Bitcoin Forum

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

Bitcoin network is not centralized. This is what we should related to centralization. Since many years ago were centralized exchanges and custodial wallets which are all centralized but the purpose of bitcoin to be used for P2P on noncustodial wallet has not changed. Also no organization is controlling bitcoin.

How do big companies and investors buying and holding large amounts of bitcoin move Bitcoin from being decentralised to centralized? The amount of Bitcoin that those said organisations buy and hold is the only set of Bitcoin they have total control over.
 
The Bitcoin blockchain itself is decentralised, and it has not changed from that yet. Being decentralised means there is no central control over the network, like the developer of most alt coins can control and freeze your asset because it's in your wallet. 
 
The only time I can argue and believe that Bitcoin has been centralised is if censorship is introduced and implemented, which actually is against the purpose of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is still decentralised because no single entity can claim to control it. But I cannot deny that the massive investment of some institutional investors such as the ETF providers would not influence the sector in the future. These firms are massively acquiring Bitcoin and might be able to influence the price movement with their inflow or outflows. But Bitcoin will always decentralised because there is a silent majority that is using Bitcoin without these centralised intermediaries. Like  Nwada001 rightly said, the system will become centralised only if the government make policies that will promote censorship which might result in the blacklisting of wallets or addresses.     

You may be confusing bitcoin with fundamentally flawed altcoins such as ethereum.

This is one of the reasons why the Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol is fundamentally flawed. If someone controls a large number of coins of a PoS coin they gain a lot of power in that chain. Good news is that Bitcoin is using Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm not the flawed PoS that some shitcoins use. Which means it doesn't matter how much coins any entity has, it gives them no power over Bitcoin. The only thing they can do with large amounts of bitcoin is to influence the market and that's pretty much it.

The Pareto principle says 80% of bitcoin would belong to 20% Bitcoin owners. This principle works for many areas and cases, I believe it continues to work rightly for Bitcoin distribution too especially if we only count unlost bitcoins.

https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html
https://www.bitcoinmagazinepro.com/charts/hodl-waves/

If you use the second chart for HODL waves, and account for possible unlost bitcoins, you will see Pareto principle works.

No. Its decentralization still exists, with network hash rate distribution and with Bitcoin full node distribution.

https://buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/by-country/
https://bitnodes.io/

Bitcoin remains decentralized now or forever, period. There is no question that Bitcoin is still decentralized or not just because more people or companies are interested in it. In fact, we can say that the distribution of Bitcoin is still at a level that is not alarming, even when there are several companies or individuals who hold hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins in their wallets. People who want to invest in Bitcoin can still buy it even for as little as a few dollars - and they can freely buy or sell Bitcoin without anyone being able to intervene with their transactions.

Let's say hypothetically that CIA is actually the creator of BTC (as per conspiracy theories), how decentralized is it if they sell their 1M+ stack to like already big holder BlackRock/Microstrategy? :/

What happens then? Is that enough of a "market share" to make things scary in freedom/decentralization aspect?

Indeed coins are sold to individual persons, big businesses, corporations, investment groups, countries, etc but coins are not votes as to Bitcoin consensus. The Bitcoin network does not operate in such a way that those who have more Bitcoin will have more say in its operation. Bitcoin's decentralization does not work that way. Even if you own half of all the circulating supply of Bitcoin, it does not mean you can decide as to what path Bitcoin will take next. The distribution of the coins is not what determines how decentralized the network is.

Remember one thing, it is the decentralized nature that makes bitcoin valuable today, so if it loses its decentralized nature and becomes completely centralized, I believe it will become worthless. The decentralized nature is what makes bitcoin different from other currencies and the rest of the crypto industry, if this is lost then who needs bitcoin anymore? Meanwhile, many altcoins are easily scalable, have cheap transaction fees, fast confirmation times... altcoins are almost completely superior to bitcoin, but their fatal disadvantage is centralization. So they can never compare or surpass bitcoin.

The simple and direct answer to the OP question is NO, Bitcoin has not lost it's decentralization. Institutions and governments only have control over the amount of Bitcoin that they hold, just like any other hodler will have the control of the amount of the Bitcoin that they hodl. The Bitcoin blochchain is not centralized therefore not in the control of any single entity. Bitcoin is a unique decentralized digital cash that gives it's holders freedom and privacy from any third party including governments and institutions if held in a none custodial wallet.

