Questions tagged [governance]
Concerned with questions about decisions on how the network is run, who is in control, and how the development process is governed.
37 questions
2
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2
answers
75
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Miners and Nodes: what are their role in protocol updates?
What are the different roles of miners and nodes for protocol updates (governance)? Which group is more important?
4
votes
2
answers
3k
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How does miner voting work?
I always here people talk about miners being able to "vote" on certain things using the block chain. So here are my questions:
1) who gets to ask the questions?
2) what type of questions are being ...
21
votes
7
answers
4k
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Is there a list of core Bitcoin committers?
Where can I find a list of people that can commit directly to the github project?
0
votes
0
answers
58
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What is the maths behind Bitcoin?
I am a math enthusiast. I am now feeling strong interest in bitcoin technology and key research areas. I would like to know what mathematics sub areas are required for bitcoin technology. I am more ...
10
votes
3
answers
944
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Is it possible for the miners to collude to blackmail a single wealthy address?
Imagine if a few miners who together control more than 50% of the network hash power decided to charge higher transaction fees just for addresses containing really large sums.
For example, this ...
0
votes
1
answer
67
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How many people are needed to make a decision to increase Bitcoin money supply? [duplicate]
Yes, it is currently capped at 21m. But it is just a line of code.
Anybody can go and change it to whatever they want and what is needed then is to persuade the miners to accept it. Blockchain ...
3
votes
6
answers
10k
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Who issues bitcoins and how?
I can't find information on who actually issues the bitcoins. I understand that miners generate new bitcoins but what party is responsible for issuance?
3
votes
3
answers
423
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What is the official website for Bitcoin?
What is the official website for bitcoin? bitcoin.com or bitcoin.org
Are other websites linked to bitcoin? What about bitcoin.info, bitcoin.help, crypto.com, blockchain.com?
4
votes
2
answers
602
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Who really controls Bitcoin?
Surely if there was a major bug discovered in the Bitcoin architecture, there is someone who would have the power to push an update and fix it.
Then I assume that they could also make changes for ...
2
votes
0
answers
74
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Who were the Bitcoin maintainers before 2014? When did maintainers gain/lose merge access? [duplicate]
The Bitcoin lead maintainer and co-maintainers have merge access (i.e. they can approve changes to Bitcoin source code). We can see who the maintainers were since 2014:
https://github.com/bitcoin/...
5
votes
1
answer
899
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How do devs decide who should have commit access? what is the process?
Andrew Chow (2020) compiled a great list on when people gained/lost commit access to Bitcoin Core.
Satoshi asked Andresen to take over as Lead Maintainer, and Andresen passed the responsibility to Van ...
1
vote
1
answer
301
views
What will happen when a collision in SHA256 be found?
Would the protocol migrate to another Hash Algorithm inmediatly?
What would be the next? SHA3 or BLAKE 2?
12
votes
4
answers
9k
views
Who controls the Bitcoin software?
Is there anything comparable to a "board of directors" for Bitcoin or is the software on complete cruise-control?
1
vote
2
answers
40
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Organization to keep track of wrongfully obtained bitcoins
I am curious whether there are any organizations that are actively trying to monitor bitcoins from illegal sources.
I understand that 'when done properly' you can make bitcoins practically untraceable,...
3
votes
3
answers
190
views
What is "consensus"?
I’m really struggling to get my head around a particular piece of lingo in the bitcoin/blockchain space, and would really appreciate if someone was able to give a bit of clarity. I have been doing a ...
1
vote
2
answers
1k
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Tezos vs Decred
What are the main differences between Decred and Tezos ?
Both integrate a governance mechanism so they don't seem very different to me.
9
votes
3
answers
952
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How is Bitcoin governed by mathematics?
I keep hearing talks from Bitcoin evangelists that claim Bitcoin isn't governed by any central authority, rather it's governed by mathematics.
What exactly do they mean when they say "governed by ...
2
votes
1
answer
108
views
How would a governmental Bitcoin ban work in practice?
How does a potantial Bitcoin ban work in practice in a regime that a.) at least partially allows access to the Internet, and b.) has at least one payment system that is not closely monitored by the ...
1
vote
1
answer
217
views
Is it possible for the government to censor bitcoin by blocking ports?
I am not very clear about the detailed aspect of the ports.
