I’ve been trying to orange pill my brother for a while now, but he remains skeptical. He sent me this from the WSJ today, and asked “you really trust these guys?
How should I respond?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoin-core-maintainers-crypto-7b93804
They can't change shit , see Jeremy rubin and covenants ,
the nodes and social consensus hold the power and it's a nightmare trying to change Bitcoin, except when things really matter .
You don't have to trust anyone, that's the beauty of Bitcoin.
Can you explain in more detail? I honestly don’t know know much about how the code is maintained and patched for emergencies. The “inflation bug” they quoted Samson Mow in the article was news to me.
Do you know they can push code but the nodes can choose not to accept it ? That makes them protectors of bad code , and being open source anyone can contribute and if something is broken anyone that has skin in the game will contribute and it will be beneficial to the nodes to accept it .
Satoshi was a NYM and you don't have to trust anyone z you can verify with your node.
I replied with this:
No I don’t trust those individuals, and neither should anyone else.
Individual nodes that anyone can operate around the world (I just started running one myself) are the gatekeepers of Bitcoin.
It’s extremely difficult to change Bitcoin. Each node must CHOOSE to download an update. Anyone with skin in the game is incentivized to only accept good code. If an update contains bad code, the network won’t obtain consensus and will fork.
Those 6 people can theoretically do anything they want, but the decentralized network majority needs to accept it.
On the other hand, in the current system, 12 really old white men all get together in a room once a month to decide the price of money (interest rates) for the whole world and no one is allowed to say no!
There are actually close to 600 people who work on core and BTC adjacent, some nyms , some known ones, it is a really closely maintained code .
And on top of that we have the nodes .
Your answer was good regardless
Can you send me a source as to who works on the code and how it’s maintained?
True :)
