Topic: Could China (or similar) take control of Bitcoin? - page 4. (Read 1714 times)

No, there would exist two separate Bitcoin networks: one in China and one outside China. Bitcoin holders would receive an equivalent amount of bitcoins they hold on the Chinese network. A comparable event occurred in 2017 with the launch of Bitcoin Cash. Guess what happened: many people exchanged their Bitcoin Cash for Bitcoin, resulting in an increase in their Bitcoin holdings.

Yes, but how would you know which one is which? A node is a node. You couldn't just say, "I trust those node but not these nodes". There is no notion of known identity in the Bitcoin network, which is the whole point.

Again, you simply don't seem to understand the implications of a decentralized network. There is no "middle". There is no "community" that "decides".

And the situation with Bitcoin Cash was not even remotely comparable.

(By the way, this who thread of conversation presumes one could even know which servers were "evil" and which were not--but in practicality that could be easily obscured by the attacker).

It is completely possible to view which node supports the Chinese rules.

Really? How? Is every single wallet going to do the mining themselves? And why would you trust that wallet? Remember that in this situation, there would be millions of the "evil" mixed in with the "good". The only way to tell the difference is proof-of-work. Every single wallet, every single node, and every single actor in this situation is going to say they are on the "good" side. This isn't as simple as saying, "everybody will just ignore the bad guys", because there's absolutely no way to tell, in real time, who the bad guys are--and the software doesn't have any sort of notion of "opinions" in it in any case.

But not running "their" software is akin to throwing your Bitcoin away. Your blocks would be worthless. (And again, how would any individual know who "they" are in real-time?)

So, you're also relying on the assumption that all of the hashrate is owned by China. Cheesy

Do you know that the Chinese government can't force miners outside its borders to cease operations?

No, I'm positing here a situation wherein China or some other central entity inserts nodes into the network amounting to 51% of the hashrate. China (and probably about 10 other countries across the world) have plenty of money and computing power to do it.

And of course the assumption here would be that they would distribute their attack, e.g. coordinate servers in many countries, or even take over servers.

You keep assuming that the network "just knows" what the "right thing" is. That's not how it works. Bitcoin is an algorithm and nothing else. And if it were anything else, it would be... centralized!

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(By the way, this who thread of conversation presumes one could even know which servers were "evil" and which were not--but in practicality that could be easily obscured by the attacker).

It is completely possible to view which node supports the Chinese rules.

Quote from: Medusah on May 27, 2024, 03:52:38 AM

But not running "their" software is akin to throwing your Bitcoin away. Your blocks would be worthless. (And again, how would any individual know who "they" are in real-time?)

So, you're also relying on the assumption that all of the hashrate is owned by China. Cheesy

Do you know that the Chinese government can't force miners outside its borders to cease operations?

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Quote from: legiteum on May 26, 2024, 06:49:28 PM

There's no debate to be won; that's my point. People are free to run any software they choose. You could modify the Bitcoin source code to increase the total coins to 21 trillion, effectively 'altering' the Bitcoin protocol. The burden lies on you to persuade me to adopt it. You don't require majority hashrate or financial dominance. By creating another network, you've essentially birthed an altcoin. No 'majority' is necessary for this action; that's the elegance of decentralized systems.

Sure, you may no longer want to buy Bitcoin after China has taken over the network, but there are millions of current holders of Bitcoin who would want to protect their investment. They would be stuck using the Bitcoin network, which will have been taken over by China.

(By the way, this who thread of conversation presumes one could even know which servers were "evil" and which were not--but in practicality that could be easily obscured by the attacker).

Quote from: legiteum on May 26, 2024, 06:49:28 PM

There wouldn't be anything anybody could do about this, short of an act of war.

Of course and there would be. The solution is simple: don't run their software.

But not running "their" software is akin to throwing your Bitcoin away. Your blocks would be worthless. (And again, how would any individual know who "they" are in real-time?)

And why exactly would one want to create an alternative "Bitcoin2" in that situation anyhow, since China could just take over that one as well?

