No central entity control sidechains, they are just a mathematical concept. Also no specific entity makes money from lightning networks.
How can you not know about ASICBOOST? its one of the main reason we are in this mess. Bitmain is not only in control of a large % of the hashing power they are cheating using ASICBOOST which they patented and implemented giving them a 15% efficiency gain equal to a 50% increase in profit over everyone else. The drawback is that they have to mess with what transaction they are including in blocks and not compatible with segwit optimization.
You should understand that none of the other altcoin have these political debates because nobody cares about them as much. I wish there was a viable alternative to Bitcoin as a viable reserve currency / reference unit of account but sadly I see none. Once we are past that mining centralisation phase bitcoin supremacy will be much harder to challenge.
Bitcoins fight is not againt other cryptos so much than it is againt TPTB, banks and governments.
@transisto You are absolutely right about this.
However, the only other alternative I consider (which is still inferior to Bitcoin) is XRP. I am as far anti-government as one can potentially be, but we have to be realistic and see the world for what it is. Banks are not going to go away tomorrow, neither are governments. It will be a long transition with many interesting and challenging years ahead.
Ultimately, I believe that Bitcoin will change the world for the better.
We have to be incredibly careful to prevent any centralization of its network. Therefore, the political discussion of the blockchain of steemit are extremely important. It's good that you brought this information forward and made it availalbe to the steemit community.
I was aware of the manipulation by Bitmain, but never heard of the ASICBOOST patent. I just thought it was something they did, I was not aware that there were legal patents in place to prevent litigation or adoption to address this problem.
So a problem that wouldn't exist with bigger blocks? :D
That is indeed sad for you.
Bam!
Lets see for how long that remains true.