Bitcoin is not decentralized [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f3_h3LuBQA

by pbohun • 5 years ago

18 28 5 years ago

That is a good video. I do have a couple questions. I asked these questions at a company that implemented blockchain but was never really given a complete answer.

- Who runs the ledgers and what guarantee is there aside from cryptographic smoke that the entities/corporations running the ledgers can't collude? This gets into the question of independent cryptographic audits and looking for mathematical back doors. How can one know with certainty that one entity can't make subtle manipulations to this systems/markets?

- How do you delete data from the blockchain? Let's say someone decides to use blockchain for identity management. Some day a court agrees that a person needs to be protected under witness protection but their identity is in the blockchain. How do you remove it? Not revoke it, but completely remove all traces of it?

kevincox• 5 years ago

How do you remove it? Not revoke it, but completely remove all traces of it?

You can't.

You can't really remove anything that has been made public. You can try but odds are there is a copy somewhere.

For bitcoin: if everyone was cooperating you could update the protocol to replace that block with a version that had the desired information removed, however this block and its replacement would require special verification because the normal rules will obviously fail (because the normal rules forbid change).

LinuxBender3• 5 years ago

Thankyou. That was my understanding as well. I wasn't sure if something had evolved/changed but sound like it hasn't.

wmf• 5 years ago

How do you know blockchain actually works?

It's no different than any other software; it has to gradually earn confidence over time. Major math flaws were found in Zcash and more recently ECDSA threshold signatures and they had to be patched. Likewise understanding of cryptoeconomics has evolved (see selfish mining and MEV as examples) and will continue to evolve. It happens.

How do you delete data from the blockchain?

You don't put the data on the blockchain in the first place; you put a pointer. This doesn't solve all cases but it's better than nothing.

whoisninja4• 5 years ago

just curious, have you heard of lightning network ? try things out, try breez wallet. you can pay with lightning at McDonalds, Starbucks in El Salvador

rest of your claims about blockchain, privacy etc - are correct

the "Crypto" and "web3" is all scams

defaultprimate6• 5 years ago

LN is mathematically guaranteed to end up centralized.

whoisninja4• 5 years ago

how so?

also it doesn't impact Bitcoin, you can self-custody most of your wealth. Put what's needed to transact on lightning (checking account)

dezmou• 5 years ago

He first say that google servers are decentralized, but after his explanations, the google servers are more like distributed than decentralized.

GLGirty• 5 years ago

I generally agree with his conclusions, but I found his argument about centralization very weak. Bitcoin on mars seems like an impractical thought experiment compared to the actual reality that 50 miners (maybe less) control enough of the network to seize control when they desire. [1]

I wish he'd spent some time discussing the fact that bitcoin's 'value' is proportional to the electricity needed for hashing, and that property will favor aggregating control to a few actors at whatever geographic local has the cheapest electricity. The political and environmental shenanigans exploited by these actors is a deep dive, too, but out of scope for his thesis.

[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/study-finds-bitcoin-more-c...

danlugo924• 5 years ago

50 miners (maybe less) control enough of the network to seize control when they desire.

This is FUD.

The counterparty to miners are the nodes, and they are the ones in control of the network. There are about 47000 nodes and anyone can run one (this is why the block size is small) on like $200 worth of hardware.

rspeele• 5 years ago

What does control of the network mean?

An entity controlling the majority of mining power can produce the longest chain. But nodes respect the longest valid chain (by their definition of validity), so they can reject a change supported by miners, by considering that chain invalid. That supports your idea that the 47,000 nodes, which anybody can run, control the network.

But if there are competing definitions of validity, what really matters to me is the version of "validity" accepted by the counterparty I wish to send coins to. In today's world that is pretty much exchanges, since not very many businesses accept Bitcoin directly.

If there is a fork of Bitcoin where miners are in contention with node operators, the winner is the side of the fork that Binance+Coinbase+FTX+Kraken decide to treat as "BTC" and the loser is the side they treat as "Bitcoin Kinda-Sorta".

guilhas• 5 years ago

Some interesting points, but very myopic. He says he is talking about blockchain crypto in general not bitcoin, and then goes and enumerate bitcoin limitations

He ignores that there are a lot faster networks other than Bitcoin

He ignores that there are more private networks like Monero

Even if blockchain crypto is a step behind cash, which is being phased out in most places, it is still a step ahead of all other virtual finance platforms, and will probably replaced them

Everything else, blockchains are tools... We just need to use them to our advantage. Dystopian futures will not cease because of it or lack thereof

karmakaze• 5 years ago

If there was a good argument, it should make sense in plain text:

and you can think of this like the google search that's provided google search is a centralized search system yet the the actual computation for that search is actually distributed across the entire planet so uh that provides a perfect analogy for how uh bitcoin and uh litecoin and dogecoin how all of these different coins work they're actually centralized systems providing a centralized service while at the same time having the computation spread out across the entire planet

Totally missing the point that centralization is about who has control, not where things happen. Distributing operation but not control of those operations isn't meaningful here, which is what makes Google search not a good analogy for blockchains. I'm not pro-blockchain (until we find effective use/implementation), but I'm definitely anti-misinformation.

Bitcoin is not decentralized [video]

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