Ripple Ex-CTO Says Cheating Turns Bitcoin Miners’ ASICs Into Space Heaters

David Schwartz, the former chief technology officer at Ripple, says Bitcoin miners who attempt a double spend would hand the network an easy weapon. The community could fork the chain and change the mining algorithm.

He posted the argument on Wednesday, answering a user who questioned whether most mining nodes actually behave honestly. Schwartz framed his reply around incentives rather than trust.

How Bitcoin Economic Nodes Keep Miners Honest

Satoshi Nakamoto's original design leans on an honest majority. The whitepaper says the longest chain wins, and that honest nodes outpace attackers while they control most of the computing power. Miners supply that power. However, they do not decide alone what counts as valid Bitcoin.

Economic nodes hold the other half of the bargain. Exchanges, custodians, wallets and payment firms run software that accepts or rejects blocks. Therefore, a mining cartel that rewrote history would still need those operators to follow along.

That leverage is practical rather than theoretical. Exchanges decide which chain credits a deposit, and merchants decide which chain settles a payment. Miners earn nothing on a chain nobody values.

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