Isn't bitcoin just turning into an ongoing drama between the small group of miners that have most of the hash capacity and the small group of developers that choose what to implement?
Or are you talking about other cybercurrencies that use different schemes to maintain consensus?
There will always be drama within Bitcoin since it is money, and there will always be people who want to get their hands on and control that money.
For centuries, banks have partnered with the state to monopolize their rents and profits at the expense of competitors. The ultimate example of this is central banking cartels.
> small group of miners
There is a small group of mining pools that together can block certain upgrades to the system. A couple of those pools combine to more than 50% of the hashpower. But they are pools, and pools are made up of lots of contributing miners, who may leave for another pool at any moment.
> small group of developers that choose what to implement
Relative to the total number of Bitcoin miners, company employees, or wallet users, the number of developers is the smallest group. Developers choose what code they wish to write, unless someone is paying them to write certain things. But developers cannot force anyone to run their code. Hence, the ultimate power of consensus is with the node operators of the system.
But all of this is beside the point that parent comments were making about the danger of centralized bank-like services such as exchanges. The decentralized, trustless nature of Bitcoin is such that you can download the client and verify your funds from the Genesis block until today, without needing to trust anyone.
Or are you talking about other cybercurrencies that use different schemes to maintain consensus?