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Topic: Politics behind Bitcoin development? - page 2. (Read 370 times)

newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
December 12, 2017, 12:53:08 PM
#10
Well, the IRS has already been getting involved trying to tax it so...: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dltr/vol16/iss1/1/.
legendary
Activity: 3192
Merit: 2248
Top-tier crypto casino and sportsbook
December 12, 2017, 12:29:55 PM
#9
From a purely technical viewpoint the consensus is based on mining hashrate as mentioned in the post above.

its not mining hashrate

for instance imagine you owned a pool with DOUBLE the hashrate of the entire network. but your codebase of your pool node wanted to change a rule..
all that will happen is that your blocks will get rejected by the network because their desired rules are not your rules.
you could mine billions of blocks but only you would retain them and everyone else would reject them. thus  you have made your own altcoin that only you hold

consensus is about the NODES that accept the rules. hash power has nothing to do with the RULES. the hashpower is only about protecting the DATA from people manipulating the data retrospectively. EG for someone to make a block that does not contain certain transactions (attempted refund) from a block in 2012. then that pool needs to also recreate every block after that to get uptodate to todays blockheight. and the rules must match to not get rejected.

in short hashrate does not determine the rules. it just makes changing old data harder

Excellent point, nodes are also a very important part of the Bitcoin ecosystem, which is why keeping a lean blockchain is important for decentralization. In practice there's nothing stopping miners from mining on a fork with poor node density though, as propagation will still find a way one way or another. It's just that network stability is likely to suffer, in addition to increased centralization towards the network segments with the best access to full nodes.


the politics of CORE controlling the rules.. is the thing people are avoiding talking about. because its core that set the rules and push people to download their wallet as oppose to other wallets. thus they control the development and they control the rules. and yes they do and have bribed big names to get their way. (many free all inclusive weekend breaks, jobs, bonuses, freebies and more)

The market has decided in favor of Bitcoin Core's design philosophy and development approach over that of its hardfork competitors. Anyone who believes that BTC's market support is only caused by market manipulation and astroturfing should rejoice over the possibility on getting their hands on cheap hardfork coins until the market finally decides to wake up.
legendary
Activity: 2786
Merit: 1031
December 12, 2017, 11:54:01 AM
#8
I understand that a fork results when a minority group decides not to concur with the consensus changes (or lack thereof) in the underlying Bitcoin Protocol. 

Who are the people that participate in the "consensus"?  How are these votes cast?  What happens to dissenting voices that don't want a fork? 

Open source software development follows the scientific method, people who want the block size increased failed to present enough evidence for such change, then they decide to run their own coin with their own rules.

Learn more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software_development

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)
legendary
Activity: 4424
Merit: 4794
December 12, 2017, 11:41:47 AM
#7
I think the person is a Revolutionary Bitcoin, who wants a Bitcoin revolution by creating a new system, which we call fork, to continue to be integrated with every development of the Bitcoin Block. Usually Voting is done by miners.

nope its done by nodes.

pools collate the data into batches. but the nodes validate and accept/reject it
sr. member
Activity: 798
Merit: 251
Small Trader
December 12, 2017, 11:21:08 AM
#6
I think the person is a Revolutionary Bitcoin, who wants a Bitcoin revolution by creating a new system, which we call fork, to continue to be integrated with every development of the Bitcoin Block. Usually Voting is done by miners.
legendary
Activity: 4424
Merit: 4794
December 12, 2017, 11:06:59 AM
#5
From a purely technical viewpoint the consensus is based on mining hashrate as mentioned in the post above.

its not mining hashrate

for instance imagine you owned a pool with DOUBLE the hashrate of the entire network. but your codebase of your pool node wanted to change a rule..
all that will happen is that your blocks will get rejected by the network because their desired rules are not your rules.
you could mine billions of blocks but only you would retain them and everyone else would reject them. thus  you have made your own altcoin that only you hold

consensus is about the NODES that accept the rules. hash power has nothing to do with the RULES. the hashpower is only about protecting the DATA from people manipulating the data retrospectively. EG for someone to make a block that does not contain certain transactions (attempted refund) from a block in 2012. then that pool needs to also recreate every block after that to get uptodate to todays blockheight. and the rules must match to not get rejected.

in short hashrate does not determine the rules. it just makes changing old data harder



the politics of CORE controlling the rules.. is the thing people are avoiding talking about. because its core that set the rules and push people to download their wallet as oppose to other wallets. thus they control the development and they control the rules. and yes they do and have bribed big names to get their way. (many free all inclusive weekend breaks, jobs, bonuses, freebies and more)
legendary
Activity: 3192
Merit: 2248
Top-tier crypto casino and sportsbook
December 12, 2017, 10:55:39 AM
#4
Who are the people that participate in the "consensus"?  How are these votes cast?

From a purely technical viewpoint the consensus is based on mining hashrate as mentioned in the post above.

From a practical viewpoint it's the market that decides. The more people believe in the viability of a hardfork, the more people will buy into this hardfork as opposed to the other side of the fork. The more people buy into one side of the fork over another, the higher the profitability of said fork, the more hashrate you will find on the respective side of the fork.


What happens to dissenting voices that don't want a fork? 

They are free to continue mining on the old fork and / or to buy coins as issued by the old fork.


Of course if either side of a fork has a bad codebase the fork may still fail regardless of market sentiment -- as has happened with B2X, as was the reason for the BTG delay.
sr. member
Activity: 420
Merit: 251
December 12, 2017, 10:45:54 AM
#3
I understand that a fork results when a minority group decides not to concur with the consensus changes (or lack thereof) in the underlying Bitcoin Protocol.  

Who are the people that participate in the "consensus"?  How are these votes cast?  What happens to dissenting voices that don't want a fork?  
A fork is a radical change to the Bitcoin protocol that results in previous block versions to be invalid, thus requiring all users to upgrade to the new software. It's not just a minority group. Bitcoin Core developers can choose to do a hard fork if they deem it necessary.

The people who participate are miners. By mining (or not) on a pool that is signaling support for a hard fork proposal, they vote. If a proposal reaches a fixed miner support percentage, set by those who enact the proposal, that proposal activates and the network splits. If a supermajority wants a hard fork, then those who don't can either accept it and use the new software or maintain the older version.
If the supermajority doesn't want a fork and there are few people that do, they can still go through with it but it will be an altcoin.
Basically the main Bitcoin chain is considered by many to be the one which has the majority of miners.
Hope it makes sense.
newbie
Activity: 9
Merit: 0
December 12, 2017, 10:27:55 AM
#2
 No one knows the answer to this question?
newbie
Activity: 9
Merit: 0
December 10, 2017, 08:47:26 AM
#1
I understand that a fork results when a minority group decides not to concur with the consensus changes (or lack thereof) in the underlying Bitcoin Protocol. 

Who are the people that participate in the "consensus"?  How are these votes cast?  What happens to dissenting voices that don't want a fork? 
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