Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2015 22:29:39 +0200
From: "Wladimir J. van der Laan" <laanwj@gmail.com>
To: Justus Ranvier <justus@openbitcoinprivacyproject.org>
Message-ID: <20150901202938.GA4286@amethyst.visucore.com>
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Cc: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Your Gmaxwell exchange
Precedence: list

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 01:55:43PM -0500, Justus Ranvier via bitcoin-dev wrote:

> * They should own their bitcoins, meaning that they retain exclusive
> control over their balances. Even more precisely, the network must
> always honour the conditions of the scripts associated with unspent outputs.
> 
> * Their fraction of the Bitcoin ledger must not be diluted.
> 
> * When they decide to spend their coins, they will be able to do so
> without requiring permission from a third party.

All of these properties are contingent on the system being decentralized. Asking random end-users if they care if bitcoin is decentralized is like asking random people if they care if their drinking water is dihydrogen monoxide.

Both miner and full node over-centralization could result in

- Permission requirements to submit transactions (miners can be pressured to adhere to KYC rules)

- Transactions being reversed without consent (reorgs by the miner cartel)

- ...even dilution of their fraction of their ledger (if changing the rules becomes normal, I'm sure some smoothtalker could come up with arguments to raise the 21M cap. Another option would be to force the remaining people that are able to run full nodes to comply)

Bitcoin's properties don't come from magic. All its attractive properties are derived from decentralization, on spreading responsibility as widely globally as possible. Without that, it's just an inefficient ledger database.

Wladimir