Bitcoin achieves consensus through anonymous nodes voting with CPU power

Evidence

Here is how Nakamoto summed up the peer-to-peer verification process in his original 2008 paper: ‘Nodes work all at once with little coordination. They do not need to be identified, since messages are not routed to any particular place and only need to be delivered on a best effort basis. … Nodes can leave and re-join the network at will, accepting the proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone. They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism.’ — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 1007

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains proof-of-work consensus as anonymous nodes voting with computational power.
• XREF: Connects to Hayek’s spontaneous-order argument — Nakamoto’s mechanism is the purest engineered spontaneous order yet built. — connects to: Blockchain’s appeal is escaping intermediaries, states, and cloud rents — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 684
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 1007

Broader Connections

• Blockchain’s appeal is escaping intermediaries, states, and cloud rents #expands (0.72) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 684