Apr 8, 2022

Letter #101: Bitcoin - A Blockchain Without A Leader

Read now to learn how the lack of leaders in Bitcoin is one of the most fundamental parts of its decentralization.

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Joshua Guest
Your one-stop shop for Bitcoin education!
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Dear Readers,

For a space that claims to focus on decentralization, there sure seem to be an inordinate number of leaders in crypto. Think about it: Ethereum has Vitalik Buterin. Cardano has Charles Hoskinson. Dogecoin has Elon Musk. Ripple has Chris Larsen. The list goes on.

To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a community or protocol that has leaders. After all, no one really complains about Elon Musk being the CEO of Tesla and SpaceEx. But we also don’t call those companies “decentralized”.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, exhibits true decentralization, especially in the category of leadership. There are no leaders. No person or group has the ability to unilaterally change or even majorly influence the code and the blockchain. The only individual(s) who ever came close to filling that role was Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, who hasn’t been heard from in over a decade.

Bitcoin truly is owned, operated, and controlled by each and every one of its users. All of us have an equal say in what happens on the network, from the smallest user to the largest corporation. But do you actually know why?

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