Bitcoin Forum

Ever since Bitcoin launched, a plethora of altcoins came along with it. Most of the cryptocurrencies are decentralized, but there are a few which are "bad eggs". Depending on the consensus algorithm used, the cryptocurrency can be either decentralized, semi-centralized, or completely centralized. Some say XRP (Ripple) is heavily centralized, while others say it is Binance Chain (BNB). Most people don't care about decentralization as long as they're able to make money with crypto in the least time possible.

That said, I'm curious to know which cryptocurrency is the most centralized in the world today. Is it XRP, Binance Chain, or STEEM. Why do you think such cryptocurrency is centralized? Will decentralized counterparts ultimately prevail? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. :)

Some reasons are having someone at the top that can stop/control the entire network and it's hosted on centralized servers. Others might also add the lack of blockchain transparency (closed source).

You'll have to point out these decentralized counterparts.I don't know of any decentralized BNB, XRP, or STEEM.

They won't. True decentralization is very expensive and unscalable. Its not like bitcoin have around 5 TX/s because bitcoin is old tech that will sooner or later die. Its because thats pretty much what you can have with 100% decentralized chain secured by proof of work. Always when you try to scale up your chain you need to give a little bit of decentralization in return. And we need both decentralized and semi-centralized for different purposes. For storing value we need safe - full decentralization (BTC, ETH). For fast, cheap, efficient swaps we need semi-centralized chains (BNB). Fully centralized chain ... I don't think we need that - its just inefficient alternative for "excell sheet".

The most centralized chain - XRP.

All trading platforms expect the DEX are centralized. binance and co are all centralized exchanges. there are advantages and disadvantages of using these exchanges. the advantages it they charge little fees for trading while the disadvantage is that your money is exposed to exploit. you can loose your funds if the exchange got attacked. exchange might decide what to do with your funds.

I think the most centralised cryptocurrency is cryptocurrency that is not fairly distributed,  has a single point of failure and can not be access by anyone at anytime. Some people say xrp is the most centralized cryptocurrency,  while some argue it is binance coin.  No matter the opinion out there,  the centralized cryptocurrency is not good for openness and transparency we hold dear in cryptocurrency community.

For me I am just concerned about the little profit a coin can produce within a short space of time while a move on to other projects. If a coin is decentralized I might decide to invest more that doesn't mean I tend to neglect other centralized tokens but I invest with huge risk management so as to minimize my losses and maximize my profits

All CEX tokens are centralized. I also consider Tether to be centralized. Actually it is hard to find a cryptocurrency that is decentralized except Bitcoin.

As long as you're transparent decentralization does not matter.

I agree with this, there are many exchanges that have tried to create their own governance tokens, but have not shown the application and role to the market. However, I also find that the leader factor is very necessary for this market, so the issue of decentralization and centralization needs a harmonious combination.

What will make the difference when answering this question? This question will have value when it is the most decentralized currency?
As for the answer, it is stablecoins, specifically BUSD, because they are centralized and completely dependent on BINANCE's promise.
As for the network, it is a BSC (all the nodes are under its management and no one can make a decision except to manage the network) and a centralized Ripple as protocol.

The vision of satoshi and Altcoins developers is now different, the average Altcoins developer-only aims to get rich from the cryptocurrency they created.  satoshi is a legend and the least greedy man in this world, unlike  centralized coin developers ^{(bnb, ripple and many more)} who don't emulate satoshi's attitude who created decentralized coins to improve the world's outdated financial system.

I think BNB is the most centralized. they seem to want to monopolize the crypto market. but no one hates it, because bnb can make huge profits. Unlike other coins, people don't like it, just because it looks centered.

any coin that has a team that could make changes to its code is centralized. BNB can is owned by the binance team which a government could force them to be investigated and maybe even do something with it. Hoskinson of ADA had lobbied personalities and even tried to make contacts with people who can influence markets. XRP is often said to be the most centralized and decisive as well mainly because they separate the entity of XRP token and Ripple. and it is unfairly distributed.

After Bitcoin, I can not see too many project that is decentralized. They were created by a team and it is what you said, changes can be made by the core team.

Some projects try to create DAO votes for decisions but I don't know how decentralized those votes are. Because big nodes can be from core team members and they can distort vote results.

Ripple is bad, totally centralized.
BNB is not too good because there are very little validators. You can compare it to Ethereum validators.
ADA, I don't know.

