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The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

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Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#61

Post by pshc »

themagician wrote: post #50
corporate_shi11 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why you think it's a convoluted mess?

If you read the Wikipedia article ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network ) it highlights it quite well under "commitment transactions." It takes something that is, in human terms, relatively simple and makes it so convoluted that it's hard to even follow.

Wikipedia is often notoriously convoluted for technical topics though.

I read the Lightning paper and found it simple enough to understand (conceptually at least) how the channels are opened, updated, closed, and penalized. Of course the actual implementation is a more complicated and nuanced than what the paper covers.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#63

Post by ericflo »

wayoutthere wrote: post #44
wmf wrote: post #16

Note to commenters: In this context "Bitcoin production" is not mining; they're talking about the development of the protocol being centralized.

This is exactly why decentralized currency is no better than regular currency. Bitcoin is centralized in the hands of a few shady, anonymous exchange owners funding the development. At least in a capitalist democracy we get to elect the criminals who rob us blind.

You can always fork. People forget this when talking about blockchains, but it is one of the fundamental innovations of the model.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#64

Post by bredren »

6510 wrote: post #59
staplers wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the federal reserve is a partially private institution whose head is selected by the president. The common folk never make that decision.

We still get the pitch forks.

I believe the pitch forks are to not hold any bitcoin, and not accept Bitcoin.

Whereas, you do not have much of an option except to accept your national currency.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#65

Post by egdod »

staplers wrote: post #52
wayoutthere wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why decentralized currency is no better than regular currency. Bitcoin is centralized in the hands of a few shady, anonymous exchange owners funding the development. At least in a capitalist democracy we get to elect the criminals who rob us blind.

Actually the federal reserve is a partially private institution whose head is selected by the president. The common folk never make that decision.

We (somewhat indirectly via the electoral college) select the president. It’s a representative democracy, with one extra layer of indirection.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#66

Post by latchkey »

httpz wrote: post #11
jwilliams wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same hardware. Miners get both a reward for mining (the fixed set of coins) as well as collecting fees. After they’re all mined, it’ll just be the fees.

But after all the blocks are mined, how does the blockchain even work?

Other people have answered the question quite well, but I just want to point out the Bitcoin FAQ [1], which is pretty well written. It is good to read the entire faq to get an understanding of not just bitcoin, but blockchain in general.

[1] https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#mining

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#67

Post by egdod »

forgotmypw wrote: post #42
theboywho wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time a block is mined, miners are paid in transaction fees + newly generated coins. After 21 million coins have been generated, miners will only be rewarded transaction fees => it doesn't mean blocks will stop being mined; blocks will keep being mined, but without generating new coins out of nowhere.

How is the amount of a transaction fee determined?

Essentially by market forces. Transactions with too-low fees don’t get added to the chain.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#68

Post by egdod »

dmitrygr wrote: post #14
httpz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But after all the blocks are mined, how does the blockchain even work?

Blocks continue to be mined. It is just that the reward for doing so becomes zero

This is wrong and doesn’t even make sense. If there were no reward, blocks would not keep getting mined.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#69

Post by stephanlivera »

moneytide1 wrote: post #6

Once all 21 million coins are "produced" - what powered hardware will be required to manage transactions?

Bitcoin's block reward has two components: block subsidy + miner fees.

Over time, most bitcoiners foresee the transaction volume and demand rising, such that miner fees will compensate for the reduction in block subsidy.

So once we get to the end of new supply around 2140, the system will sustain from ongoing transaction fees.

Dan Held and I explore this in this interview if you're interested: https://stephanlivera.com/episode/81/

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