Bitcoin Mining and the 2017 Block Size War

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Bitcoin mining is not fully decentralized because a small number of miners control a majority of the hashing power. So if you're thinking of making a case for Bitcoin being decentralized, do you worry about the miners being somewhat centralized? Is the nodes the important thing to think about? Yeah. And what number of nodes counts as centralized and not? The nodes are what determines Bitcoin's consensus parameters.

Saifedean Ammous is an Austrian economist and author of The Bitcoin Standard and The Fiat Standard. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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Books & resources mentioned:
The Fiat Standard (book): https://amzn.to/3FmNfsy
The Bitcoin Standard (book): https://amzn.to/3LRrcwA
The Blocksize War (book): https://amzn.to/3LORQ9o
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Human Action (book): https://amzn.to/3w9LzP4

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:53) – Money
(20:58) – Gold standard
(34:09) – Collective hallucination
(39:59) – Austrian vs Keynesian economics
(1:12:20) – Free market
(1:28:49) – Monarchy
(1:34:23) – Fiat money
(2:21:13) – SWIFT system
(2:34:03) – Bitcoin
(2:40:20) – Satoshi Nakamoto
(2:48:04) – Criticisms of Bitcoin
(3:03:16) – Football/soccer
(3:06:58) – Criticisms of Bitcoin continued
(3:17:17) – Bitcoin Maximalism
(3:29:40) – Proof of stake
(3:46:46) – Central bank digital currency
(3:57:59) – Michael Malice
(4:00:12) – Advice for young people
(4:06:21) – Palestine
(4:18:00) – Mortality