Author: Pieter Wuille 2015-08-04 13:54:47
Published on: 2015-08-04T13:54:47+00:00
In an email exchange between Gavin Andresen and Pieter Wuille on August 4, 2015, the topic of Bitcoin's centralization was discussed. Wuille noted that the mining landscape is very centralized, with a majority depending on agreements to trust each other's announced blocks without validation, which goes against the permissionless nature of Bitcoin. Andresen argued that specialization is fine, but Wuille countered that if Bitcoin were to work with gigabyte blocks today, then it would require a cartel controlling the network and only allowing members who signed a contract to sue them if they created an invalid block. Wuille sees centralization and scalability as a trade-off and believes that we need low-trust off-chain systems and other innovations to make Bitcoin scalable to hundreds of millions of users while retaining any glimpse of permissionlessness and decentralization. While Andresen finds the current "demonstrably terrible" Bitcoin system incredibly interesting, Wuille wants to build a system that works for hundreds of millions of people with no central point of control and the opportunity for anybody to participate at any level.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T21:05:45.377462+00:00