This isnt quite true in the sense I think you mean or imply it. Miners have some degree of control but only within following Bitcoin's protocol rules. For example, if a miner, or even most miners decide to reward themselves more bitcoins than the rules allow, the other nodes will reject that miners block, regardless of how much work was put into that block, and regardless of how many blocks other miners mine on top of it.Arthur Boe Nansa wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:24 pm From a superficial sense BTC has no counterparties, but in a philosophical sense miners are the ultimate counterparty. They control the network. I love the "well I can always spin up a node" argument. If you're not proving work, you're irrelevant. Most people making this argument aren't proving work and also probably wouldn't even when push comes to shove.
So within Bitcoin's rules what can miners do?
Miners can censor transactions, as "censorship" isnt really detectable/enforced at the protocol level.
Miners can mine empty blocks (no transactions in the block). This is similar to censorship mentioned above.
Miners can NOT add to bitcoins supply, steal funds, etc and still be complying with the Bitcoin protocol.
What would happen if miners started breaking with Bitcoin protocol rules? Well really it comes down to economic activity. Essentially there would be a fork, say 21M (original chain) Bitcoin and then 22M (22 million coin miner chain). Everyone who had coins at the time of the fork would have the equivalent coins on each chain.
So what could an individual person do? You could sell your 22M coins for 21M coins at the going exchange rate as your "vote" for 21M chain. Driving UP the price of 21M coin and DOWN 22M coin. Others might do the same.
This is basically what happened when the 2017 fork occurred, creating Bitcoin Cash. There were believers on each side of the fork that sold the opposing chain coins. The result? BTC/Bitcoin won out from a price perspective over BCH/Bitcoin-Cash. You could get 4 BCH for each BTC early in the fork. Now you can get nearly 80 BCH for each BTC.
I believe the BTC side won that battle as the economic majority wanted a monetary policy that changed LESS. BCH wanting to increase the block size was, IMHO for the majority, more risky option and thus gained less market traction. For more on the block size saga/war, this is a great book: https://www.amazon.com/Blocksize-War-co ... B08YQMC2WM
I think risks of forks will almost alway be won in the future by the more "conservative side" for this reason. Miners are aware of this risk of deviating from the protocol and I think risks of such miners going rogue are less, but of course not eliminated.
Given whats happening in the world, the future concern about atoms (humans, gold) moving seems greater than the concern about bits (bitcoin) moving. Lockdowns, physical restrictions, etc.Arthur Boe Nansa wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:24 pm Also, despite how slim the chances are, a cataclysmic scenario makes the network useless. If computers aren't running then bits aren't moving. Gold is physical.
There is code that codifies the finite supply of Bitcoin, so in a "code" sense, the scarcity is clear. But at the end of the day, humans are the ones running that code (or not). People could decide to go run 22M bitcoin, its entirely possible, in theory. But the game theory and incentives here are against such changes as I outlined above. It would be like saying that silver could be better money than gold some day or some such argument. Sure it could happen but that doesn’t stop me from investing in gold.Arthur Boe Nansa wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:24 pm What more could be said about pretend scarcity? In general when something is made up, it's hard to prove it isn't made up...
The point is that for the same reason BTC maximalists believe BTC has value, every other crypto project has value- namely that scarcity exists and demand will drive its price up.
But Gold and Silver have real differences and "bit coins" and other coins are all the same! See below:
Ill keep repeating it. Value is subjective. Whatever "utility" means is just a subset of what humans value based on their preferences and environments. Controlling some # of digital tokens sitting in a ledger IS utility for some people. The ability to send such tokens is utility, etc.Arthur Boe Nansa wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:24 pm In a funny money world this feels like it makes sense. But at the end of the day, value comes from the utility of something.
I think network effect is special too. But I think you are missing the bigger picture I mentioned before: the credibility of the monetary policy. Scarcity of the units is only part of monetary credibility. A HUGE super set of limited/unchanging supply is monetary policy.Arthur Boe Nansa wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:24 pm BTC isn't special. It's network effect is special. As far as a 21M supply cap is concerned, why would that be better then a BTC ver. 2 with only 20M coins? Isn't that more scarce?
A monetary policy that limits changes seems to be preferred over one that changes often. Not changing block sizes, not inflating (or DEFLATING!) units, adding in a bunch of features with potential security issues, has a large proof of work to secure it, etc.
In cases where Bitcoin does add features, it is done in a backward compatible way, a way that preserves and increases decentralization, and also it is done in a way that enhances Bitcoin's monetary properties (decentralization, fungibility, security, privacy, etc).