Do you think there is a flaw in Bitcoin? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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Do you think there is a flaw in Bitcoin?

395 sats \ 12 comments \ @wackster 6h AskSN

Does the protocol inevitably lead to miner centralization? Does Bitcoin rely on widespread node-running and key holding in a world where not that many people will actually do it?

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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 5h

Is it a flaw in Bitcoin or a flaw in people?

92 sats \ 0 replies \ @wackster OP 5h

Bitcoin. at the end of the day, Bitcoin's security does rest on people and people are flawed, so it's less interesting to address the flaw of being reliant on people. but I'd be curious to hear your case if that's where you want to take it.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @sancristrader 5h

The biggest flaw was to make PoW non ASIC/GPU resistant. And also lack the ability to solo mine partial blocks somehow

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @wackster OP 5h

By mining partial blocks wouldn't we just end up with shorter block times?

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @sancristrader 4h

No, it would have to do somehow with partitioning or parallelizing mining of a single block

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @denlillaapan 5h

yes

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @wackster OP 5h

but what issssss it? we must know.

200 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 5h

nooooobody knows.

scalability
...and the related in-fighting because of it
dysfunctional cycle/timing (why is it underperforming when gold is taking over the world and money printing is on?)

In the protocol itself? No, it's ingenuous

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Aeneas 5h

Yes, it's in the hands of the people, and the people are stupid, gullible, credulous, greedy, lazy, and apathetic as long as NGU abides.

But I don't think that's as fatal of a flaw as others, since I also believe in Providence guiding the general retardation toward the good. Call it a superstition!

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @wackster OP 5h

Providence guiding the general retardation toward the good

is a marvelous phrase. thank you.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 4h

Mining centralization is at spooky levels, but that's a market condition that is transient and already healing by the day.

Distribution is a concern, but not critical. That's a reflection of the real world economy, so again market driven, not technical.

Culture/incentives are probably the biggest risk, there's very few principled people that have the ability to do principled things. Fortunately, bitcoin's technical design is literally built to mitigate that cultural/incentive risk. Every time a script kiddie or NGO wants to change Bitcoin I appreciate it for what it is even more.

#1296172

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @86b4dc92cd 2h

There are some flaws - scalability, possibility of 51% attack (Bitcoin is too big for that now - but other smaller forks have this issue). Lack of quantum-resistance is probably also a topic to discuss, although it doesn't really matter for now. However, even some (minor) flaws in Bitcoin don't change the fact that it's revolutionary.