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Comment by wmf | Hacker News Reader

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

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In the same vein: Could we perhaps have the titled changed to something more descriptive? "The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money" better describes that this is about the governing process of the protocol development rather than mining.

The mining is also pretty centralised these days:

https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/pools/

And the Chinese company that produces the most asic miners (Bitmain)... also runs a mining pool. Gambling. In a Casino. Shocking.

Yes, true, and as the paper points out they are related. But the mining centralisation story is basically "water is wet" in 2020 for people interested in this. And as a many commenters here show, the mining centralisation problem is being thought about in technological ways ($BUZZWORD)...

The paper seems to focus more about the political/organisational problem, which to me seem more inherent and harder to solve.

Exactly. Bitcoin governance can still be called decentralized but there are still certain degrees of centralized control in decentralized systems (just look at the Internet). The political/organizational problem is hard to solve because humans have to coordinate to make decisions and often this is done from (centralized) points of authority (Lead Developers, Mining pools, Bitcoin wallets/exchanges). This is not a direct democracy but a represantative one because not everyone in the network is equal: 1) Core developers elect the Lead Developer to make decisions on protocol rule upgrades, 2) miners increase the likelihood of coin rewards by using mining pools and in the process elect mining pool operators to make voting decisions on their behalf, and 3) users use Bitcoin wallets to take on technical procedures associated with accessing bitcoins and in the process elect them to make lobbying decisions on their behalf (instead of running their own Bitcoin node). This creates a type of decentralised structure with centralised pieces. "The cost for collective action is [some form of] hierachy" (481).

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 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.

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

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

"...replicating a structure (through organizational or version forking) does not completely address the hierarchy of the structure itself. While it certainly gives others a voice and accounts for fragmentation in the community, power is not flattened among all participants. Quite clearly, senatorial governance is not a direct democracy but a representative one where certain actors (Lead Developers, mining pool operators, software companies) are raised into positions of power by grouping individuals (programmers, miners, users) through their obligatory passage points. This is not necessarily a negative revelation for algorithmic decentralization via (proof-of-work) blockchains but it is important not to assume all stakeholders of their protocols are made equal. The cost of collective action is hierarchy" (481)

I don't believe other than one or two occasional contributors any exchange has ever funded Bitcoin development.

The two are not unrelated. If a protocol change creates a forked chain then acceptance of that protocol change is determined by mining the forked chain.

I do not think that is true. The winning chain will be the one where most people accept the coins from. Miner will only follow.

Not really. Although some forks are specifically programmed to require a miner vote, that's not the default case, and isn't how bitcoin cash, sv, or the etherum upgrades have worked. It's not very common these days.

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