Author: Eric Lombrozo 2015-06-28 04:54:04
Published on: 2015-06-28T04:54:04+00:00
The discussion on bitcoin-dev mailing list is about the nature of Bitcoin and its growth. The full network node was designed to enable mining by providing connectivity to light clients that would make up the majority of the user base. This design goal appears to be consistent with current trends in Internet consumption where tablets and phones are becoming more preferred over traditional computers. The whitepaper speaks of the design goal as not having a need for a trusted third party but it does not say that some amount of trust won't be preferred by a majority of users. In fact, in the SPV section, it implies some amount of localized trust is perhaps a necessary trade-off and maybe businesses should still run their own full network node if they want the stronger completely trustless guarantee. The global decentralized consensus appears meant to make the network resilient to a single government or other adversary's ability to shut the network down. Fraud proofs need to be secure and align with incentives. If fraud proofs were practical, SPV client security would be much closer to full node security than it is today. Unfortunately, no design for fraud proofs which is both efficient and secure has been proposed; much less implemented and deployed.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T01:34:56.211334+00:00