Each of these kinds of trust fit relatively neatly into the framework he proposes though. Blockchains are designed to run on tens of thousands of nodes distributed around the world, which naturally insulates them from any one country deciding they don't want cryptocurrencies to be used within their borders. And even if every other country decided to ban Bitcoin, if America still allowed it then Bitcoin the protocol would happily continue to work within America's borders, in that sense it has 1-of-N trust in countries allowing it.
On the other hand, if America or China decided they did not want Bitcoin to exist any more, and they were truly willing to do whatever it takes to shut it down, they have enough tools at their disposal to shut it down. This situation doesn't quite fit into V's framework, I think because some of the N are more important than others?
[1]:
- Do you trust whoever writes your client / mining software to write code without showstopping bugs?
- Do you trust them to use a reliable build process?
- Which websites do you trust to tell you what their public keys are, so you can check the signatures of the binaries you run?
- Do you trust whoever sold you the computer you're running your client / mining software on?
- Do you trust the mining rig manufacturers?
- If your protocol relies on a notion of time, do you trust the time servers?
- Do you trust mining pool operators not to use their hash power maliciously?
- Do you trust that if someone found a way to forge signatures, the rest of the world would know?
Of course that's not to say the problem is ignored by other communities. Many people are well aware of the full set of dependencies of these crypto projects and the ways that external forces might be disruptive. And many people are working on increasingly sophisticated ways to eliminate these dependencies or ensure viable alternatives if worst comes to worst.
[1]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/16599
[2]: https://blockstream.com/satellite/#satellite_network-coverag...
[3]: https://www.wired.com/story/cypherpunks-bitcoin-ham-radio/
The security of nakamoto consensus (Bitcoin and co) relies on a level of broadcast which is pretty incompatible with a world where the network is hostile and looking to disrupt your traffic.
It would be prohibitively expensive and difficult to disrupt point-to-point radio (e.g. ham) and satellite communications enough to cripple Bitcoin.
I'm not incredibly familiar with ham, but if you ever broadcast then you're inviting the authorities to find you, and shut you down. If you strictly communicate point-to-point it doesn't seem likely that you'd be able to tell the entire world about new blocks within a reasonable about of time. If you keep the 10 minute block interval then delays longer than, say, 1 minute, would be extremely problematic. I'm not sure how a Ham radio network could reliably tell the world about new blocks within 60 seconds without alerting the authorities.
Oh and FYI the idiom is "worse comes to worst" (analogous to "push comes to shove" -- an intensification past an activation threshold or tipping-point)
It would be odd if the Blockchain / Crypto-currency market came crashing down. Like most nutritionists who do not understand the popularity of sugary drinks or fast food chains, I think, news.yc fails to understand the Crypto-currency / Blockchain market.
But nutritionists also _understand_ that sugary drinks are bad in the long run, and that is why they keep saying that one should drink less of them, over and over. If at least few people get convinced, stop drinking sugary drinks, and avoid diabetes and heart disease, they nutritionists succeeded.
The same logic applies to blockchain/crypto-currency warnings that HN commenters produce.