Bitcoin is the nodes.
Libertas Primordium's avatar Libertas Primordium
It's a misconception that hashrate controls the network. Hashrate is merely the cost of being randomly selected to add the next page to the ledger. It matters only in relation to competition with other miners who are also trying to be randomly selected for this privilege. The network adjusts the difficulty up or down to ensure that somebody is randomly selected every ten minutes on average regardless of hashrate. If you are randomly selected for this, you can only add a block to the chain that all the other nodes on the network (regardless of if they are mining or not) accept as valid. So it is really this consensus mechanism among all the nodes that controls the network. The longest chain is not the valid chain if it is a chain of blocks that the other nodes determine to be invalid. This is the real reason for the hostility towards BIP-110. It is node runners deciding they will no longer accept blocks that the Core developers consider to be valid. It's irrelevant how much hashpower you commit towards being randomly selected to add the next block if nodes on the network decide to discard your block.
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On 8-8 you can admit to being wrong. I mean you won't have 51% of the nodes anyway, but even if you did it would not matter. Running an off the shelf Bitcoin node won't force BIP-110 because Bitcoin runs on economic power, not raw node counts. Without backing from major exchanges or miners, hobbyist nodes rejecting blocks won't stop the main chain, they will just disconnect themselves onto a worthless clone. Note that is not a pro or anti position, just my assessment of reality. In 2 weeks you can admit I was right.