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But given the dynamics of PoW mining, isn't bitcoin defacto controlled by a handful of Chinese mining cartels, which are themselves controlled by the CCP?

I feel like this whole pitch makes sense until you get to that part.



Yeah, the distributed part failed because of economies of scale and how they apply to the miners.


So in a way...who cares who mines it?

Do you care who owns your real estate before you buy it? Or who mines your gold before you wear it? Probably not.

Yes I suppose there is some political aspect to that side of it, but the crypto itself...it's about as apolitical as it gets.


> who cares who mines it?

Cryptocoins are subject to majority attacks and rules that can change at any time based on the miners preference. Who mines it is very important.

You would also care about who owned some real estate before you buy it if it was some company known for dumping toxic wast into land and then selling it. Those things are not as apolitical as they look like in an organized society.


Your straw-man argument hardly settles our debate.

If I decided that I could profitably use toxic-waste laden land, then yes of course I would still buy it and, yes of course, still not care because that's what due diligence is about.

Your liquor store sells alcohol that kills more people under the age of 30 than any other way...why aren't you standing in front of it demanding it shut down?


It's not about who created the coins, obviously. It's about the fact that more than 65% of the hashpower securing the network is in the hands of a small group of mining pools in the PRC. Adopting BTC is de facto handing over sovereignty of your currency to the PRC [1].

They get to censor transactions, they get to decide what makes it and what doesn't, they get to double-spend if they want to. That's how authoritarian government works.

This is a natural consequence of the proof-of-waste system employed. The hashpower goes to the place where waste would be the cheapest, and that's China.

[1] https://news.bitcoin.com/65-of-global-bitcoin-hashrate-conce...


Crypto can be extremely political if those who mine get to decide what goes on the blockchain.

Let's say Dalai Lama decided to follow MicroStrategy with a 400M purchase.

His BTC could be near unusable if China were to control some amount over 50% of mining capability.

How could that happen? The blocks you mine you simply not process any of "undesirable transactions".

If any of the lesser miners find a block and try to add a transaction to the ledger you perform a double spend attack.


> make it unhackable

This hinges entirely on control of mining, in fact you could argue who mines it is one of the most important questions to ask.




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