Bitcoin Forum

After reading some articles from https://endthefud.org/, I am still not fully convinced that Bitcoin is decentralized and without Bitcoin being decentralized, it carries little to no value.

Despite many supporters claiming that no government has control over the Bitcoin network or price (and that even if they do have control, they wouldn't hurt it due to innnovation), this seems to be proven untrue time and time again. For example, over the years, everyone labelled China threats as FUD and that they would never completely ban Bitcoin. Earlier this year China banned BTC mining, and over half of the entire network shut offline in the following weeks.

Also most recently with the Infrastructure Bill, the broad language used to define a “broker”, is a major blow to decentralization.

The arguments in the endthefud article don't seem to hold up. The articles claim that governments can't and won't cripple Bitcoin's decentralisation and even if they try to ban it, other governments will embrace it. While the second part is true, we're starting to see first hand that the first part is not with China turning their back to crypto. And now US and UK also starting to turn their back to crypto. If Bitcoin can be crippled with a little tax provision in a bill, is it really going to stand the test of time as being decentralised? And if it's not decentralised, what other value does it have?

You are exaggerating and yet again I will be questioning the motifs why's that.
China problems did not shut "over half of the entire network", not even half of the hash rate, if that's what you wanted to mean. (Although hash rate and network are... different concepts.)
Then "US and UK also starting to turn their back to crypto" is plain FUD and complete misinterpretation of reality. The fact they tax crypto businesses sound as acceptance to me. Yes, the tax law is not properly written and average Joe may get in trouble (financially) and that could affect decentralization on some degree, but not as big as you (or your sources) inflate it.

The word "decentralized" never actually meant that the government or any central authority can't and won't cause any harm to Bitcoin. They surely can cause a bit of damage(as seen with the temporary drop in hash rate), but the fact is, they can't shut it down. You know why? Because Bitcoin is decentralized!

You're the one who is illusioned, bitcoin being decentralized meant that there's no central authority that guides, govern or manipulate the coin but that that doesn't mean that it's market can't be taken over by government or individuals who have a lot of bitcoin and influence that they can easily move the market to where they want it to be.

According to your statement, China has shut down half of its mining plants. What impact does that have on Bitcoin? It's just about short-term price fluctuations. There is no need to amplify the influence of China's policies. On the contrary, China's influence will become smaller and smaller.

How do you understand decentralization?

Compared with the existing centralized electronic cash system (online payment system), Bitcoin is the complete opposite:
The currency issuance of the online payment system is centralized, and the issuance of Bitcoin is decentralized;
The currency flow of the online payment system is centralized, and the transaction of Bitcoin is decentralized;
The online payment system maps currencies in the physical world, and Bitcoin does not map any existing currencies;
The online payment system itself does not issue currency. Bitcoin is issued out of thin air in the digital world.

In terms of decentralization, the Bitcoin system has reached its limit. The initial stage of decentralization is automatic, that is, it runs automatically according to rules set by people, while the advanced stage of decentralization is autonomous, that is, fully autonomous and spontaneous. As an electronic cash system, the Bitcoin system has reached the ultimate state of decentralization :
As a currency application, not only is its transaction autonomous, its issuance is also autonomous.
As a computer network, it is completely decentralized, not just a distributed network.
As an organization, it is completely community autonomous, and there is no need for a leader to coordinate.

Decentralization is at the core of the blockchain thinking model, and Bitcoin has achieved the ultimate decentralization.

Braininactive nothing was proven untrue except in your mind, and banning miners from China only proves that their government can't control Bitcoin and miners.
Miners simply moved to other countries and even if hashrate dropped much more it wouldn't really hurt Bitcoin, especially looking at bigger picture of hashrate.
China want's total control of everything including currencies, so they made digital yuan to track people, and they don't want Bitcoin messing up their plans.

It is not affecting decentralization and it would be stupid to say that someone is controlling Bitcoin just because of some bill that is not going to be applied until 2023, and it still needs to be confirmed in House of Representatives.
The very act of making bill like this is proof that Bitcoin is decentralized and controlled by nobody, but big players can manipulate BTC price just like for any other asset, but that does not affect decentralization at all.

