It actually doesn't matter, only your economic activity matters.
If you are not receiving bitcoin, your node is verifying nothing that matters.
Discussion
That's what Fake Satoshi said and was proven wrong many years ago.
I lived through the whole thing first hand and know what everyone said.
The fact of the matter is that economic nodes chose Segwit.
Exactly. They (bitmain, antpool, Jihan Wu and co) did because of UASF. After they realised their proposal/attempt to change Bitcoin to a centralised big blockers network was never going to succeed.
The UASF showed that the majority of nodes do decide what will happen, not the few and purely monetary nodes and miners.
I was there, too 😉
Yeah, asicboost was the issue there.
But IIRC they were still mining after the fork, they only changed to Segwit after Cash became unprofitable.
Yes ASIC boost was yet another issue bitmain created - a messy time it was back then.
The UASF situation is, in my view, very similar to what we are seeing now and also different.
Core 30 have loosened the rules allowing larger op_return effectively creating a new kind of Bitcoin, whereas bip 444 suggest reverting that to the old and keep Bitcoin a purely monetary network not a ETH 2.0. Then there's knots enforsing the old rules wanting to do the same but in a slightly different way.
Whatever happens, thank you for engaging in this conversation. It's refreshing talking to someone who actually have historical knowledge.
V30 doesn't change any consensus rules though and doesn't create any possibility of a chain split.
The only player who wants to change any rules that would split the chain is Luke. Everyone else is taking a very conservative approach in comparison.
Absolutely! V30 keeps it all chill and doesn't mess with the consensus rules, so no chain split worries here. 🙌 The only one pushing for rule changes is Luke, while the rest of us are playing it safe. Let’s keep it steady! #CryptoCommunity
The definition of a hard fork is loosening the rules. That is exactly what core is in the process of doing with version 30.
Saying that Luke want a chain split is pure propaganda and fear mongering as it is not true.
Bip 444 does not cause a chain split, as it reverts the reference client code to precious state with rules that the majority of nodes already follow and enforce.
If a chain split will occur, it will be to a new BTC VC Coin, as it is the minority and the one changing the rules of the network in the first place.
The only reason the CSAM debate is running is that a very few got desperate and in frustration grabbed the extreme arguments after years and months of seeing the negligence and VC behaviour of a few influential core devs turning the greatest invention into something it was never intended to be.
The reason Bitcoin is what it is today, is conservative development with very few minor changes once a while. It is predictability.
If people like Michael Saylor invest billions of legacy money into a project you do it because you have observed an asset with a predictable profit, not an asset that will change to something completely different now and then.
Going back to the current heated arguments by a few even OGs.
Had people reacted to the bips and civilized conversation over the years instead of blocking, banning and name calling like some have fallen to, we wouldn't be in this situation.
Grooming devs to be able to piggyback on the network is a low that shouldn't be praised, but it clearly shows that everyone is for sale at the right price.
Let's get the overall conversation and development back to what has made Bitcoin Bitcoin and not the thousands of alt coins and their philosophy.
You don't under stand Bitcoin. And that's OK.
Always good hearing from people with different opinions. Say hi to your VC friends from me!
My friends are nostr:nprofile1qqsqt94cze77fkfxhgt9s2rfxmht6gjn96n8asf2jrq8szkkdhclexgprfmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumgd96xvmmjvdjjummwv5hszxnhwden5te0wfjkccte9emk2mrvdaexgetj9ehx2ap0qy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uvturtf. Unsure of any VCs in the mix. The only VCs I know are the ones on nostr.
Yeah that's my perspective. Bitcoin Core v30 is the stealth hard fork.
With all their name calling and denying it's only low level stealth 😅👻
Many core members have been incredibly dishonest about Eric voskuil and libbitcoin which is enough for me to not trust them, but Luke is equally dishonest in my book.
I'm incredibly disappointed in many OGs that I used to admire and now have fallen and are actively attacking the original idea of an alternative to the completely broken and corrupt legacy system.
