Bitcoin is the currency that anarchists and libertarians everywhere were waiting for. A completely decentralized form of money that could be exchanged digitally, and is completely controlled by the community. A currency that could stop wars, and end corrupt centralized governments all across the world. Bitcoin is the freest form of money to ever exist. For the first time, you can be heard, and the community gets to decide what path is best to take, but is that actually true? Is Bitcoin really as free as we think it is?
There are several main avenues for users to communicate about Bitcoin. The first is the r/Bitcoin subreddit, second is the Bitcointalk forums, and lastly is Bitcoin.org. Together these sites create a giant information hub used to onboard new users to Bitcoin. There’s only one problem, all these informational sources are controlled by the same person. One anonymous Reddit user, who goes by the name of Theymos. Theymos has the power to moderate all these outlets the way he sees fit. And moderate he does.
There are swaths of users who have reported that Theymos has censored posts on these websites specifically to influence users to not support any proposals that would increase the Bitcoin blocksize. To him, this was an assault on Bitcoin, and he was very against having any cryptocurrencies existing that were not what he perceived to be the real Bitcoin. He was desperately afraid that the community would decide to take on these newer proposals, so he took that choice away from them.
In a community where the core principles revolve around decentralization and freedom, this should give you pause but most people do not understand what's happening. In fact, chances are you've never even heard of this situation, but If you’ve been within the community for more than five minutes, you’re likely familiar with the violent reactions that often occur when Bitcoin Cash is mentioned. Everyone has been lead to believe that Bitcoin Cash is bad, a scam, etc but it’s doubtful that any of those people actually know why, and it’s unlikely you’ll ever hear anything in defense of Bitcoin Cash either, as every reply is swiftly downvoted into oblivion.
It was honestly disheartening for me to realize that the technology I believed was in the hands of the community is actually tightly controlled by a few who only care about their own personal interests. The Bitcoin network is falling behind, and the core developers don’t seem to have any intentions of fixing it. Many of them will continue to deny that Bitcoin needed a block size increase at all, a ludicrous statement considering the state of the network at the time.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, handed the keys to the castle so to speak to a man named Gavin Andresen. Gavin had been involved since the beginning and had become the lead developer for the project. Gavin soon fell out of favor with the other core developers however, when he began to disagree with the direction they thought the project should take. This lead to some violent attacks on his character, purely for the suggestion that the block size should be increased. This also lead to the censorship of any mentions on r/bitcoin of these proposals from anyone. Theymos knew that the community would ultimately decide to use one of these new proposals, and rather than allow them to make their own decision, they decided to restrict access to this information. This makes Bitcoin no better than an authoritarian country, restricting the choices of its citizens in the name of doing what’s best for them. This is the centralization that you’ve been lead to fear, hiding under your own nose. Ironically, these are exactly the things that Bitcoin Cash has been accused of, but who is telling the truth here?
If we dig deeper is there really any evidence to mark Bitcoin Cash as the villain that we’ve all been lead to believe that it is? Gavin Andresen doesn’t think so. He publicly backed Bitcoin Cash upon its release, stating that is was most inline with Satoshi’s vision for a decentralized payment model, and there are countless others who agree with him.
Bitcoin Cash dared to make public that Bitcoin had a problem, and that has lead to a massive attack on the currency and any who dare to align themselves with it. To me, Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin. I think in time the rest of the community will see the same. DYOR and stay vigilant. There are wolves in sheep clothing among us.
