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I understand that there is no central authority on Bitcoin, but I can't understand who takes decisions on "forking" the blockchain.

Here it was mentioned that the "Bitcoin community voted"—how did that happen? Who is the community? I assume anyone? If so, how can one vote?

I was reading about a hard-fork coming on 16th of November and I don't really understand how that works.

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  • That answer you're quoting is actually pretty horrendous and full of factual errors and confusing irrelevant details. No voting was involved, only signalling readiness.
    – Jannes
    Commented Nov 5, 2017 at 22:33
  • @Jannes But tho, it's accepted answer and quite upvoted. Shouldn't it be flagged/moderated in this case?
    – Ionică Bizău
    Commented Nov 6, 2017 at 12:08

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No-one decides literally for everyone. Miners make the decision to exploit one proposal rather than another one, so whenever miners disagree and don't follow one protocol to around 100% then a fork happens.

In this case (of B2X) it is the proposal of Segwit2x that will or will not be followed.

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    Miners make only one decision: whether to maximize profit by mining the most profitable chain or to lose money and eventually go out of business. Bcash clearly shows this in action: because of their buggy difficulty adjustments, there are short periods of time when it's a little more profitable. Otherwise it's a complete waste of electricity and even the loudest proponents of Bcash (Roger Ver) do not mine it.
    – Jannes
    Commented Nov 5, 2017 at 15:07
  • @Jannes well indeed it is supposed that miners maximise profit. But sometimes ideological factors can influence their behavior as seen by the proponent of the flippening. In the end rationality should be making the decision.
    – David
    Commented Nov 5, 2017 at 15:47
  • @Hollossy It's still unclear to me: how does somebody propose something? What is Segwit2x?
    – Ionică Bizău
    Commented Nov 6, 2017 at 12:08

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