Authority in Bitcoin: What Role Does It Play?

By November 13, 2015Bitcoin Business

Bitcoin Authority In case you weren’t aware, Bitcoiners hate authority. It is the central thing we want to avoid in finance, as well as any other industry that can be placed on the blockchain. We consider it inefficient, immoral, and just plain wrong. This makes sense for an anarcho-libertarian movement, but even anarchists have people they listen to. Merriam-Webster defines authority as “the power to give orders or make decisions,” a vague description that doesn’t describe how such power is acquired or what the consequences are. If we’re going to rail against authority all the time, we should really do better. In reality, there are many different types of authority, some more subtle than others. While Bitcoin does an admirable job of resisting control, even the blockchain and peer-to-peer technology cannot fully prevent corruption. Here I’ll explain who they are, how they work, and what influence they have over the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin Authority Violent Violent authority is that wielded by police officers, the essential basis of all government control. If you fail to submit to other disincentives such as fines, you have to deal with them–the enforcers of the ruling class. Disobeying such people gets you restrained, beaten or worse, and more than any other type of authority, you are forced to comply. You could call violent authority the ultimate authority; if another authority comes in conflict with a violent authority, the non-violent authority typically loses, at least in the short term. Violent authority has no inherent concern for right or wrong, and is for this reason the most hated kind–the one Bitcoiners are generally talking about. Good news, though: this is the type of authority to which Bitcoin is most impervious. There is no central server to confiscate, so destroying the network would require them to take […]

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