All Active Nodes are Equal in a Decentralized Peer to Peer trust

What is Bitcoin? How can one node restart the network? Why should I run a node? Why is block weight/size important? What are the challenges faced by this technology?

“If SHA-256 became completely broken, I think we could come to some agreement about what the honest block chain was before the trouble started, lock that in and continue from there with a new hash function.”

-Satoshi Nakamoto

All active nodes are equal in a decentralized Peer to Peer trust. (They need to be, or the trust is broken). All active “non-mining” nodes (Bitcoin wallets running with bitcoin in them), and “mining nodes” make up this decentralized trust.

They all can, and do validate the chain (the PoW(Proof Of Work) done by a mining node) against theirs and can reject /cut off any other node and therefore chain it came from if it is invalid. (invalid transaction, rule change.. I elaborate badly on this further below. Also, check out Thεο ¯\_[ôo]_/¯’s write up about this here)

This is how / why bitcoin is secure — You start the software, download the chain, buy a bitcoin, receive it, keep running the node on your system. You are now part of this decentralized authority or are this decentralized authority.

This node (whole chain or audit trail and therefore, rules of the whole chain) can never be changed by anyone but you, or who maliciously attacks you outside the software /chain (hacks or uses your server/computer os physically). You now have the whole network in your one “honest” node, which if bitcoin were attacked (possible, very unlikely), but backed up — could rebuild the entire network completely.

They are the network. Active mining and nonmining nodes enabling users to connect to and use the network. They also Validate the chain against the one they hold and can cut invalid nodes (both miner or non-miner) off from themselves (therefore the cryptographic decentralized trust) if found invalid.

PoW Miners are as important as any other node in keeping this trust valid, as they must build a chain that can then be validated by this network -

As long as “honest” nodes control the most “CPU” power they can build the longest chain by both building and validating against the greater p2p consensus (decentralized trust), ensuring sovereignty and outpacing any attackers. — Me :)

The “honest” Bitcoin Active Core nodes are currently in the majority (10,000 overall). They are run by the users of bitcoin, both miners and not (peer to peer). It is “honest” because — this is the consensus of what bitcoin is now by the greater peer to peer trust (the people). It cannot be changed without persuading the majority of them to change it. (like (U)ser (A)ctivated (S)oft (F)ork ).

If you put the authority of all these nodes to only the few who can run them by raising blockweight…too high, too fast… it is fast and cheap, however, this is now the third party..

or the “Financial Institution”. This breaks the “Decentralized peer to peer trust” model.

Mining… What?

They all can, and do validate the chain (the PoW(Proof Of Work) done by a mining node) against the one they hold and can reject the node and therefore chain it came from if it is invalid. (invalid transaction, rule change)

Let me elaborate a little: (this is still very simplified, missing parts.. bare with me)

The PoW is a math problem. A Mining Node “solves” it, then broadcasts this proof or block to the network of both mining and nonmining nodes (Active Bitcoin core wallet nodes or Other mining nodes) it is currently connected to.

If it matches and can be “validated” on this node, it is confirmed and the block is added to the nodes chain which is then broadcast to all the other nodes that this node is connected to, apart from the origin node.

The below is a poor example but is just to help one understand how the cryptography part works… backwards…(trying to keep this simple)

It’s like if you gave someone a puzzle that when they figure it out, it gives them your public key. They can then write something (Tx’s, or block of transactions) and encrypt this using your public key, then send you this block as an email that only you can decrypt (because you have the matching private key).

The miner’s job is to find this “PoW” (block) which is then confirmed by all active nodes both mining or not (decentralized trust), and if confirmed this block is then added to this node’s chain (audit trail) which then broadcasts it to more nodes — this is how transactions flow through the network.

In 1.6ish MB blocks secured by an “encrypted” PoW that only the valid chain of transactions and rules can Validate(confirm) in both Active Core wallet nodes or Mining Nodes

Questions from Reddit:

This PoW is validated by other mining nodes. It’s how the Bitcoin works. You will not be obsessed with end-user nodes if you know some basics.

