Bitcoin is not a failure, but an attack by traditional finance

Author: Snowmobile to the Equator

On January 15, Beijing time, in New York City, the Federal Reserve organized a meeting with the theme of "Beyond Bitcoin". Half of the participants were representatives from the Federal Reserve, and the other half were representatives from major banks and the blockchain company R3CEV, which is supported by major banks. At the meeting, a representative of R3CEV made a statement: "Mike, a programmer from R3CEV, is the core developer of the original Bitcoin protocol. He said that Bitcoin, as an experiment, has failed."

After the New York Times reported this statement with the headline "Bitcoin core developer Mike declares Bitcoin a failure", it caused a great deal of public opinion, and some people continued to interpret it as bad news for Bitcoin, causing the price of Bitcoin to fall from 2,850 yuan to 2,350 yuan.

However, this is not the truth, nor is it the whole truth. As senior entrepreneurs and observers in the Bitcoin industry, we will tell you the real inside story and the principles of Bitcoin community collaboration. In short: This debate, on the surface, is a debate between Bitcoin radicals and Bitcoin conservatives, but in fact it is an attack on Bitcoin by traditional financial institutions led by big banks, and the Bitcoin community defending its own interests! This is not a conspiracy theory, but a real struggle between the interests of both parties on the table!

1. Mike is not a Bitcoin core developer, but a spokesperson for bank interests

First of all, let me clarify Mike's identity. He is not a core developer of the Bitcoin protocol. Currently, there are only five core developers (https://github.com/orgs/bitcoin/people)! Programmer Mike has written a bitcoinj Java library, which means he is a third-party Bitcoin tool library developer. He is not a Bitcoin protocol developer at all. In the six years since he joined Bitcoin, he has only submitted 3 bugs for the Bitcoin code, ranking 98th in the Bitcoin developer queue.

We can discern what role Mike plays in the Bitcoin community through his three propositions about Bitcoin.

First, he once suggested to the Bitcoin Foundation that a Bitcoin transaction rollback function be developed, that is, after a Bitcoin is issued, there is a freezing period during which the issuer can withdraw the Bitcoin. This completely deprives Bitcoin of its irreversible nature and reduces its freedom.

Second, he once proposed to establish an IP list of Bitcoin nodes in an attempt to sever the anonymity of Bitcoin, which was criticized by the Bitcoin community.

Third, the bitcoinxt he developed not only supports blacklists, but also supports large blocks. This will increase the cost of Bitcoin nodes, thereby affecting the reduction of Bitcoin nodes in the entire network. Then, Bitcoin nodes will be controlled by super large companies, eliminating the decentralized characteristics of Bitcoin.

From the above, we can see that many of Mike’s claims are contrary to the idea of ​​Bitcoin. In fact, due to his words and deeds, he is an unpopular programmer in the Bitcoin community. The entire community has repeatedly opposed and criticized Mike. However, his claims are very consistent with the interests of big banks (destroying uncontrollable Bitcoin and stripping blockchain technology for existing financial services), which may be the reason why R3CEV hired him.

R3CEV is a blockchain company whose main business is to develop blockchain technology for banks. The company is backed by 42 mainstream banks around the world, including Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan, etc. Their goal is to destroy uncontrollable Bitcoin and strip blockchain technology for existing financial services. This is like a robber who stole Satoshi Nakamoto's blockchain technology to serve banks and other financial companies, and at the same time wanted to kill Satoshi Nakamoto's blockchain - Bitcoin! Prior to this, the Rand Corporation had proposed to the US government to destroy Bitcoin, and the specific strategy was to discredit Bitcoin.

R3CEV's technical director is Tim Swanson, who has always been hostile to Bitcoin and has repeatedly promoted the view that Bitcoin is backward and not worth mentioning in the media. This is similar to Mike's view. In fact, Mike was recruited by Tim Swanson.

A blockchain company certainly wants to destroy the most valuable blockchain at present, Bitcoin, and then develop other castrated blockchains to serve its customers. The theme of the meeting on January 15 was "Beyond Bitcoin", which was actually about blockchain. At a blockchain conference, a blockchain company declared that "Bitcoin has failed", which can only be regarded as a slogan for declaring war, not a description of the facts.

2. No one can declare Bitcoin a failure.

On January 4, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto compiled the Bitcoin client and successfully ran it. It has been seven years since then. Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of Bitcoin and the first core developer of Bitcoin. In addition to Satoshi Nakamoto, there are also many excellent programmers who continue to join the team of core developers, contribute code to Bitcoin, and achieve the development of Bitcoin.

However, core developers are only the guardians of the Bitcoin code. Even core developers cannot decide the direction of Bitcoin, let alone whether Bitcoin will fail. The role of core developers is to increase the functionality of Bitcoin in a timely manner based on the community's needs for Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin code is open source, and tens of thousands of programmers around the world are paying attention to the Bitcoin code. Even if the core developers are bribed by big banks and defect, and add functions such as "rollback, blacklist" to the Bitcoin code, the community will find out immediately. Bitcoin miners and nodes in the Bitcoin community do not support the new code and do not run new clients. In this case, this "defection" will not play a practical role and will not affect Bitcoin. New programmers will copy the original Bitcoin code and establish a new Bitcoin code guardian.

As for Mike, the fake core developer, real core developers have come out on Twitter to expose him as a liar. Real core developers focus more on maintaining the stability of the system and are obsessed with the code level. They do not have the political ambition to decide the direction of Bitcoin alone like Mike.

Bitcoin miners are the guardians of the Bitcoin system. Bitcoin computing power not only exercises the right to record accounts, but also builds a strong shield to prevent attacks. In Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin white paper, it has been stated that the most essential rule for the operation of the Bitcoin system is to let the computing power vote, that is, the right to record Bitcoin must be determined by maintaining the Bitcoin computing power. Any evildoer of Bitcoin cannot bypass the Great Wall of Despair built by Bitcoin miners with computing power.

In the seven years since the development of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin network has become increasingly robust, with a computing power of up to 1000p. Mathematics is the most powerful weapon, and there is currently no machine that can break the Bitcoin system. The Bitcoin code has also been updated many times, from Satoshi Nakamoto's bitcoin-qt to the current bitcoin-core, Bitcoin has been self-improving and evolving.

According to records, including this time, Bitcoin has been declared "dead" 89 times. The reasons for its death include technical factors, government control, bad words from celebrities, bad words from the media, etc. In fact, Bitcoin has never declined because of this, but has become stronger and stronger. This time is no exception. Any attempt by any institution to control Bitcoin will only fail. For large banks or other financial institutions, it is better to actively embrace Bitcoin instead of fighting against it. This is the real choice of blockchain.