> Not quite. The miners collectively decide what rules to follow.
I don't mind being nitpicked but what you wrote is more incorrect. Miners can't unilaterally decide what rules to follow even if a majority of the hash power formed a cartel. Non-mining nodes also validate the rules and would reject mined blocks that violate consensus rules. The worse that a majority cartel of miners could do is perform a double spend attack or bring the network to a halt but that's hardly surprising.
Re:Are You Trading or Gambling?
by SuoDuanDao on Saturday February 27, 2021 @01:14PM
(#26286790)
Yes. But if the minority gets wind of that, it could create its own hard fork and keep out known members of the cartel in the future. Something like the opposite happened with Ethereum in response to the DAO hack, when the majority rolled back a transfer of ethereum by a minority of wallets that followed the rules as written but were against the intent of the rules.
Crypto is often sold as 'anarchy with rules' but it's not really that. Nor is it oligarchy as is the case with fiat and central banks. Crypto is in fact democratic. I wonder whether that's why it's unpopular in certain circles.
Not quite. The miners collectively decide what rules to follow. A majority of them forming a cartel to collectively skip certifying certain transactions is completely in the realm of what’s allowed by the network.