Bitcoin.org to denounce “Segwit2x”
bitcoin.org
bitcoin.org
I thought it specifically is ruled by it's miners. They control what the neck block looks like, they control what goes into blocks, and they control what's considered consensus.
Not really. Bitcoin's rules define what qualifies as a valid block. Users apply those rules to decide what the current blockchain is. If anything, miners are dependent on users accepting the blocks that they mine in order to be able to sell their mining rewards and fees to pay (usually in fiat) for the electricity they use to mine.
The real "ruling" happens at the exchanges where BTC is valued.
The miners spend efforts finding blocks to add to the blockchain, and can be selective about what transactions they let in. But they are constrained by Bitcoin's rules. They could try changing the rules, but if users don't accept the changes then their blocks won't match the set of rules the users are using and their mining rewards and fees won't have value.
Miners are further constrained by "game theory" as they compete against each other. If one miner chooses to exclude transactions another miner is prepared to mine, then the transaction fee on those transactions won't be earned. Mining is competitive, and leaving money on the table like this widely can be expected to be loss making as the cost to mine a block is no lower if there are fewer transactions in it.
The one thing miners have going for them is that they already pool their resources so can organise. But so can the exchanges.
Ask yourself why miners haven't forked to a version of Bitcoin that gives a higher block reward and you'll understand how it works. Nobody would accept these blocks as valid so the money they are "creating" would be worthless.
Read through his reddit history and see if you still think he is something worth treating as an authority. It's full of extremist religious ramblings and nonsense about bitcoin with no technical backing.
The consensus for bitcoin is made within the network itself. Not on a mentally unstable person's poll.
Luke-jr, aka the Blockstream coder/troll who has used his pool to maliciously kill other cryptocoins[1], made that poll based on Coinbase KYC info. That polling platform only has use within a tiny segment of Bitcoin users that trust Luke after his abhorrent actions and those that are also on Coinbase with verified accounts.
That is not consensus at all. Bitcoin as it turns out has mechanics for building and signalling consensus but Blockstream & co have been pounding sand trying to subvert it for years now.
Here is an enlightening thread on the type of awful actions Blockstream/Core has been up to regarding 2x and signals to support it among the Bitcoin community. Matt, Drak and the other Blockstream/Core thugs spend their time screaming at people on reddit/twitter while inventing lies[2] that necessitate being called out by their victims[3].
[2] https://twitter.com/btcdrak/status/901154579324301312
[3] https://twitter.com/barrysilbert/status/901162023819649024
With this, they will start to lose control of bitcoin, thus their company will be even more worthless than it already is. They have spent all their energy on propaganda campaigns and censorship to restrict bitcoin scaling, which has always been technically trivial. Bitcoin.org is controlled by the same people and should not be taken as any sort of an authority.
Not sure if many people here are aware, but r/Bitcoin mod Theymos and others in the Core/Blockstream circle proposed and supported editing Satoshi's bitcoin whitepaper[1].
They did this under the reasoning that they control the bitcoin.org domain where it has been historical hosted and want to treat it as a living document. Obviously people didn't like this but the issue has not been resolved, it was only put "On Hold."
Essentially, strong replay protection would work automatically but force wallets and other software to upgrade to use the forked chain. Opt-in replay protection allows existing wallets to be used with the fork immediately.
Whether this is good or bad really depends on who you ask, I suppose. From Bitcoin.org's perspective, they see this lack of strong protection as a way for the Segwit2x chain to steal coins from the 'real' chain. From the Segwit2x perspective, they see this as maintaining compatibility under the assumption that they will become the main (essentially only) chain.
Opt-in protection seems like a negative if the chains continue to coexist for a long time, since both chains will be vulnerable. It only makes sense if you think it one chain will die off. And yet, I could see Opt-In replay protection encouraging the chains to merge, as users are slightly incentivized to pick a chain rather than deal with replay protection indefinitely.
The beauty of the blockchain is that we will see this all play out publicly, and learn from the results [citation needed].
[1] https://bitcointechtalk.com/how-segwit2x-replay-protection-w...
"In which bitcoin.org is used to fool users into refusing an upgrade we all voted on/approved months ago" -- https://twitter.com/deanpierce/status/916301905097142278