Most of the projects are centralized in this cryptocurrency world especially everything that is running on BSC I believe so obviously BNB is highly centralized. While if you ask me which centralized project is having huge trading volume the its tether which even exceeded the bitcoin trading volume at some point so they keep printing Billions of tokens and liquidating it.

I will nominate XRP, it's a centralized shit coin. Ripple devs are controlling it inherently and also much XRP coins. It was documented very well when Ripple Labs did engage in very shady activity to hide abuse and manipulation.

Ripple is a bad coin for everyone who supports decentralized crypto. We should avoid it.

in my opinion the most centralized altcoin remains xrp, in second place i would put bnb and steam but also many stablecoins are not decentralized at all, personally i would never invest in this type of altcoin because they remind me too much the traditional bank system

Cryptocurrency was originally decentralized. It is a sector that has emerged to invest and earn money anonymously without being tied to any institution or organization. However, even though it was launched for such a purpose, there is absolutely no decentralization. Ethereum, bnb does not matter which crypto currency you want to buy, you have to use it as an exchange tool. While the majority of these exchange platforms impose a kyc requirement, some do not impose a kyc requirement until a certain transaction. Even in this case, decentralization is gone. In short, I do not think that there will be complete decentralization in the coming years.

The issue is that there are many vectors to consider when we think of a decentralized currency, for example not everything is the technology, it also has to do with how many people are holding the coins, how concentrated is the power of the miners and several other factors.

I think by far XRP is the most centralized coin, not only it can be argued if it is a cryptocurrency at all but the supply of the coin is incredibly concentrated in just a few hands and the developers are under an investigation by the SEC, so if I were to cast my vote to the most centralized cryptocurrency it will definitely go to XRP.

Yes, XRP is centralized, but there is a worse one. BNB!
Binance has full control over BNB and BSC, all hosted on alibaba vps servers

In my opinion, Cryptocurrency centralization is a very good step to maintain balance. If I am wrong, it means that my knowledge is still lacking. Regarding which one is centralized, my answer is Ripple (XRP).

I am 99% sure that XRP could be the most centralized currency ever in existence. Did you know that XRP creators could print more XRP? Yes you heard it right, it happened before, they could print as many XRP as they want and there is nothing anyone can do about it. I do not think that there is any coin that could be as centralized as that. Don't get me wrong there are tons of them that could be called centralized, look at BNB for example, all under the control of CZ or more like Binance as a whole, isn't that centralized? Of course it is, but not as much as XRP.

Or check out Tron, it is under the control of Justin Sun and he decides on the price, does that mean that they are the biggest centralized currency? No it is not, XRP is still the worst. I feel like as soon as you hear the words "print more" you should run away from it as fast as you can.

Whether centralized or decentralized not really matters to most because there is money to be made in a specific time frame or an estimated time, after all the goal of either centralized or decentralized coin in your wallet is to make profit out of it, although having a complete decentralized crypto is much better because that way you won't be face with the chance of exposing your data, or afraid of whatever future uncertainty that may befall the project, nowadays, rug pull is a common practice, and nobody wants to experience such.

There are many fun factors that can be said about centralized cryptocurrencies, Ripple owners hold more than 60% of the total supply of the coins and the total supply is another huge number and still there are many who believe that the price would rally to multiple dollars, the same case with BNB, they are creating a monopoly of the market and BNB is similar to EOS, you only have 21 nodes that check and validate every new transactions and it is true that majority of the people does not care about centralization or decentralization, all they care is making money.

I've quickly thought of Tether and XRP.
It is important to know that you're holding a centralized coin and you've invested a lot on it. But if not, yeah, I agree to you that it doesn't really matter as long as they've got their own markets for you to buy and sell.

The most centralized cryptocurrency is the closest one to have %100 ownership. If you control majority of coins you control the market. Neither XRP nor BNB is nowhere close to being the most centralized cryptocurrency. Most criticism come to them is about controlling ability to network, which is mostly misunderstanding. Almost every altcoin in the market is some level of centralized, it's hard to order these though when you don't have enough information about owners/miners/stakers.

For now, the most centralized cryptocurerrency in my opinion is usdt, since it is a stabilcoin. i know that, xrp, bnb also have centralization properties, but they also still have decentralized properties in price, whereas usdt is indeed completely centralized.

