BTC works on a proof of work system (PoW). Alice sends BTC to Bob by announcing stating that she's sending x out of her address to an address controlled by Bob and signs this with her private key. To prevent double spends, miners get involved.
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Miners solve a math problem that's one way - a problem that's hard to solve but easy to verify that the solution is correct. If an individual miner wanted to fake a transaction he'd have to solve this problem including his fake transaction faster than the rest of the miners
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Miners accept and continue to work on the longest chain so he'd have to keep supplying new blocks until he gets enough of a lead that his chain is the one that everyone is on. One miner can't do this - ever.
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Even if he tried to cooperate with other miners to create a fake blockchain the incentive would be to defect and mine the real blocks because any miner knows that other miners will do this. The incentive to defect is the key bit.
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This incentive fails under two circumstances: 1) The coalition controls enough hash power (so can mine blocks fast enough) 2) The coalition can enforce cooperation BOTH OF THESE CONDITIONS are met if the Chinese gvt seized the 71% of hashpower located in China
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States exist specifically to solve problems like this Here's the thing though - the Chinese government doesn't want to do this because they'd kill the value of BTC.
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"How is that different from any government ignoring property rights?" IT'S NOT! Any government can seize property in its domain and the only practical restraint them is that they kill the value of their property - a gvt that maximizes the PV of their property doesn't do that
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Western governments have been acting against their own interests for a very long time because no one owns them and they're controlled by constantly shifting hidden internal coalitions so no one cares about maximizing the PV of the enterprise
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China seems to not act this way and actually respects property rights more strongly than the US Stark example in a photograph - in the US there's the Kelo decision in China this guy didn't want to sell his house when they wanted to build a highwaypic.twitter.com/7naZNFEOca
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