and make it regulated but that's not possible for anyone to do. Now, it's more considered as an asset than a p2p payment system but still it works as a p2p payment system and no one controls it other than the wallet owners. You still don't need any third party's permission to transfer your Bitcoin and that's enough to say that it's still as decentralized as it used to be during the times of Satoshi Nakamoto.

[franky1]

bitcoin has changed alot from its inception

its no longer the "1 cpu 1 vote" system it was before..
this can be seen by 3 main things

1. ASICS exist now, we are no longer in the 'solo mine' days of block creation via one CPU
2. node consensus, we are no longer in the era of hardened consensus which required majority consent to activate new big features
3. proposals for new features has less of an open door policy due to te core hierarchy and their control of communication platform moderation of technical discussions. their open door previously is now just open book, of open to read but less open to be a writer/editor of said book

we need to keep an eye on these central points of failure and not just be ego stroked back to sleep to be told its ok to let it happen. we need to stay vigilant and scrutinise the changes. to ensure any and all changes benefit bitcoiners and not centralised institutions

also to note:
bitcoin decade ago used to care about each bytes purpose in a transaction, thus then in a block, trying to find efficiencies and ensuring nodes checked every byte met a purpose and validated the data for reasons that were set in rules.. not the same as what we see today

i am a bitcoin maximalist, its the only crypto i see as having longevity and potential for the future. but i am also a realist and not a suckered into sleeping dreamer. so i dont fear talking about the risks and issues

this forum doesnt need zombie salesmen only speaking the utopian dream hype promotions.. readers have already heard the word bitcoin to then have found this site.. so they dont need the utopian dreamer promotion. they want to see the realities and learn about actual bitcoin not promotional material. its called risk mitigation, due diligence

[Z-tight]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

Satoshi created BTC to be a p2p electronic cash that is decentralized, permissionless and censorship resistant; and i believe it is still all of that. However, because of development and growth there have been a lot of changes and shift in other aspects, i.e. some people think that the involvement of centralized institutions and the government, with things like spot etf's is also against Satoshi's visions, which may be true, but some of these are inevitable, and Satoshi could not have designed it all from beginning until today.

BTC still remains decentralized, permissionless and censorship resistant, and i think these 3 points are very important to what Satoshi wanted for the network, and so it is hard to say that we have fully gone against satoshi's intentions.

[franky1]

censorship resistant;

be cautious of the over use of that buzzword
bitcoin is censorship resistant of an INDIVIDUAL editing/altering/censoring transactions. but bitcoin always had good rules to decide whats worthy of being in the blockchain and decided and agreed by the MASSES using consensus

words like dropped, removed, rejected, orphaned, purged, evicted, stripped, pruned are part of the bitcoin wordage when talking about bitcoin ruleset policy

recently those rules have been relaxed, softened to allow junk and stuff that does not benefit a bitcoiners experience.. but some people(those over using the term censorship resistance) pretend any junk should be allowed and no rules should exist to stop anything bloating the blockchain.. which is a risk to the network and a efficiency drag that goes against a lean blockchain that could scale to benefit bitcoiners

[thecodebear]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

Why do you think it isn't decentralized?

The point of decentralization was that nobody can shut it down and nobody can control it or direct access to it. Those two things are very much true. No person, govt, company, organization, etc can stop bitcoin or control who has access to it. Govts can of course make laws that say it is illegal for their citizens to participate, but they can't actually stop or control access to it entirely.


Look at essentially any other cryptocurrency and you'll find some governing/controlling body residing over that crypto that basically has final control over what direction the crypto takes, and that serves as a single point of failure for that crypto that govt can go after. Bitcoin is simply a technology that runs on many many computers all over the world. I compare it to the end of Terminator 3 when the main characters realize the can't shut SkyNet down because there is nothing to shut down, its just software that runs on computers all over the world. That's decentralization, and that's what Bitcoin has. That doesn't mean its perfectly decentralized, nothing can be. But it absolutely has operational decentralization that gives it the protection that is the goal of decentralization.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

Not necessarily gone but with some intervention from other sector people who wanted to control bitcoin, somehow they wanna manage it or regulate it. However since no one can stop this, the big answer is still no. Yes on trading there are some who are buying and selling it as investment purposes but the users can able to use bitcoin freely within decentralized space as long as they want. I doubt this will be centralized or handle even in years as Satoshi makes sure of that.

[franky1]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

Why do you think it isn't decentralized?

