+1. Justus, I've been reading some of your work and I really like your push to clearly and precisely define the cryptocurrency terms we're using. Here's what I had jotted down yesterday, which sort of jives with the two points you made above:
Bitcoin is decentralized if no entity exists with the ability to costlessly double-spend or bar valid transactions from the blockchain.
Thoughts?
I honestly think the term "decentralized" has been ruined and I'd rather avoid it as much as possible.
I'd rather express Bitcoin security in terms of:
- What are the adverse behaviors a user might experience?
- How does an attacker benefit from bringing about those adverse behaviors, and how much does it cost them to perform the attack?
- What actions can users take to reduce their risk?
...then express hypothetical changes to Bitcoin in terms of how they affect the answers to the following three questions.