Tether is extremely centralized since accounts can be frozen at will, putting people's funds at risk. USDC also does the same thing. The only decentralized alternative to such stablecoins is DAI. As far as traditional cryptocurrencies are concerned, we could say the most decentralized coin in the world is Bitcoin. Ethereum is decentralized as well, but not as much as Bitcoin is. The past events of the "DAO hack" where the ETH blockchain was "reserved", tells us that Ethereum is a little bit centralized. Not only that, but Vitalik Buterin has strong influence over the project. Bitcoin has no leader, so it's much more decentralized in this regard.

Unfortunately, most people don't care about decentralization these days. They prefer convenience/ease-of-use on top of evertthing else. As long as this is the case, centralized coins will continue to rise like there's no tomorrow. I wouldn't worry about this as long as Bitcoin stays alive and running for many generations. Just my opinion :)

USDT (Tether Ltd), BNB (Binance), XRP (Ripple Inc.), all that are centralized and it can't be more centralized since already one corporation controls the assets. What's more centralized than a company? Hmm... maybe one individual. Perhaps there is some small cap shitcoin that launched, premined, and controlled by one individual.

I think that cryptocurrencies with a centralized system have better development than decentralized ones. But usually centralized cryptocurrencies are prone to price manipulation, because of the centralized system, but that's just my opinion.

XRP, anyone that say anything else is lying to you and there is no other answer that is as correct as XRP because that is THE centralized currency. People may say USDT and they are right that USDT is more centralized that is for sure but they are stablecoin and not a crypto currency, they are a usd pegged stable currency using blockchain tech and I do not think that they deserve to be in the same conversation as other crypto currencies, they are just a different thing. So, when you remove that the most centralized one is XRP.

Definitely there could be some even more centralized in 49423th spot or whatever but that is just doesn't matter, they are way too down the list to be cared for, whereas XRP is a high level coin that could literally crash to under 1 satoshi in a second if the owners of Ripple company decide to do that, they have the button for it and as soon as they push it it is all down the drain.

USDT is indeed an example of a centralized cryptocurrency, but not all stablecoins are centralized. An example of real decentralization among stablecoins is DAI. In addition, all exchange coins can be safely attributed to centralized, including the most popular among them, the Binance Coin (BNB).

For me I don’t say that any cryptocurrency is semi centralized, it’s either that it is centralized or it is decentralized, no other option for me. If a cryptocurrency is semi-centralized, then it is already centralized. If the government should come out tomorrow and say that they want to  take action against all the centralized cryptocurrencies, even the ones you say that are semi centralized are going to be part of what’s going to be affected.

Anyways, as for what to choose, I would prefer a coin that decentralized. Coins that are truly decentralized gives you freedom to do things as you please, so there is no need going for the ones that are centralized.

Bad eggs are not happened ,it was only created.When the algorithm was made with to cheat people.Some investors get into bad eggs.The bad thing was,they won't accepted it had a bad eggs.They keep their more investments on trading of same coin.At the last,they will have huge amount of bad eggs in the basket.

The only way for centralized projects to survive is to use the financial strength of the people in control to determine the price levels and attract more people to participate, if that fails, there is no chance compared to decentralized projects. At the beginning of any engagement you need to set your priorities, most people are here for some quick win, so centralized and decentralized projects have the same affinity, but when there are problems, centralized certainly stand out. I don't know the current situation of BNB, but XRP in my opinion is the main leader of centralization.

Yes, that's true, usdt, xrp, bnb, an asset that is focused on now because it's a stabilcoin, but think about it the other way around, will other market assets decline or will it no longer be concentrated in the eyes of those who invest?
Of course it doesn't happen like that, market assets are not concentrated now because competitors are agile assets in this regard.

Couldn't agree more with you mate. No other cryptocurrency on the market is as centralized as XRP is. The company issuing the coin (Ripple) controls a large portion of its total supply. Imagine if governments begin to crackdown on the company or the company itself decides to hit the "kill switch". This will lead to many undesired losses in the crypto/Blockchain space. Only a fool will consider XRP as a serious long-term investment. It's like a "glorified" banking system greatly defeating the purpose of crypto/Blockchain tech. I'd say XRP is more of a centralized database than a distributed ledger. How long will it survive, it's yet to be seen.