The reality is that if this happened, major holders of Bitcoin would make peace with either: a) make peace with the attacker to protect their investment; and/or b) appeal to the only military power in the world capable of protecting them. e.g. the US government, in order to forcibly make the attacker relinquish control of the network.

***

Understanding the implications of a truly decentralized network is hard to wrap your head around

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Satoshi invented a scheme that no central authority would ordinarily control, but the only way to do that is by majority vote, e.g. democracy (in this case, democracy of computing power). In other words, a truly decentralized system cannot be governed by people it must only be governed by an algorithm. If individuals were able to simply choose their own servers to store their data, then bad actors could commit fraud and the network would be untrustworthy. In a decentralized network governed by proof-of-work, there can be no concept of identifying a node in the network because the only thing you can trust is the work, not the IP address, not the alleged owner, not anything else.

***

By the way, from the second paragraph of the Introduction in the original Bitcoin whitepaper, there is this line:

"The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes."

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Quote from: legiteum on May 26, 2024, 06:49:28 PM

There wouldn't be anything anybody could do about this, short of an act of war.

Of course and there would be. The solution is simple: don't run their software. If the CCP modified the source code to increase miners' block subsidies, Americans could opt out of using it. Consequently, we'd end up with two separate networks—one controlled by the CCP and the other by the rest of the world. The CCP cannot force the rest of the world to use their network.

The concern arises if the CCP aimed to dismantle Bitcoin through a 51% attack, which is currently possible. This scenario is what would be beyond prevention and essentially constitute an act of war. But that's not the point you're making. You're arguing that China can control the Bitcoin protocol, which is an entirely separate matter.

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Quote from: Medusah on May 26, 2024, 04:16:32 PM

So who do you suppose dictates the "consensus rules"? What are their names? Where do they live? Who has this "authority" you keep talking about?

No one dictates the consensus rules. Describing it as such is inaccurate. The term 'consensus' stems from the Latin word 'concentus', which denotes singing in harmony. Harmony cannot be forced; it naturally emerges from the collective agreement which reflects a unified understanding.

Convincing whom?? Who are these "people" you keep saying need to be "convinced"? And what are they "convinced" by?

In Bitcoin, initiating a rule change involves public proposal and observing people's responses. There's no need to individually convince anyone. You propose the change, implement it, and then it's left to others to decide whether to adopt it. If you enforce a change that breaks backward compatibility (like altering the supply cap) on your node, you're effectively outside the existing Bitcoin network, forming a new one. Now, it's up to your convincing skills to persuade that this network represents the 'true Bitcoin'.

Good. You are starting to understand. Now ask yourself, what if servers representing 51% of the hashrate adopted some changes that, say, the other 49% vehemently objected to? They would "win the argument", correct?

Now imagine that the 51% were operating under orders from the Chinese government, and thus adopted the fork that the CCP created for their own purposes, which included software changes that inserted their own blocks in place of other people's blocks.

There wouldn't be anything anybody could do about this, short of an act of war. American Bitcoin owners, ironically, would appeal to the US government to have their (eeek!) government pressure or otherwise make war on China for essentially stealing billions of dollars in American property.

Again, there's no reason to believe the China or any other major country with the kind of money to pull this off (figure, the top 20 economies in the world) are planning on doing so anytime soon, but it's absolutely incorrect to say that Bitcoin is "government-proof" or that it cannot be toppled by any government. Bitcoin exists along side every single product humans use on a daily basis that can be eliminated by government decree in a millisecond should the majority or the dictator favor it.

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So who do you suppose dictates the "consensus rules"? What are their names? Where do they live? Who has this "authority" you keep talking about?

Quote from: Medusah on May 25, 2024, 10:39:17 AM

Convincing whom?? Who are these "people" you keep saying need to be "convinced"? And what are they "convinced" by?

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If miners representing 51% of the hashrate all decided to do something, then that would be the reality of Bitcoin.

No. Bitcoin is not ruled by miners. If it was, they could alter the consensus rules and give themselves more bitcoin in block rewards. So, why don't they? They lack the authority to dictate the consensus rules. That's why.

