How fast would the majority of hash be redirected if the Gubment made decrees on those pools? Literally within hours. Itās kind of silly. This hash isnāt locked in a pool. Itās just pointing there rn. Can very easily be moved or taken off line. Pool members arenāt keen on being part of a censorship-friendly pool or a pool that would attempt a 51% attack, period. Itās a silly gripe.
Discussion
If that was true they would have switched already but instead they all complied with the KYC requirements. They don't care about Bitcoin ethos they just want revenue.
They wouldnāt participate in an attack on their source of revenue. Simple game theory.
If they can fill a block with compliant transactions then they lose no revenue. You just lose out on getting your non-compliant transaction confirmed by them.
I donāt believe much if any of the hash would stay in any pool if the were openly censoring txs for any government. No chance.
Thereās definitely a chance, but itās a big risk to their business.
I donāt see it as a large threat (especially since it would require coordination and cooperation between the United States and China) but ultimately the only thing which mitigates this completely right now is the fee based model and the credible threat to fork which would render all mining equipment worthless.
Future improvements like having independent block template generation could make censorship risk even lower, but ultimately right now the most likely risk is that certain transactions would have to wait an extra cycle or two to make it in a block.
I agree that we cannot become complacent.
Tail risk with work arounds and game theory that makes it an improbable scenario. But imo itās not a existential threat.
Iām not arguing to be complacent, but either way, there is nothing I can do personally. I think the open Network will find ways to get stronger and solve for more tail risks over time as itās shown to do effectively over time. I know the best minds in the world are actually working on mitigating these low-probability problems but this is v low probability in my opinion.
Complying with KYC isnāt remotely close to participating in a Government orchestrated take over / 51% attack. Youāre committing a slippery slope fallacy.
Nobody said anything about a 51% attack. You're misunderstanding the original post.
It would also be an ineffective strategy by censoring govt as ā50% of blocks wouldnāt be in censorship pools. So the blacklisted addresses wouldnāt be reliably censored and the pools who complied would surely be committing suicide by compiling. Itās not going to happen.