There is no such thing as complete decentralization, sorry to burst your bubble. You can only achieve complete decentralization if every user of Bitcoin is mining by themselves, ie. 1 CPU 1 Vote. That has never been the case for anything, because you cannot stop people from expending more resources into mining. There was a sharp drop in difficulty but the est. network hashrate has been rising for the past few weeks. People moving their operations out of China is more of a precautionary measure; China banned Bitcoin mining but it also doesn't mean it can be done overnight.

The crackdown did not cripple Bitcoin at all, the network was still running smoothly. It is fine for a certain degree of centralization so long as no single entity are able to dominate and control Bitcoin, which is still true.

It may surprise you but China is a country. Not a single person or company. I can go even further with this. Bitcoin is not decentralized - earth (our planet) is resposingle for 100% bitcoin hashrate. If earth will decide to stop mining ... btc will die!

Now let be serious. Lets sum up this China ban event. The most populated country, 4 times bigger than USA in term of population, 18% of world population, economic and military power banned bitcoin... BTC hashrate dropped by half (for short period of time - it was also caused by price dump - less profitable mining worldwide) and ... no effect on end user. End user not even realize what happend. Hashrate is slowly going back up with miners moving to other countries.
The largest cannon has just fired and bitcoin is still here.

What centralized force control bitcoin right now. Name it ... if you clame its not decentralized.

Governments can shut the miners but they can't stop the transaction that is the difference of centralization and decentralization, Bitcoin mining were stopped when the announcement came but in the next very few days the transaction fees are very less than normal it means somewhere someone keep their mining process which is never going to stop as whole.

You're wrong OP, decentralized meant that there's no one at the center and that no one can control bitcoin itself and not the network. Also, you have to understand that bitcoin isn't controlled or controllable, it's the market that's moved and it's expensive to move those markets.

Being centralized doesn't mean not being valuable, as centralized digital currencies also become popular sometimes (such as Ripple, for instance). Likewise, there are tons of decentralized coins that are pretty useless and worthless. So value is not something that sticks only to decentralized or centralized cryptocurrencies. That being said, Bitcoin is decentralized in a sense that there's no center, no single authority/company/person who has it under control. The supply is predetermined, the ownership falls on many people and companies from different countries, nobody can regulate the price, and mining is done by many and can potentially be done by anyone. There's no equal distribution of mining, coins or influence between all the actors, of course, but Bitcoin is nevertheless decentralized to some extent in every aspect.

So just because of the recent impact caused by the cessation of mining in China and then generalizing Bitcoin centralization? Just because it has affected the market price for some time? does the timing of China's crash on the Bitcoin price last? no
decentralized concept is free from central control? Since when did everyone think of China as the Center? we never even said that in either the literal history of Bitcoin or the star of the show.
The logic is simple, If Bitcoin is centralized, seeing the price fall still persists until now.

It's not illusion. Yes, govs can make an ifluence on BTC, ban it or support and that will make BTC go up or down. But it's not directly controlled by anyone and can't be totally shutten down.

China banned bitcoin mining. They did not take control over bitcoin network. If they start mining bitcoin with billions of dollars of investment and launch a 51% attack, that would be an attempt to control. Banning is just moving their fat-ass out of bitcoin which is genuinely great for bitcoin. So decentralization of bitcoin is not compromised here. You need to understand that fact!

Bitcoin is more decentralized than we can think off. China's ban has nothing to do with its decentralization. Rather bitcoin is still surviving because it is decentralized even after China's ban.

The news is always repeated and keeps happening. If your base is Chinese occurrences I don't think it will be valid. If you look at the history, bad problems are always present and will disappear by themselves. Regarding regulation I think some of the news are indeed a lot of arguments regarding tax collection plans for Crypto.
In my opinion, the government intends to take advantage and it could be a step towards a regulation even though the world government cannot control and regulate prices. If it is seen that this is actually a good step, I hope there will be legalization as payment. Because if a tax is imposed then this is like a valuable item that has been taxed. But if the tax provisions are very large, it could kill users who own small assets.