Peter Todd directly attacking nodes and software implementations he does not like. Other developers who said "run what node software you like" doing similar things. This kind of behaviour does not make Bitcoin stronger. It's ok to not agree on things but directly attacking people, their person and what they create is so far from a mature behaviour and only gives potential adopters incentive to stay far far away.
Yet the fact of the matter is that Core is not loosening consensus rules or doing anything that can result in a chain split. Luke is changing consensus rules which will absolutely split the chain because it's contentious.
The way I understand it is that Core are changing mempool rules to match consensus and remove the incentive for miners to run parallel transaction markets (putting smaller miners at a disadvantage).
They might not directly change consensus rules but their behaviour and communication paints a clear picture of "use our software, follow our rules or you don't use Bitcoin".
That kind of attitude makes policy rules balance at the edge of becoming consensus rules.
Their (core) arguments have been many, from unifying the mempool to make fee estimations easier, to more radical wording that any kind of filtering no matter what is censoring. I don't buy any of them as they all come out as words from an authoritarian leader who want everyone to fall in line.
Having more than one client makes the network stronger not weaker.
Just like the DNS system of the internet uses several different implementations of servers and clients and on nearly any kind of OS, so should Bitcoin.
The miners already filter based on their beliefs and jurisdiction. Changes made by core might make it impossible for them to keep doing what they do, for good or bad. But if 80% of the hash rate falls off the network, attacking the it becomes much easier for a state actor and they for sure would like to create chain reorgs now and then and they would have the power to do so.
(disregard type errors)
If that’s true big blockers would’ve won. No?
No. The rolling set of participants receiving bitcoin in exchange for something else chose Segwit.
The mistake people are making is believing this set is the same as the set of nodes. There's overlap but it isn't 1:1.
You forget that nodes signal intention, and intention matters. Signalling that they will reject your blocks if you don’t fall in line is the real world analogy of threatening economic sanctions.
Miners care about being able to sell their coins.
Hashing on the right fork (once there actually is a fork) is the only thing they actually care about when push comes to shove.
If microstrategy, ETFs, exchanges announced their intentions then it would definitely be taken seriously. As would a large number of merchants that accept bitcoin.
A bunch of random nodes on AWS is just noise though.
If you send via your own node then you have far better privacy. If you're using someone else's node for anything, then it would be trivial to link that IP with the addresses being watched.
Correct, but that doesn't give you any power over the protocol.
People sending bitcoin have no power over the protocol, only those receiving have any power.
Nodes dictate the network, whatever version the majority are running enforces those rules on the network.
Bitcoin is not a democracy. If "the majority" of nodes get to decide what the bitcoin protocol is then a government could just spin up a a couple million nodes and change the 21 million hard cap. That isn't how it works.
The rolling set of nodes that *verify bitcoin received in exchange for something else* have 100% of the hard power over the protocol rules.
You need to be producing/trading something of value in exchange for bitcoin in order for your act of transaction verification to have an impact on the network. If the bitcoin you receive does not comply with your version of the protocol then verification fails and you stop providing economic value to whoever sent you the "bitcoin". The rolling set of people doing this determine what the protocol is.
Nope. The nodes enforce the code on the miners. If the nodes decided they wanted a proof of stake network (which would be stupid) the miners would be forced to switch hardware. The majority of nodes enforce the network. Satoshi mentioned this in the early writings. You can run whatever versions of BTC you want.
If that were true, a bad actor could simply spin up some nodes and print free bitcoin.
No because nobody would follow that chain. He would be spinning up nodes on his own with no miners.
Exactly, and which chain to miners follow? The one which has demand for coins.
And which coins are in demand? Those which can be traded for something other than bitcoin.
And who decides what fork is valid bitcoin? Those who have something to trade for it.
Read my original comment that you disagreed with more carefully.
Anyone can fork bitcoin and many have. Nobody is stopping a fork and nobody needs to follow that fork. My node enforces the rules of the network I want. Miners will mine the most economically viable fork. All the interests align. The most economically efficient version wins. Miners don't mine out of charity and node runners don't run nodes that don't align with their interest.
Correct.