This is false. Bitcoin is a consensus system, and the default client for better or for worse has a stickiness that doesn't exist in normal open source software because of this group consensus. So there is definitely a measure of control. Yes, it's not total or complete, but it is there.

Bitcoin Core does not have control over the software users run on their machine. If you believe differently, you don't understand how Bitcoin works. You might be confusing network effect with control.

I think they mean that a blockchain doesn't exist in a vacuum, someone has to write the code. While anyone can write a new client/protocol upgrade people won't upgrade to just anyone's new client given how much value Bitcoin represents.

No one has hard-control over bitcoin, but the leading dev group has some manner of soft/non-coercive control (by momentum alone).

That measure of control extends about as far as it did for the default bit torrent client. Negligible.

There is a pervasive misconception that "power" is "I tell someone what to do, and they do it, because I have power."

That is not how power works.

For one thing, it isn't a binary value. It is not that either have power or don't. It is a very complicated thing; even calling it a "continuum" greatly oversimplifies because power is much more nuanced than can be mapped to a mere straight line.

If that is not something you already deeply know, consider replacing all instances of the word "power" with "influence", which is much closer.

It is safe to say that the core developers have had some power/influence. It is safe to say that certain large minors have also had power/influence. Small minors also have small amounts of power/influence, it's just dominated by other concerns, but it exists.

Decentralized doesn't mean nobody has any power or influence, it means a lot of people have power and influence, and nobody is supposed to have enough to simply dictate the result. And while I'm not involved with this and don't care, it definitely sounds like a classic power struggle. Bitcoin was never premised on the idea that there would never be power struggles... indeed, the promise of extreme decentralization is all but a promise that there will be lots of power struggles. The question is, which do you prefer: A system which attempts to structure things so that one central authority can not arise and every thus question is settled by a power struggle, or one in which power struggles are resolved by the rise of a central authority who simply wins them all?

(And if you conceive of "power struggle" as always being a vicious war, that may sound very dystopian. However, bear in mind that all voting systems, agreements to follow Robert's Rules of Order, mostly-hierarchial system such as most companies use, and any number of other structures are all systems for resolving "power struggles". Power struggles can be vicious and disproportional, or polite, genteel, and not a major hassle for anyone. But they're all still "power struggles".)

By design, miners control Bitcoin. Before Ethereum, miners were fine with Bitcoin core because they were still making tons of profits, and blocks weren't full. They were almost all following core and that's why core has a lot of power.

Now that Bitcoin hit a scaling ceiling and a competitor who can scale way beyond Bitcoin is rapidely taking the lead, they finally realize why Core/Blockstream strategy is bad for them, and bad for Bitcoin. Hence they came up with setwit2x, wich is a weak attempt to get ride of Blockstream (because its segwit first, then 2Mb blocks, then... not much), but a strong signal that something is changing.

Miners provide security for the system, but they do so at the behest of the users. If they don't enforce the rules that the users desire, the users will reject their blocks and the miners won't get paid.

Miners provide security and thus value to the system, if the users don't follow them, their coins lose security and thus value. The chain with the most hashpower has the value and the users have no choice but to go with it or they risk their coins losing value. The users are not in control.

Yeah I don't think the core developers have ever claimed to have control. Isn't this one of the main reasons why they have refused to implement auto-upgrade in Bitcoin Core?

This misunderstanding comes up often, but the code and the blockchain are different domains.

You need consensus on the blockchain, but you need a benevolent dictator, coupled with good communication, to make great opensource software.

While the Blockchain is democratic in nature, a dev team is oligarchic - an open technocracy. You want the best idea to win, not the most popular one.

Maybe in 100 years we will make great software by group vote, its a much harder problem to solve.

They don't control, but they have lots of power in the sense that 99% of people will just run the bitcoin core client without researching too much, what is in the code.

Not true, the miners are heavily vested and do their research. Speculators who just buy and sell go wherever the market is which is wherever the miners are.

>Speculators who just buy and sell go wherever the market is which is wherever the miners are.

Isn't "wherever the market is" wherever spending power is?

Speculators have various reasons buy and sell many of which have little to do with miners.

Yes. There is no Bitcoin to control. Bitcoin is an idea, and there can be as many variations as people have ideas. There will be a main trunk, centered around the middle of the market, but the whole point of cryptocurrencies is they can be forked and survive.

In the new world, everyone has their own universe. The sooner one believes, the stronger their position in the 2030 economy.

Name one that has forked and survived. Ethereum Classic is not "surviving".

Ethereum Classic today has more market cap than Etherum did the month before the split, how is that not surviving? They have grown immensely since the split.

It's early days my friend.

Imagine a "Confederacy Coin" that forks from a "US Federal Coin". You don't think that cold survive?

> Core developers never had control in the first place.

True.

> No one has control

Also true. For now.

> it's weird to see so many people applying authoritarian concepts to an anti-authoritarian system.

Not true. First of all, it's a system and you can't get more authoritarian than a system.

Then are externalities called people. And people collude and cooperate and form factions. That's because they're people and that's what people do.

So while they don't have control directly, if they form a majority they will. The minority are free to vacate this virtuality if they don't like the new rules.

You see, BitWorld really isn't so different from the real world.