Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Who is the single most influential person in Bitcoin?
by
boris1044
on 13/11/2019, 20:29:48 UTC
In other words:
If you had to choose one real person to represent Bitcoin (in the public or in a debate against other crypto currency representatives), who should it be?

(It's clear that Bitcoin isn't led or represented by any single one person officially, which is what makes that question so hard to answer. It's also clear that this is feature, not a bug!)

Either "no one" or "Satoshi Nakamoto". Thankfully, Satoshi isn't around anymore, making it currently no one.

This is a good thing, because extremely powerful influencers are a naturally centralising force on decision making. Many people prefer to follow someone they agree with and stop thinking critically when that person says something they otherwise might disagree with if said by someone else.

There are some people that I consider very influential, very clever, and very aligned to my views. People like Andreas Antonopoulos, Saifedean Ammous, many of the core devs, and so on. However when I find myself agreeing with them too much, I often go out of my way to find things I strongly disagree with them on so that I can maintain a healthy level of criticality when they say something else that requires careful examination.

To note: I haven't yet found anyone that I agree 100% with; and I consider that to be very positive. I even probably disagree with Satoshi about a couple of things based on some statements he made, but since he's not around to discuss them and elucidate/clarify his opinions further, I won't say that with certainty. I will say however that I disagree with the interpretation I have of a couple of things that he said.