I'm totally agree with you @mk4 its a decentralised so no matter what causes they're trying to do just to shutdown bitcoin the cannot stop it. As the matter of fact if they can maybe bitcoin now is dead as they're really against in it even before..  yes we can say they can give problems on bitcoin especially when it comes adaption and deflation of the price, but the fact that its a decentralised, no need to worry about it. Let them going crazy coz its their choice..

It's about decentralization and centralization? you are still questioning this with the various problems that have recently come? I'm sure you understand it, but don't overdo it and distort the concept of decentralization as if it reverses its true meaning.
Then if it is said that Bitcoin has reached the highest decentralization, will it change the existing program system on the Blockchain temporarily to centralization?
I think we are final, that when Bitcoin has reached its highest decentralization, it doesn't mean it's all over.

It's as decentralized as the ease of running full nodes, taking part in network consensus and keeping the network operational by an independent Global Community. This is not done by a Central Entity and no one can retrict you from running full nodes and helping to keep the network decentralized.

The price can be manipulated just as the price of something as decentralized as Gold can be manipulated, but this will be easier for them without the transparency of Bitcoin Network... better still, it is done by them in secrecy and they can do that to any other decentralized thing that is controlled by demand and supply. You could prevent manipulations if manipulators are within the network and bounded by its principles/rules. This is one of the reasons we need to lessen any form centralization as much as possible

The ban on bitcoin mining in China didn't cause the network to shut down or even affected it in the slightest way, except maybe for the limited decrease in hashrates which was resolved in a short time thanks to chinese miners who moved their operations overseas and the difficulty adjustment which happens every two weeks.
Bitcoin users were able to broadcast their transactions regardless of the incident, although they had to pay higher fees to get faster confirmation (just for few days).
We may argue if bitcoin is fully decentralized or not, but what's for sure is that it isn't centralized as no entity can completely shut it down.

states can only ban the use of bitcoin in their country, but states cannot control the growth of bitcoin, because bitcoin is decentralized by themselves. regarding the case of the Chinese state prohibiting bitcoin miners or the use of bitcoin, but on the other hand, other large countries are competing to adopt bitcoin. so in conclusion bitcoin survives without the influence of a single country.

The thing is I actually do not comprehend what you mean by "highest decentralization", Bitcoin has always been that way, decentralized. That (decentralized) nature wasn't gradually improving or growing, it was that way on the inception of the technology/network, that's why I find it pretty difficult to understand what you mean by if it has reached it's highest decentralization. But that said, and whatever you mean, you should understand that the network can never change to a centralized system, it will always be free from the control of the governments as its users will always "be their own bank".

There is misunderstanding about the decentralized feature of cryptocurrency. To clear it we can use the term distributed nodes or database. Users always mention that bitcoin is decentralized and it is a big threat to the government. Why it is said so, not because the end to end users aren't known. But, the network can't be closed by the governments as the data is distributed. If it is something like a server based network, destroying the server everything can be taken to an end.

There needs to be clear learning about transparency, pseudonym feature and the decentralized working.

So visit Taproot and understand some of the combined security mechanisms that make bitcoin irresistible to decentralization.  Bitcoin has never been under pressure to decentralize under government regulation, which has never happened.  The essence that Satoshi has purposefully built is about decentralization.

Governments can influence the price of Bitcoin, but they can't control it. They can push the price up or down with their actions, but they can't set Bitcoin's price at some target and maintain it, which they do with their fiat currencies to a large extent. Also a lot of their actions can work only once. After China banned Bitcoin mining for real, they can no longer influence price in that way again. Bitcoin being decentralized doesn't mean that it's immune to all influences.

Similarly, governments can ban mining or try to impose some regulations on miners, but they don't control all the miners in the world. They don't even have 51% of miners under their direct control ready to launch an attack. And don't forget about nodes, which are run by thousands of private individuals across the world and can't be realistically regulated because it's just a regular PC.

What decentralized mean to you? Do you think if anything decentralized then you can do anything?  Well Here's little bit mistaken from you. Like what actually we heard this decentralization word. Maximum people will say from bitcoin yes i also hear this decentralization word from bitcoin. And now about bitcoin. If you thought government can track it so this decentralization is just an illusion its actually not. Then let me clarify if it was then bitcoin will become a secondary currency to the world from since 2010. Because government also know about bitcoin technology and it is decentralized thats why they are aware to accept it. But now government approved it all with its decentralization. Because public want it.

