Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Moving towards user activated soft fork activation

From: Alphonse Pace <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2017 13:13:29 -0600

I fail to see how any non-mining user can attack a miner.  The worst they
can do is refuse to buy their coinbase transaction.  Do you believe that
users are obligated to buy coins from miners?  If not, then all miners are
voluntarily choosing a set of rules to enforce and a set of policy to mine.

>Don’t be mistaken; a hash-minority attacking the hash-majority is in actual
fact an attack upon Bitcoin as a whole.

Can you outline how a minority of hash rate can attack a majority? Users
are free to follow tighter rules than before, or they may reject it.  The
majority of hash rate can continue the old rules or not.  Where is the
attack?  I see a disagreement being resolved peacefully through unilateral
separation.

>If this were possible then next year we’d see governments try to push
through changes in the same UASF way. I’m very happy that UASFs can’t work
because that would be the end of Bitcoin's freedom and decentralized nature.

Governments would be much more equipped to simply go directly to the miners
to enforce this for them - why even bother with millions of distributed
miners when you can knock on a few doors and get your policy?

>If the majority of the users are hostile and reject blocks that the miners
create, or change the POW, then what the miners bring to the table is also
removed.

I don't understand how users can be hostile to Bitcoin.  Users are
Bitcoin.  Everyone else serves the users.  All participants are voluntary
and can choose to participate or not.  Where is the attack or hostility?

-Alphonse

On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 3:17 AM, Tom Zander via bitcoin-dev <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 7 March 2017 00:23:47 CET Gareth Williams via bitcoin-dev
> wrote:
> > What you're describing is a hashpower activated soft fork to censor
> > transactions, in response to a user activated soft fork that the majority
> > of hashpower disagrees with.
>
> It is incorrect to say that censoring of transactions is what Edmund
> suggested. It's purely about the form they take, you can re-send the
> transaction in a different form with the same content and they go through.
> Hence, not transaction censoring.
>
> I do believe the point that Edmund brought up is a very good one, the idea
> that a set of users can force the miners to do something is rather silly
> and
> the setup that a minority miner fraction can force the majority to do
> something is equally silly. This is because the majority mining hashpower
> can fight back against this attack upon them.
>
> Don’t be mistaken; a hash-minority attacking the hash-majority is in actual
> fact an attack upon Bitcoin as a whole.
> If this were possible then next year we’d see governments try to push
> through changes in the same UASF way. I’m very happy that UASFs can’t work
> because that would be the end of Bitcoin's freedom and decentralized
> nature.
>
> > It is always possible for a majority of hashpower to censor transactions
> > they disagree with. Users may view that as an attack, and can always
> > respond with a POW hard fork.
>
> I definitely welcome that approach.
>
> The result would be that you have two chains, but also you ensure that the
> chain that the miners didn’t like will no longer be something they can
> mine.
> Not even the minority set of miners that like the softfork can mine on it.
> This is a win-win and then the market will decide which one will "win".
>
> > Bitcoin only works if the majority of hashpower is not hostile to the
> > users.
>
> This goes both ways, miners both generate value (in the form of security)
> and they take value (in the form of inflation).
> If the majority of the users are hostile and reject blocks that the miners
> create, or change the POW, then what the miners bring to the table is also
> removed.
> Bitcoin would lose the security and in the short term even the ability to
> mine blocks every 10 minutes.
>
> So, lets correct your statement a little;
> «Bitcoin only works when the majority of the hashpower and the (economic)
>   majority of the users are balanced in power and have their goals
> aligned.»
>
> --
> Tom Zander
> Blog: https://zander.github.io
> Vlog: https://vimeo.com/channels/tomscryptochannel
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