Great question! The Bitcoin software is an open-source project. Control is in the hands of the individual contributors. However, anyone who wants to use and modify the software has the right.
The operators of the Bitcoin nodes have control of the software they run. No one can force a node operator to apply an update they don't want to. So, any significant change to how Bitcoin operates has to be agreed on by those operating the nodes.
What would happen if a lot of the node operators all decided they hate person x or country y and refused to agree to their transactions? Would this be like a government freezing someone’s assets?
That's a good analogy. It's unlikely to happen with the Bitcoin network for a few reasons:
1. Since Bitcoin is decentralized and operators are independent, there's no single authority to appeal to. There is no "Bitcoin, Inc." to petition to get Person X / Country Y frozen out.
2. Bitcoin operators are paid by the transactions they successfully process. If some minority of operators decide they hate X or Y and won't process transactions, they're volunteering the rest of the network to profit from picking up the slack.
3. Bitcoin addresses don't carry personally identifiable information. Bitcoin and privacy is a big topic, but in general it's hard for operators to tell that Bitcoin addresses A, B, and C belong to Person X or Country Y.
For a deep dive on that topic, look into "51% attack" and why Bitcoin is resistant to it.
I enjoyed the read. Who controls the bitcoin software?
Great question! The Bitcoin software is an open-source project. Control is in the hands of the individual contributors. However, anyone who wants to use and modify the software has the right.
The operators of the Bitcoin nodes have control of the software they run. No one can force a node operator to apply an update they don't want to. So, any significant change to how Bitcoin operates has to be agreed on by those operating the nodes.
What would happen if a lot of the node operators all decided they hate person x or country y and refused to agree to their transactions? Would this be like a government freezing someone’s assets?
That's a good analogy. It's unlikely to happen with the Bitcoin network for a few reasons:
1. Since Bitcoin is decentralized and operators are independent, there's no single authority to appeal to. There is no "Bitcoin, Inc." to petition to get Person X / Country Y frozen out.
2. Bitcoin operators are paid by the transactions they successfully process. If some minority of operators decide they hate X or Y and won't process transactions, they're volunteering the rest of the network to profit from picking up the slack.
3. Bitcoin addresses don't carry personally identifiable information. Bitcoin and privacy is a big topic, but in general it's hard for operators to tell that Bitcoin addresses A, B, and C belong to Person X or Country Y.
For a deep dive on that topic, look into "51% attack" and why Bitcoin is resistant to it.