I somewhat agree to you. Bitcoin may not be decentralised as we know of it. But it still gives us idea about decentralization and there are lot of coins that might achieve full decentralization so atleast we are going in the right direction and bitcoin has shown as that direction

Whatever the government's decision will not affect the price of Btc.
They will not be able to control Btc. What makes Btc go down or up is only the sellers and buyers. The more demand Btc will be rarer and the price will keep going up. In the end I believe the world will trust decentralists more, Btc or others.

I do agree with you. I’d make a wild guess that decentralization of bitcoin is about 75% as there a small group of Bitcoin administrators that coordinate the Bitcoin ecosystem. Examples of centralized services, include marketplaces and web-wallets. Because users cannot maintain local wallets due to the mainly functionality reasons they have to depend on a web wallet hosted on a remote server and accessible through a website

After reading OP. Every time I convince myself that the FUD is an impressive thing it can convince anyone who has no knowledge of how, why and where bitcoin is going.
Bitcoin is decentralized, this is how its creation has been and in the world at every moment, bitcoin has new users, investors, developers willing to contribute to the power of decentralization. It is your money that you can handle at your convenience, without having to ask your government for permission.
As long as we follow the pillars by which bitcoin was created we are giving it its value and the strength to continue its mission.

I assume you cannot understand the meaning of "decentralized system". In my humble view, Bitcoin is decentralized because no one or no institution can control the Bitcoin price. But that doesn't mean no one or no institution can influence the price. A big country like USA or China, can influence the Bitcoin price if there is a big issue related to Bitcoin there. However, it is just an impact of what the country does, not meaning the controls the price.

Firstly, being able to impose regulations, taxes doesn’t mean control, so the fact that governments are intervening from time to time in crypto affairs to get some profit for themselves doesn’t make them in charge.

Secondly, the interesting thing is that any form of control with Bitcoin is only possible when it’s not functioning as a 100% P2P. No kind of power can prevent people from sending Bitcoin from one electrum address to another. The problems appear when some kind of the third party is present, such as exchanges. Therefore, the governments can ban exchanging, withdrawal, trading, but the network itself, the main function of which is to make direct transactions possible stays decentralized.

Yes, you and others are getting "red pilled" and waking up to the reality. I started a similar thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5354147.msg57680507#msg57680507). Central governments are closing in on Bitcoin and going to use it to monitor and track their own citizens. People need to be aware of what banning KYC, software development and mining will do to Bitcoin. This will have the effect of weakening the hash rate, tracking everyone and funneling people into government friendly, big tech's like PayPal and Square. Eventually, they will ban Bitcoin outright and force people to use CBDC, once everyone is used to the new system. Cash will also be banned. Everything you do will be tracked. This is our future, if people don't stand up for their rights.

Someone once theorized that Satoshi Nakamoto was actually the government. This was all an elaborate scheme to get people to be tracked by a "pseudoanonymous" digital currency. I am cynical, but not that cynical.

However, I do believe the system is already being controlled. It does not take much capital to move cryptocurrency prices or markets. It is done all the time in the stock market.

Bitcoin crashed when:
1. Citadel pipeline was in the news for ransomware. The hackers were hacked by the government. I believe the government was the one doing the hacking in the first place. Suddenly, there was a constant stream of "ransomware" in the media to convince people that crypto was evil. This set up the infrastructure bill.
2. Elon Musk declares Tesla no longer taking Bitcoin. Elon is the government's/elite's puppet - they give him tax subsidies (Solar City, Tesla, SpaceX) and he cons people into thinking what the government wants (invest in Tesla, replace NASA). He is like a puppetmaster.
3. Elon Musk goes on SNL and denounces DOGEcoin / crypto.

China could have effectively destroyed Bitcoin with a 51% attack, just like Bitcoin SV is dying from. There was a study that only about $9B in mining infrastructure would kill Bitcoin. However, crypto would survive, because it is a medusa.

So do the other first world countries, including the US. With the KYC in the infrastructure bill and banning of anonymous wallets in Europe, we have a very dystopian looking 1984 ahead of us.

