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42 sats \ 4 replies \ @Scoresby OP 6h \ parent \ on: "Quasi-consensus": help me understand this conversation with Chris Guida bitcoin
If this is possible, then Bitcoin really is ineffective at the only thing it does: censorship resistance.
Nodes can be spun up without any real proof of work. I can run several nodes on my computer. If the relay policies enacted by these nodes can effect the difficulty of getting transactions confirmed, what's the point of proof of work?
The reason we don't assign every node a number and then randomly pick a number and have that node sign a new block is that nodes can be easily created. If Bitcoin relied on such a system, whoever had the most AWS servers would control the network. We use proof of work because it prevents such a dynamic.
Relay policies aren't part of consensus and therefore no different than a jurisdiction passing a law saying "don't do these kind of transactions" -- neither should be effective at preventing consensus valid transactions from getting confirmed.
You’ve written about how being an economic node is what matters.
How can that be true without implying any shared policies amongst those nodes are impactful?
We still have censorship resistance because there’s no stopping someone from mining their own blocks, right?
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As far as relay policies go, a node's economic weight doesn't matter.
Think about it this way: a node can relay transactions even if it's never been used to verify coins in any particular wallet. A node can refuse to relay transactions even if all it has ever done is download and verify the chain. In fact the "amount" of relaying a node does is the same no matter how it is used. It either relays a transaction or it doesn't.
When people (also including me) talk about economic nodes, they mean that you are using your node to say: "Yes, these coins I accept follow the consensus rules of bitcoin. I will accept them." An economic node with a lot of weight is able to say this about a lot of coins.
The reason relay policy is different is that you and I can have completely different relay policies and still agree on the state of the chain. This is not the case of consensus rules.
A big economic node will still have to accept as valid a block that includes transactions it refused to relay (transactions that it filtered or that it never allowed in it's mempool in the first place).
I suppose the economic node could refuse to accept any block that had transactions it didn't like, but if that was the case, the node would effectively be creating new consensus rules...and it would need to be sure that at least 51% of the hashrate followed the same rules.
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We still have censorship resistance because there’s no stopping someone from mining their own blocks, right?
No, see #1222210:
Sure, it only takes one block, but if everybody else can get into each block while I can only get into one block a year, I would consider myself censored, not very unlike a bank closing my account.
In reality, if you’re really mining your own tx, it’s more like never though.
Bitcoin’s censorship resistance relies on miners acting in their own interest, not that everyone is mining their own tx, that would be ridiculous.
Chris Guida & Co. are suggesting miners to not be selfish, see debate in the linked post.
This is absolutely crazy to me.
You should really watch the debate.