Topic: Bitcoin core value? - miners will switch to Bitcoin Classic - page 3. (Read 5765 times)

Look, Alice, don't get upset. I'm merely explaining to you how things are, not deriding you for wanting them to be different.

Sure, if everybody ran full node, and everyone wanted to stick with Core, Classic wouldn't fly. By definition. Unfortunately for you, at most 4,000 (four thousand) people run Core full nodes. And, even I will admit, Bitcoin has more than 4k users.

And somebody is *already* running 800 core nodes, so clearly not *everyone* supports core.

And, if the miner's do not support Core, you got yourself some dead, Memecoin-level worthless coins. If you want to be a man of principle, that is, and don't mind taking a little hit.
But I bet ya no one'd say nothin' bad 'bout you if you git a hankerin' to turn those worthless coins into money by spending them on a fork that ain't dead.
Heck, nobody even has to know

You don't get it.

I don't want the power to decide which fork wins. That's not security, that would be centralization.

This started because you wanted to know how people running full clients adds security.

It adds security because I don't get to choose, the miners don't get to choose, but a consensus of distributed users RUNNING FULL NODES FOR THEIR FANCY WALLETS gets to choose.

That's where the security from. Decentralization.

When we all use lite clients clients, it isn't decentralized consensus.

This isn't rocket science, it is ridiculous that you need this explained over and over and over again.

>So by running my fancy wallet, I choose which fork I'm active on.
Sure, you do. Since a very small percentage of the miners will be mining your fork (and the difficulty will not be down-adjusted until [up to] 2016 blocks are solved, so hashpower/difficulty ratio ridiculous, so never), you can now:
1. Tell people how many worthless coins you own.
2. Cry.
3. Cry & tell people how many worthless coins you own.
4. Start telling people about the worthless coins you own, but break down in tears before you can get the words out.
Because one thing you won't be able to do with those coins is use them. Ever.

But yeah, you can chose. Suicidal choice, from a purely utilitarian perspective, but there's more to life than money I guess.
Anyhow I don't judge

I agree, there is a balance of power.  Miners can't force users to use a coin they don't want.

But some people like Gregory Maxwell have recently argued the opposite -- that miners can try to coerce users into using a certain coin.

I don't give a rats ass about VMs or how many there are running whatever the hell they want to run.

By running a full node, I choose which branch my transactions happen on. You can call it a fancy wallet - but I don't really care for semantic games, those are usually played by arrogant people who know they don't have a point but are too prideful to admit it.

So by running my fancy wallet, I choose which fork I'm active on. When you or anyone sends me coins, it is valid on that fork or it isn't valid.

So when we, the users, run a full nodes - we, the users, decide which fork the block reward has value on - because if the miners decide they like classic (doubtful but hypothetical) and try to force us into it even though we, the users who buy coins, prefer core - then the coins those miners mine will be worthless because they can't sell them to us.

Thus they will mine what we, the people running full nodes, er, I mean fancy wallets continue to use - giving a balance of power because their block rewards are worthless if they can't sell the coins to us.

Right. By having *your* full node wallet verify the validity *your* transactions, your transactions don't get confirmed until *your* block (block valid for *your* fork) gets solved. Which is *never* (because the miners aren't solving it, they're solving *their* blocks, which adhere to *their* ruleset, and are acceptable to *their* full nodes wallets). That's if they don't allocate a fraction of their hashpower to mess with your fork.

In the meantime, those who have switched to the miners' fork are getting their transactions verified every 10 minutes.
And those who are using thin/web wallets (all but ~4,000 users) are getting their transactions verified every 10 minutes too, because relying on other nodes (most of which are miners' VM nodes, which the miners are running for roughly $7/mo each, or about $28k/mo for 4,000 of them (probably much less because bulk).

Now tell me about how your full node is more than a good wallet, how VM nodes do not matter & enjoy your worthless coins

Well, actual BTC are not in risk of disappearing as they can fit in 2 MB blocks. Users are in a comfortable place IMO as they can choose whatever they like once it is developed, without risking their coins beforehand...

Yes because if there is a hard fork, coins mined on one branch will not exist on the other branch. That will create major problems when the block rewards enter circulation.

I might not be the best or the most technical for this but it's what I understood. From what I know both classic and core are just the software behind it. The coins are still bitcoins!

It can't really affect the coins no?

Nobody is mining with classic. And nobody is switching from core nodes to classic.  Core nodes still at 5k.  All the classic nodes are people bringing new nodes online.  Which isn't bad, but they will shut them down when they see classic isn't getting adopted.

What I'm trying to say is if a large percentage of the miners switch to classic but we, the users, stick to core - then those miners will be mining block rewards they can't spend because they will be on a fork that we don't accept as valid.

Thus by running a full client, we get a say in how bitcoin progresses rather than leaving it up to the miners and commercial web wallet companies.

coinbase may like classic but coinbase will have to stick with core if the userbase sticks with core. That's the security we provide.

It doesn't matter how many VM instances run what clients.

What matters is what fork the the coins real people are using are on.

