They probably could attempt to exploit the code if they wanted to but anyone from the community can review the code and I'm pretty sure that every change that they bring is scrutinized by experts worldwide. There are plenty of people with big amounts of money invested in Bitcoin, I doubt they would rely entirely on trust and faith.

Bitcoin is decentralized and Open source , any one can view the code and no Satoshi Nakamoto didn't choose anyone that's why he made Bitcoin open source in the first place .
If you have enough knowledge in C/C++ you could contribute to the development as well.

I can indeed contribute, but this doesn't matter if my code doesn't get approved. My code may be good enough for the Bitcoin community but it may harm the developers' interest. Look at the block size!

Those decisions (block size) aren't taken simply like that . See here : https://medium.com/@bitcoinroundtable/bitcoin-roundtable-consensus-266d475a61ff
Blocksize should be 2mb next year as far as I know (if they have enough support) , I'm not sure what kind of support though. since they said "community support"

I often read 'it's open source, anyone can contribute'. I'd love to know how many contributions from total outsiders have been integrated. I'm going to guess it's not very many.

Exactly! Nobody knows how is the code of outside contributors is approved. One piece of code can make much sense to one developer and in the same time no sense to other developer!

And what is this code patches a security hole?

You can clearly see who can approve new code in GitHub here.

And here.

actually i believe that the community has a great power in this. imagine they add a code that you don't like (i can't give any example nothing comes to mind) but if a lot of users don't like it they will simply stop using bitcoin or stick to the old version and the new one will become abandoned by the community. so they will be forced to remedy that.

i guess if someone wants to contribute he has to prove to be trustworthy.  but the codes being opensource created a lot of bitcoin like coins.
 this is why you can see there are tons of altcoins.

It is not.


Which code? Electrum? MultiBit? Coinbase? F2Pool? Eligius? Bitcoin-Qt?  They each have their own developers and each have their own people in control.


It looks like you are only asking about the Bitcoin-Qt (also called the "Bitcoin Core") code? There is NOTHING OFFICIAL about that code.  That is just one repository that a group of developers have chosen to contribute to, and which some people choose to use.  It currently has a lot of influence only because a lot of people like to use it.  If people decided they liked a different repository instead, then that current repository would lose all its influence.


They are the people that have chosen to voluntarily spend a lot of their own time working on that version of the code.


They don't control all the source code. They only control Bitcoin Core.  Anyone else can create any code they want without any permission required from anyone.


Nope.  They just started contributing all on their own.


Well, it would be nice if more people would contribute, but I'm not going to force someone to contribute if they don't want to.


If the users are foolish enough to believe that anything those guys put out is automatically acceptable, then yes, they can exploit that foolishness.  If the users are astute enough to review changes and are careful not to run maliciously exploitative code, then no.


Then fork the code and convince the Bitcoin community to use your better code.  If you can convince enough of the community that your code is better, then those other developers become powerless.  If the community doesn't like your code and prefers the code that the other developers are putting out, then they can keep running the other code.  Either way, the community gets what they want.


No, they don't.  They only have power to approve the new code that is accepted into that particular GitHub repository.  You are welcome to create your own repository, choose what is accepted to your repository, convince other developers to contribute to your repository, and convince users to use your code.


Of course it does.  You can control your own version of the codebase all you want.  If you create something that other users want, then they will use your code instead of the other repository.


It is reviewed and discussed, and if the person in control of that repository is convinced to add it, he does.


Which is why it is reviewed and discussed by multiple developers.


As long as it doesn't do anything else that isn't wanted, then it will probably be accepted.  Or you could just add it to your own version so others that want the patch can have it.


Nope.  Anyone can change the code.  All you need to do is convince people to use your version.


They work on the code, and people like what they are doing, so people use the code that they create.


Effectively, yes.  They create code, and the community "votes" by either choosing to use the code that they create, or choosing to use someone else's code.


Yes, they could.


Probably.  Why would it matter?  Either they create code that people want, or they don't.