Not yet completely... it will be soon.

Bitcoin is a true peer-to-peer electronic transaction and allows direct online payments from the initiator to the other party without the need to go through a third-party financial institution. It does not require the government and central agencies to control personal funds.
The Bitcoin system is already a high degree of decentralization. Its issuance and transactions are all decentralized. It runs a complete node and participates in network consensus through a unique Bitcoin network system.

The market panic caused by China's suppression of virtual currencies cannot be regarded as China's control of the Bitcoin network. Price fluctuations in the crypto market will rise or fall due to certain factors. The negative news in China has indeed affected the market. Chinese encryption enthusiasts will also panic. The government is free to choose whether to support or oppose it, but this does not mean that the government can control it.

Lol you got it totally upside down. There are some cryptocurrencies that are more decentralized than others, but Bitcoin is still the most decentralized project by a HUGE margin.

bitcoin has different categories. and each has its own decentralisation/centralisation risks

the data archive is decentralised.
   with probably over 100,000 archive locations of the blockchain all in different locations

the software development.
  category one: basic wallet/services - this is decentralised.
     with many projects everywhere, different purposes, different languages, different userbase.
  category two: protocol decisions -  this is centralised.
     only 1 repo with very censored/controlled access require requests and acknowledgement by certain people. with no regular review/resignment process. no back door to throw out/replace bad actors from the top

the coins, becoming centralised
  with just 1.2mill of 18mill coins belonging to separate addresses of under 1btc..
  meaning over 16mill coins are collected in large volume.
  over 12million coins are in addresses hoarded with over 100coin each

mining, hard to measure
many think hard to measure means its centralised to china. but although stratum pools say they are head quartered in china. the actual distribution is more random, with even chinese tagged pools having US/EU miners

the weakest point of centralisation is still in the single reference client that is not just a reference. but the decision parliament of the protocol. where those in true decision have more power than 'random contributors'

Being Decentralised is its cognitive ability to actualise the true reality of Peer to Peer not essentially the market value, it censors the identity of users. The market movement doesn't in any case make it a Centralised asset. If it is the case it could have been banned by many authorities. However, it still maintains the pseudonym of being the most Decentralised Crypto asset.

It's an old theory yeah but I really don't think the government's that smart. If he was government, then he was acting independently or a few of them were doing it together as funded by governments. I mean there are layers upon layers of state funding and all parallel and oblivious to each other. So if it happened, it was technical but never intended.

There is SOME control of the system for sure, but it still beats every other system out there.

To kill bitcoin you will need to kill all the live nodes with whatever back up data people have. How it's not decentralized?

The best example that Bitcoin is well designed and decentralized was seen a few weeks ago. When the Chinese government shut down miners in the country virtually overnight, the mining output of around 200 exa-hash had collapsed to around 80 exa-hash. But the network adapted very quickly. There were no block generation outages or other problems. Only the price had fallen, but that has nothing to do with decentralization but with speculation. In the meantime, the exa-hash size has increased again, as the miners have moved out. For me this was a good proof how well decentralized and stable the whole system is, even if a big country bans mining activities.

How do we know that China didn't take that 120 exa-hash in mining power and is ready to hijack Bitcoin at any moment (51% attack)? They could be manipulating it right now, at least to some degree.

I think OP needs a little more research about Bitcoin and Bitcoin technology. Just keep in mind, Bitcoin will exist as a decentralized cryptocurrency ever technically. Decentralization and manipulation aren't the same things anyway. Pumping and dumping price is a part of the manipulation, doesn't related to decentralization. China bans Bitcoin mining, does it affect Bitcoin technology? No, it won't happen. Just price was dropped due to FUD. The centralized government wouldn't ban Bitcoin from using it. But they would mark it as illegal assets which would affect only the price for some time. Bitcoin technology and price history are fully different things.

correct, they can influence bitcoin only but they don't have enough power to shut it down as its decentralised,  i don't know why there's a bunch of people who still really claiming that bitcoin isn't decentralised wherein despite it's very obvious tho. In fact if government had an access in bitcoin for sure it's now fully down and there's no improvement in it. But see what always happen, bitcoin is totally free in the market there's a problem only when manipulation occur.