The point of decentralization was that nobody can shut it down and nobody can control it or direct access to it. Those two things are very much true. No person, govt, company, organization, etc can stop bitcoin or control who has access to it.

do you not know of the core devs. or the NYA agreement of/sponsored by major services, where there is the importance of the results of the "COPA cases" .. core devs and major services vs a scammer/fraud.*
things could change if a court decided that core devs and major services have to do as the other party requests

ofcourse core devs will just disband and no longer be devs,. but whomever then decides to develop, and proposes changes then has to abide by the law..

so be risk aware.
*ofcourse he wont win.. but knowledge of bitcoin to know where vulnerabilities lay then inform people what needs defending

[DannyHamilton]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

No.

Bitcoin is clearly MORE decentralized now than it was when Satioshi was involved.

its no longer the "1 cpu 1 vote" system it was before..

The question was about "Satoshi's" intentions.  It stopped being "1 CPU 1 vote" before Satoshi left, and he made no effort to prevent that.

1. ASICS exist now, we are no longer in the 'solo mine' days of block creation via one CPU

And GPU mining existed before Satoshi left. He never expressed any concern about that, or any belief that it drifted from his intentions. The concept of mining pools came into existence before he left as well. He never expressed any concern about that either, or any belief that they drifted from his intentions.

2. node consensus, we are no longer in the era of hardened consensus which required majority consent to activate new big features

When Satoshi was around, he could just declare that everyone should follow a particular branch of the blockchain and a vast majority would do so. Clearly there is no longer a "single person" that has that power.

3. proposals for new features has less of an open door policy due to te core hierarchy and their control of communication platform moderation of technical discussions. their open door previously is now just open book, of open to read but less open to be a writer/editor of said book

When Satoshi was around, he, as a single individual, decided EVERYTHING that went into the core code.

we need to keep an eye on these central points of failure and not just be ego stroked back to sleep to be told its ok to let it happen. we need to stay vigilant and scrutinise the changes. to ensure any and all changes benefit bitcoiners and not centralised institutions

I agree.  But if we are comparing "now" to "Satoshi's vision". Now is clearly better.

 

[Learn Bitcoin]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

No matter what others say about it, we should be worried about it. Bitcoin hasn't changed, but we are using it in the wrong way. Bitcoin users are supposed to be anonymous so their money and the user can maintain their privacy. But, the centralized exchanges and other platforms changed everything. We are using centralized exchanges providing our identities.

It's been over a decade now and we are using it in a wrong way. We are binding our bank accounts with the exchanges. We were supposed to be free with our money but...... What is happening now? GazetaBitcoin has a thread about it. You can read if you want. 12 years later and people still don't know to use Bitcoin nor what it's good for

[bolshojkush]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

No matter what others say about it, we should be worried about it. Bitcoin hasn't changed, but we are using it in the wrong way. Bitcoin users are supposed to be anonymous so their money and the user can maintain their privacy. But, the centralized exchanges and other platforms changed everything. We are using centralized exchanges providing our identities.

It's been over a decade now and we are using it in a wrong way. We are binding our bank accounts with the exchanges. We were supposed to be free with our money but...... What is happening now? GazetaBitcoin has a thread about it. You can read if you want. 12 years later and people still don't know to use Bitcoin nor what it's good for

I read the post, there is information given why it is better not to use exchanges and banks, the topic of anonymity is not disclosed. Everyone knows that all transactions remain on the blockchain and all bitcoin movements can be tracked. Therefore, you cannot remain 100% anonymous. In any case, third parties may receive information about you or your bitcoin address, for example, from the person to whom you sold bitcoin or from whom you bought it, if he is not anonymous enough. And then further study your transactions and search for data about you. There are many examples where the police have found people who stole bitcoins if they did not use mixers or Monero.
Bitcoin is decentralized, but I think that it is not anonymous enough if you do not make additional efforts to anonymity
Read the article about the "Crypto Dust Attack", this is one of the methods of establishing the identity of the owner of the crypto wallet.

https://cointelegraph.com/explained/what-is-a-crypto-dusting-attack-and-how-do-you-avoid-it
https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/crypto-dusting-attack-bitcoin

[thecodebear]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

No.

Bitcoin is clearly MORE decentralized now than it was when Satioshi was involved.

2. node consensus, we are no longer in the era of hardened consensus which required majority consent to activate new big features

When Satoshi was around, he could just declare that everyone should follow a particular branch of the blockchain and a vast majority would do so. Clearly there is no longer a "single person" that has that power.

