The process of "governance" of Bitcoin can be clearly and succinctly defined in one word: anarchy, governance in a voluntary and decentralized system that is completely impossible to "govern" any other way.
"Anarchism" is a very divisive term for many people. The term essentially connotes a chaotic, completely uncontrollable environment, which is inconsistent with what anarchy actually means on any level. Doesn’t match. It is simply a system that lacks a ruler or central authority, and all cooperation and coordination takes place on a purely voluntary basis among peers in the system. The etymology of the original Greek word "anarhkia" itself is "without ruler", where "an" means none and "arkhia" means ruler.
This concept is the underlying reality that Bitcoin operates as a distributed network and protocol, where there is really no one in control of the network. If anything, it would no longer be a distributed system of sovereign individuals voluntarily choosing to interact with each other.
People tend to think of Bitcoin as an objective fact, as a frame of reference for humans, just like the laws of physics exist, which is not true. This notion blurs the boundaries between objectivity, subjectivity, and subjectivity.
Objective facts exist and are not affected by people's subjective beliefs. For example, the law of gravity means that an object with enough mass exerts a gravitational pull on all other objects around it. No matter how many people refuse to believe this fact in the universe, it will not change it. (Subjective) You can convince the entire human race, men, women, and children, that the law of gravity does not actually exist, (Objective) but that doesn't stop gravity from having an effect on them all.
Take the value of the U.S. dollar as an example. Is the U.S. dollar intrinsically valuable? Is this a statement of objective truth? But in fact, it's not. The only reason a dollar has value to an individual is because they subjectively assign a value to it. Why do individuals subjectively assign value to dollars? Because other individuals also subjectively assign value to the dollar, this is intersubjectivity.
This is simply a subjective opinion shared among many individuals. This is the essence of Bitcoin, a distributed intersubjective system. So what is the difference between Bitcoin and USD? Lack of rulers and coercion. There are people who control the dollar system, the Federal Reserve System, the commercial banks that actually issue new dollars by extending credit, the government agencies that regulate their use and can interact with them, it has the tax-paying agencies that require you to use dollars when meeting your tax obligations.
Bitcoin has no analogous ruler, it has no Federal Reserve Board, and no commercial banks dictate when and in what quantities dollars are put into circulation. It has no taxes that anyone forces you to pay, it's just a distributed collection of economic actors who voluntarily run a piece of code in order to interact with each other.
"But Bitcoin has rules", it has rules. Those are rules that people voluntarily choose to join. There was no power structure or governance structure involved in developing these rules. These rules were released into the world by Satoshi Nakamoto, and everyone who has joined the network since then has voluntarily chosen to adopt them. There is no structure that dictates "these are the rules," just a set of rules that everyone chooses to follow completely voluntarily.
Even the changes to these rules that have occurred over the years, and there have been quite a few, have been entirely voluntary, with no governance structure or authority imposed on anyone. There is no "way to change the rules", anyone can come forward at any time and propose a new rule to be added to the Bitcoin protocol and network. People can choose to adopt a new rule at any time, and if enough people do, it is now the rule of the network.
People often assume that since the protocols and networks themselves have rules, there is some framework of "ground rules" surrounding it. These fundamental rules must be followed in order to change the rules of the system itself, or are some binding requirement for the purpose or nature of the system that cannot be changed or evolve over time. This completely fails to internalize the reality of what an anarchist system actually is, which has no rules other than those that people voluntarily choose to follow.
Within the confines of these rules, it is anarchy. Within the boundaries of these rules, anything a person can do voluntarily in their interactions with others is allowed. Even the rules themselves are simply the result of consensus reached through a purely anarchic process of people interacting voluntarily within a framework of their choosing. That's what it is, no matter how much you want to twist the definition to fit some other framework.
There is no authority to turn to here. There are no rules that people must follow, other than the consensus rules themselves, and even this cannot be required or enforced. All you can do is hope that people choose to continue following them out of their own self-interest. At any time, a persuasive individual or group can convince others or even change these rules. If this happens, there's not much you can do about it except try to be more convincing.
This is anarchy. Free association without any form of authority, coercion, or control over how others associate and on what terms. Bitcoin is anarchy, and if that fact makes you uncomfortable or instinctively want to oppose it, then you actually didn’t understand Bitcoin in the first place.
