Rather than talking about hypotheticals, it might be better to discuss the actual problems Bitcoin currently faces. The development team for the most-widely-used implementation are mostly in the employ of a particular startup. That development team are refusing to raise Bitcoin&#x27;s maximum block size – presumably because it would be contrary to that startup&#x27;s interests – despite that inevitably resulting in the strangulation of the currency, as it introduces artificial scarcity to the number of transactions that can be processed.<p>That would be bad enough by itself, but how they&#x27;ve handled disagreement is worse. There have been several attempts to fork the primary implementation, producing alternative implementations which support a higher block size. Official bitcoin forums have now banned discussion of these forks, leading to an acrimonious community split.<p>See: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10905118" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10905118</a><p>Bitcoin doesn&#x27;t need an outside infiltration to bring it down. Its own leadership are sealing its fate.