3. proposals for new features has less of an open door policy due to te core hierarchy and their control of communication platform moderation of technical discussions. their open door previously is now just open book, of open to read but less open to be a writer/editor of said book

When Satoshi was around, he, as a single individual, decided EVERYTHING that went into the core code.

we need to keep an eye on these central points of failure and not just be ego stroked back to sleep to be told its ok to let it happen. we need to stay vigilant and scrutinise the changes. to ensure any and all changes benefit bitcoiners and not centralised institutions

I agree.  But if we are comparing "now" to "Satoshi's vision". Now is clearly better.

 

Exactly. Bitcoin didn't actually become decentralized until Satoshi left, given his control over it. Similar to Buterin with Ethereum, people try to claim Ethereum is decentralized, but one of the major points against that is that Buterin essentially controls Ethereum, whatever he and the other top people decide is what happens with Ethereum, and those top people in Ethereum are never going to relinquish their control. I would bet part of the reason why Satoshi left is because he knew his vision for Bitcoin could never be achieved as long as he stayed.

As for the things that people normally complain about when trying to say Bitcoin is not decentralized, those things are simply the natural result of Bitcoin's growth. Stuff like mining companies and mining pools are the natural consequence of the PoW mining that Satoshi used. Centralized exchanges are the natural consequence of people wanting to be able to easily buy and sell Bitcoin. ETFs, and wealthy people or companies or governments owning Bitcoin is the natural consequence of Bitcoin getting popular. These are simply the consequences of Bitcoin's natural growth. Bitcoin is now far more decentralized than it was in Satoshi's day. Though we do need decentralized privacy-keeping options for buying and selling so everything doesn't just go through centralized exchanges. As far as I know decentralized exchanges for Bitcoin are very small and therefore not good places to buy and sell.

I'd say the ultimate test for Bitcion is:

1. Can it be shut down?
     The answer is no, never.
2. Can it be co-opted and controlled?
     The answer appears to be no, never.
3. Can anyone gain access to and use Bitcoin?
     The answer is mostly yes, though in countries with tighter internet controls on the population and more restrictive controls on society the answer is more like you have to get creative and risk illegality to do so.
4. Can people preserve their privacy while using Bitcoin?
     This one is the only one where Bitcoin doesn't currently score great. You CAN, but its hard to, because the main way to get Bitcoin is through centralized exchanges, and then there are companies whose whole goal is to try to track anyone who goes through centralized exchanges. This is where a larger decentralized exchange ecosystem would come in handy, and it would also help out question #3 a bit as well. But also you have to realize that it is going to be impossible to have perfect privacy, so the answer to this will never be a perfect yes. Because even in a world where you obtain your bitcoin with perfect privacy, when you would use bitcoin to buy something online you have to put in your address, which is associated with your identity, and therefore your identity is then linked to your bitcoin address, and that is the type of information govts would request from companies in order to track where money flows. But still, Bitcoin DEXes getting popular and useful for the average person would I think be the final piece of making sure Bitcoin retains Satoshi's vision for it.

[NeuroticFish]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

I will try to be short, since I feel like this was already said in this topic, but in a way too long and complicated manner.
1. Bitcoin has change a lot since Satoshi has disappeared. Is it the best direction? That's highly debatable. Is it better than when was left by Satoshi? Yes.
2. The answer to your question is no. But I think that you don't understand what decentralization means here: it's not about the number of pockets holding funds, it's about how many centers mine it and how many wallets have their own copy of the blockchain.

[franky1]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

No.

Bitcoin is clearly MORE decentralized now than it was when Satioshi was involved.

its no longer the "1 cpu 1 vote" system it was before..

The question was about "Satoshi's" intentions.  It stopped being "1 CPU 1 vote" before Satoshi left, and he made no effort to prevent that.

