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Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 11:48:20 +0300
To: "Eric Lombrozo" <elombrozo@gmail.com>, s7r@sky-ip.org,
	bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
From: "NxtChg" <nxtchg@hush.com>
In-Reply-To: <ema20a20ae-62b0-483b-90d4-a2cded334b2f@platinum>
References: <55FF2632.2010804@sky-ip.org>
	<ema20a20ae-62b0-483b-90d4-a2cded334b2f@platinum> 
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Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Scaling Bitcoin conference micro-report
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>Larger user base won't necessarily protect against governments if 
>we still have chokepoints they can go after.

This is the critical confusion about Bitcoin decentralization, which leads to this whole recent mess of shouting at each other.

Decentralization is _not_ a way to withstand an attack, if the government "goes after you".

Many people got this idea drilled into their heads in the previous years, that Bitcoin is a "movement" to fight governments, and decentralization is its main weapon.

They confuse Bitcoin and Anonymous.


>What we really need to grow is the number of nodes on the network 
>that participate in its basic infrastructure - namely: miners, validators, etc...

Absolutely. Nobody argues that we shouldn't care about decentralization.

But who's gonna pay for all this? What are the incentives?

We need Bitcoin to get much more popular for this to happen.