Bitcoin’s Greatest Strength: Verifying the Rules Without Central Authority

[Gragebox]

The people here mostly say money when describing Bitcoin, but the way I think about it, the most critical aspect is that transaction verification does not depend on anyone having a position of centralized authority. Any node participant can independently scan the blockchain, look at transaction history, and confirm that the nodes followed consensus rules. This seems to contrast quite clearly with the conventional financial system where most users have to trust a financial entity like a bank with history of the system or something like that.

Users must remember how to secure keys, make good decisions about their software, understand the risks associated with sending transactions… But, the protocol has a mechanism to confirm the rules, instead of needing participants to trust somebody that they follow the rules.

I’d say the ability to verify the rules is the single strongest element the long-term strength of Bitcoin derives from, more even then the market volatility of it. Rules may change value but verifiability remains a basis of the system.

What do you think is Bitcoin’s strongest long-term advantage, its monetary properties, or the ability for anyone to independently verify the rules without relying on a central authority?

[ColdLava40]

There are so many unique features that make Bitcoin so special. For me, Bitcoin greatest strength would be adoption. Perhaps many people would have variation of views as to what it's strength truly lies on.

Anyone can choose to run a node, verify transactions and check weather the network is following the consensus rules. I can't imagine how many systems out there gives users the leverage to do that. Our traditional systems strips you blind from the moment you decided to trust them.

If we needed to trust a centralized party to verify Bitcoin rules, it's unique properties would lose their significance.

[_act_]

What do you think is Bitcoin’s strongest long-term advantage, its monetary properties, or the ability for anyone to independently verify the rules without relying on a central authority?

It monetary value is the main long term advantage,m. But if it should be more specific, not just the monetary value because there are monies that are not stores of value, unlike bitcoin that is a store of value. Bitcoin not having a central authority is a very good advantage, that is the reason some people will use bitcoin for transactions, but I do not think bitcoin adoption will get to where it is today if it is not a store of value.

[Alvin_talk]

What do you think is Bitcoin’s strongest long-term advantage, its monetary properties, or the ability for anyone to independently verify the rules without relying on a central authority?

Bitcoin's strongest long term advantage varies among individuals, depending on their circumstances. Considering the country I come from, where inflation is common, bitcoin hedge against inflation is one of the longest term advantage for me. As the purchasing power of my income keeps declining year after year, it has become a common practice for me to save some portion of my earning in bitcoin instead of keeping all in fiat. Although it might be volatile in short term but on the long run it is a better way of preserving value than relying on fiat.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

The people here mostly say money when describing Bitcoin, but the way I think about it, the most critical aspect is that transaction verification does not depend on anyone having a position of centralized authority. Any node participant can independently scan the blockchain, look at transaction history, and confirm that the nodes followed consensus rules. This seems to contrast quite clearly with the conventional financial system where most users have to trust a financial entity like a bank with history of the system or something like that.

It is right but it is dependent on how people run their Bitcoin nodes. Whether they do Initial Blockchain Download (IBD) for their nodes or not. If they did not do IBD by themselves, but downloaded and used Blockchain snapshots from any sources, it's very risky because that file can be a fake IBD, that can contain wrong information about Bitcoin blockchain, transaction history, UTXOs, then if they use it for their wallets and funds, they might lose their bitcoins.

Bitcoin Core pruned blockchain: download it here! (DON'T DO THIS!)

Users must remember how to secure keys

It's about your wallets, your private keys, your bitcoins and it's another thing.
How to back up a seed phrase?

[Zlantann]

What do you think is Bitcoin’s strongest long-term advantage, its monetary properties, or the ability for anyone to independently verify the rules without relying on a central authority?

Before the creation of Bitcoin, all currencies were centralized. The government was uncharged of controlling the minting and circulation of money in all countries. Bitcoin changed the game by introducing a decentralized money that is not controlled by a single entity. Its biggest advantage is the freedom and privacy it offers to users.

The openness of the Bitcoin ledger in the blockchain is also an advantage. Sometimes someone can claim to send fiat meanwhile the receiver cannot confirm if its true all false. This is not the case with Bitcoin and I think its an advantage.

[Alpha Marine]

Most times, we take the genius of Bitcoin for granted. There are so many things about Bitcoin that are mind-blowing. Maybe it's because I am fascinated by it, but each time I look at it, it blows my mind how carefully written everything is.
We focus more on the price and forget what an intelligent creation Bitcoin is.
When you see people criticise Bitcoin, none of them has been able to criticise the code. I have never seen a person who says this thing makes it inferior. They only criticise the fact that it "can't work as money" or it's an "investment that was created out of thin air". Or something along those lines.