So who do you suppose dictates the "consensus rules"? What are their names? Where do they live? Who has this "authority" you keep talking about?

See, if they are identifiable individuals who could simply decide not to let certain servers join the network because they allege them to be unfriendly for the cause, then Bitcoin is by that definition absolutely, positively centralized. In other words, China (or whatever government) could locate and subpoena them and make them do their bidding.

But Bitcoin is not centralized. It's a proof-of-work model, and any server, owned by whomever, and plugged in for whatever purpose, can join the network and have a vote in the hashrate, which gives them a vote on control of the network itself.

Again, what is stopping them? What central authority can you point to who would stop them from doing anything they wanted?

There's no central authority, but it's akin to confronting a train with broken brakes hurtling towards them, and convincing the people aboard to adopt their rules is their challenge.

Convincing whom?? Who are these "people" you keep saying need to be "convinced"? And what are they "convinced" by?

You don't seem to understand how Bitcoin--or any decentralized network--actually works. There is no "authority" who would "do the right thing" according to what "the people" want. There are no people involved in the decision at all.

That's how Bitcoin works. It's called a Proof-of-Work model.

In Proof-of-Work, miners hold full control over the order of the transactions, which enables a malicious miner (with sufficient hash power) to rearrange transactions, potentially resulting in double-spending. However, this is the extent of their capability. They cannot create new rules, or change existing ones.

Here's satoshi's words, directly from the whitepaper (11. Calculations):

Quote from: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

We consider the scenario of an attacker trying to generate an alternate chain faster than the honest chain. Even if this is accomplished, it does not throw the system open to arbitrary changes, such as creating value out of thin air or taking money that never belonged to the attacker. Nodes are not going to accept an invalid transaction as payment, and honest nodes will never accept a block containing them. An attacker can only try to change one of his own transactions to take back money he recently spent.

Who is to say what is "honest" and "dishonest"? It's a majority vote. In that context Satoshi was talking about individual attackers or small factions that would do "bad" (as defined by the majority) things.

If the majority accepts a payment, then that's the law of the land. There's no person anywhere in this decision making process. It's entirely algorithmic. There are no "China servers" and "non-China servers". There are no "good servers" and "evil severs". Just... servers--servers that run software that can decide what is true and what is false. What is a valid chain and what is invalid.

And if people here on Bitcointalk said, "how terrible, this group of nodes is doing the calculations all wrong because they changed the software", you know what we, collectively, could do about it? Absolutely nothing. (Although, again, major holders of Bitcoin would fall over themselves to make peace with the new owners lest they lose their investments).

Medusah

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If miners representing 51% of the hashrate all decided to do something, then that would be the reality of Bitcoin.

Again, what is stopping them? What central authority can you point to who would stop them from doing anything they wanted?

There's no central authority, but it's akin to confronting a train with broken brakes hurtling towards them, and convincing the people aboard to adopt their rules is their challenge.

Quote from: legiteum on May 24, 2024, 06:10:37 PM

That's how Bitcoin works. It's called a Proof-of-Work model.

Quote from: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

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Quote from: tabas on May 24, 2024, 05:16:53 PM

It's going to cost a lot of money for them to take control of majority of the hash/bitcoin network.

Quote from: MainIbem on May 24, 2024, 05:53:27 PM

Now imagine an entity like China either directly or indirectly controlled those miners. Now China controls Bitcoin. It's as simple as that. The "community" here on Bitcointalk or whatever could scream as loud as they want, but they don't control the hashrate, the nodes do. What "we" decided doesn't mean anything at all. It's a proof-of-work model, not a proof-of-how-cool-you-are-on-social-media model.

While they might be capable of doing that, I doubt it that they're going to spend a lot of money for it when they're facing a lot of issues geopolitically and economically. They will no doubt spend on military powers and increase their budget there but with Bitcoin, they even have been banning it for years on and off.

