I'd also like to see some more formal analysis of the notion that "$10 in the hand of 10 people is more than $50 in the hand of two, or $100 in the hand of one". I think this encapsulates the security assumption on why we want decentralization at all. This is a very critical property bitcoin exploits for being able to transact large amounts, among other things. (Closely related is the notion that defecting will destroy all the value...) -- @JeremyRubin On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 6:33 PM, Eric Voskuil via bitcoin-dev < bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote: > On 11/05/2015 03:03 PM, Adam Back via bitcoin-dev wrote: > > ... > > Validators: Economically dependent full nodes are an important part of > > Bitcoin's security model because they assure Bitcoin security by > > enforcing consensus rules. While full nodes do not have orphan > > risk, we also dont want maliciously crafted blocks with pathological > > validation cost to erode security by knocking reasonable spec full > > nodes off the network on CPU (or bandwidth grounds). > > ... > > Validators vs Miner decentralisation balance: > > > > There is a tradeoff where we can tolerate weak miner decentralisation > > if we can rely on good validator decentralisation or vice versa. But > > both being weak is risky. Currently given mining centralisation > > itself is weak, that makes validator decentralisation a critical > > remaining defence - ie security depends more on validator > > decentralisation than it would if mining decentralisation was in a > > better shape. > > This side of the security model seems underappreciated, if not poorly > understood. Weakening is not just occurring because of the proliferation > of non-validating wallet software and centralized (web) wallets, but > also centralized Bitcoin APIs. > > Over time developers tend to settle on a couple of API providers for a > given problem. Bing and Google for search and mapping, for example. All > applications and users of them, depending on an API service, reduce to a > single validator. Imagine most Bitcoin applications built on the > equivalent of Bing and Google. > > e > > > _______________________________________________ > bitcoin-dev mailing list > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev > >