/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>10658417
>>10658461
Miners are important, but so are the actual users. That's why they act as a check and balance to each-other. If the miners decided collude and collectively change consensus (for instance they decided to change the blockreward from 12.5 to 1,000,000,000), the rest of the users on the network (the nonmining nodes), would reject their blocks because they do not follow consensus rules, and thus the miners would isolate their userbase. Similarly, if the users colluded and decided to change consensus rules, then they would not have a functioning network.

Both the miners and the users have to agree on consensus or, the system will not function. There's a reason why its all full nodes who vote for BIPS and hardforks, and not just mining only full nodes. Its also a lot easier for miners to collude, since there's really only 21 or so miners. If you mine in a pool, you are not running a full node. You are connecting to another persons full node who manages consensus for you. If we had a system where only full mining nodes could manage consensus, then we would end up with a system where there are only 21 or so nodes verifying the validity of the network, which makes it more prone to attack.

>>10619698
What do you meant they validate nothing? They make sure the miners are following consensus rules. Are you telling me it would be better if there was only 20 nodes running on the bitcoin network (all run by miners)? Doesn't seem very decentralized to me if they decide to collude and change consensus rules to whatever they feel like. One day bitcoin supply is 21 million, the next it's whatever they feel like.