OP, not sure why you would think it has lost decentralization. Nothing has changed. It's decentralized as it has always been. Seems like you don't understand what decentralization means. Anyone can own Bitcoin, that doesn't change its decentralization.

Bitcoin is a best cryptocurrency in decentralization and if Bitcoin lost its decentralization, it will be the last cryptocurrency fails to maintain decentralization of its network. Other cryptocurrencies (altcoins) would lose their decentralization at their blockchain launches by bad designs or with time like Ethereum became more centralized after its upgrades and switching from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.

If Bitcoin has a day to lose its decentralization, we will no longer have any decentralized cryptocurrency. This means cryptocurrency community has something to defend together.

No, Bitcoin is still decentralized. It is an internal property of Bitcoin. The only thing big groups can do is manipulate the price by buying/selling. Sure they can buy off the devs but once those devs go against the Bitcoin community, they will no longer be accepted as devs. In fact, anyone can be a dev. All you have to do is make a contribution to Bitcoin code which the larger part of the community agrees with.

The more big companies, corporates buy bitcoin the more its popularity rises. But does that change the fact that bitcoin is not being controlled by a central figure? No - hence it does not "dilute" its decentralization

Gaining spread is not the same as centralization here.

I am very happy to see it spread, the more it does the more scarce it becomes to common people and the price rises. Hence it becomes a good coin to store value in and trade in the long term.

Can you elaborate what you mean by this, as i find this to be a weird argument. Imho it's echoes of the fud from the time pos plans were announced for eth and people who had invested on their mining equipment for eth were in danger of losing their living, so they freaked out. And we can see that majority of the people wanted to use new eth, so even that decision doesn't seem to be centralized. Owning 51% of eth won't allow you to do as drastic measures as owning 51% of the hashpower. And in both cases, attackers would just be shooting on their own foot.

And same centralization argument could be used for bitcoin as well, as in bitcoin you can just replace those whale coin holders with giant mining farms that hold majority of the hashpower.

Is there any true Decentralisation?  ::)

As long as people are financially built different they have less/more assets pertaining to their finances and current situation, which means if a person holds a huge sum, undoubtedly he can sway the market and I have come to believe that people who are rich can contact each other and make profits together by dumping and pumping the market.

I do not believe that there is true decentralisation its a notion and bitcoins is still faring better than other currencies in this state but as long as people hold different amounts their market ratio is going to be different and that’s where the whales come in.

I believe bitcoin was never truly decentralised and its as decentralised as it was supposed to be, we cannot truly change this can we ?


Yes but I believe he is trying to hint towards the fact that whales can sway the market and its not as free as a true decentralised currency should be)

I think OP is suggesting that due to the fixed amount of coins that will ever exist (in current version of protocol) and the fact that with time some bitcoins gets lost forever and the number of actual coins that are available for the public is shrinking - this companies will own substantial amount of BTC to control the market in terms of price and will be able to decide who gets to use it so there is a kind of centralization and the system becomes permission-able instead of permission-less.


In this scenario where few centralized entities own majority of coins, censorship could be imposed.

Bitcoin will never lose it's decentralization in network, but Bitcoin would be centralized if all coins were owned by big institutions/people. What's the point to own the network when you didn't own the coins? they can do anything they like, while the miners and people can only hoping they will sell the coins to us. They might sell their coins, but in ridiculous price.

That's why if you don't want such kind situation happen in the future, make sure to not buy ETF and avoid to use centralized sites to hold your coins.

it's obvious he doesn't understand the meaning of Bitcoin being decentralized. If the numbers of holders that currently owns Bitcoin and how much Bitcoin they hold in total can determine if Bitcoin will suddenly change from being decentralized to become centralized, government would have team up together to buy majority of Bitcoin so they can have full control of it. That people are still getting involved in Bitcoin is mainly because it's still decentralized. if for any reason Bitcoin gets control by a selected few, most prospective adoptors would shy away from investing in Bitcoin and will be forced to politicize it. If more Bitcoin whales continue buying Bitcoin, the only concern is going to be that anyday they choose to sell off all thier Bitcoin, it's going to affect Bitcoin price for the moment but because we have different holders of Bitcoin ranging from individual, institutions and even exchange, it's going to be almost impossible for such thing to ever happen.

Current supply: 19,747,143 BTC

Of which 18,321,811 BTC corresponds to 92.78% of supply is held in 1.87% of wallets.

