<i>&gt; We are, after all, talking about the rules of a currency that was created in part to take away from central bankers, politicians, and the masses</i><p>Ah, no we are not. The last part, about &quot;the masses&quot;, was tacked on later by the people who fear democracy. That was never a part of the original vision. Quoting the white paper:<p>&quot;The proof-of-work also solves the problem of determining representation in majority decision making.&quot;<p>Indeed, it&#x27;d have been a nonsensical goal to try and stop &quot;the masses&quot; changing Bitcoin, because &quot;the masses&quot; are the only thing that give a currency its value and attempting to produce a currency that literally nobody can change, even if the vast majority of people decide to change it, is simply not possible to do with software. That&#x27;s why we call it soft-ware.<p>Unfortunately, the Bitcoin community has been completely wrecked by people who truly, deeply believe that &quot;decentralised&quot; money means &quot;money controlled by a tiny cabal of developers&quot; rather than the more obvious interpretation of &quot;money controlled by its users&quot;.