BlackRock recently released an educational video explaining Bitcoin, which I thought was great. It’s amazing to see Bitcoin being discussed on such a large platform. But of course, Bitcoin
Natural News’ HealthRnager argued that “Bitcoin has become so centralized that the wrong people now control most of its algorithms. They are telling us in advance what they plan to do.”
Now let me be clear: this is complete nonsense. The controversy is overblown and the idea that BlackRock will change the supply of Bitcoin is ridiculous. While the statements in the video are technically true, they are only legal disclaimers. This does not mean that BlackRock is planning to inflate the supply of Bitcoin. And even if I did, I don’t have the strength to do it.
Bitcoin’s 21 million limit is standard. This is indisputable. The entire Bitcoin ecosystem – miners, developers, nodes – operates on these core principles. Without it, Bitcoin wouldn’t be Bitcoin. BlackRock, a financial giant, holds more than 500,000 bitcoins in ETFs but has virtually no influence over bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a proof-of-work (PoW) system, not a proof-of-stake (PoS) system. It doesn’t matter how much Bitcoin BlackRock owns. Economic nodes hold the real power.
Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment. Let’s say BlackRock wants to propose a protocol change to increase the supply of Bitcoin. What happens? The vast network of nodes will reject this. Bitcoin’s history proves this. Remember Roger Ver and the Bitcoin Cash fork? Although he had significant influence and holdings, his version of Bitcoin became irrelevant because the majority of economic entities did not follow him.
If Bitcoin could have been controlled by a single entity like BlackRock, it would have failed long ago. The US government, which prints money endlessly, can easily secure 10% of the supply if that’s all it needs to control Bitcoin. But that’s not how Bitcoin works. Due to its distributed nature, no single entity, no matter how powerful, can dictate its conditions.
So don’t worry about BlackRock “changing” Bitcoin. There are strict limits to their influence. Even if you force developers to change the protocol, nodes will refuse to do so. Bitcoin’s decentralization is its greatest strength, and no one, not BlackRock or Michael Saylor, can change that.
This article take. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.