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Mining centralisation thoughts
187 sats \ 3 comments \ @dingding541 19 Feb bitcoin_Mining
There is a fair amount of fud surrounding the big mining firms.
It got me thinking: what if Satoshi Nakamoto had set a cap on the control any single miner could have, say, no more than 15%?
But then, I drew a parallel with sports teams. In sports, the team with the best resources often comes out on top, but they don't always stay there.
Clubs rise and fall, champions are made and unmade by the seasons.
Will we see a competitor rise up and hold their own against the others? obviously we don't want a first place like in sports, we want a range of similarly powerful entities providing a decentralized landscape.
What's your take? Should there have been a cap on mining power to protect decentralization, or do we let the market dynamics play out like in sports?
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48 sats \ 2 replies \ @Kenobi 20 Feb
To create or instal a cap, there should have been an inherent way for the Bitcoin protocol and rules to check from who each block comes.
We only know who mines each block because pools and miners choose to actively scream it out, but they could easily not do so. FYI, they do so by editing the op return in the coinbase transaction.
So even if it was feasible to do so, say you manage to create a way where they somehow have to sign it in order to get the coinbase, they could always just use 3-4 different names and then each "name"/entity would have 15%, yet the actual person controlling it would have 60%. They can still hide.
Either way, I think the most pressing issue nowadays is Pooled Centralization, that's why I'm working with the DEMAND Pool team to create and deploy the first Stratum V2 pool. Eventually all pools and miners will use SV2, and then the issue of pool centralization and mining centralization will be largely resolved.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @dingding541 OP 20 Feb
Very cool and informative answer thank you
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25 sats \ 0 replies \ @Kenobi 21 Feb
Always happy to help
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