Nostr Web Client

I think this is an important thing to grok - there is no reason Bitcoin Core should be bound by “consensus” for things unrelated to Bitcoin’s consensus rules.

Bitcoin Core is a software project with a wallet, a GUI, an RPC API, and an implementation of a P2P network for rumoring blocks and transactions. For all of those things, there’s no reason for Bitcoin Core to only act with “consensus” - can you imagine if they needed consensus of the community to make opinionated decisions in the GUI?!

But specifically on the topic of the P2P layer - Bitcoin Core contributors’ jobs are to be good stewards to that implementation and do what is right for Bitcoin to maximize decentralization and robustness. There’s no debate (except from people who don’t understand Bitcoin) that reducing or removing paternalistic censorial standardness limits is not only good but possibly important for Bitcoin’s long-term decentralization.

There is nothing that says anyone has to run Core, and there is nothing that says Bitcoin Core must only do things when there exists consensus in the broader Bitcoin community, especially when it’s abundantly clear those things are important for Bitcoin.

None of this applies, of course, to Bitcoin’s consensus rules - that sub-project of Bitcoin Core has drastically different constraints.

nostr:note1askf4s9h88qqa4zmu2cukjg6zsj3k0wg2cqkjcn5hncwm78sel0q3sw4ge

Big Barry Bitcoin 8mo ago 💬 2

I think I understand the stated issue that people are finding ways to broadcast transactions out of band directly to miners and that this "is bad for decentralisation".

But how exactly?

The only thing I can think of is that it becomes harder to know if censorship is taking place if you have no idea what you expect to see in a block because half of the backlog is private. So potentially it affects censorship resistance.

But what other effects are you referring to? How is this limit reducing decentralisation?

If you already have a writeup, link it, I'm just trying to understand.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Matt Corallo 8mo ago 💬 1

I’m working on a writeup, but the TL;DR is basically that if it were to become popular, small miners wouldn’t be able to compete because only the large miners see a large portion of the transactions that pay them fees.

Big Barry Bitcoin 8mo ago

Thank you.

Dave🐸 8mo ago

A lot of bitcoiners clearly don’t understand what bitcoin core do lol

Time for a nostr:npub10atn74wcwh8gahzj3m0cy22fl54tn7wxtkg55spz2e3mpf5hhcrs4602w3 ?