Most people don't care about decentralization these days, so they'll invest into any cryptocurrency that will leave them with a lot of money within a short amount of time. Binance Coin, XRP, EOS, and TRON are all centralized cryptocurrencies subject to the negative effects of a single point of failure. Yet, that hasn't stopped people from buying them. Demand is on the rise for such cryptocurrencies, putting the fate of the entire crypto/Blockchain space in jeopardy. At least, there are decentralized alternatives willing to save the day. As long as there's one decentralized cryptocurrency, nothing else matters. Just my opinion :)

BNB is the most centralized cryptocurrency but I wonder why they can't keep BNB at $500. Centralized cryptocurrencies should be able to maintain price power to protect users' funds, when the price of centralized coins drops are they worth buying? :D

Even if it is centralized, doesn't mean the price won't move. It is all about the demand in the market. While the demand can be varied every day. So, how can maintain the price of the coin? It is also including BNB, the price is also based on the current demand. I don't see a reason of centralized coins to be controlled the prices. If it happens, I suspect people are worried to buy because of the high possibility of price manipulation.

That's the right answer because it doesn't mean it is own by a centralized exchange the price is under their control, still, the coin has a market cap and it has a demand and supply.  It doesn't matter if BNB owns by Binance, it just matters what network they used and who owns this network, if they use decentralized networks it means the coin is also decentralized.

The disadvantage with this centralized owner of cryptocurrencies might be selling a huge supply on a market cap that might turn down the price in the market or it can be manipulated.

The most centralized project today is XRP. this altcoin is really bad, nothing even worse than this coin. I'll bet that XRP is the worst shitcoin. XRP was created only to enrich its developers, for no other purpose than that. the reason why this coin is still at the top, is because XRP is one of the oldest coins and has great exchange support. if problems like the beginning of last year re-occur in the future. then this coin will be die.

I think BNB is one of the most centralized cryptocurrencies. Anyway, earlier.
Now, of course, thanks to the ecosystem, it has become in demand as part of the payment of transaction fees, but what will happen if binanas is banned from conducting its activities around the world.

It's true that nowadays people only focus on trading with relatively short profits and they can get a lot of profit, but isn't DEFI now an alternative? and currently I am more interested in 1inch tokens, maybe this token can be a consideration for long-term investment. That's just my opinion because everyone has their own investment system, as mentioned above.

they care because it is hard to make money if the coin is centralized like for ex. if its a pos , only the whales can stake big coins and gets the reward but there will be less chance for the regular individuals .
why etherium is not included ? eth is is also turning into centralized and then next would be binance  .
xrp is not a pos and steem is not big as the three  .

The same thing will happen with all other centralized coins if negative events occur with the company that is the issuer. This is the reason for the danger of investing in centralized coins, because they are dependent on the well-being of their issuer. So in the event that you have centralized coins, you need to follow the news that is associated with the issuer of this coin.

According to Vitalik Buterin, there are three main features: scalability, decentralisation and security, and all projects can have only two of them.

Let’s look at  BNB, I consider it to be very centralised, it is regulated by Binance. But I think that the most centralised currencies are collateralized stablecoins like Tether. They are totally dependent on their collateral, and sequentially, on the company they were emissioned by.  :-[

I do agree that USDT is the most centralized but you are forgetting that they are stablecoins and not crypto coins, there is a big difference between them, one of them is just a blockchain based version of the dollar we have always seen, I can literally have dollars in my pockets and it would be the same thing, the only reason USDT ever exists is the fact that people trade crypto using stablecoins and that's it, hell I can use my local exchange and they just credit me with the local currency without needing USDT at all, I do not know why there is any need left, if you want fiat you can turn your crypto into fiat on exchange nowadays.

What I do not really understand is the fact that people are acting as if they are crypto, they are not. It is not the same as XRP or BNB or TRX which are centralized but at least crypto currencies, they are totally different.

BNB is extremely centralized. But stablecoins are worse. I've seen many times where both Tether and USD Coin's respective issuers froze users' funds at will. They've essentially "blacklisted" certain ETH addresses because transactions were deemed suspicious. This tells us that using stablecoins is no different than using an ordinary bank account.

Most people are miseducated about crypto/Blockchain tech, so they're made to believe that everything is decentralized, when in fact, it's not. As long as the majority has this mindset, centralized cryptocurrencies will only grow bigger over time. There's no need to worry about a few cryptocurrencies becoming centralized as long as there's one decentralized alternative on the market. Bitcoin may be all you need to obtain true financial freedom thanks to its decentralized and censorship-resistant design. I hope it stays that way forever so that Satoshi's vision could be fulfilled. Just my opinion :)