Author: Jorge Timón 2015-09-01 09:25:03
Published on: 2015-09-01T09:25:03+00:00
In a discussion on bitcoin-dev mailing list, Justus Ranvier challenged the understanding of another member's use of the term "decentralized." The other member had described decentralized as a system without the trust of third parties to process electronic payments. Justus asked for clarification on what it meant to use a decentralized network instead of a trusted third party and whether there were any undesirable actions that a trusted third party could perform that a decentralized network could not. He pointed out that a third party or a reduced group of miners controlling the majority of the hashrate could censor transactions regardless of their benevolence due to the laws of their jurisdiction. Moreover, he suggested starting a new system without expensive proof of work using block signing instead (which can still be multisig), for those who do not care about censorship.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T21:31:21.005749+00:00