Quote from: HeliKopterBen on May 26, 2015, 09:43:10 PM

Quote from: Carlton Banks on May 26, 2015, 08:33:44 PM

Quote from: Peter R on May 26, 2015, 04:33:02 PM

Quote from: Lawrence Summers

Until now whenever weve needed to transfer money weve had to rely on a third party, whether it be a bank, a clearing house or a payment network. Bitcoin offers, for the first time, a method for transferring value and making payments from anywhere to anywhere, in real-time, without any intermediary.

^ Bitcoin is powerful because it is borderless and permissionless.

This is not true, and people keep repeating it at a concerning rate. The reality isn't quite so snappily summed up, but it's wildly different from this presentation, and that makes it very dangerous misinformation.

I agree but not in the senstionalist sense that you like to put it.

So, bitcoin is permissionless? I don't see how it's possible to sensationalise such a basic fact. Bitcoin holders can be prevented from spending their bitcoin by a majority of miners: that's just plain statement of facts. Another would be that, currently, no organised scheme exists to politicise the validity of bitcoins. And a further dispassionate fact would be that there always remains a risk that miners will end up in such a scheme while the system still permits it.

Quote from: HeliKopterBen on May 26, 2015, 09:43:10 PM

Quote from: Carlton Banks on May 26, 2015, 08:33:44 PM

There is counter party risk

What counter party risk?

The risk that a counter party represents to your assets (not the same way the expression is applied with physical commodities, but I don't see that as a technical let-off). Bitcoin holders can be prevented from spending their bitcoin by a majority of miners.

Quote from: thezerg on May 26, 2015, 09:44:29 PM

Second, if you don't like what miners are doing (presumably denying your transactions), you (or more likely a group of similarly minded people) can pool your money and buy your own miners. (This presupposes that the miners can even identify your transactions which is a necessary step before one can even think about granting permission) Your miners can join the network (without permission) and so some % of blocks mined will be what you want them to be, unless the majority of other miners collectively choose to ignore your blocks at a potential economic disadvantage to themselves. In which case you can continue on your own fork if you really want. So again so much less permission is required as compared to traditional payment networks that is does not make sense to claim that bitcoin requires "permission".

None of that is a practical way around transaction censorship, and certainly not as a solution for all users of bitcoin. The block solution difficulty is just too high for that, and will remain out of reach to all but professional miners until that dynamic can be changed. Someone in the development forum just today came up with "Helical blockchains" as a solution to mining centralisation, more thought needs to go towards that side of things IMO.