Source:
https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html
http://addresses.loyce.club/

Bitcoin has not lost it's centralization--it's the only truly "decentralized" digital currency in the sense that a central entity could not easily take control of it (although it's not completely impossible, just very hard and very unlikely to happen).

All other cryptocurrencies are "centralized" in the sense that they can be, relatively easily, controlled by a single entity e.g. a government that wished to order it to do something. (This is due to them being a PoS model, or simply a smaller network that could more easily be taken over with a 51% attack).

Bitcoin's market cap today is about $1.1T. The total market cap of digital currencies (https://coinmarketcap.com) is a little over $2T.

In other words, almost half of today's market, as defined by individual investors voting with their money, is not decentralized.

And on top of that, most individual holders of Bitcoin hold it using a broker or an app--a centralized entity that holds their Bitcoin keys (or more often, simply a database entry connoting their holding), meaning that most consumers don't use Bitcoin in a centralized way.

So Bitcoin hasn't lost it's decentralization, the broader market for digital currencies has. Consumers have shown us that they do not care about decentralization--all they seem to want is a meme investment instrument, not a hedge against government intervention or all of the stuff Bitcoin was founded to do.

Satoshi invented a system that was very useful and interesting to... thousands of people across the world. Then millions more people started using that same invention for something he never intended: speculation.

(And can somebody explain why you should use the blockchain architecture for a system that is effectively controlled by a single entity? That sounds completely pointless to me).

It's not the only truly decentralized project.

Don't be confused with centralized company integrating the Bitcoin network into their service and Bitcoin decentralized network.  They are two different things.  Not because Bitcoin is integrated to centralized system, Bitcoin is now centralized.   Bitcoin with its decentralized nature is rooted in its Blockchain technology.  Unless this technology is turned into centralized blockchain technology, then it can be said as centralized, other than that Bitcoin will always be a decentralized network.

Bitcoin hasn't lost it's decentralization because you can use Bitcoin in the way it was made without any problems. You can buy Bitcoin too from anywhere and transfer it to your self constodial wallet and have full control of everything without it being frozen or you get restrictions from sending them out of your wallet as you would have had if you didn't have control of your wallet. Bitcoin is getting wide adoption hence all the things happening is making it look like it is getting centralized. Big money from big players are getting into the market because they're getting to know about Bitcoin and they are investing with force and introducing other things like ETF and it's bringing more investors into the market. They haven't centralized Bitcoin and they wouldn't be able to do that if they wanted to do so because Bitcoin is built differently and they are interested in making money not to control.

This is true and I would be really worried as Bitcoin holder if it switched to PoS.


Control = Money, Big players are able to pump and dump price - the more bitcoins they control the more they can control the price.
Their wet dream is of course Bitcoin becoming PoS.

Hmm, so here you are talking about the Supply stakes of Bitcoin, TBH most of the institutional investors are seasonal investors, and institutes cant afford to hold a large portion of their assets in a volatile asset as for institutes with good returns stability is what matters. At the same time, investors like you and me with some money and investors from the upper class hold patience to invest in Bitcoin over the long term. In my view, if you really think Bitcoin's supply is being controlled by institutes, keep in mind that just an event of the particular timeline.

Sooner or later the supply will continue to flow under the hands of regular users. Bitcoin cant be centralized until something big from the regulatory side happens. TBH I'm relaxed as I know nothing like centralization can happen with Bitcoin anytime soon.

Not gonna happen with the HODL narration, for the flow to go it would need to be used for everyday purchases.

As you can see in my little forum survey, most users rather HODL:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5507098.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5507098.0)

Big corporations buying billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin is a signal that it's successfully entering the system as a trojan horse.

Absolutely no. Bitcoin has not lost its decentralization. In fact, I consider it more decentralized than ever, because after all these years, we had forks popping up, mining being attacked by states every single year, and we even experienced cultural wars once in 2017, and against these odds, it's stronger than ever. It is proven to be immune to human corruption.

Bitcoin is decentralized and bitcoin will be decentralized except if there is censorship in the way miners treat it. First off if you’re worried about the number of users holding bitcoin base on the stats that we see around of how institutions like ETF approved institutions buy crypto i would say you shouldn’t be too worried as the entire bitcoin doesn’t even belongs to them, but rather for the investors under them, although this numbers are somewhat misleading to me sometimes. Away from institutions there is a around 52,395,382 address holding bitcoin according to LoyceV.Club (http://addresses.loyce.club/total_number_of_funded_addresses.txt), yes they can be one person having more than one address but still it shows how disperse the whole thing is.

