Re: [Bitcoin-development] Bitcoind-in-background mode for SPV wallets

[Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>]

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On 10 April 2014 05:17:28 GMT-04:00, Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net> wrote:
>>
>> I find it is odd that we who hold the key to instant machine to
>machine
>> micro payments do not use it to incentivise committing resources to
>the
>> network.
>>
>
>It's not a new idea, obviously, but there are some practical
>consequences:

You're both missing a more important issue: a core security assumption of bitcoin is that information is so easy to spread that censorship of it becomes impractical. If we're at the point where nodes are charging for their data we've failed that assumption.

More concretely, if my business is charging for block chain data and I can make a profit doing so via micro payments I have perverse incentives to drive away my competitors. If I give a peer a whole block they can sell access to that information in turn. Why would I make it easy for them if I don't have too?

Anyway, much of this discussion seems to stem from the misconception that contributing back to the network is a binary all or nothing thing - it's not. Over a year ago I myself was lamenting how I and the other "bitcoin-wizards" working on scalability had quickly solved every scaling problem *but* how to make it possible to scale up and keep mining decentralised.
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