Quote from: davout on September 02, 2013, 03:30:01 PM

Quote from: Meni Rosenfeld on September 02, 2013, 03:12:41 PM

Bitcoin is whatever ~~people~~ miners say it is.

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What happens next isn't our call, it's the miners call.
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I mean, if you're a miner you'd be tempted to use your voting power to not make too easy to get into a block.
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The day it's harder to get all the pool operators on #bitcoin-dev at the same time you might see that pulling a hardfork might be much harder than what you think.

Miners don't make the rules, users (the economic majority) do. That's another misconception.

Quote from: davout on September 02, 2013, 03:30:01 PM

Quote from: Meni Rosenfeld on September 02, 2013, 03:12:41 PM

Really needed hashrate = The hashrate below which Bitcoin will be a victim of a >50% attack. We don't know what it is, but it still exists.

You're oversimplifying by forgetting the fact that someone with such hashpower has an incentive not to mess with Bitcoin.

You seem to be confused.

If X is the network honest hashrate, it will be attacked if the cost for an attacker to obtain X hashrate is less than what he can gain by attacking.

"What he can gain" is fixed. The lower X is, the more likely this condition is to hold and for the network to be attacked. If X is too low we have a problem.

I have defined what "really needed hashrate" means, an argument for the needed hashrate being low is not really a reply.

Quote from: davout on September 02, 2013, 03:30:01 PM

But basically that's my point, there might be such a value (setting aside the added incentives), but it still makes no sense to talk about the network being "secure" or "insecure" since, as you said yourself, you have no idea and no way to know about the threshold.

So because we can't know something with 100% certainty we're supposed to just bury our heads in the sand and not try to analyze, estimate and improve the system?

Quote from: davout on September 02, 2013, 02:03:29 PM

- the market adapts, eventually

I am a Bitcoin user, promoter, investor, miner and researcher. I am part of the market. Me analyzing the system and trying to come up with solutions is the market adapting. The market doesn't work by everyone closing their eyes and waiting to see what other people will do.

Quote from: davout on September 02, 2013, 03:30:01 PM

You can speak like you know the future as much as you want, I won't join you.

I said multiple times that I don't know what will happen, so this comment marks the point the debate has degraded so much that I don't have much interest in continuing with it.