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Comment by YetAnotherNick | Hacker News Reader

> first of all, on a decentralized blockchain you can not really censor a transaction

This is not true. Even though blockchain is decentralized there could be a single chain/few chains of truth if you want to convert it to real money. And that chain could only be the one that would be approved by coinbase, bitfinex etc. If they want to censor an address they simply could stop accepting those transactions, and then miners will have no choice but to censor those transaction else they couldn't convert it to money. The same affect could also be created by bitcoin developers or government. Till now, AFAIK only developers along with exchange have been successful in censoring a transaction[1][2], but government came close[3].

[1]: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident [2]: https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-ethereum-reversed-a-50-... [3]: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/05/07/marathon-miners-hav...

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Well, yes, technically you are right - if the majority of the miners agreed to "censor" a specific transaction, then it would be censored. But that's not what the article claimed - Chainalysis, or any company like that, certainly wouldn't have power to command the majority of miners to do that. If there's a reasonable valid reason - such as a bug in the software - then you'd expect the majority of miners to accept that. If somebody like Coinbase would be able to control the majority of miners, then yes, they'd also would gain the ability to censor transactions. But I don't see any sign of that actually happening.

You need to follow through your logic...

> if there's a reasonable valid reason

Who says it's a valid reason? Who says the reason is what they say it is? Who decides the best fix would be to censor a transaction?

What if FakeBlockchainCorp decides to target you, then says there was a bug with these transactions, everyone agrees... Where's your bitcoin?

> Who says the reason is what they say it is?

I think I answered this question above - the majority of miners. If you succeed in convincing the majority of miners, then it will be valid. That's what "decentralized" means - it doesn't mean nobody is in control. It means the control is not concentrated in one place - it is spread between miners.

> then says there was a bug with these transactions, everyone agrees

If everyone agrees, then you've lost. It's not a magic woodoo to make you the invincible king of the world, it's just a way to make control more distributed, nothing more. If the FakeBlockchainCorp succeeds in convincing the majority of bitcoin miners that your bitcoin should be taken from you - it will be taken from you.

> This is not true. Even though blockchain is decentralized there could be a single chain/few chains of truth if you want to convert it to real money. And that chain could only be the one that would be approved by coinbase, bitfinex etc

I don't think this is fair to say because what you are describing here is a situation that is occuring off a blockchain or one that is occurring on the blockchain but where the individual transacting has chosen to allow someone to censor their transactions.

Your overall point that a decentralised system consists of centralised links that can and will be attacked by a hostile entity or node(s) is valid though.

if the other party accepts crypto too, you don't need the "real money" you speak of.

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