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if the number of economically relevant nodes is reduced due to centralization, and most Bitcoin users are priced out of self custody, we should expect that the "governance" of the protocol will become more centralized and fragile.
economically relevant node
From an economic standpoint, what does this mean? biggest Bitcoin holders? Could it be that people will align themselves with the largest entities rather than focusing on the hash rate? ... BRbitcoin ?
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People accepting bitcoin for payments, typically merchants.
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Could lopp be referring to lucrative mining operations?
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109 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 3 Nov
I don't think so. This is a very common phrase used to describe where consensus decisions matter. Regardless of what miners want, your bitcoin fork coin is worthless if no one is willing to accept it in exchange for goods, services, and more commonly these days, fiat.
This is why bitcoin only scaling in a custodial manner is dangerous. If it only scales in a custodial manner, the future of the protocol will be decided by custodians, bitcoin banks.
It's also why bitcoiners who don't run nodes are slowly eroding their savings, their opportunity to participate in consensus that might affect their savings.
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