Help!
In light of recent events (Core vs Knots), I pulled out my copy of The Blocksize War by Jonathan Bier. He makes repeated references to the "end users" as the powers who decide the rules for Bitcoin. End users are clearly not miners, but are the node runners or wallet users?
Hijacking Bitcoin by Roger Ver also covers the Blocksize War. A lot of toxic maxis think I'm an idiot because I agree with what Roger had pointed out.
I'll ask again because I'm looking for genuine answers. #asknostr
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The users.
You can own a node that relays transactions, but nothing else. You really have no influence on the network.
But if you accept payment, you have the power to demand. You can demand Bitcoin Cash, you can demand a transaction with a big OP_RETURN, you can demand whatever you want because you have the goods, but of course the buyer has a stake in the decision too, but not as much.
As a user, you choose what Bitcoin node informs you of receipt of payment. If you use your own node, you know what you want. If you use a wallet pointing to someone else's node, you are at risk of getting something you didn't want. I.E. you could be receiving Bitcoin cash.
So ideally you are a user and a node runner, but otherwise you are still the user, but you are following someone else's rules and you are likely uninformed. Therefore although you set the rules, you're doing it with blindfolds on.
If you don't run a node aren't you just a slave to the node runner?
Well, you at least get to pick the node, it's a bit like miners joining a pool that makes the block templates. If you notice something you don't like, you just change the provider.
But if you are going blind, you may suddenly realise that you had BCash the whole time. Typically this is not the case since we go off recommendations and trust and as much as we shouldn't, for those who do, trust works out quite well most of the time.
Yeah but in this question he's asking who the end user that ultimately chooses is. Would be the node
I disagree. I feel like it's like saying who's to blame when there is a car accident and the driver didn't have their seatbelt on and they get injured?
It's not the car... Even if there was no seatbelt in the car, the driver chose to use it anyway.
Two nodes are capturing and writing their own views of history in the form of a blockchain, but ultimately it is the one that is used for the most transactions that is Bitcoin (including lightning and other off chain transactions btw).
Even when looking at the mempool, one node might show a transaction as pending, while another rejects it. That in turn affects whether you see the incoming transaction and how you treat the customer, and therefore overall whether the payee is likely to send you a standard or non-standard transaction.
Using your example inwoild argue it doesn't matter at all who's at fault. The important part is the physics of a ton of metal hitting stuff at 40mph. The underlying reality is that the node is what determines the state of the network. So sure use whaterver node you want but what matters is that the node is what chooses.
Would you at least agree that 100x more bcash nodes than there are bitcoin nodes makes no difference?
I feel like we are arguing about semantics maybe, but let me posit this:
A bitcoin node that is used by 100 people has more influence on the rules of the network (not talking Coinbase, I'm talking about a node that serves 100 self custodial users) than a single node used by a single user (on average, assuming that all the users in question do similar amounts of economic activity).
And of course, I'm sure there are a lot of bitcoiners who run a node but don't point their wallets to them. Those nodes are merely relays, but they don't determine, control or influence the rules of the network.
I agree its not the number of nodes in a network.
I disagree that the number of wallets using a node matters either.
I think the disagreement might be semantic. But just to confirm In saying the nodes matter because in the system the nodes are what run the rule set that defines bitcoin. Maybe you mean the same thing but if you strictly say the users to mean the wallets. They don't actually have a say in the ruleset to run directly. I think you mean that if they choose nodes for the ruleset they want then they do have a say
Sound right?
Yup.
Users are specifically those who receive bitcoin and the relevant nodes are the nodes *they* use to validate that receipt.
Node runners.
Good explanation is here:
https://medium.com/bitcoinerrorlog/who-secures-bitcoin-95b19bbcda3c
Cheers 🤙
Well then...
