On Wednesday a committee at the Federal Reserve will vote on the price of your money. Markets put the odds of a hike near 80%.

On Thursday a developer on a Bitcoin fork floated pausing that chain's new coin issuance for a month, to push back on miners he says are there only for the fees. A month of new coins, held back by decision.

And it isn't surprising. The BIP-110 coin exists because its developers changed Bitcoin's rules once to create it. When the chain stalled in August, they changed the rules again to get it moving. A third change to discipline the miners follows logically from the first two, and there will be a fourth. The moment a money's rules bend for one good reason, it has a process for bending, and every future reason will find that process. That is the entire history of the dollar: not one bad decision, but a precedent, then a committee, then a calendar of meetings.

Which is why Bitcoin has the best defence ever built against people who need to be in charge of the money.

It lets them. Anyone who wants to bend the rules can take their ball and go home. Copy the code, change what you like, go play with your friends. Bitcoin doesn't stop you and it doesn't follow you. It stays exactly where it was, running the same rules it ran in 2009, for everyone who didn't leave.

The dollar has no exit like that. Its control freaks stay in the building.

The people who most want to change Bitcoin end up holding something else.