As far as open-source protocols go, one area in which Bitcoin is unique is the sheer difficulty of making any changes to the protocol. Unlike most other protocols, where features can be added, modified or deprecated at a moment’s notice, in the world of Bitcoin even the slightest change requires the simultaneous cooperation of the vast majority of the entire Bitcoin network. The reason for this is simple: in Bitcoin, and in Bitcoin alone, absolute consensus is required. On internet protocols like HTML and CSS, if a web browser interprets some style elements incorrectly, the worst that can happen is that the webpage renders incorrectly. In Bitcoin, on the other hand, a single transaction being incorrectly valid or invalid makes the entire block invalid, potentially causing the entire network to split in half as it did in March 2013. As a result, most of the decisions that Satoshi Nakamoto made in 2008 we are essentially stuck with. Although Satoshi’s choices were by no means perfect, fortunately it appears that he has been right more often than not; in fact, there are several instances in which we are all better off for the choices Satoshi made for reasons that even he did not imagine.

posted 3823 days ago