[hngiszmo]

You are very much mistaken on that one. Those consensus meetings can not decide anything against the will of the users. In fact bitcoin core would hard fork bitcoin if miners agreed to mine too big blocks and nobody could dictate the users of either of the chains to switch to the other. The user is in full control which type of bitcoin he wants to use but as such forks cause insecurity in the market, consensus meetings are held, to gauge the overall potential for consensus on the available options going forward. The most recent changes like CSV are only activated if 95% of miners want them, which would not stop the other 5% from going on without that. And you can be damn sure about seriously controversial changes triggering a 5% fork if need be.

[empath75]

The vast majority of people using Bitcoin are locked out of profitable Bitcoin mining because of asics and power costs. There's a small cartel of Chinese miners that have the power to decide 'what Bitcoin is'. You can use whatever Bitcoin software you want, but if you're not using theirs, it's worthless.

[xorcist]

That's not true. You could just as well say that there is number of exchanges in the world that trade Bitcoin against USD and other currencies. It is this trade that give Bitcoin value, and only the Bitcoin fork the exchanges use is valuable. If all the miners would fork Bitcoin today to change consensus (perhaps to earn more from mining), and all the users and exchanges stayed behind, that would only be visible as a drop in mining power. In reality it's much more complicated, and consensus changes are not to be made lightly.

[empath75]

The exchanges wanted to fork to increase the bandwidth cap. The miners refused. You can see who won.

[xorcist]

That does not mean that miners dictate which fork to use. The opposite situation, that miners wanted bigger blocks but exchanges and users refused, would be similarly impossible. It's a bit like mutually assured destruction, nobody wants to see a big drop in value.

[im3w1l]

At it's core, the true bitcoin is the bitcoin that "can be exchanged for goods and services" (and other currencies).

[JumpCrisscross]

> The user is in full control which type of bitcoin he wants to use

I am in full control of which currency I use when transacting.

[kang]

If the govt changes monetary policy, your held dollars change definition; if bitcoin devs do anything my bitcoins remain as per the definition i agreed to. I can choose to move to that new currency or not.

[JumpCrisscross]

You can stipulate in a contract that it may only be settled with paper notes printer before 1974. It would be silly, since it would make transacting difficult. But no more so than holding some deprecated shard of a cryptocurrency. A better store of value are real assets.