You don’t vote with your node though?
Discussion
I run a node yes.
I say this so gently because I recognize that second order thinking and game theory are super complex and bitcoin seems like it has a million moving parts
Especially now
But you’re node probably does not count as a merchant node
So technically your node is just a tool for your to validate your transactions which is absolutely wonderful and totally ground breaking because never before in history have we had this capability
No other blockchain can operate in quite this same way besides maybeeeee Monero at cost the way bitcoin does
But your node isn’t a vote because it’s not a merchant node
Bitcoin follows two key players when it comes to hypothetical “voting” merchants and miners… and the percentage of full nodes that constitute these two players are a small club and baby we ain’t in it
What do you mean a merchant node? 8333 is open so I'm a full node runner. Is this not what you're referring to?
I'm curious if there's any way to get data on the # of merchant nodes
This is actually a great point
2 things with that 1) dark pools shield observation and dark pools constitute a lot of mining/ merchant activity
And
2) We would have to have some way of deciphering what constitutes “enough” economic weight to constitute influence over network rules
Ability to sustain a hard fork? Which would be some kind of taxation hard fork by the state I guess?
Imma check voskuil
This is prob the best explanation
economic-security = receipts * distribution(receipts) * [merchants / humanity]
confirmation-security = hash-power * distribution(hash-power) * [miners / humanity]
https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Qualitative-Security-Model
Economic activity would grind to a halt when there's sustained censorship