Celebrating The Spirit & History of Bitcoin Independence Day
By Peter Chawaga Bitcoin Magazine's Aaron van Wirdum has covered the technical debate that this holiday commemorates, which culminated in the successful activation of the SegWit protocol upgrade in 2017, better than I ever could. For this year's celebration, our team made a helpful animated video to cover the history as well.
But the history alone doesn't quite explain why Bitcoin Independence Day is important enough to celebrate three years later. I think we celebrate it because we see this as an existential moment in Bitcoin when the good of the many won out over the aims of the powerful few — proof that this universal, permissionless value system was resilient in the ways it needs to be. Evidence of our independence.
"It's not possible to deploy whatever you want on a consensus network," Eric Lombrozo, a key developer behind SegWit and participant in our live stream this year, told Bitcoin Magazine as he reflected on the historyin 2019. "I could want to deploy a million features, but if other people don't want to accept it, it's not up to me. I can't negotiate this on behalf of the network. It's not up to me or anyone else."
Bitcoin Independence Day might stem from an esoteric developer debate, but its resolution was ultimately a recognition of the larger independence that this technology promises from bad actors, gatekeepers, powerful third parties, etc. And I think that will always be worth celebrating. | 
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