My concern is, is it possible for the ISPs to block these ports of bitcoin clients and therefore censor bitcoin, even if the internet is ...
1
vote
2
answers
164
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How hard it is to destroy BitCoin system if the government leaders decide to do this?
Just wondering, since the government controls the physical internet. The Bitcoin system could be somehow destroyed by the governments.
I'm just wondering if they want to do this, is it technically ...
2
votes
0
answers
409
views
How will Bitcoin and the Blockchain scale in the future?
I wonder how the whole Bitcoin blockchain system will scale in the future. Given the fact that the size of the blockchain will grow exponentially (roughly a tenfold every ~3 years, looking at the ...
4
votes
2
answers
43k
views
How does bitcoin make profit?
I am wondering how the Bitcoin program makes profit if there are no advertisements or taxes? How do the owners make money off of this?
2
votes
2
answers
149
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How is the human end of the Bitcoin network secured?
Being devil's advocate right now.
If you have a very strong cryptography, however, secure system's Point of Failure is always the human end. We spend hours trying to make Bitcoin secure at core level,...
1
vote
3
answers
436
views
Who Really Controls Bitcoin?
Source: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@dantheman/who-really-controls-bitcoin
This article suggests that governments and electricity companies have the power to control bitcoin. Any truth in this ...
5
votes
1
answer
412
views
What can a person do with special private keys?
The Alert message in the Standard Client will only be displayed if it is signed with a correct ECDSA private key. Should anyone get that private key, they would be able to propagate any alert through ...
6
votes
2
answers
549
views
How do we know that the algorithm of Bitcoin does not embed bugs since inception?
I'm new to Bitcoin. My understanding as a trained economist (and not a programmer or IT expert) is that the key selling point of Bitcoin is the assignment of monetary policy prerogatives to an ...
11
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Do "the official bitcoin developers" control Bitcoin?
Is there one person or organization that controls Bitcoin?
What if Gavin Andresen, the lead developer, or Bitcoin Foundation, "the official bitcoin organization", decide to change something? What if ...
0
votes
1
answer
98
views
Is there any central management of public and private key pairs in blockchain?
Is there any entity in the blockchain that maintains record and manages public/private key pairs of all the users?
2
votes
1
answer
92
views
Who controls the Payment Hub in tumblebit?
Who controls the "Payment Hub" in tumblebit?
Is it another protocol or company or is there something else / someone else involved?
2
votes
2
answers
122
views
Are the miners to decide if a consensus rule is accepted or not? Or are the buyers in power?
I get the impression that every time a consensus rule change is suggested then people assume that the miners/mining pools have the last word if this rule accepted or not. But isn't it up to the buyers?...
1
vote
0
answers
264
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Are the miners concerned with what the pool operators do with their hashpower? [closed]
I've stumbled upon a few posts on the Bitcoin forum about miners claiming that they don't care what the pool operators do with their hashing power as long as they are paid, and some others that are ...
2
votes
2
answers
863
views
How does the network adjust the rate at which the coins are created?
Who runs the Bitcoin network, and how do they adjust the rate at which the coins are created?
0
votes
1
answer
136
views
Any supervisory power on earth to ensure that Bitcoin system will remain resilient if hashing conditions change rapidly?
Assume that Bitcoin value versus the “fiat money” is of great significance and imagine suddenly discounted by 50% or more, the current pools are not in money any more, stop hashing. The current ...
10
votes
2
answers
936
views
Can miners reject transactions from an address?
It is alleged that the stolen Bitstamp coins are in this address. In theory, could miners agree to reject all transactions from this address? And if so, would all miners need to agree or just more ...
3
votes
2
answers
147
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Is Bitcoin a developer only currency and community?
The Bitcoin repo on Github has 7 members. Ultimately, they decide what bug fixes and pull requests get merged. I don't understand how this is decentralized? Yes, it is open source, so anything they do ...
7
votes
1
answer
158
views
Is it technically feasible to "shun" particular bitcoin wallets?
Bitcoin is supposed to be an apolitical currency, but the United States reportedly gained some leverage by amassing over 27,000 bitcoins — and counting. (People seem to be jumping at the ...
13
votes
3
answers
6k
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How is a hard fork resolved?
In March 2013 there was a fork following the v0.8 release. The issue was resolved rather efficiently, as explained in the post-mortem report. However in this process there were winners and losers: the ...