Topic: Bitcoin decision making (Read 251 times)

I doubt it would crash to zero. The price would probably crash and bring down the rest of the cryptos as well. The network is likely to fork and change the algorithm as there exist an adversary which controls the majority of the network hashrate. There is a potential for SHA256D coins to change their algorithms pre-emptively which would render all of their ASICs useless.

8. Ultimately, the decision-making process still relies on the community. Most of the changes proposed on the code or the protocol are made public in order for the community to discuss and put their thoughts into it. Other changes in the code that are not really announced are very minor, oftentimes just optimization or improvements on the existing code. If major changes on the code or protocol is only controlled by a select few, bitcoin wouldn't be bitcoin as the changes are then only controlled by a few heads and not the whole network and community.

I've addressed Number 2 here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54453340

It's an Open/Public Network. Decision are made based on public consensus. At least, most participants of a decentralized open-source public Network can be part of decision making as long as they stick to the core values of the Network. That will help in harmonious decision making.
If leadership becomes necessary, leaders can be elected by the community through merit-based election process. The values of Network still must be respected during the election process....for example, the network can't say things like "The name of the leader must be known". Better they say, "can he/she do the job?" "and can he/she be held accountable for bad behavior even with anonymity"?

Very much clarified now. I was actually thinking differently.

There is more to this, can you please explain how btc will crash to zero if there is a successful 51% attack?

Satoshi is not the owner of Bitcoin and it would be bad to assume he could come back and change anything about Bitcoin. We might have not gone along with his original purpose and he wants to change it for the worse but Bitcoin is open source and that means its path is decided by the active developers and they can reject any commits. Satoshi while being the creator does not have any right to change our path.

There is no contradiction here.
First of all I said there are bad decisions about some details for example using DER encoding for signatures.
Secondly, again as I said Satoshi doesn't own the right to change the protocol. As @Bttzed03 clarified even if Satoshi came back today and wanted to change anything in Bitcoin he has to go through the same process as everyone else, introduce the idea, submit a BIP, provide the code for people to download and miners to signal and wait to see if the community accepts that change.

I will try to answer most of your questions in one sentence:
Bitcoin is NOT a company and Satoshi Nakamoto is NOT a CEO.

What will happen if the world unites against Bitcoin?

Bitcoin will be most likely destroyed,I guess.I don't think that the entire world will ever unite against BTC.

What will happen after 21 million BTC are mined?

Nothing.The blockchain will continue to exist and the miners will get only transaction fees,without block rewards.

What will happen if a successful 51% attack happens?

The value of BTC will go down to zero,so the attacker will waste lots of resources and get a bunch of worthless coins,which means that such attack is pointless.

Satoshi is an inventor, not some technology prophet that could foresee all the potential problems Bitcoin will have in the future. And even if he/she/they was to return, the Bitcoin community as a whole is going to do the decision making, not Satoshi.

fixed your quote

Even if Satoshi returns to try and fix whatever issues Bitcoin has, he cannot do it on his own because he doesn't own the protocol like what @pooya87 said. He'll need to submit a proposal to change something (BIP) and it is up to the Bitcoin community to accept/reject the proposal. That's another proof that the network is not controlled by a single entity/company. Thus, nobody should represent it.

Since Bitcoin is decentralized the answer is: The entire bitcoin community which consists of miners, nodes and the economic majority.

Yes and no. The overall design you see today that we call "Bitcoin" is what Satoshi created and it has been working very well. There are certain smaller details that needed to change to make Bitcoin stronger and Satoshi's decision weren't very good.

Can anyone force the torrent network to have a "representative"?
That's the nature of decentralized peer to peer networks, they don't have any.

Bitcoin is a currency, or a tool and like any other tool it can be used for both legal and illegal actions. When used for anything legal, it is fine and when used for anything illegal the person will be punished when caught by the law enforcement.

No, because as I said above bitcoin is decentralized and Satoshi doesn't own the protocol to need to come back and dictate anything.

The bcash scenario was repeated about hundred times in the past couple of years. Scammers will always copy bitcoin and abuse its name to steal other people's money.
As for your second question, I don't think we will ever see a split in Bitcoin that big. The community will always go with what majority wants or not change at all. Take SegWit2x fork from 2017, it had almost complete support from all miners but not from the rest so it was abandoned.

We can't even predict what would happen in 100 seconds from now, how do you expect predicting 100 years?!!