No, a mining node finds the PoW. Then this is validated by the network. The network is a bunch of active nodes that either mine or don’t mine. (decentralized p2p trust)

You are purely a visitor who watch the on-going story yet you can do nothing. You can’t harm it, you can’t protect it.

The logic is:

You are part of the greater decentralized peer 2 peer trust. Because you and other bitcoin users control the majority of Full nodes, This is literally what the consensus of bitcoin is now and the transactions that have happened (audit trail, or chain).

If someone spun up 2,000,000,000 nodes with different rules and then tried to connect to the bitcoin network, they (the 2 billion) would ALL be invalidated on the current nodes run by people, therefore being a separate chain. Because you the users already hold the cryptographic-ally secured decentralized trust (consensus of the chain and what bitcoin is) that these new nodes are invalid on. Both mining and active nonmining wallets will cut these nodes (2 billion) off from themselves.

The majority Consensus of what BTC is (of honest nodes) remains, the decentralized trust is intact.

Attacking a Decentralized Peer-To-Peer Network

In the long talk, you have clearly shown that you understand nothing about the tech details of Bitcoin. Before you understand how Bitcoin works, please refrain youself from coming here to troll us with those blatant lies of BSCore. Thanks.

I’m trying to help you.

Help all of us.

Because you not understanding why the sovereignty of your money is held in my hands and everyone else’s hands that use bitcoin…

Is how they are being able to manipulate you into believing false facts in a legitimate attack on the decentralized blockchain:

Attacking the very Decentralized peer 2 peer trust themselves (you and other users) by convincing them to use a centralized, unsecured blockchain which breaks the very fundamentals of bitcoin security which yes is most certainly fast and cheap

Because it

• Doesn’t have anywhere near the same use as BTC
• It is being run 54% from an alibaba datacenter
• They have broken the security model, putting your money in their hands. (0conf, point above)

…In an effort to convince them (you and the community (p2p trust))

“hey look how cheap fees are! omg! lol BSCore is awful” —

manipulating users to use bitcoin cash (from their very comfortable bitcoin dot com domain presence), in an attempt to make it legitimate to wrestle the sovereignty of the bitcoin name… and trust — Which completely destroys the entire point of why bitcoin exists.

A secure, Decentralized peer to peer trust enabling the transfer of cash without a 3rd party (BCH — 3rd party is Alibaba cloud account), therefore making your money on this network forever there until the end of time as long as your node, and bitcoin if you have it, is saved on some form of backup media that can last that long.

..unless.. they convince you to destroy it.

❤

What you kept doing was to repeat those blatant and stupid lies. It only can fool idiots. What you failed to do was to show your logic and reasonable proof.

We are all maliciously misled sometimes Web. It’s okay.

It’s not your fault. It’s a very effective attack.

Think about what we talked about.

And just think about how not one party has been able to change the network.

Why are we still at 1mb. Why didn’t someone just force it to 2mb. Why didn’t someone change the mining algorithm to produce more bitcoins..

Because the majority of decentralized trust of “honest” nodes are in the hands of the users of bitcoin. They all (mining and nonmining) validate the chain or PoW (the work, if the rules fit the chain and are valid) a mining node did on the network, against their own (ensuring the rules are intact and valid) and cut off nodes (both mining or nonmining) that feed them invalid chains. Because they are all part of the same, cryptographically secured trust.

This ensures the sovereignty of bitcoin.. This ensures consensus among nodes.

If you the end-user running the 100k full nodes are dishonest, tell me how you — -the hands of the dishonest — — can harm the network. You can do nothing.

Exactly — the CURRENT decentralized majority Peer-2-peer trust is ALREADY in the hands of honest nodes (the people who use bitcoin) and these malicious nodes are just another, new chain.

You cannot kill every honest node and their backups. (Even with a worldwide EMP)

You cannot kill bitcoin.

(originally published Jan 2, 2018)