Wladimir van der Laan, one of the most active Bitcoin developers, has lost access to the Bitcoin Core GitHub repository. The context in which this happened caused the Wall Street Journal to wonder if a few developers do not control Bitcoin. Faced with an increasingly growing controversy, James Butterfill had to react to refute these allegations.
Could the BTC be in the hands of six developers?
Bitcoin Core is client software for the Bitcoin network. Like any software, it must be updated regularly. It is a work that is carried out by a community of developers who all have access to the project’s Bitcoin account. We learned by U Today that one of them, Wladimir Van Der Laan, would have lost access to this account in an inelegant way. Immediately after, voices were raised indicating that BTC would be controlled by six developers. But James Butterfill, Head of Research at CoinShare, clarified by explaining how Bitcoin Core updates work.
” The Bitcoin Core project takes its code changes very seriously. Maintainers play a vital role in merging changes into the Github repository, but they must do so responsibly. If a maintainer were to merge changes without proper review or consideration, other developers would take action. In some cases, they may insist on revoking access to the commit from the maintainer. ” did he declare. According to Butterfill, the role that maintainers play in the development of Bitcoin Core should not be overestimated.
Will the development of Bitcoin Core be impacted?
In his statement, James Butterfill reminds us that: In the past month, 29 authors pushed 177 commits to the master branch and 184 commits to all branches, excluding merges. Our estimates suggest that there are around 300 active developers/contributors in the Bitcoin Github across 1000 individual repositories, making it a very large and active development environment.. »
So despite the fact that he was a very active developer in the community, development should continue without Van Der Laan.
Cryptocurrencies were created with the intention that they would not be controllable by a closed group. But between big mining companies and major developers, can Bitcoin really stay decentralized?
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