If you talk to a cryptocurrency enthusiast, one of the things that they might say is so great

about Bitcoin is that it's decentralized.

It's not controlled by a government or a company or any single group.

But as our colleague Paul Kearnin recently learned, that's not exactly true.

Many of the surface there is a group of five people currently who have the keys to the

software that most of Bitcoin's network uses who actually do have a lot of influence.

How well-known is it that this group exists?

I don't think it's well-known at all.

For the kind of general public, I would say they're totally unknown.

Almost everyone I talk to is like, what?

There's five people.

And how important is this group of five people that have these keys?

They're critically important to Bitcoin.

This group is called the maintainers.

They're software developers, and they're responsible for keeping Bitcoin alive.

One of the earlier maintainers once said that, yeah, it's a lot of pressure to have like

at the time.

I think it was like a billion dollar asset resting on your shoulders.

Well, I mean, now it's closer to a $500 billion asset resting to some degree on the shoulders

of these five people.

Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Ryan Knutson.

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