I never understood. Where's the democracy here, exactly? A regular user cannot afford to participate in the decision making of the system in any meaningful way. In fact, today, most users don't even directly use it, instead relying on processors such as Coinbase. The "not your keys, not your coins" meme exists due to this. The original paper described a democratic system where people voted with their processors, but failed to take into account that people with more processors get more votes. I find it hard to argue that the system as it currently exists is more democratic than the currency emitted by the central bank of your country.
back
3 comments
Arguably a lot of discussion is open to anyone (Bitcoin mailing list, Core github repo), where anyone is free to post their opinion on topics themselves.
It is not democratic as in "you have a vote to force others to comply to the majority", but more a democratic in "you can try to convince enough people that the major chain becomes how you like it, while the others run a minority fork".
People think "where the money goes, is where the miners go", but the blocksize wars showed that "where the users go, is where the miners go". Miners themselves don't decide on bitcoin rules, users do.
So I personally think that bitcoin is not necessarily democratic, but still highly people/community vs money driven.
> "you can try to convince enough people that the major chain becomes how you like it, while the others run a minority fork".
FWIW, that is also true for fiat. You can become an economist, or a journalist, or a politician, or a pundit, and try to convince your country to do economics differently. It's a tall order, but it's been known to succeed. If this seems harder than the equivalent for blockchains, it's only because cryptocurrencies have much fewer users, so your voice seems more powerful.
Good point. I think the subtle difference is that the traditional political democracy coerces the minority to use the system how they like it (ofc. not everywhere, maybe more on the money/legal tender side of things), whereas with Bitcoin there is no coercion by the majority. The majority would accept one set of currency, while others might use another, however markets will probably always decide on a winner when it comes to currency, which could feel as if you are "forced". Definitely a nuanced topic.
This is a terrifying definition of democracy, "you don't get a vote but there is an informal and non-binding channel to lodge complaints."
That's not democratic at all!
Democracy can be defined as a popularity contest; democracy does not = good. When I and others say "democratized money", it's not to say it is identical to the definition of democracy as it pertains to a populous voting 1 person 1 vote. More like "money that is not controlled by a single source but rather as large a group as cares to participate who also have access to and knowledge of the tech".
When people say democratized anything, it comes across as meaningless marketing speak. I don't mean the traditional non-political use of the word (i.e., simply making something easily accessible to a lot of people).
It's basically trying to claim some good, without having to quantify or justify that in any way.
The US dollar is ultimately controlled by democratic institutions even if you don't count individuals using it as having any control. Therefore it is democratized money by the same vague handwaving.
Additionaly it's also different as in "the majority does not change my rules", they can be wrong in the long run and my rules become majority again.
It might not be "democratic", to me personally it seems fair as you are not forced to run the rules that are imposed by others. It might not be the wise decision, but the market will decide on the "better" rules.
Do you think the 'market' can decide anything if people aren't playing by the 'rules' in the first place? The free market model does not account for widespread fraud.
> "you have a vote to force others to comply to the majority"
is less terrifying to you?
What you're arguing for is "you have a vote (well you don't, but people much richer than you do) to force others to comply to a very small minority", how is that better than majority rule?
Well there are no votes, so you can't force anyone to run anything. You run what you like and hope others do as well. As I said miners follow users, not companies.
i urge you to compare this to any presently-existing monetary system or software project
I can send Putin an email. If I'm sufficiently convincing he might decide to call off his illegal invasion of Ukraine. That doesn't change the nature of his autocracy.
I don't know if this is comparable.
Even if UN would finally vote to deem the invasion illegal (note: it apparently is not by the democratic votes of the UN), it probably wouldn't be stopped either.
I think comparing real world war scenarios with how consensus is found in decentralized open source protocols is a bit intellectually dishonest
well, honestly speaking, Bitcoin community looks to be committed to preserve 21million as max supply. That's a big promise and I love it.
> I find it hard to argue that the system as it currently exists is more democratic than the currency emitted by the central bank of your country.
Significantly less, as the central bank is usually at least accountable to the democratically elected government of the country.