#bitcoin

The Wall Street Journal recently published a sensational article about a handful of mysterious coders-maintainers who back Bitcoin Core and have the power to crash the network at any time! It turns out that Bitcoin Core only has 5 maintainers, with the sixth leaving the group due to burnout and health issues. And only 17 people had the ability to change the code throughout the entire BTC existence. Furthermore, the code base is hosted on GitHub, a Microsoft-owned website... What? Five cripples decide the fate of the world's most decentralized project? While our editor was getting an indirect heart massage, our techs reassured everyone that this was pure FUD and that there are plenty of ways to avoid any of these guys' tricks. Also, the well-known cypherpunk Adam Back has already come up with a counter-argument. Take a deep breath and relax!

The state of Illinois decided to make a difference in the world of blockchain, and it succeeded. The local Senate wants to be able to... cancel bitcoin transactions. According to the Digital Property Protection and Law Enforcement Act, validators must cancel transactions and return the funds to the sender or transfer them to the state Treasury if ordered by the state's attorney. The same goes for smart contracts, which must be rescinded upon a valid court request. Shall we expect a manual sunset in the next bill?