Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Scaling Bitcoin conference micro-report

From: Eric Voskuil <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 23:56:55 -0700

On 09/18/2015 11:06 PM, NxtChg via bitcoin-dev wrote:
>> While to many of us that sounds crazy, if you're threat model assumes
>> Bitcoin is a legal/regulated service provided by a highly trusted
>> mining community it's a reasonable design.
>
> There is a large, grey area all the way to "legal/regulated service
> provided by a highly trusted mining community". Painting the worst
> looking picture is either a defect in thinking or intentional FUD.

The state is the threat in the Bitcoin threat model. You comments below
acknowledge it. The assumption of hostile state actors is the only
rational starting point. That which is regulated (and regulatable) in
Bitcoin is the attack surface.

While of course there are various degrees of weakness, the reference to
"legal/regulated service provided by a highly trusted mining" as the
threat is by no means irrational or misdirecting. This threat represents
the difference between Bitcoin and Fedcoin.

I found Mike's threat model downright disturbing. All benefits of
Bitcoin arise from its resistance to this threat. Anyone investor in
this space should be paying attention... the apparent benefits of
Bitcoin will vaporize with regulation.

>> Mike Hearn recently posted his threat model, which specifically
>> argues we should assume governments are not a threat.
>
> There are two ways to fight governments:
>
> 1. either you become too big to close, so political repercussions
> become unacceptable

This is extremely naive. At a minimum, getting popular/successful (and
regulated) is the formula for regulatory capture.

> 2. or you become too tiny to hunt, in which case you are much better
> off with a specialized alt-coin, designed specifically for that
> purpose.

I assume you are referring some marginal and largely irrelevant effort.

False dichotomy.

[cross-posted to libbitcoin]