Initially most transactions will probably be on both forks, but as both forks continue to mine, coins will be created in the block rewards that only exist on one fork or the other.

Which node we, the people actually making transactions to buy stuff and accepting transactions to sell stuff, determine which fork has value and thus by which node we choose balance the power of the miners.

The analogy is fine. Proving the negative is notoriously hard (often impossible), and yet that's exactly what you're asking of me.

Proving the positive, OTOH (that nodes *do* contribute to security), is a must. For the statement to have a defined, positive truth value, that is (because no proof != false, so you might have an "undefined," see here).
So it would be much more appropriate for me to ask *you* to prove that nodes contribute to Bitcoin security.
Please do so.

Getting back to my analogy, you are asking me to prove that the padlocks littering the lawn don't contribute to our security. Because, if I'm unable to, they do.
At least, according to you.

I'll even help you to get your proof going. One tack might be to prove that it's economically unsound for the miners to counter "a_node_you_like" with a node of their own.


Explain *how*.
Yes, your own coins are safe if you run a real (full node) wallet, but you do not contribute anything to the network which can't be countered by a VM instance (which could be leased by "bad" miners for a trivial sum).

Miners will predominantly mine on the fork that users are predominantly using. That's the only way they get a block reward that is actually worth anything.

Of course the full-nodes we run are important and balance out the power.

Anyone reading can see this is a ridiculous analogy. Instead of inventing an irrelevant analogy, try proving the actual statement wrong. If "non-mining nodes [are] irrelevant to Bitcoin security," that implies either that "Bitcoin is secure with only mining nodes" or "Bitcoin is insecure no matter what."

My statement above specifically addresses the former. It is absolutely not secure with only mining nodes. The burden is on you to prove the second statement.


Yes, relying on other nodes = trust. And without non-mining nodes, there are only mining nodes. Hence "miners can level endless attacks on the entire userbase, from double-spending to transaction censorship." You say "other nodes"...but if there are only mining nodes, the userbase, by definition, trusts miners. Hence why the existence of non-mining nodes secures bitcoin: by decentralizing hash power from validating nodes.

You said "non-mining nodes don't *add* anything to security." For individual users: Anyone who transacts with bitcoin without validating their own transactions is insecure and dependent on trust. For the bitcoin system: Without non-mining nodes, miners can level endless attacks on the entire userbase, from double-spending to transaction censorship.

Go ahead and actually prove those statements wrong instead of making a bizarre, irrelevant analogy.


No, the bolded is incorrect. Hash rate is irrelevant without rule enforcement. If miners are the only party enforcing the rules, all users trust miners. My voice is my node. I enforce the rules not only to validate my own transactions but to enforce the rules of the system, helping to prevent miners or other attackers from breaking them.

The more nodes that exist that are enforcing the same rules, the more likely the longest valid blockchain data that you receive from them is accurate. If there are only five validating nodes in the network, it only takes six Sybils to make many attacks on the system easily possible.

Regarding this thinking that miners are the end-all, be-all of bitcoin:


Miners have to contend with the idea that if they cannot reach 100% consensus on a single rule set (and therefore a single blockchain in a chain fork situation) that lack of node consensus will force them to chain fork and therefore choose between two distinct blockchains. A rational miner would probably rather avoid that situation. I continue to enforce the 1MB limit -- as do others -- to force rational miners to tread carefully when considering whether to hard fork without full consensus.


It may be true that spinning up some nodes is trivial -- but mounting a successful Sybil attack may not be so trivial or inexpensive at all. Spinning up nodes for nodecounter.com is very different from being able to successfully attack the system. Non-mining nodes obviously aren't impotent because we are talking about theoretical Sybil attacks, not historical ones.


Anyone can spin up some more nodes, including miners. So what? A miner bringing another Classic node online doesn't mean my Core node is going offline.


Every node must receive and process every transaction in every block. That distributes blockchain data to all nodes who enforce the rules, rather than a system where nodes trust a central source.


No, you don't become half the userbase. But you might be a potential Sybil attacker. Give it a try, I say. Go ahead and test bitcoin's level of decentralization, and see if you can attack it.


Regarding the bolded: no, it isn't. Not yet, anyway. As a bitcoin user, I don't rely on Bitpay, exchanges or any other third party -- that's only for fiat conversion, which is completely external to the bitcoin system. The faults of "trusting people we transact with" are due to "trusting people we transact with" -- not bitcoin. As I've said and provided evidence for several times, non-mining nodes are very much relevant to the decentralization and security of bitcoin.

More nonsense, it doesn't. Am assuming that your inference process works something like this:
  1. You claim that the hundreds of padlocks thrown about on our lawn help secure our house.
  2. I disagree, and point out that the padlocks littering our lawn add nothing to our security.
  3. From this, you infer that I'm saying that our house is secure without those padlocks.
That's flawed reasoning. I've never suggested that Bitcoin is either "a trustless system" or secure, merely that non-mining nodes don't *add* anything to security.

But how do you keep missing something which seems so self-evident: non-mining nodes could be created by anyone, including the miners they're meant to keep in check.

By definition, nodes reduce centralization.