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Censorship resistance

Also · Permissionless

Censorship resistance is Bitcoin’s ability to let any valid transaction through without a gatekeeper. It rests on nobody controlling miners, nodes and developers at once.

A payment system is censorship resistant when no single party can stop a valid transaction, freeze funds or demand permission to take part. Bitcoin achieves this through dispersion. Anyone can run a node, anyone can mine, and no entity can change the rules on its own.

The property is not absolute and not automatic. A pool that controls a large share of hashrate can delay transactions it dislikes. Governments can pressure exchanges, which is where most people touch Bitcoin. Resistance holds as long as users keep validating for themselves and keep an exit from intermediaries. That is why it is a practice to defend, not a feature to assume.

In French · Résistance à la censure

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Definition reviewed on October 22, 2026

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