U.S. National Debt:

1970: $371B

1980: $908B

1990: $3.2T

2000: $5.7T

2010: $13.6T

2020: $26.9T

You can't fix this with votes.

I said it before and I said it again, the discussion about Bitcoin protocol development should've never taken place on a platform that amplifies anger and outrage by design.

Bits the standard.

Most people think Bitcoin governance is decentralized. It’s not.

Here's the uncomfortable truth:

You don’t need 51% of miners to change Bitcoin.

You just need 5 Core maintainers and a network of node operators who click “update” without reading.

That’s not decentralization.

That’s blind trust in a gatekeeping elite.

Here is how.

Bitcoin's 51% hashpower rule protects against double-spends, not protocol changes.

Changing the rules requires consensus. but in practice, consensus often follows the code, not the other way around.

When Core maintainers approve a change, it propagates silently.

Most node operators don’t audit code.

They trust.

They comply.

Exampl: #OPRETURN

Core removed the 80-byte limit with almost no discussion.

Thousands of nodes implemented it automatically.

Most had no idea what changed.

That quiet change triggered a silent revolt:

#Knots node usage surged 137% as informed operators rejected Core’s move.

But let’s be real:

That’s a small, technical elite.

Most #node runners are flying blind.

This creates a hidden centralization vector:

#Core devs don’t just write code. they decide which changes even get considered.

If they don’t approve it, it doesn’t reach the network.

They control what’s ‘acceptable’ and that shapes Bitcoin’s future more than most realize.

They decide which changes are “reasonable.”

And that shapes Bitcoin’s future. far more than people admit.

This isn’t about malice.

It’s about structure.

Complexity creates dependence.

And dependence creates power.

#Bitcoin’ s biggest centralization risk isn’t hashpower.

It’s the silent authority of trusted code maintainers (of the most dominated node sotwares out there) and the myth that decentralization protects us from that.

Calling #bitcoin a chimera only shows that you're the delusional one or more likely just trying to gaslight the community.

Switching to #knots and ossifying my setup for the time being until the shitshow ends, if ever🐸

running knots will literally do nothing different. even if everyone was running knots, if you really wanted to get around tx censorship you would just use miner apis instead of knots p2p. They would be incentivized to do this if it earned them more fees.

Once his client has total control, he would be able to hardfork at will: make smaller blocks, censor all data transactions. You could argue this is a good thing if you were short sighted. In reality it would mean bitcoin is whatever luke thinks bitcoin should be. he would rule bitcoin with total control.

This is why we have a review process in core… who thinks luke ruling bitcoin is a good thing?

nostr:note1d9rty3x5j52yaplc8y0zwxz389xqvpez9g294s9vn96eyyvqmd2qqs4w7l

i don’t know who needs to hear this, but open source code is customizable. If someone changes something you don’t like you can just revert it