I completely agree, and I would summarize the consensus of this threads answers to be:

1. Yes, it's completely possible that China or some other major country like them could take control of Bitcoin.

2. There's no evidence today that they would want to do this, and there's even evidence that they wouldn't want to.

But if somebody says, "Bitcoin cannot be controlled by any government", they are not saying the truth...

That's pretty much it but with the latter part about telling that Bitcoin can't be controlled by any country or government. I think it's an understandable statement if someone says that because the entire network of it is owned by its community and the hashes are distributed globally. And by that means, no one can control Bitcoin but a huge part of its network can be handled and manipulated by which we called in real life "oligarchs".

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They probably can do it, how much would it take to control 51% of the network anyway? Pretty sure that if they put their mind to it, they would probably be able to do it, I mean I have lived long enough to see that countries will do anything they want to as long as those things will serve their interests. The only problem is that would they be able to get the upkeep cost of running those 51% because they need to be able to do that without fail. Maybe the only thing that needs to happen is that we would see this happen, that's it, and then we would see if they can really do it.

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I see lots of people in this thread feel that since China holds a good percentage of hashrate of Bitcoin then it means they could manipulated the market in future but I don't think so, what I think is that Satoshi won't be biased to make Bitcoin a decentralised currency that operates on it's own blockchain and influenced by it's volatility for it to later be controlled by a certain country, business sector cause they hold a good percentage of hashrate in it. That doesn't make sense to me and I believe it would ruin the whole concept of Satoshi towards the creation of Bitcoin. Many governments are against Bitcoin cause they're not able to manipulate it's blockchain like they do with their various central banks and if they had the power to manipulate Bitcoin they would've done so before now.

Um, Satoshi doesn't control Bitcoin. Satoshi hasn't even been heard from in over a decade. He has as much to say about Bitcoin as George Washington does about the US elections in November.

The Bitcoin system is a proof-of-work model, meaning that the majority of the hash rate resolves disputes between nodes. If you control the majority, you control Bitcoin. It's as simple as that.

Quote from: tabas on May 24, 2024, 05:16:53 PM

It's going to cost a lot of money for them to take control of majority of the hash/bitcoin network.

Quote from: legiteum on May 03, 2024, 05:36:02 PM

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This came up as a side discussion in another thread, and I thought it would be interesting as a top-level discussion here.

The notion is this: although taking over 50% of the Bitcoin hashrate would be a practical impossibility for any private actor or even a small country, China, as a country, has at times hosted over 50% of Bitcoin's hashrate, and it's thus plausible they could make this happen again if they wanted to.

And whomever controls over 50% of the hashrate can dictate the software in use, and/or dictate the contents of the blockchain. As the theory goes, if China wanted to wreak havoc on the world economy, or if it wanted to extract a ransom, or if it simply wanted to profit by inserting its own blocks, then... it could. They could do anything. Perhaps China could decide that Satoshi's blocks should be given away to charity. Maybe they change the architecture so that it worked better in China, or conformed to their "laws" or something.

So this brings up questions:

1. Is this technically possible?

2. What would be the technical implications of China doing this?

3. What would be the geopolitical implications?

4. What would this do the broader cryptocurrency sector?

5. Have major governments e.g. the US and NATO countries ever (publicly) announced any contingency planning around this problem? Putting a $1.5T asset at risk is something that could rattle the entire world economy. This seems like something they would at least think through?

Looking forward to people's thoughts...

I still don't know why the world is so skeptical about China taking over from the United States. Would there be anything bad if China takes over? I don't see anything wrong with that but let's hope to see what would be the out of China eventually becomes the largest holders of Bitcoin. The United States cannot keep controlling everything but I think there would be nothing wrong if we see that China becomes the largest holders of bitcoins as a country. El Salvador is still accumulating more of Bitcoin and we should but be surprised that she has not enough Bitcoin compared to big countries like China and the United States.

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It's going to cost a lot of money for them to take control of majority of the hash/bitcoin network.

