Author: Tier Nolan 2015-12-18 09:44:36
Published on: 2015-12-18T09:44:36+00:00
The decentralization of Bitcoin gives miners the power to veto any blocksize increases. Users have some power too, but imposing costs on other participants also harms themselves. If the cost of inaction outweighs the costs of action, users can take steps to exert their influence. One extreme option would be to move away from decentralization and adopt a centralized checkpointing system, which would bankrupt miners. A less extreme option would be to change the mining hash function, devaluing miners' investments and making it harder to convince new miners to invest. Merchants and exchanges could create a representative group to insist on a trivial soft fork as a gesture to get their "seat" at the table, but miners still hold an advantage with their majority hashing power.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T02:11:22.366020+00:00