Adam Back Argues Bitcoin Consensus Is Non-Democratic Despite "One-CPU-One-Vote" Line

On February 17, 2026, Adam Back reiterated that Bitcoin's consensus mechanism should not be interpreted as a democratic system, despite the "one-CPU-one-vote" wording in the 2008 whitepaper. His stance has resurfaced amid debate over BIP-110 and its User-Activated Soft Fork design, which highlights the primacy of validating nodes over miner hashpower in enforcing protocol rules. Back also warned that contentious soft forks without broad alignment could fragment the network and weaken Bitcoin's role as a monetary system.