Homework on High Availability - Questions

Blockchain and Bitcoin 101
#1629

Why is it important for blockchain networks to be high availability networks?
Because every business need to be available all the time and if every business built on blockchain infrastructure so it’s necessary to have high availability

What is it that enables blockchain networks to have such high availabilit?
Mining incentives to keep the network more secure and available .

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#1630
  1. Why is it important for blockchain networks to be high availability networks?

Offering very “high availability” is another huge USP of blockchain, as in the case of the “24/7/365” always-on infrastructure that Bitcoin enables. To take this example further, Bitcoin has practically never been offline and is the longest living network and application of all time with the highest availability, due to the incentivisation dynamics of blockchain technology (that will be referred to below).

Clearly, it is highly important for a global financial system to be always on - in terms of both security and liquidity and 24/7 transaction processing, among other factors. But this is also key for so many other applications that can be built on top of blockchain.

Thus high availability (24/7/365) is a very key benefit, and underscores how blocks are consistently and securely produced on the network in a consistent and predictable way.

  1. What is it that enables blockchain networks to have such high availability?

As regards this always-on “24/7/365” infrastructure and processing capacity, all network participants are highly incentivised (financially) to keep it alive, such that rational actors will keep this as a core consideration.

The incentives are, furthermore, crucial because if a portion of the network goes offline (“dies”), perhaps due to running out of electricity , or software issues, as examples , other computers will join the network due to the dynamics of mining revenues and profitability (- and this is a reference to the cyclical dynamic, whereby: when many miners are initially present, both network security and difficulty are high; when the number of active miners drops due to experiencing too high a level of difficulty, the difficulty will then stabilise and adjust lower, incentivising new miners to come in to take their place, and thus higher security is quickly restored by the resurgence in active network participants / miners).

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#1631

Homework on High Availability - Questions

  1. Why is it important for blockchain networks to be high availability networks?
    Availability to networks 24/7 has countless and obvious benefits, especially financial networks. When humans control my money at the bank and they close at 5, that is a major violation of my freedom.

  2. What is it that enables blockchain networks to have such high availability?
    The blockchain will live as long as their is incentives, and mining is the incentive right now to keep the nodes alive, as well as transaction verification fees.

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#1632
  1. because it needs to keep on working regardless one or more nodes stop working elsewhere due to lack of energy or any other reason.
  2. Theincentives among all the nodes to keep on mining
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#1633

1.) Because anytime and anywhere you need to purchase or buy something.
2.)Because it is 24/7/365 operation

#1634

Homework on High Availability

  1. Why is it important for blockchain networks to be high availability networks?
  • It is important for blockchain networks to be high availability because it is decentralized and uses consensus. Being decentralized means that everyone should have access to the network at any time in order to add or verify transactions according to the protocol. Having a network outage would break the trust in the system and interrupt the layers built on top of the blockchain. This would result in a lot of damages to the users.
  1. What is it that enables blockchain networks to have such high availability?
  • Miners (or validators) being incentivized with something value to maintain the network enables blockchain networks to have such high availability. Also the difficulty or profitability of miners fluctuates based on the number of miners on the network to always ensure there are enough miners to maintain high availability.
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#1635
  1. A global network is open 24/7/365 to enable anyone in the world to access it.
  2. Incentives to make the money.
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#1636

  1. To be part of a global economy a network must be open across time zones. A constancy gives a psychological stability that is important especially during uptake of new ideas and of course creates the security of the network. It also allows a sovereignty of actors in the network. Even huge events like wars, or dare I say, pandemics can not stop the network.

  2. The reward of contribution towards a network promotes the high availability. As this site is asking me to provide a profile photo right now, smart macro networks understand that the whole functions better with healthy micro networks within.

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#1637

Thanks for this @Mauro :slight_smile:

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#1638

  1. Blockchain is the network that united whole world.

  2. Incentive to make money.

#1639

1.- Because you have a system that it’s working 24/7. If you stop a network, you can’t be sure that while everything was rebooted, somebody injected something that shouldn’t be there or that somebody manipulated the information. If the network is available 24/7, consensus is also 24/7.
2.- The incentives. If an incentive is attractive enough to join the network, there will always be people joining it.

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#1640

But what exactly enables us to have a network with a 24/7/365 access?
It is direct, autonomous system, running on internet, with no middle men in between needed, no human action needed.

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#1641

Maoro, thank you for all your interest.
It is direct, autonomous system, running on internet, with no middle men in between needed, no human action needed.

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#1642

It is important for blockchain networks to be highly active because that is what makes them more secure and reliable to promote mass adoption.
Incentives enable blockchain networks to have such high availability. If a miner goes off the network, the mining rewards per miner increase so a new miner is incentivized to take their place. which increases network security and uptime

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#1643

The miners are given incentives to verify transactions. As far as I understand the source code is open and maintained by a large group of collaborators.

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#1644

bitcoin will be used all over the world, so it needs to be available at all times.

incentives for financial gain

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#1645

Homework on High Availability - Questions

  1. Why is it important for blockchain networks to be high availability networks? To be available 24/7 365 days a year.
  2. What is it that enables blockchain networks to have such high availability? The incentives that mining provide.
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#1646
  1. Its important to have high availability so that one can access the network 24/7/365.
  2. Incentives provided to the “miners” people whom confirm transactions and secure the network come in the form of rewards. This also has a supply/ demand function as well.
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#1647
  1. makes it much more reliable than previous networks - which sometimes happened to go offline for a short period. Its obviously a very robust infrastructure
  2. many decentralized participants. If, for example, in one place occurs an electricity-shortage, others jump in immediatedly - because there are incentives motivating everyone involved to do so, as its a source of income for miners.
    Q: don´t understand the principles of mining yet. WHY the security is even increased in case less are willing to do mining, because its becoming too difficult (eats up a lot of energy…), too much calculating eats up a huge amount of energy - which might not be covered by mining-income. What if miners just stop to mine altogehter?
#1648

Wow, amazing answer! Great job!! :clap:

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