The fact that we have a system/network/machine that runs itself without a central authority is being taken for granted. Take a look at the difficulty rate, for example. It recalculates itself every 2016 blocks to make sure a block is mined every 10 minutes. So if it takes too long for the 2016 blocks to be mined, the difficulty level reduces, and it increases if it's too fast.

There are so many things about Bitcoin that would be mind-blowing. Even the mere fact that Bitcoin made transactions public, but at the same time, it helps promote privacy is genius when you think about it. I believe it is these things about Bitcoin that would make it last long term. More convenient money might be created in futire, but it's going to take another level of genius to top Bitcoin.

[EjiukaSpecial]

I'll say that the ability to independently verify the rules by yourself is a stronger advantage than merely saying that Bitcoin is decentralized. Decentralization only becomes a thing of users can truly check that the network is following the same rules on their own. Bitcoin helped us transition from the era you have to trust bank or other central authority to verify if our transaction history is correct or not.

With Bitcoin, you can simply verify it yourself and it is that shift from "trust me" to "verify it" that definitely happens to be one of the biggest long-term strengths of Bitcoin if you ask me.

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

The fact that we have a system/network/machine that runs itself without a central authority is being taken for granted. Take a look at the difficulty rate, for example. It recalculates itself every 2016 blocks to make sure a block is mined every 10 minutes. So if it takes too long for the 2016 blocks to be mined, the difficulty level reduces, and it increases if it's too fast.

This blockchain difficulty and difficulty retarget every 2016 blocks are very amazing because they are helpful for Bitcoin blockchain to adjust its difficulty according to changes of network hashrate and computational power of Bitcoin miners.

With it, if there are Bitcoin miners turn off their ASICs, stop mining, the blockchain will retaget its difficulty and make it more mineable with remaining Bitcoin miners, and there will be not too severe confirmation delays on the blockchain.

Exception is only if the majority of miners turn off their ASICs but I think such scenario is only in the world apocalypse and I don't think it will come, so let's think positively about Bitcoin future.

It's possible to watch Bitcoin blockchain difficulty estimator for a next retarget.
https://newhedge.io/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator
https://newhedge.io/bitcoin/network-difficulty

[Texac]

I’d say the ability to verify the rules is the single strongest element the long-term strength of Bitcoin derives from, more even then the market volatility of it. Rules may change value but verifiability remains a basis of the system.

What do you think is Bitcoin’s strongest long-term advantage, its monetary properties, or the ability for anyone to independently verify the rules without relying on a central authority?

I agree that verifiability is one of the most profound benefit of Bitcoin. So should we totally isolate monetary property from it? Rather, this two reinforce each other various way. Full node can verify blockchain & consensus rules itself, it does not have to rely on any bank.

And if we talk about incentive structure, does Bitcoin only make independent verification possible? Rather, it also made it economically important. You say Holder or merchant and where are the miner and node operator, but everyone has an incentive to reject arbitrary monetary inflation. So I would say verifiability is mechanism. But Bitcoin's monetary incentive support to uphold that mechanism sustainable in long run.

[Antidote47k]

For me both advantages are not completely separable, i think the fact that you have the ability to independently verify the rules is part of what gives the monetary part its credibility.
Take for instance, the 21million cap supply, it’s not just that the code says there will only ever be 21million bitcoin, the most important part is that anybody can run a node and independently attest to the fact that the blocks will follow those rules and deny the blocks if they don't. So when you look at it from another angle the monetary property becomes the outcome while the independent verification part allows those properties to be trusted without any central authority.

If the supply was still fixed but needed government or a third party to honestly maintain it, I think the outcome wouldn’t be what it is today. So for these reason I’d probably choose verifiability as the deeper advantage, because it is what makes many of Bitcoin’s other properties independently checkable rather than something we simply have to believe.

[Dunamisx]

What do you think is Bitcoin’s strongest long-term advantage, its monetary properties, or the ability for anyone to independently verify the rules without relying on a central authority?

The monetary asset of value and long-term reliability not controlled by any central authority, Bitcoin has come to stand as a unique digital currency for us all. What is needed is our support for adoption and making use of it in applicable areas of our financial economy, while the Bitcoin network, using blockchain technology, has also perfected everything about its security and trust over the network.

[Danish Ali]

I'd say the ability to verify the rules is the single strongest element the long-term strength of Bitcoin derives from, more even then the market volatility of it.

Agree with this actually. Fixed supply etc. has no meaning independent of the money properties which can be independently checked by any. The 21 million limit wouldn't be so different from assuming a central banking membership that it wouldn't expand the money supply. Value to the money properties is first given by checkability.

