[tubbyjr]

Some good points, but for as many good points, there is a similar amount of misinformation, whether purposefully or due to lack of understanding.

- The claim that BTC chose a non-scalable solution for ease of running a node isn't true. The claim at the time was that Segwit and LN were sufficient to solve all the scaling issues, the hardforks were going to solve anyways with their block size increase. It also falsely states that the hard forks take up more hard disk space, when in fact BTC still takes more...

- The hashrate comparison, the way it is charted is completely nonsensical, between BTC & ETH... it is quite literally comparing apples to oranges, their POW algorithms are completely different from one another and cannot be compared in hash/s terms. They are each respectively at the top of their hash domains. I'm doubtful this is due to ignorance, but moreso malice. Would love to see BTC miners do a 50% attack on ETH, which the author is essentially trying to instill into the minds of readers.

[reissbaker]

It felt a bit like doublespeak when the author claimed ETH was more vulnerable to a 51% attack because it (intentionally) aims to make ASIC mining difficult — the whole point of making ASIC mining difficult is that Bitcoin is centralized and vulnerable to 51% attacks because there are very few miners (because capital expenditure to become a miner is high). If the few miners collaborate to cheat you, they can get away with it.

That being said, it's not even true anymore that ETH is GPU-only; despite attempting ASIC-resistance, there are now ASIC miners for ETH too, although unlike with Bitcoin, Ethereum is still able to be mined with GPUs.

The complaints that ETH has little real-world utility and is mostly speculation-driven felt similarly nonsensical compared to Bitcoin. What real-world utility does Bitcoin have? The whole thing is HODL-driven speculation on an inherently-useless deflationary asset.

(Unlike the author, who claims to have no stake in the debate a breath before admitting he's long BTC and doesn't own ETH — by definition, a stake — I truly have no stake in this debate, and currently own neither BTC nor ETH.)

[bhaak]

> That being said, it's not even true anymore that ETH is GPU-only; despite attempting ASIC-resistance, there are now ASIC miners for ETH too, although unlike with Bitcoin, Ethereum is still able to be mined with GPUs.

Last time I looked those "ASIC" miners for ETH were basically a few GPUs stacked together in one case. More of a special PC setup than truly ASICs and that's why there is still GPU mining. Those ASIC miners were not that much faster and cost effective than a regular GPU setup.

Has that changed?

[tubbyjr]

I really feel the article's quality would greatly improve, focusing on just Ethereum 2.0, where fair points regarding its issues are brought up.

Showing the node count for BTC and making it seem huge, while trying to sell the fact of how terrible it is to run a ETH node instead, and not mentioning the fact that there are actually more active ETH nodes online than BTC, is highly disengenious, and unfortunately just makes this seem like a bagholder trying to discredit competition.

[dylkil]

>The claim that BTC chose a non-scalable solution for ease of running a node isn't true.

Except that it is true. There were few reasons for not increasing the block size limit, one of those was the cost of running a node. If the costs became too much for normal people to afford, it would centralize the system in a small number of big miners.

[Blockbuster]

I never understood this argument. The cost of mining already centralizes nodes to the point where block size is not a factor. People that are able to run cost effective mining setups are also able to support blockchains of any size. Given the current state of mining, how would switching to 10mb blocks increase centralization?

[xorcist]

Miner centralization is not without risks, but is fundamentally very different from centralizing economic activity, with different security outcomes.

A dominating miner runs the risk of a 51% attack, which can cause denial of service or censorship, but game theory dictates that the missed opportunity cost is huge. A dominating economic actor makes the whole blockchain an obsolete backend to something like Paypal.

[grubles]

Block propagation speed.

[CyberDildonics]

How does that make any sense?

Block sizes are under 1MB.

Anyone can rent a VPS for under $10 USD per month that would transfer that in 1/100th of a second.

The block time is 10 minutes.

Why do people repeat stuff like this? Is it because you have seen other people say it and never stopped to look at the math?

[tubbyjr]

The only huge pushers of that were the like of core dev LukeJr... who wants to decrease the block size down to 100k or by 10x.

The article states that claim, as though it was the sole one, when it was just one small reason pushed by Raspberry Pi hobbyists... while the average person doesn't even know wtf a Pi or ARM SBC is.

[dylkil]

Why not increase the block size limit then?

[xorcist]

This is also what happened. Larger blocks was implemented with segwit. This played out during an infected debate that provided the perfect cover to launch an altcoin without it, that changed the name and some constants in the code. The free PR gave them more economic activity from the start compared to similar coins, and was likely quite lucrative.

[dylkil]

Increase the block size limit was really just a 1 line change, a single variable within bitcoin core controlled it. Instead of changing this variable from a 1 to a 2 they chose the convoluted mess that was segwit. What was so wrong with increasing the block size limit the normal way?

[xorcist]

This was thoroughly debated over many months at the bitcoin-dev mailing list so it would be presumptuous of me to summarize that now. The list is open and anyone can read the actual back and forths that took place.

There were several perspectives on this, including that no one found a way to deploy that protocol change to a live network in an acceptable way. It is much easier to build consensus around "soft" forks.

[elif]

non-mining nodes have zero bearing on chain consensus

[jude-]

That's not really true. If the vast majority of user- and exchange-operated nodes decided a miner's well-formed block is invalid, then other miners would be dissuaded from building on it, and would instead orphan it.

[dylkil]

if a non mining node decides a block is invalid it will fork onto its own chain. If no mining nodes start mining on this forked chain then the original node is left on a chain where no transactions can be processed.

Non-mining nodes have no power or influence over the networks state. It is the mining nodes who decide which chain lives and which chain dies.

[jude-]

Non-mining nodes are still responsible for storing and relaying blocks. If no one stores and relays your block, was it ever mined?

[dylkil]

Remove the non-mining nodes from the network and the node count goes down, but the network security stays the same. Non mining nodes do nothing for the security of the bitcoin network.

Having more non mining nodes to store and relay blocks is beneficial to decentralization, but they have no influence over which chain becomes the longest chain.

[CyberDildonics]

Nodes aren't "responsible" for anything, they can only help if they want. Miners broadcast their blocks to other miners to signal they found a valid block.

Miners can broadcast to anyone they want and nodes can't find or manipulate blocks, so they take the role of passive helpers.

[dylkil]

Yes id agree with you there, many dont though.

[spurdoman77]

I havent heard of any claims that segwit and LN would be sufficient. It is very clear mathematics that they cant scale far. However they provide safe way to scale for short-term. Long-term solutions have to be found. If they are not found there is thousands of shitcoins claiming to solve the scalability issues better.

[tubbyjr]

I agree that mathematically, they are not the scaling solutions they were touted to be, as they both have a direct dependence on the base layer size, among many other issues respectively.

You did mention yourself, under however, that it can help scale in the short-term. Many of the 'tech gurus' were essentially saying that Segwit was the short-term fix, and LN wich would take 18 months(seemingly a perpetual timeframe), would be the medium-term fix. The BTC maxi thought leader morons, like Tone Vays, who are technically ignorant, were selling noobs that both were a complete fix. I didn't choose the thought leaders for BTC.

[grubles]

>They are each respectively at the top of their hash domains

This doesn't matter much for ETH because its mining algorithm dissuades ASIC production. So there are some (large) number of GPUs out in the world not mining ETH that can in theory be used to attack Ethereum. The same can't really be said for Bitcoin because ASICs serve no other purpose besides mining.