analyze scenario of US government having a significant SBR

[moneyball]

"Someone should write this scenario out in detail

Currently Microstrategy and USG are custodying with 1, maybe 2 companies?

How does an increase in the amount of BTC (or not — say USG sells but MSTR stacks) at those custodians change anything from a protocol upgrade PoV?"

https://x.com/gladstein/status/1869417938207514980?s=12

[rencryptofish]

it might increase the power of custodians if there end up being only 2-3 qualified custodians that hold a lot of bitcoin and they all collude and refuse to upgrade their nodes. does the cost of creating a new custodian grow over time because of perceived brand/lindyness of existing custodians?

[yashrajd]

it might increase the power of custodians if there end up being only 2-3 qualified custodians that hold a lot of bitcoin and they all collude and refuse to upgrade their nodes. does the cost of creating a new custodian grow over time because of perceived brand/lindyness of existing custodians?

Reading the thread, this is way more serious than 2-3 custodians ending up with large stacks. (I agree, and have made similar points multiple times in the past.) Do we want to limit the scope of this issue to custodian impact?

----If NO, then read onward-----

James spoke about ossification risk + the fact that SBR makes bitcoin a matter of "national security": "Imagine an army of NIST engineers all of the sudden get involved and are given basically infinite funding." IMO this quote undersells the risks to bitcoin consensus.

While not meaningful yet, USG already has an official SBR; regardless of SBR size, USG can play a serious role as multiple stakeholders. Moreover, USG can wield tremendous influence on other stakeholders both in the context of consensus change and otherwise. These risks are closer than they appear. They also do not require a significant SBR.

I suggest adding the governments (especially with SBRs) as a (secondary?) stakeholder group, coming up with powers & incentives in the process.

[moneyball]

@lynalden thoughts on adding a 7th stakeholder group?

[lynalden]

@moneyball I think adding governments as a 7th stakeholder group makes sense. They pass the test of having a sufficiently different incentive+power combination than the others.

[moneyball]

@yashrajd any interest in drafting this section?

[yashrajd]

yes, will do.