Quote from: botolo86 on May 09, 2017, 01:57:25 PM

Is there anything we can do to fight this monopoly? My understanding is that changing the structure of the Bitcoin network needs a hard fork, and a hard fork needs hashing power. Or we are just fu**ed? Is this the biggest flaw in Nakamoto's vision?

Well, the first thing one should realize is that in block chain land, *everything* is decided by an interaction between two classes of entities in the eco system:
- the "chain builders" on one hand
- the "users" on the other hand: the users are the people that are willing to OFFER VALUE FOR TOKENS.

In most cases, the chain builders get "rewards" for building the chain in the form of tokens on the chain they are building. So in the end, the chain builders usually want to convert those tokens to value, by dumping them on the "users", who, for several reasons, desire to possess tokens on the chain at hand ; so to a certain extend, chain builders are sensitive to the willingness of users to pay for their chain. On the other hand, users need the chain builders to be able to use the tokens they acquired, and to be able to sell them.

This is about the fundamental relationship between the entities in the crypto eco system.

So who's the boss ? As we saw, both users and chain builders need one another: chain builders need users to buy their tokens ; users need chain builders to transact their tokens.

As such:
a) users are the boss, because they are free not to buy chain builder's tokens
b) chain builders are the boss, because they can fix the rules by which users can access their possessions

So new buyers are the boss of the chain builders because they pay them, or not, and chain builders are the boss over stake holders because they give them access to their stake, or not. But new buyers become stake holders.

As usual in such an eco-system, those that are more divided, are less powerful than those that are in agreement.

The most important point is however, this:
If chain builders are divided, then several chains can be built. If chain builders are in agreement, then only one single chain is built.

If there is only one chain out there, and nobody else is building a chain, then the only option is to accept that chain as the ruling chain, or to leave the system (not buy any coins, and sell one's coins according to the requirements of the chain builders). As such, chain builders in agreement have total technical control over all of the rules of the system, but they still need to seduce buyers.

So the only way to "attack" chain builders that are in agreement, apart from leaving the system, is:

a) to divide them or
b) to build other chains "oneself".

a) means: to give better terms to those going in your direction, than to what they are agreeing upon ; but most of the time, you would like them to have WORSE terms (lower fees, say) and less power. So that's not going to work.

b) build another chain yourself remains.

This could be done in two ways:
a) change the PoW algorithm, making the miner's installations useless
b) change to a PoS style algorithm

In both cases, however, you are making a competing chain with the original one, and the question is: how will the users vote with their money ? Users have equal amounts of coins on both chains, and will try to "dump" the chain of which they expect not to win, and will try to keep their coins on the chain that they expect to win in the market. --> if you make a mistake, you lose all of your stake !

And this is where things get nasty. How do you know that most users will prefer the new chain, and not stick to the old chain, or think that most users will stick to the old chain ?

After all, chances are that the old chain is considered "true bitcoin" (nothing changes !) and the new chain an alt coin. It can even be that, if this is successful, did one open the flood gates, because what stops yet another entity from proposing YET ANOTHER "other chain" ? Once you've successfully forked off, why not fork off N more times ?

It could work. With ETH, it sort of worked. The old chain, ETC, lived on, but an economic majority + devs went to the new chain (maybe also because the name was, remarkably, put on the new chain). But ETH didn't have a "first mover brand name".

So, until one decides to divide the miners, or have the miners agree on a change, the option of making a totally new chain with another PoW or PoS, is going to be a most risky operation without any guarantee.