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And the software of the bitcoin clients is at least in theory determined by the users.

If someone alters the amount of bitcoins out there, my wallet software won't recognize those bitcoins as legitimate.

The value of your wallet lies not in what you believe in, but what everybody else believes in.

The value of bitcoin lies in its immutability. That's the only thing it really has left going for it.

Bitcoin is not immutable. The current chain would make absolutely no sense to a (full-validating) client from 2011 due to various additions and protocol changes.

What it is, as a project, is being extremely conservative, but that's a human political value, not a property of a technical system.

I'm referring to the immutability of issuance and balances. That's the type of immutability that matters.

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