{"id":10251,"date":"2022-04-05T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci029dee1a500027cb"},"modified":"2025-10-01T13:07:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:07:40","slug":"change-the-code-campaign-against-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/change-the-code-campaign-against-bitcoin","title":{"rendered":"The Ripple Effects Of Change The Code\u2019s Campaign Against Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Greenpeace USA and the Environmental Working Group (EWG), with $5 million in backing from Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen<\/a>, recently launched the Change The Code Campaign<\/a>. This lobbying effort \u2014 steeped in misinformation and outright falsehoods \u2014 sensationalizes the climate impact of Bitcoin and promotes irrational moral panic. The campaign is underpinned by widely debunked paper<\/a> and publicly pressures roughly 30 so-called influential people in the Bitcoin community to change its consensus mechanism from meritocratic proof-of-work to low-energy alternatives, such as oligopolistic and plutocratic proof-of-stake, without advocating for a specific solution.<\/p>\n

The campaign reads like a real life version of the \u201cI just discovered Bitcoin and I\u2019m here to fix it<\/a>\u201d meme, which pokes fun at noobs who don\u2019t understand that Bitcoin is already hyper-optimized for immutability, security, reliability, censorship-resistance, and is intentionally extremely difficult, if not impossible, to change.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin Is Immutable<\/h2>\n

Bitcoin\u2019s unique architecture of user-run full nodes ensures that so-called thought leaders in the Bitcoin community could not change the foundational properties of the protocol, even if they wanted to. Its immutable, backwards-compatible architecture is what attracts people to Bitcoin in the first place and is what makes Bitcoin the apex digital asset. For the campaign to suggest that these powerful individuals could force a change in the protocol is absurd and suggests that Larsen and his campaign\u2019s collaborators do not grasp Bitcoin\u2019s architecture, purpose and resilience. If not that, one might assume that there are perhaps nefarious motives behind the campaign. In a recent interview Larsen said:<\/p>\n

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\u201cA big part of getting carbon neutral is, \u2018Don\u2019t use energy where you don\u2019t need it.\u2019 You don\u2019t need energy to confirm the state of blockchains. So, make the damn code change! And I tell you, I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to happen voluntarily. Look, this is not some secret AI that runs Bitcoin. It\u2019s about 20 to 30 very influential, very wealthy, people that are going to make that decision. Between the core developers, the exchanges and miners. By the way, there\u2019s a fascinating book I\u2019ve been reading called \u201cThe Blocksize War.\u201d And it\u2019s fascinating, because it kind of goes back to one of the big changes that was proposed to increase the block size and how that played out. And that was a very small group of people that prevented that. So, again, this is a small group of people\u2014that are incredibly wealthy\u2014that could make this change. But, they\u2019re not going to do it voluntarily, because they\u2019ve been making this pitch for ten years.\u201d \u2014Chris Larsen<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Beyond the fact that Larsen\u2019s plan involves forcefully coercing Bitcoin\u2019s users into complying with his wishes, Larsen\u2019s description of Bitcoin is factually incorrect; it is either deceptive or shows a fundamental lack of understanding for how Bitcoin works. A small group of people did not stop the block size from increasing and 20 to 30 wealthy individuals do not control Bitcoin, by any stretch of the imagination. The Blocksize War proved that miners and powerful individuals, with more than 80% of the global hashrate, were not able to control Bitcoin. The Blocksize War<\/a> was won by many thousands of individual users, each running inexpensive and lightweight full nodes, who blackballed the small group of wealthy individuals that wanted to change the code<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear if Larsen is incredibly confused or intentionally deceiving the general public. But let\u2019s give him the benefit of the doubt for a moment, for a brief thought experiment. <\/p>\n

Imagine for a moment that Larsen was somehow successful in convincing three dozen or so wealthy and influential individuals to change the code<\/em>. By stating that this won\u2019t come voluntarily, presumably he believes he can force a change on the network. How would that work? Suppose he is able to convince enough developers to create a new and improved version of Bitcoin Core. Even if the developers were to agree to implement the change, and even if the most influential miners and exchanges agreed to use that new upgraded version, Bitcoin would not change.<\/p>\n

Why? If Larsen had read \u201cThe Blocksize War\u201d more carefully, he would have understood that the Bitcoin network simply does not propagate unless the many thousands of full-node users agree to run the new software. Without full-node operators agreeing to run the software, the miners and exchanges would have no functional mempool or blockchain to interact with. In fact, one of the features of Bitcoin is your ability to choose which backwards-compatible version of the protocol you want to use. You, as an individual, make that choice\u2014and you have no incentive to give up that individual power.<\/p>\n

Even if miners and exchanges ran their own full nodes, users with full nodes would continue to interact with the Bitcoin network through the original backwards-compatible soft forks that guarantees each user\u2019s freedom to reject an upgrade. This is why forks of Bitcoin, like Bitcoin Cash, are not Bitcoin \u2014 the overwhelming majority of user full nodes want nothing to do with them. Just like the Blocksize War, the miners and exchanges would be forced to follow the will of the node operators if they wanted to participate and profit off of the Bitcoin network and its users.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin is a decentralized network where the users control the infrastructure and centralized companies that want to do business with the network have no choice but to support the backwards-compatible features that users collectively choose to run on that infrastructure. As the Blocksize Wars already proved, users will not install software that diminishes their rights or sovereignty. Bitcoin would not have its unique immutable properties if the code could be changed. Its decentralized infrastructure, controlled by users, is necessary for censorship-resistance and inflation-resistance. If Bitcoin users really want to cede their control over to wealthy individuals, running centralized servers with smaller energy footprints, they are free to sell their bitcoin and buy Ripple.<\/p>\n