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by dcuthbertson
3047 days ago
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> Bitcoin was created as a democratized money that is outside of central control. I'm just beginning to learn about blockchains and bitcoins. At the moment, I don't see how bitcoin is democratic. Having read "Miners Aren't Your Friends" [1], I don't see how it's possible to trust a system where "... each miner controls the blocks they generate, they can also exercise control over the state changes in that block," that is, miners can manipulate the order of transactions in a contract. At the very least they can cause extra transaction fees to be charged. [1] https://blog.keep.network/miners-arent-your-friends-cde9b6e0... |
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Bitcoin exists and is successful precisely because miners control authorship of the public ledger. The entire point of proof-of-work is to ensure this. The essential observation, and really the key invention of Bitcoin, is that you ensure that no single party can control authorship to the blockchain unless they control a majority of the mining power, which is very expensive. Furthermore, control of authorship is directly correlated to investment in the network; capital investment in mining equipment, continued investment in electricity for hashing, and value extracted from that in the form of the cryptocurrency itself. In other words, those who are most able to attack the network also have the most to lose by doing so. This is the foundation upon which Bitcoin is built.
Ethereum is a different story because of smart contracts and the potential move to proof-of-stake (Casper). But these arguments don't apply to Bitcoin. There are also people involved in Bitcoin that have political/development disagreements with miners, and thus seek to advocate that 'users' can/do control the network. I recommend a critical reading of both 'sides' and to reach your own conclusions.