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by wmf 1656 days ago
Basically exchanges and whales determine the outcome of a hard fork. In a "hyperbitcoinized" world there wouldn't really be exchanges and it's not clear who the whales would be, but that scenario is so unlikely that I don't think about it.
2 comments
throwaway248329 1656 days ago
No, individual users decide the outcome of a hard fork.

Coinbase, BitGo, Bitmain all tried to force Bitcoin to use larger blocks because that would've gave them more power, and look where we are.

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wmf 1656 days ago
Nope, the 2X upgrade was derailed by an exchange that decided to list both sides (IIRC it was going to be BTC1 and BTC2) and they were motivated by a (possibly rigged) futures market.
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throwaway248329 1656 days ago
How exactly was it derailed? Creators of 2X stopped the fork because it was clear that majority of users were against it and that miners would be forced to mine it at their expense.
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wmf 1656 days ago
The will of the majority of users was not at all clear to me.
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osigurdson 1656 days ago
I suppose that leads back to my original question. What are the names of the people that control Bitcoin? Should we wait until this group does something that is not in the best interest of Bitcoin holders to find out?
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landemva 1656 days ago
You can look on github for code commits. Those have IDs with the code.

Not sure how you would determine how to contact all the full node owners.

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wmf 1656 days ago
It is a problem IMO that Bitcoin has no documented governance process so it's basically "if it prosper, none dare call it treason". As for who the CEOs and whales are, you can Google them.
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throwaway248329 1656 days ago
That's a good thing. Having an established governance process would be an attack vector.
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