1. ASICS exist now, we are no longer in the 'solo mine' days of block creation via one CPU

And GPU mining existed before Satoshi left. He never expressed any concern about that, or any belief that it drifted from his intentions. The concept of mining pools came into existence before he left as well. He never expressed any concern about that either, or any belief that they drifted from his intentions.

topic is actually about white paper.. so yes its changed alot since

also he clearly expressed he didnt want to be a ruling class decision maker moderating out proposals that defied his desires.
so yes its changed alot since

satoshi was open to community engagement and evolution of mass agreement of good beneficial independently offered proposals.. rather than central point of failures.. so yes it has changed alot since

as for asics, remember how gmax wanted to stop asics evolving their efficiencies due to asic boost potentially ruining/hindering core roadmap plans.. so yes its changed alot since

remember how in 2016 people were telling devs incessantly that core devs proposal for 2017 of miscounting bytes, not validating all bytes which would allow junk un-validated data like books of moby dick to be put into blocks.. and core ignored the risks and pushed and mandated the activation to soften the rules considerably more, anyway... and warnings for years to not work on an after activation fix.. and years later we had the congestion and annoyances of ordinal meme junk to prove the point.. yes bitcoin has changed alot since

[adaseb]

Like I said a minute ago in a similar post regarding centralization. It doesn’t matter how much bitcoins are held by these etfs and exchanges, they are the bitcoins of their customers. Unless the exchange is a scam like FTX they cannot sell your bitcoins without your permission.

What is important is that there are bitcoin mining farms all around the world and it’s more decentralized than it was a decade ago. This is what is important.

Imagine China holding 80% of the hashpower and all of a sudden their government tells all their pools to switch to a different fork. It would be disasterious but we don’t have that problem right now.

[franky1]

Exactly. Bitcoin didn't actually become decentralized until Satoshi left, given his control over it.

satoshi was actually open to community engagement and idea's .. just read his post history of getting idea's from the community. heck he even got bug fixes from hal finney the first month of bitcoin running, having never met the guy bitcoin evolved due to lots of feature upgrade proposals from many independent devs even while satoshi was still around

however core have meet-ups of their club, they know and socially circle each other in a hierarchy, and moderate out those they dislike that are not following the core roadmap plan

I'd say the ultimate test for Bitcion is:
2. Can it be co-opted and controlled?
     The answer appears to be no, never.

you might want to check on core and the NYA activity in the last 8 years

[apogio]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

Yes, but it is normal. I mean, as time passes, more and more people get to know about bitcoin. Many of them dive deeper inside the rabbit hole and they decide to mine and run their own nodes. These 2 actions improve bitcoin's decentralization.

So as far as I am concerned, bitcoin is more decentralized now, but if you want my opinion, it could have been even more decentralized, especially in terms of nodes. Because running nodes is much much cheaper and easier than mining.

So, I reckon that the number of active nodes (we can only estimate how many there are), should have been larger. According to bitnodes there are ~50k nodes. Of course the real number is higher, but again, I would like to see it growing much more.

[Huppercase]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

The mission of Bitcoin has remained the same and as long as the network is not manipulated in any form, I think Satoshi legacy is still in intact. The price is growing and will grow more, the network has seen a solid growth from transaction to speed without compromising decentralization and scalability, thanks to segwit sofyfork and lastly the LN even if the adoption hasn't been massive as many people anticipate for its growth.

Bitcoin ETF are not my problem because Bitcoin is an open market, anyone with money can buy as long as they has money and they can do whatever they like with their bitcoin. As long as 80% of people hold the remaining circulating supply, the rest can do what they think it's good for Bitcoin instead of focusing on the main vision of Satoshi.

However, even if there are some places Satoshi can't be impressed about Bitcoin, he knows what government is capable of doing and I believe that was the reason why he went into hidden to protect the network, the people around him and the investors because he knows that the government don't like anything related to what they can't control and Bitcoin isn't that of asset you can control and that's pain them.

[Casdinyard]

Do you think Bitcoin has gone against Satoshi Nakamoto’s original intentions and embarked on a non-decentralized path?

Whether it did or didn't, Satoshi's got no say in how bitcoin works anymore at this point. His brainchild's began to grow its own pair of wings and fly away from the coop, away from Satoshi's influence and reach so no matter how much bitcoin's strayed from the ideal path that Satoshi has created, if he even created any in the first place, it wouldn't matter at all because bitcoin's the people's property now and not his. Personally speaking I think Satoshi even intended for it to be this way, otherwise he wouldn't implement a specific feature that will eventually centralize the whole supply of the network to the few millions/thousands of users at the upper echelon of the bitcoin hierarchy. He understands that bitcoin, as decentralized as it is isn't going to be decentralized through and through, and would require a little bit of centralization to service millions of people with no issue.

I think you're overthinking this, the fact that you're appealing to someone who didn't even bother to show his/her/their face to the public's a little too tangential. I say you focus on your investment first and foremost if you have any, and make Satoshi's desires the least of your worries.