What do you think is Bitcoin's strongest long-term advantage, its monetary properties, or the ability for anyone to independently verify the rules?

But in fact, such are not separate objects. If the choice comes down to any of these must bite off checkability That is despite gold also having money properties, but there's no method for testing a gold bar without performing the tests and there's always a case of just having to trust the tester. Run your system, there is no need to trust bitcoin. Differences exist only in whether or not it is that.

[red4slash]

The people here mostly say money when describing Bitcoin, but the way I think about it, the most critical aspect is that transaction verification does not depend on anyone having a position of centralized authority. Any node participant can independently scan the blockchain, look at transaction history, and confirm that the nodes followed consensus rules. This seems to contrast quite clearly with the conventional financial system where most users have to trust a financial entity like a bank with history of the system or something like that.

...............

What do you think is Bitcoin’s strongest long-term advantage, its monetary properties, or the ability for anyone to independently verify the rules without relying on a central authority?

I feel that not many people say that bitcoin is money but currency and this is clearly a different approach. Even though bitcoin has value (price) but in the end it will not be true if bitcoin is said to be money because until now money was synonymous with fiat and a means of payment.

Although in some countries may have implemented bitcoin as a payment system but this does not cover all (global) because this is only a handful so it would be very ambiguous when saying bitcoin as money here.
As for the issue of profit from bitcoin for now for me is the long-term value that bitcoin has. The value of bitcoin is getting bigger (if we compare it with fiat) and this is certainly an attraction although there are no guarantees but by reflecting on historical data from the beginning of creation until now there will always be hope that by investing and hodl for the long term, its value will increase.

[coinrifft]

What do you think is Bitcoin’s strongest long-term advantage, its monetary properties, or the ability for anyone to independently verify the rules without relying on a central authority?

Maybe if we can relate to it with the latest BIP-110 drama, then we can say it's the consensus mechanism. Meaning that everyone should at least agree or there should be majority before something is going to be implemented and rules being change.

And then BYOB (Be your Own Bank) core principle of it. Although the same with the consensus mechanism, it's been challenge right now with the Coldcard incident. But still, we can have total control of our Bitcoin and there are no party in-between and we are not relying to the old banking system.

[M47AK16]

Most times, we take the genius of Bitcoin for granted. There are so many things about Bitcoin that are mind-blowing. Maybe it's because I am fascinated by it, but each time I look at it, it blows my mind how carefully written everything is.
We focus more on the price and forget what an intelligent creation Bitcoin is.
When you see people criticise Bitcoin, none of them has been able to criticise the code. I have never seen a person who says this thing makes it inferior. They only criticise the fact that it "can't work as money" or it's an "investment that was created out of thin air". Or something along those lines.

The fact that we have a system/network/machine that runs itself without a central authority is being taken for granted. Take a look at the difficulty rate, for example. It recalculates itself every 2016 blocks to make sure a block is mined every 10 minutes. So if it takes too long for the 2016 blocks to be mined, the difficulty level reduces, and it increases if it's too fast.

There are so many things about Bitcoin that would be mind-blowing. Even the mere fact that Bitcoin made transactions public, but at the same time, it helps promote privacy is genius when you think about it. I believe it is these things about Bitcoin that would make it last long term. More convenient money might be created in futire, but it's going to take another level of genius to top Bitcoin.

I... I do not think that we do? I mean Bitcoin reached a couple trillion dollars market cap at the maximum, so I think we are aware of the genius of Bitcoin and decentralisation and the value of the blockchain; if we didn't, then how could something go from nothing to a couple trillion dollars in less than 20 years?

Nothing in the world reached from nothing to those levels in less than 20 years; even Amazon had to grind hard in net losses and keep on selling more shares to keep getting funded to be able to grow this big. They are big now, but until that moment, they had to give up more and more of the company to survive. Bitcoin didn't have to do any of that; it just kept going and going and going, and we grew all the time. Sure, we have bear market periods like now, but then it goes back up and reaches new highs.

[stompix]

This blockchain difficulty and difficulty retarget every 2016 blocks are very amazing because they are helpful for Bitcoin blockchain to adjust its difficulty according to changes of network hashrate and computational power of Bitcoin miners.

I wouldn't call that part that amazing, I've always been on the opinion that the epoch are way too long, if a problem hits like we had that China ban which dropped 20% of the hashrate from the chain instantly, we're in 2 and a half weeks of 20% diminished capacity with escalating fees.
If God forbid, something bad happens like a complete electricity crisis in the US, and 40% of the hashrate goes down the drain, you look at one month of adjustment, even with all the variations a 720 blocks or 5-day adjustment would have been better.