Anyone have good materials on decentralization in bitcoin they can share?
I'm looking for concise examples and reasons why it's important. Why bitcoin cannot function correctly without this important property.
Discussion
Q: How decentralized do you want X to be?
A: How many points do you want to have to fail in order for the system to become compromised?
Here is an answer from ChatGPT, i asked this in the past, not your direct quetsion:
me, additional prompt: can you expand the benefits to also include the benefit of using Bitcoin over the US Dollar both in terms of inflation and not being a state controlled money
Certainly, in addition to the benefits of using the Lightning Network for payment processing, using Bitcoin as a currency instead of the US Dollar also has several benefits, particularly with regards to inflation and state control:
Inflation resistance: Bitcoin has a finite supply, with only 21 million bitcoins ever to be created. This contrasts with traditional fiat currencies, which are subject to inflation due to their centralized control and ability to be printed in unlimited amounts. By using Bitcoin, merchants can protect themselves against the negative effects of currency inflation.
Decentralization: Bitcoin is a decentralized currency, meaning that it operates on a peer-to-peer network without a central authority controlling its supply or distribution. This makes it resistant to government control or manipulation, providing greater security and stability for merchants and their customers.
Borderless transactions: Bitcoin can be sent and received anywhere in the world, without restrictions imposed by geographical borders or government policies. This allows merchants to easily expand their customer base and reach a global market without the need to navigate complex regulations or currency exchange fees.
Increased adoption: Bitcoin is becoming increasingly widely accepted, both by consumers and merchants, providing greater flexibility and convenience for those who use it.
In summary, using Bitcoin over the US Dollar offers several benefits for merchants, including greater resistance to inflation, increased security and stability, the ability to easily transact with a global customer base, and increased adoption.
Here's a recent showcase of hands-on Bitcoin decentralization seen on the wild.
MiniBolt is an x86_64-focused fork of RaspiBolt maintained by #[2]
https://minibolt.info/guide/bonus/bitcoin/ordisrespector.html
I obviously also had a hand in it. It may sound a bit disingenuous to paint it like that, but I believe this is really what it is.
Thank me later
Not sure if this can help?
https://twitter.com/simplestbtcbook/status/1612976600244539392
(trying to) Discover decentralization (materials)🔶👀
#[0]
Centralized in the sense of hashrate spread out over pools (not important) or in the sense of it being cheap to run a node (all important)?
All of it!
Keeping the growth rate of the Blockchain small is important so that lots of people can afford to run a full node. If it's rare for people to run full nodes, then the government can go after the few people who do for not respecting the ofac address black list. Also, unless you run your own node, you are telling the node your wallet connects to every uxto you own everytime you open your wallet and it tries to verify your balance.
Pierre Rochard argues that we only need one miner for the bitcoin protocol to work.
Decentralization is only important if this one miner begins to censor transactions. If he or she does, another miner is required for censorship resistance.
He told me this at the pacific bitcoin conference, but I think he also told it to #[2] in this podcast.