>If you start with the premise that more than half of Bitcoin miners would do something crazy that would either destroy Bitcoin or would be completely unacceptable to you, personally... then maybe you should look for some other system that you might trust more, because Bitcoin's basic security assumption is that a supermajority of miners are 'honest.'

Miners not being crazy does not mean they are infallible.  They may misjudge the market and change their minds about what is the most reasonable action based on new information.  Their commitment to one fork or another is very dynamic, and is a huge assumption missing.  They may overestimate their influence, support of the economy.  Other factors may come into play that no one thought of, and they can revert back at any point.

Labeling things as insane or crazy is not productive.

>because Bitcoin's basic security assumption is that a supermajority of miners are 'honest.'

Only if you rely on SPV.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 12:35 PM, Gavin Andresen <gavinandresen@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 1:24 PM, Allen Piscitello <allen.piscitello@gmail.com> wrote:
I fail to see how always following a majority of miners no matter what their actions somehow equates to insanity.

Ok, I have a hidden assumption: I assume most miners are also not completely insane.

I have met a fair number of them, and while they are often a little bit crazy (all entrepreneurs are a little bit crazy), I am confident that the vast majority of them are economically rational, and most of them are also meta-rational: they want Bitcoin to succeed. We've seen them demonstrate that meta-rationality when we've had accidental consensus forks.

If you start with the premise that more than half of Bitcoin miners would do something crazy that would either destroy Bitcoin or would be completely unacceptable to you, personally... then maybe you should look for some other system that you might trust more, because Bitcoin's basic security assumption is that a supermajority of miners are 'honest.'

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Gavin Andresen