Bitcoin Q&A: Decentralized Power, Leaderless Governance

Bitcoin's market-based governance system & the five consensus constituents: developers, miners, exchanges, merchants, wallets. Bitcoin's "election" is held every 10 minutes and determines the most valid, longest cumulative difficulty chain. Consensus choices have monetary consequences. We need to be patient and have the long-view perspective. Many innovations have been developed over the last two years while bitcoin has been in political deadlock and "failing to scale." This is a system of hard promises that can be softened (if you choose), that resists takeover, that is leader-less. Some people love free human expression and autonomy; others look at it and think, "Oh, you mean there's a vacancy at the top? Where do I send my application?" The things we accept and the choices we make today, as participants in this network, will make a huge difference 20 years down the line.