Topic: Disconnect network service bits 6 and 8 until Aug 1, 2018 - discussion - page 2. (Read 2100 times)

Miners are participants in the Bitcoin system.


Acording to Satoshi, mining (proof-of-work) is a method of establishing a distributed timestamp server.  The purpose of mining is to determine the order in which the majority of participants agree transactions were received.  The miner (as a participant in the system) defines, guards, and adheres to the same consensus rules for himself that all the rest of the participants (both miners, and non-miners) also define, guard, and adhere to.

Satoshi Whitepaper:

Sure - this all make sense. Doesn't it?

Just makes you wonder why stupid Satoshi bothered with introducing the concept of mining into the system.

I mean, according to the rules above, the participant in the Bitcoin system might just as well do their job without any mining involved.

And all this energy that gest wasted on something that bitcoin has never really needed - that's just outrageous ;P

Who:

Every participant in the Bitcoin system is responsible for either defining and guarding the consensus rules for themselves, or for delegating that responsibility for someone else to handle for them.

How:

Participants can write their own software, or they can choose to use software written by someone else. If they choose to use software written by someone else, then they either verify what consensus rules that software implements, or they trust someone else to verify those rules on their behalf.

Why:

If a user runs software with incompatible consensus rules, they could potentially reject blocks and transactions that the overwhelming majority of users agree are valid, or they could potentially accept blocks and transactions that the overwhelming majority of users agree are invalid.  Either would result in the user's blockchain splitting off from the blockchain that the overwhelming majority of users are using.  As such, they would be vulnerable to various attacks that result in the user receiving worthless transactions.

Note:

If a user can get enough other users to all agree to use their fork of a split chain, the transactions could establish an agreed value that could be more, less, or the same as equivalent transactions on the other side of the fork.

In case nobody answers and my topic gest buried, I just want to elaborate on the matter.

I am not a big fan of jgarzik, ever since he banned a guy from the IRC channel, just for suggesting that disallowing citizens of Iran accessing bitcoin's github repo isn't right. I've also not been very excited by the changes he's been trying to introduce into the blockchain protocol, along with his shady friends like Andresen or Hearn.

But what bitcoin core team has done by merging the PR into 0.15 - this isn't much better.
This is totally against the very principles of bitcoin.

Some people obviously lost their minds, if they think that "Bitcoin system" is going to allow them to control the consensus rules.

Moreover, I cannot understand why you'd even want to control the consensus rules.
Do you realize how dangerous it would be, being the only people who can change the bitcoin consensus rules?
And everybody knows their names...  Why would you even wish to put yourself in such a position?
Either someone has already forced you to do so, or you are just mad - I seriously cannot see a third option.

Either way, it's not going to work - mark my words.
This system has been designed to resist any kind of centralized control.
I am pretty sure that it is going to resist your tries as well. And when it does, you're all going to loose.

And again: mark my words - you're not going to believe me now, you're going to patronize further, because you obviously think that you have a better understanding of the bitcoin ecosystem... but I don't believe you do. And one day I will come here and say "I told you so". Just like I can tell it now to Andresen, Hearn and a few other arogant idiots from the history of Bitcoin.

As the comments in this PR have been locked, I'd like to move the discussion here.

Apparently I present a "misunderstanding of the Bitcoin system"

Well, please help me to understand it, then.

I would like the supporters of this change to answer my question:


Can you try to give me a "technical" answer?
(as opposed to a "political" answer)