Author: Mike Hearn 2014-04-25 15:28:15
Published on: 2014-04-25T15:28:15+00:00
The context discusses the importance of the rules for interpreting data in the blockchain being immutable and publicly documented. This is crucial to ensure that when a Bitcoin transaction is buried under 100 blocks, it can be trusted that the money belongs to the person who made the transaction. The author argues that this should be more important than the 21 million limit. However, the author believes that the term "sacred" should not be used as nothing is sacred in engineering - it is simply a tool.The author then proposes a scenario where 1 satoshi becomes too valuable to represent certain transactions. The solution would be to change the rules so that there can be 210 million coins and 10x everyone's UTXOs at a pre-agreed flag day. This would not violate the social contract or anything sacred, but rather it would be sensible engineering with strong consensus. The author believes that if all balances and prices multiply 100-fold overnight, no wealth would be reallocated, which would be the actual violation of the social contract. The author concludes by stating that proof of work is just a database synchronization mechanism and that what protects your money from confiscation is a strong group consensus that theft is bad. However, this is a social rule rather than a mathematical rule.
Updated on: 2023-06-08T20:54:40.150308+00:00