With the current proposals for fixing Bitcoin’s bloated blockchain and transaction problems, a theme has been reoccurring enough that I find it impossible to ignore. Users and Miners may not want the same thing at all, and that is troubling. This begs the question, who is more important? Miners? Or Users and Nodes?
Miners vs Users
This is far from the first time this question has come up, but it seems particularly poignant with the looming July deadline that Miners have set to activate SegWit2x. The implications of this action could be extremely damaging to the chain and could also split users and reduce the overall value of Bitcoin.
It feels like a User versus Miner problem because many users have gotten together to try and have a User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) to implement BIT148 -which would be the activation of SegWit without a block size increase-, and there is almost a race between the two to activate before the other. Neither need to ask the other party’s position on the matter, and that may be what is causing this riff.
The Case for Users and Nodes over Miners
I realize this may be a somewhat contentious issue, and I recognize that miners are necessary for the integrity of the network. However, Users and Nodes are just as important for Blockchain integrity. Both are sorely needed, and it is a shame that they cannot seem to play nice right now.
That being said, here is why I am rooting for the UASF and believe that it is the safer way to go in the current Bitcoin climate. There are many reasons, but the main one is that Bitcoin is and always was meant for the user, not the miner.
The first line of Satoshi Nakamoto’s White Paper abstract read as follows: “A purely peer to peer electronic cash…” From its inception, Bitcoin was supposed to be about users, with miners playing the role of transaction processing. In fact, full nodes and users were expected to play the part of miners themselves rather than the mining faction fracturing off into their own realm.
Again, I realize things have changed. Difficulty of solving Blocks has increased by insane amounts. I will also be the first to tell you that I dislike the deification of Satoshi Nakamoto, but that I do believe in the original spirit of Bitcoin.
The current state of heavily centralized mining pools and exchanges is too similar to fiat banking and financial institutions. What is even more worrying for me in the regard is that miners have gotten together to decide the fate of a currency that was intended to be self determined by the community of users. SegWit2x feels like the cryptocurrency equivalent the Bretton Woods conference.
Large centralized groups deciding the fate of an entire economy with little regard or input from the very communities that transact, trade, and give the currency in that economy value? That does not sound like Bitcoin. That sounds like fiat banks, monopolies, and governments with callous disregard for its citizens.
I agree that something in Bitcoin has to give to alleviate us from high transaction fees and slow confirmation times, but it should never come at the cost of the coin’s ideals. Bitcoin was supposed to free the market and the world from the tyranny of centralized power and distribute it to users.
Make no mistake, I am not saying that miners or mining pools are evil or anything to that effect. I understand that they have vested interests they wish to protect. But it just feels like miners protecting miners’ interests leaves users out of luck and out in the cold.
Regardless of who wins this “race,” UASF or SegWit2x, these next few months will be incredibly interesting for Bitcoin.
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The mistake is assuming that mining will stay the way it is now. A cursory glance in the rear-view mirror would capture wall to wall red from the blood of former “mining magnates”, and there is no reason to believe the future will be any different….Solution? Give us 4 mb blocks to stuff with transactions, and stop using this as traction for some sort of political fight.
-Oz
Miners are not a singular monopoly. They are “POOLS”. Pools are a collection of independent people who choose which option is best for them. I live in America and mine with a Chinese mining pool, am I under the control of a monopoly, or did I add my vote to the total. According to this writer, my independent voice is dismissed as no different than a government controlled monopoly.
The miner pools with large percentages get dismissed as singular entities, but are in fact lots of indeviduals users.
Spreading simplistic falsehoods to make people hate and oppose instead of listen, is why this debate has so much misinformation and has drawn out longer than it should have. Going on 3 years now.
The makers of segwit openly admit that segwit is NOT enough to scale to global usage. The makers of lightning also openly admit that even with lightning bitcoin still needs bigger blocks. Everybody has known this for years.
This article states that the miners have excluded the core devs from discussions, bullshit. “CORE” has actively refused to cooperate with any other opinion from behind their closed doors.
What has happened here is a relatively small number of people (CORE) have been avoiding the scariest responsibility, and have been making excuses. They have become entitled to be the only programmers whos opinions matter. This is not an open source mind set. As more and more responsible people have spoken up stating, it is getting riskier to make bigger blocks, and it should be done soon before it gets any riskier. Core has responded with misinformation, banning, and deleting accounts to end the discussion. “CORE” also has groupies on social media that repeat whatever the small number of troll devs say. This misinformation has spread throughout the english bitcoin space leading to people like, the author of this article, to repeat them as facts. Us and them group think bullshit coming from a closed off small group “CORE”
The choice is not, either segwit or bigger blocks. Lightning network only relieves some of the pressure. It is not between a dangerous hardfork or a safe softfork. No. Bigger block are an absolute necessity no matter how much second layer stuff gets added. “CORE” has backed themselves into a corner with years of excuses, that have slowly morphed into attacks based on a fear of their one hard responsibility.
When researching this issue it seems like LTC has already primed itself for the day to day transaction burden. After it activated SegWit, it jumped from the high 20’s to the 40’s now. A 60% return. Is that over or is it just the beginning. I am thinking about moving my BTC holdings to LTC until BTC works out this “debt ceiling” like crisis.
Pfff. Lightcoin can’t handle transaction burden. Segwit isn’t a very big increase when you have no scalability to begin with. It’s just needed for lightning, the real upgrade that remains to be seen.
Dariusz I’m curious about your view on miners behavior and what do they want to achieve with that, but there is no way it seams to reach you, maybe you can answer with a comment or a new article on that?
The solution is pretty simple, don’t run Core’s software, don’t support small block users. The financial outcome can be somehow mixed but at least you will uphold your convictions.
I think the increase in LTC price had nothing to do with segwits activation. just because 2 thing happen at the same time doesn’t mean one cause the other.
There is a pattern that can be seen again and again, the price of a coin goes up, then a new exchange list that coin. If you run an exchange you dont want to just list the new coin and hope the public sort themselves out. Day one would have more buyers than sellers, this would cause a price spike, and only on your exchange. What they do is to bulk buy in advance to add liquidity to their exchange. This causes a price increase over all but prevents the spike on your site.
LTC saw a price rice just before being added to a couple of the major exchanges.
After all segwit doesn’t do anything on its own. nothing on LTC has changed. Segwit is just an adapter for other things to plug into, on its own it does nothing. Lightning network is not production ready yet. Nothing on LTC has changed yet.
The price rise was most likely due to the exchanges bulk buying. Sure some anticipation of segwit may have added some to the price, but weigh the two out, public support or exchanges bulk buying. Which one do you honestly think added more money?
30% return since you last spoke, Pfft. Isnt that what crypto is all about making a quick buck? or bucks lol
That has nothing to do with your wild and outrageous claim that litecoin is actually scalable which the math says it is not and will never be until lightning is activated. If it does than the buyers have been poorly informed and can’t do basic math.
If any meaningful demand hits from let’s say a stock crash or banking crisis until then, litecoin will just as easily grind to a halt with Bitcoin as everyone tries to bail ship whenever the backlog gets to it.
Nevertheless, a win for any crypto benefits the entire ecosystem and movement. Litecoin does have other good things going for it, but its current lack of scalability definitely isn’t a selling point.