Bitcoin News

It is rare to have someone correctly predict, with accuracy, the failure of a technology; even when they’re living the birth and growth of said technology.

So imagine how impressive it is for someone like John Forbes Nash to predict the failure of Bitcoin BTC some 70 years before it was even conceived.

It is, by all means, quite intriguing.

John Forbes Nash is the mastermind behind much of our understanding of how game-theory works, so much so that the game-theory equilibrium state was even named after him.

Nash e·qui·lib·ri·um

(in economics and game theory) a stable state of a system involving the interaction of different participants, in which no participant can gain by a unilateral change of strategy if the strategies of the others remain unchanged.

Now, allow me to explain; I am being very specific when I say Bitcoin BTC, and not Bitcoin.

Bitcoin, as designed and conceived by its original creator Satoshi Nakamoto, is actually not at risk of any possible game-theory failures outlined by John Nash.

Satoshi brilliantly capitalized on the game-theory elements Nash outlined, and utilized them to create a flawless system where all participants have nothing to gain by playing any other move than what everything else is currently doing. Mine, acquire, spend, or GTFO.

No one has a valid incentive to cheat, and to sum it up, no one can cheat in Bitcoin.

This has marvellously protected Bitcoin BTC since its inception and all the way up until BTC soft-forked in some changes back in August 2017, absolutely obliterating this protection model.

By forking these changes in the their version of Bitcoin, known as Bitcoin Core (BTC), Blockstream redefined the game-theory parameters behind the original Bitcoin, essentially losing on the very Nash equilibrium which had protected the network as-designed for almost a decade now.

How did Blockstream do it? Through the following:

-Forced off-chain scaling through limiting BTC’s blocksize, something which is in direct contrast to Satoshi’s famous quote “[Bitcoin as designed] never really hits a scaling limit”

-Taking away incentive from miners to protect the network by allowing non-miners to generates renevue at the expense of miners

-Driving transactions to off-chain centralization in LN hubs, paving the way for banks 2.0, rent-seeking, KYC and AML regulation of said hubs, and potentially fractional reserve banking

-Butchering the Nash Equilibrium on the BTC fork of Bitcoin; introducing completely new game-theory parameters, losing on what had protected Bitcoin (and continues to protect it on Bitcoin Cash) for the past near-decade.

In every financial or political system which existed before Bitcoin, there was always an incentive to cheat and a participant one way or another was able to cheat. This is what lead us to the banking bailout of 2009, and the upcoming (2020?) global financial crash.

In case of Bitcoin, this Nash Equilibrium is maintained by code, PoW and the miners’ incentive to protect the network; the latter being the main thing Blockstream / Bitcoin Core is actively working to destroy.

Regardless of how BTC/Lightning Network works “today”, it is trivial to subvert a network where protecting it is now distributed across multiple actors who must be assumed to remain honest such as miners, LN hubs, users and exchanges and etc.

Bitcoin Core changes the brilliant Nash equilibrium which Bitcoin Cash preserves, and any argument such as “well, this doesn’t break it TODAY” is futile because BTC now allows a far larger attack vector on the game-theory elements Satoshi designed in the system.

Bitcoin, a historical, world-changing experiment, defined perfectly in its celebrated white paper and built by Satoshi as a version 0.0.1, has clearly defined which game theory parameters are at play in the system at any given time.

This experiment is no longer maintained on Bitcoin Core, or any fork of Bitcoin for that matter, other than Bitcoin Cash.

The now-dangerously-large attack vector on Bitcoin Core doesn’t exist on Bitcoin Cash, and as it stands today, Bitcoin Cash is the only and most sound money on planet earth.

And it will continue to be so, fork after fork, we are protecting what Satoshi created and defined. Bitcoin as designed is here to stay.

BTC’s failure already began, and we are witnessing the network effect drift away, which is natural as per game-theory too, from fiats and BTC to the world’s most sound money, BCH.

Spread awareness, build more, challenge evil, do your share, decentralize the world, and let’s build what the world really needs.