Quote from: kotajikikox on May 04, 2024, 12:16:37 PM

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The majority of people have become so attached to the old centralized system of money, the Fiat currency, that they don't understand how truly decentralized that Bitcoin is, And despite the government attacks on Bitcoin, Bitcoin is built in such a way that only fools or blind person would reject it, in fact, if you don't know the major reason why it seems the government is fighting Bitcoin is that they're scared and know that if they allow this technology to thrive that everybody will embrace it and likely abandon the fiat currency, thereby removing the central control or authority that government has from time, that's why they're using various means to try to fight Bitcoin.

So if it is to be something that the government could have easily taken over, This should have happened a long time ago. To me, Bitcoin has gotten to a stage of no return where it's unstoppable where to control the 50 percent Bitcoin hashrate would become difficult.

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Well, I am not a technical guy, and as such, I have no technical knowledge of how bitcoin and the bitcoin network operates, but based on what I've learnt so far about bitcoin hashrate, it's definitely possible for one entity or country to manage to control 50 percent of the bitcoin hashrate, but this is the entity or country will be able to afford the cost of this, and from what I know, we not talking about billions of dollars here, but something much more.

In the end, the entity or country with such motive may have to first of all ask themselves if controlling 50 percent of the bitcoin hashrate is really worth the expense and the hassle, when such one can easily create his or her one coin and try to make it as successful as Bitcoin.

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It’s definitely possible and knowing China, I know they will do everything to get it done especially if it is the way to get something they want (and they want a lot of things). I can see China doing this for political gain, how? That I am not sure but one thing’s for sure if China were to take control of 50% of bitcoin investors might lose some confidence on the coin.

China has always wanted that, but they couldn't do it because there were so many obstacles. They have been doing that for several years, but until now they still haven't been able to do it. That means they can't, and they aren't capable.

With the number of people these days who are interested in Bitcoin, especially now that there are other countries and institutional investors who are accumulating it, for sure the country of China will have a hard time.

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Quote from: Medusah on May 24, 2024, 11:37:48 AM

And China would absolutely "persuade others to follow them" because they would be "persuading" a bunch of servers running in computer room.

It's clear that you're not familiar with the mechanics of the system. You can't sway others to your side without presenting valid arguments. Discussions, proposals, social interaction are necessary for consensus. China could acquire a significant portion of the hashrate, but it doesn't grant them the ability to dictate protocol rules unilaterally. Consider this: if hashrate grants this control, why don't the miners simply increase the block size or create new bitcoins arbitrarily? It's their power, right?

If miners representing 51% of the hashrate all decided to do something, then that would be the reality of Bitcoin.

Again, what is stopping them? What central authority can you point to who would stop them from doing anything they wanted?

Now imagine an entity like China either directly or indirectly controlled those miners. Now China controls Bitcoin. It's as simple as that. The "community" here on Bitcointalk or whatever could scream as loud as they want, but they don't control the hashrate, the nodes do. What "we" decided doesn't mean anything at all. It's a proof-of-work model, not a proof-of-how-cool-you-are-on-social-media model.

If there was a "central governing body" of Bitcoin, like you keep implying there is, then Bitcoin would not be decentralized in the way it's advertised to be. That committee could simply be compelled to do whatever governments wanted them to do.

How you see things working is closely tied to the idea of centralization.

How I see things is closely tied to the evidence.

Quote

If control over protocol rules is solely determined by possession of computational power, then it's this dynamic that centralizes the network.

Well, in the case of Bitcoin, control over protocol rules is solely determined by possession of computational power. That's how Bitcoin works. It's called a Proof-of-Work model.

I wouldn't say that factor by itself centralizes the network, but the network is absolutely, positively able to be centralized by a single entity controlling 51% of the computing power. That's always been a risk for Bitcoin. Today it's arguably a small risk, but it is absolutely not zero. A Bitcoin takeover by a large entity is technically possible and even financially plausible, at least on the first order of things. Ironically, the entity who would actually defend Bitcoin against this sort of attack from a state actor would almost undoubtedly have to be... the US government.

Governments can do whatever they want. The only magic power you have as an individual is voting, and even that assumes you live in a democracy.

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And China would absolutely "persuade others to follow them" because they would be "persuading" a bunch of servers running in computer room.