npub1l7…epah7 on Nostr: I’m going to start by saying I assume I’m ignorant, naive, making bad ...
I’m going to start by saying I assume I’m ignorant, naive, making bad assumptions, or just being dumb. I’m probably wrong and I hope I am.
Can someone explain how the the #fedimint decentralization model is supposed to resist coercion or threats of violence? Because I don’t get it
Apologies if this comes across as a straw man, but my understanding of it is that in the fedimint paradigm:
1. It will only be safe to join a fedimint that’s local (and therefore subject to “Proof of fist” if they try to rug you)
2. It will only be safe to join a fedimint run by people you know personally
3. Fedimints an are envisioned to serve as tools for onboarding and scaling small rural communities, especially in the global south.
Now let’s say there’s a remote town of 500 people, and 5 people run the mint for that town. Everyone in the town who uses the mint (which is almost everyone) knows who those 5 people are and more or less where they live and that they hold the keys for most of the community’s BTC. This is necessary for proof of fist and the threat of social censure in the case of bad behavior.
What stops some warlord or bandit group or dictator from just showing up with AK47s, coercing the names of the mint runners from the first few people they encountered, and then kicking down their doors and demanding the bitcoin at gunpoint? If it were rural America, then the citizens would have the guns to defend themselves, but that isn’t the case in most places. If it was in America, then the citizens would have some confidence that the government wouldn’t use outright violent coercion to discover the names of the mint runners or seize the mint’s bitcoin. There would be some rule of law in place. But again, most people don’t have such assurances or rights.
So that’s my question/ skepticism:
How does fedimint work to protect people’s (that is, a community’s) bitcoin in places where property rights and rule of law are more suggestions than anything else?
I want it to work, I just see it being pretty fragile against violent coercion IF IT’S LOCAL and IF the mint runners are PERSONALLY KNOWN to the mint users.
This is something I’ve heard very little discussion of. I hope there’s a good answer because my understanding is that fedimint was conceptualized by people focused on the global south, so they should have some idea of the challenges faced, but I just don’t understand how a mint is supposed to be resistant to violence when the runners are easily identified and located.
Can someone explain how the the #fedimint decentralization model is supposed to resist coercion or threats of violence? Because I don’t get it
Apologies if this comes across as a straw man, but my understanding of it is that in the fedimint paradigm:
1. It will only be safe to join a fedimint that’s local (and therefore subject to “Proof of fist” if they try to rug you)
2. It will only be safe to join a fedimint run by people you know personally
3. Fedimints an are envisioned to serve as tools for onboarding and scaling small rural communities, especially in the global south.
Now let’s say there’s a remote town of 500 people, and 5 people run the mint for that town. Everyone in the town who uses the mint (which is almost everyone) knows who those 5 people are and more or less where they live and that they hold the keys for most of the community’s BTC. This is necessary for proof of fist and the threat of social censure in the case of bad behavior.
What stops some warlord or bandit group or dictator from just showing up with AK47s, coercing the names of the mint runners from the first few people they encountered, and then kicking down their doors and demanding the bitcoin at gunpoint? If it were rural America, then the citizens would have the guns to defend themselves, but that isn’t the case in most places. If it was in America, then the citizens would have some confidence that the government wouldn’t use outright violent coercion to discover the names of the mint runners or seize the mint’s bitcoin. There would be some rule of law in place. But again, most people don’t have such assurances or rights.
So that’s my question/ skepticism:
How does fedimint work to protect people’s (that is, a community’s) bitcoin in places where property rights and rule of law are more suggestions than anything else?
I want it to work, I just see it being pretty fragile against violent coercion IF IT’S LOCAL and IF the mint runners are PERSONALLY KNOWN to the mint users.
This is something I’ve heard very little discussion of. I hope there’s a good answer because my understanding is that fedimint was conceptualized by people focused on the global south, so they should have some idea of the challenges faced, but I just don’t understand how a mint is supposed to be resistant to violence when the runners are easily identified and located.