Author: DMND
Source: https://blog.dmnd.work/using-mining-to-create-more-fully-validating-bitcoin-users/
Bitcoin's value depends on its ability to resist any type of censorship. Without this characteristic, Bitcoin loses its power to challenge and resist authority, and then succumbs to the same set of rules prevalent in the traditional world. Therefore, Bitcoin must never have any single point of failure. As long as there is one gatekeeper, there is a vulnerability. And as long as there is a vulnerability, it will inevitably be exploited. At that point, Bitcoin as a free and decentralized electronic currency movement will be dead .
To ensure the network's decentralization, robustness, and antifragility, we need to maintain the ultimate elements of these ultimate properties, thus protecting us from the test of time. We cannot allow anyone in the world to think that attacking Bitcoin is a piece of cake. The best way to do this is to distribute Bitcoin as widely as possible by running Bitcoin network nodes in every corner of the world. Like a monetary virus, the more dispersed it is, the higher its chances of success.
Satoshi Nakamoto has repeatedly stated that all previous cryptocurrency projects failed because of their centralized nature. The monopoly of the money supply is a form of power that governments and financial systems will not easily relinquish. To ensure that Bitcoin is not defeated by any malicious actors, our mission is to ensure that Bitcoin's decentralization continues to grow, forever.
“Many people assume without thinking that electronic money is doomed to fail because every company that has tried it since the 1990s has failed. I hope you can see that what defeated them was simply the centralized control nature of these systems. I believe that this (Bitcoin) is our first attempt at a decentralized, trustless system.”
Bitcoin is an open-source implementation of a peer-to-peer currency.
Looking at what Bitcoin has already achieved and its current status as a global network, the fact remains that this network is highly decentralized. And, just as some might say there's no limit to Bitcoin's purchasing power, there's no limit to its decentralization. The more the merrier! Once decentralization reaches a certain level, any attack on Bitcoin is not only meaningless to the attacker, but also self-destructive, because any failure by the attacker ultimately strengthens Bitcoin's resilience to any attack (in the process, enhancing the Bitcoin network), and then reduces the expected success rate of any attack. This is the purest form of antifragility!
- Hydra – A magical creature from the Book of Revelation. Every time one of its heads is cut off, two more grow back. In other words, each attack makes it stronger. Hydra is antifragile. Bitcoin is a monetary Hydra.
So, to what extent of decentralization would deter any potential attack? Nobody knows; we can only make estimates. Moreover, the best strategy is to make Bitcoin as decentralized as possible. And our most important tool is deploying as many nodes as possible around the world.
Nodes are the most important players in Bitcoin (should we add "one of"?). Nodes apply the rules of the protocol, verifying all transactions and blocks that circulate throughout the network. They also forward all information to other nodes and store all blocks. If a transaction or block violates the rules of the protocol, a node automatically rejects (saves, forwards) it. Nodes are essentially the referees in the Bitcoin game, ensuring everyone participates fairly, just as we hope.
- Bitcoin node is working -
The more nodes join the network, the more judges will verify everything that happens in the Bitcoin network. The more nodes join, the more complete the backup of Bitcoin's history (the blockchain). The more nodes join, the greater the guarantee that everyone will act according to the rules. Every time a node joins the network, someone trying to attack Bitcoin has to cut off another head to kill this monetary hydra. If you don't already have a node, now is the time.
Unfortunately—and most Bitcoin users are unaware—the vast majority of miners do not run nodes. Miners who want to be paid for their work simply provide a valid share to the mining pool operator. It's often said that miners are paid for protecting the network from all hostile payments, building an energy wall so thick it's impenetrable. However, if we want to continue using this analogy, we must see that miners are now "employees" of the mining pool, not employees of the Bitcoin network. There is no direct connection between miners and the network; in reality, they simply sell computing power to the pool in the form of hashrate. Selecting transactions for blocks, creating blocks, distributing such blocks across the network, and receiving all the necessary information—all of these tasks are outsourced to the mining pool. This essentially means that the mining pool determines whether there is censorship on the network, thus undermining Satoshi Nakamoto's original vision of an open and permissionless value transfer protocol.
Furthermore, if you feel this isn't enough to undermine decentralization, there's also the concept of "proxy mining pools." Proxy mining pools are essentially wolves in sheep's clothing—using different brand names but actually operating under the same entity. That is, on the surface, a large mining pool A might control 20% of the network's hashrate, while three smaller pools B, C, and D each control 5%, but in reality, A controls 35%. This is enough to launch a "selfish mining" attack and damage the entire network. Therefore, what we end up with are just a few "major" mining pools deciding which transactions enter the blockchain. This situation doesn't seem decentralized at all—and you're right, because it isn't decentralized in reality. Fortunately, there's a way to solve this. It's called "Stratum V2."
Stratum V2 is a new mining (pool) protocol that aims to bring a range of new features to make Bitcoin mining safer, more efficient, and more decentralized. Its open-source reference implementation was developed over the past three years by more than 15 independent, community-run developers and has undergone over 30,000 downstream stress tests. Using this new protocol, Bitcoin's decentralization may reach new heights.
You might ask, how does a mining protocol do this? It's because it allows miners to create their own block templates and select the transactions to be included in a block. To have this capability, a miner must run a node. More nodes mean a more decentralized and robust network. Once all miners construct their own blocks instead of relying on mining pools, we will witness Bitcoin take a giant leap towards decentralization.
It's time to improve Bitcoin's decentralization. Will you join us?
(over)