Secondly decentralization doesn’t mean holders been plenty like that but also the way the blockchain works, there is no centralized body that would censor your transactions Like stopping you from buying or selling, that’s why there many nodes who work together to keep the network decentralized, no matter the amount of bitcoin an entity holds they can’t bypass this system protocols, that’s decentralization to me

No, bitcoin will not lose its decentralization even though there are many institutions until the government owns it. The government can only control bitcoin users, but they cannot control bitcoin even though they have thousands of bitcoin in their wallets. They can make rules that will force you under their control, but again they can't control bitcoin.

Op your explanation is not yet clear for me to know that bitcoin has lost it decentrality. And if bitcoin must lost it decentrality then they so call capitalist would have access to the bitcoin server and it blockchain and change many things difficult for the ordinary people to access or get bitcoin easily then I will know that bitcoin has loss it decentralisation. As it is now the only thing which I know that bitcoin is losing is the real p2p of using it to purchase things digitally and services but that has not been yet realised and once that has been realised then fiat will be weakened gradually.

The truth of the fact is that Bitcoin has not lost it's decentralized nature as a digital currency, but what happens is just that more private individuals and governments today has picked more interest in Bitcoin than ever, which gives them the ability to slightly affect it's price due to the large amount of Bitcoin they owned (i.e whares), whereby if they sell or buy just as Tesla did, it's slightly to affect it's price. But however, with the help of decentralized wallets and exchanges, it's still very possible for people to anonymously use Bitcoin, whereby they can still have full control over their funds. Hence, on that note, it shows Bitcoin has not completely lost it's decentralized nature.

The only way it can be 'Centralized' is if Institutions and Banks get a hold of most of the Circulating Supply and then try to get more and more while keeping all the Balance in a close circuit.  This would take however a LOT of Money, a LOT of effort and, ultimately, I believe that we, the people who are using Bitcoin as it is meant to be, would move on through a Hard Fork.

It has not lost its Decentralization yet.  And I do not think it will, but I do believe it will end up being artificially Centralized through a strategy similar to the one I wrote above.  But even in that scenario, this still means that Bitcoiners who do not give up their Bitcoin to this 'close circuit' would continue to have Freedom of choice and can continue using Bitcoin just like now.

I think most will agree that Bitcoin is still decentralized but the growing centralization in the mining industry is a bit concerning.

Also if Bitcoin ever gets to the point where it's development is influenced by government laws and not according to the public demand, we can say it's centralized.

Another concern is the dependence on centralized shitcoin called Tether.

The BTC network is censorship resistant and that applies in every situation, big corporations and countries can buy BTC whenever they want to and in whatever amount they want, we cannot do anything when certain institutions buy BTC, they are free to.

However, owing BTC does not mean you own the network, a lot of us here own BTC, but we don't control anything about BTC. I know this institutions own a larger amount of BTC, but it doesn't still give them control over the network, at the most they can only manipulate the price of BTC.

Wouldn't that make the rest of the coins extremely valuable? Reminds me of gold in the early 20th century (wasn't born yet, though!), when the overwhelming majority of it was confiscated by governments all across the world. Gold became even more scarce and valuable, even when technology advanced, and its supply inflated.

Unless the governments confiscated all the bitcoins, people will continue treating it as the king of currencies. But, it's not gonna happen, because people are fallible and have boating accidents.

You cannot have boating accident with Bitcoin, they are made out of unsinkable shinny material that's easy to locate by the government.

If you want to avoid boating accident don't buy this cheaply made boats from Monero company, they are known to sink even on a good weather  ;)

It depends on which side you want the answer from? control over the amount or the system? if now institutions have more bitcoins and they control the circulation in the market, when and where they will sell then bitcoin is now centralized in ownership. However, if we talk about the system where Bitcoin still uses PoW so that no one, government, institution or individual can tamper with it then Bitcoin remains decentralized until now. Now if you divert bitcoin like altcoin then please understand that altcoin uses the PoS system, whenever, wherever and as the developer pleases press the shutdown button.

Decentralization isn't lost, because Bitcoin remains a decentralized cryptocurrency which can be used in a decentralized way since there are at least two people willing to transact this way (through P2P). However, it's true it has become really hard to adopt Bitcoin in a decentralized way, because regulations have been advancing too far to smash investors' autonomy, while centralized parties have been acquiring large portions of Bitcoin to have huge influence over Bitcoin market.