This premise does not apply to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is NOT an organisation. It is open source software that has enabled a unique and novel philosophy about money. It has revolutionized the way masses look at money and has made people aware of the fact that "ascribing value" is no longer the perogative of only the very rich and the very powerful.

These are questions everyone exploring bitcoin goes through as you uncover the layers of drama on reddit and elsewhere from the blocksize wars. The issue has been settled and there is zero doubt that bitcoin's insistence on decentralization and zero control from any central figure is the reason that it is the darling of small and instituitonal investors the world over.

All of these other cryptos you hear about exist because bitcoin is the justification for their existence. If the main crypto in this world was something owned by a foundation/ corporation or with a figurehead like Ver/Vitalik or a scammer like Richard Hart/ CSW; none of these people would trust it. The fact that Bitcoin has no masters allows everyone to feel secure in its design.

This is the only question worth pondering. With L2 transactions established on Lightning Network and huge onchain settlements, the fees generated should be enough for the miners in the long term.

There isn't. There definitely are people whose opinions are considered important because of their history of contribution and understanding of Bitcoin. Someone like Jameson Lopp, Greg Maxwell, Square's Jack, Even a young kid like Jack Mallers or someone as new on the scene as El Salvador president Nayeb Buklele. They are able to galvanize support for their decisions and thoughts regarding Bitcoin.

The beautiful thing about Bitcoin is that no matter how strong you are, there is a limit to what influence you can have. Just look at Elon Musk and his diminishing influence on Bitcoin.

You can try to dig all his email exchanges with Hal and his forum posts.

Nobody should represent Bitcoin but, if each Government organization will work together to identify all developers contributing to the Bitcoin Core, they can probably do it.

No, Bitcoin is not a legal entity. Think of Bitcoin and BTC in the same sense as fiat. It's a tool that anybody can use but a tool isn't responsible of how it's used by the owner.

None.

What controversy with BCH? Do you mean to say BSV? That's the one attacked recently. In the unlikely scenario of a 51% attack on Bitcoin, its reputation as the most secure blockchain will be destroyed. Who knows what might happen after that. Perhaps it could lead to a market crash.

Also, Satoshi not moving on is unrelated to your no. 6. Are you implying that he's part of the attackers?

Let the next generation deal with that when it happens or about to happen.

Who knows? Nobody is preventing the miners, node operators, and developers to work together.

In every organisation, decision making is very paramount. Not only in organisations, even in our individual lives, for one to be successful, he/she must be decisive at every point in life.
One is to decide, another is to implement the decision, furthermore is to accept the consequences of the decision made.
Decision-making is not static, which means once a decision is made, it's been tracked, and when it's going off planned, there will be room for re-decision.

My question; who decides and re-decides for Bitcoin?

1. Did Satoshi make all the decisions perfectly as relating Bitcoin before his disappearance? Perhaps, he made proposals for decisions as regarding the validity of blocks in the blockchain, but this to me is not enough to apply in all aspect of an elephant coin like Bitcoin.

2. If Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla to mention but a few, including other cryptocurrencies are embattled, we all know the faces that will spring up to defend the project. What if the world unites against Bitcion and demanding a representative to reach a consensus, who will represent Bitcoin.

3. Is Bitcoin a legal entity? If yes, who represents her in the eyes of the law?
The Bitcoin owner and maybe not the Bitcoin itself. It therefore means, that the Bitcoin owner can commit a crime with Bitcoin and not Bitcoin committing crime itself? Please, can someone address this for me?

4. Dear Bitcointalk users, are there some decisions you feel Satoshi should reappear and address, or are all things pertaining BTC in order?

5. Maybe Satoshi has not actually moved on, he might be in background actively participating in Bitcoin. I said this because;

6. I read the controversy behind the creation of Bitcoin cash. If such scenario happens again, and more than 51% is on the negative side of the election, what will be the fate of Bitcoin?

7. I wouldn't ask how will the decision be made when 21million bitcoin is mined, because I know it can be decided due to open source code of bitcoin. What if before 100yrs time, a new world order emerges that will render Bitcoin a menace, who will order the halt to save humanity?

8. I believe there is a decision making board for bitcoin order than the people as being portrayed.

Please tolerate my questions, I asked based on the level of knowledge I have now, I know in the future when I must have gaid sound knowledge of Bitcoin, I will look back at today and either smile or get disappointed.
Thanks!