NY Fed paper: Ethereum’s censorship resistance is ‘tenuous’

[philipma1957]

The centralised nature of eth is its real weakness.

If Mr v died today what happens to eth?

AND on the other hand if Mr v does not want censorship how come he could not stop it?

Basically the two questions I ask show a leadership or structural issue with eths centralised nature.

 Here is a third question if  a country grabs Mr v and locks him up what happens to eth?

There is no clear cut step up for eth and the fact that it was easily censored means Mr v is not in the full control he is appeared to be.

I EXPECT MANY more cracks in eth  for the next few years.

I agree with you on this that centralization is the real weakness, which means whenever the government wants ETH to be shut down they can do it not easily though, but if given unsupervised full power then they can easily shut down ETH due to its centralized nature. The question number one doesn't really raise any concerns about the centralized nature of ETH. I mean, they will just lie there and nothing bad will happen to those ETH if MR V dies today. As you said he can't control the censorship and can't make it stop.

I was not expecting any cracks, but let's see.

Not sure any country is trustable but they are in power. Not us.

I was thinking I am typing with an ipad on my stomach as I lay in my bed watching the daily show.

is the battery in this ipad loaded with an oz of plastic explosives. 🧨

would have sound crazy to write this a month ago. Now that all those pagers blew up it shows just how much a government can do with tech.
Not sure I want to trust any pos coin when a single rogue country can do an attack on tech.

I would guess a pos coin can be fully attacked much like those pagers were.

[Faisal2202]

Not sure any country is trustable but they are in power. Not us.

I was thinking I am typing with an ipad on my stomach as I lay in my bed watching the daily show.

is the battery in this ipad loaded with an oz of plastic explosives. 🧨

would have sound crazy to write this a month ago. Now that all those pagers blew up it shows just how much a government can do with tech.
Not sure I want to trust any pos coin when a single rogue country can do an attack on tech.

I would guess a pos coin can be fully attacked much like those pagers were.

You raise a good point I also saw things that I never thought would happen, like not only pagers were destroyed, the walkie-talkies and the solar energy systems that we have installed in our homes were also destroyed by Israel in Biuret, which is insane. I mean, we are installing these bombs in our homes by ourselves.

I doubt if they could do the same with our smartphones. Governments have ways like agencies and tech nerds who are finding new ways to attack people's devices and this whole world has become a part of IoT when I learned about how small devices can gather our information, I realized how important data can be for such agencies.

I know the topic is going off-topic here,, but governments are really in control and they have all the power who knows what they can do with BTC?

[bitmover]

I know the topic is going off-topic here,, but governments are really in control and they have all the power who knows what they can do with BTC?

Btc is safer because it is not as centralized as ethereum.

For example, satoshi vanished, and vitalik can be coherced/ intimidated to approve changes in the protocol.

What government can do is going after big btc players : exchanges, minere, etf, etc...

But that is less effective.

[Faisal2202]

Btc is safer because it is not as centralized as ethereum.

For example, satoshi vanished, and vitalik can be coherced/ intimidated to approve changes in the protocol.

What government can do is going after big btc players : exchanges, minere, etf, etc...

But that is less effective.

You are right in the ETH case the issuers hold most of the coins and they have the most influence like Vitalik and other developers but I think it won't be easy for them to take down ETH as well because it is also a distributed ledge but its POS mechanism is not in favor of its decentralization plus Vitalik alone can't do harm but I can say one thing for sure he is a greedy person and he cares for ETH he can do anything for its existence like Durov did with TG by changing the policies. Well, he did that to save himself.

The point is BTC is way higher and more difficult than ETH to take down, as ETH is not that easy so I said that what else they could do with BTC. I meant they might impose high tax in your country and make you pay the extra money, they might seize or confiscates ours funds if not kept on non-custodial wallets.

[dkbit98]

For example, satoshi vanished, and vitalik can be coherced/ intimidated to approve changes in the protocol.

Or maybe he was already coerced long time ago.
Since ethereum moved from PoW to PoS I think it's even easier to make protocol changes in code, and they are doing it all the time.
I am not saying this can't happen with bitcoin and other coins also, if enough miners and nodes agrees than they can make any changes they want.

[bitmover]

I am not saying this can't happen with bitcoin and other coins also, if enough miners and nodes agrees than they can make any changes they want.

I agree, this can also happen with bitcoin.

But it would be necessary to coherce a lot of people and companies in many different continents , for an unknown result...

[ABCbits]

For example, satoshi vanished, and vitalik can be coherced/ intimidated to approve changes in the protocol.

Or maybe he was already coerced long time ago.
Since ethereum moved from PoW to PoS I think it's even easier to make protocol changes in code, and they are doing it all the time.
I am not saying this can't happen with bitcoin and other coins also, if enough miners and nodes agrees than they can make any changes they want.

I think it's also worth to mention that Vitalik is part of Ethereum Foundation, where the foundation have rather big influence. And IMO their influence is bigger than people and group who're involved on Bitcoin Core development.

[dkbit98]

But it would be necessary to coherce a lot of people and companies in many different continents , for an unknown result...

If you didn't notice already things are getting more centralized with mining pools and blackr0ck with other companies are buying a bunch of bitcoins, they are now one of the top owners in rich list.
So it's not impossible to happen, but it's probably still harder than for all other altcoins.

I think it's also worth to mention that Vitalik is part of Ethereum Foundation, where the foundation have rather big influence. And IMO their influence is bigger than people and group who're involved on Bitcoin Core development.

I never paid much attention to Ethereum Foundation and what is happening there, but I guess Vitalik and few others have the most influence.

[bitmover]

But it would be necessary to coherce a lot of people and companies in many different continents , for an unknown result...

If you didn't notice already things are getting more centralized with mining pools and blackr0ck with other companies are buying a bunch of bitcoins, they are now one of the top owners in rich list.
So it's not impossible to happen, but it's probably still harder than for all other altcoins.

I think that concentration of wealth is expected in the bitcoin network. This is how the world is...

But I also expect that the consensus rules continue to be censorship resistant, in a way people who owns a lot of bitcoin won't be able to control the network. This can happen in ethereum, which is a PoS system.

[dkbit98]

But I also expect that the consensus rules continue to be censorship resistant, in a way people who owns a lot of bitcoin won't be able to control the network. This can happen in ethereum, which is a PoS system.

I hope so, but I honestly wouldn't be to surprised if we see major protocol changes in near future.
Someone could always justify things by being forced by government to do something, and I don't think things can continue to work the same way in next 5 years, especially in regards with bitcoin mining.
There is however one protocol change I would like to see and that is better privacy.