Forking hell
A spat exposes unwieldy governance at the digital currency
“FEDERAL Reserve deeply split. Renegade group of board members to create separate American dollar.” Such a headline seems highly unlikely, but this in essence is what is happening in the land of Bitcoin, a digital currency. On August 15th two of its main developers released a competing version of the software that powers the currency. With no easy way to resolve feuds, some are warning that this “fork” could result in a full-blown schism.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Forking hell”
From the August 22nd 2015 edition
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