This decentralized system isn't perfect, but it is the best we have available so far. It would be healthier for the market if Bitcoin became adopted by a larger number of people in smaller amounts, so the influence of the whales and big corporations would decrease dramatically. Compared to the early days of Bitcoin the situation isn't that bad too, considering Bitcoin price has been already much more volatile than it is right now.

Currently, the government invested funds into the bitcoin market for profits. They're not ready for mining, yet. If they had it in mind, with cash, to control a higher percentage of hash rates, than most miners, wouldn't it be achievable? However, even if it happens that the Governments wants to attempt a hard fork, the network will still be decentralized, and most bitcoin developers will control the network.

The government’s last thing on bitcoin is to obey the rules written by a computer programmer. They want it when everyone is below their authority. Since the government can’t write policies, rules, and TOS on the bitcoin network, Bitcoin is a decentralized network, for life.

Bitcoin has been more and more centralized for a long time. I’ve seen some signs of decentralizing mining lately though. The increase of popularity in lottery mining is a great thing to combat big mining companies that are centralizing hashrate. At some point the market will correct and lottery miners that don’t care about profitability are going to add salt to the wound of debt ridden mining companies struggling to maintain their business during a time of no profitability.

Perhaps we might want to ask, to begin with, why is Bitcoin decentralized? Is it because it doesn't have a ruling body or a CEO or administrator? Is it because nobody has an exclusive control, authority, and power to make decisions on its behalf? Or is it because its native currency is widely spread out or evenly distributed? To my understanding, the decentralization of Bitcoin comes from the network's design such that during Bitcoin's earliest days when the circulating supply is focused only on a handful of individuals it remained perfectly decentralized.

The Bitcoin blockchain is not centralized, and no organization is controlling it. It is completely decentralized. But yes, Bitcoin price movements can light up the market due to some large institutional investors buying huge amounts of Bitcoin. But this does not mean that Bitcoin will lose its decentralization or independence.
    Bitcoin uses a Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm, so no one has any control over it. If only censorship is introduced and enforced, Bitcoin will lose its decentralization and become centralized, but that would completely work against the purpose of Bitcoin.

The fact that some big investors have invested in Bitcoin and some companies are holding a large sum of Bitcoin, but that doesn't mean that Bitcoin is centralized, Bitcoin is not centralized, perhaps the inventor is not known by the government. So many altcoins  developers are well known and if by chance anything happens, the authorities can just influence the project but they can not comfortably do that with Bitcoin.

Has Bitcoin Finally Lost Its Decentralization? The Answer is no I mean if you talk about bitcoin circulation the company like Blackrock own fraction of bitcoin supply tho in theory Blackrock can bought all the bitcoin with their AUM hahah that right now counting 3 Trillion dollar but hey is not easy like that. Some country like Elsalvador start accept bitcoin as a payment but this alone not gonna make bitcoin lose its decentralization/

Bitcoin mining in other hand looks like own by big company like DCG group that own now 30% of Bitcoin hashrate but somehow the community still here and make 51% attack impposiblle at least for now.

Because it is not governed by a centralised organisation or authority, Bitcoin is known as decentralised. Blockchain technology is used to handle and record Bitcoin transactions in a public, distributed ledger. Around the world, a large number of computers, or "nodes," are in charge of maintaining the blockchain. Since every node has a copy of the blockchain, it is nearly hard for someone to manipulate the system without obtaining the approval of every node. This structure prevents any one individual or group from controlling Bitcoin, and it also prevents central regulation of the system.

We are hearing this question since many years in my opinion it would not be centralised as we don’t know who is controling bitcoin right now. There is no company or individual who claimed to control bitcoin’s price. If bitcoin is or was centralised then the price may be fixed at some point but we see dips and pumps in bitcoin’s price and by time passing the bitcoin grows as members added to this community and people prefer bitcoin just for it’s decentralisation.

it is obvious that starting from the establishment of Bitcoin bitcoin have never been a a centralized currency rather a bitcoin is a decentralized currency so when looking at it you will see that what makes bitcoin to be more firm is when companies invest in Bitcoin that helps to Skyrocket the price that is why we always seek for more investors come in into bitcoin investment so that there will be a massive bullrun, so I believe that bitcoin cannot be hijacked by any company or being hijacked by any government because it is a decentralized currency which cannot be controlled, only thing I'm seeing there is that many people invest in Bitcoin for future purpose not that there are trying to make a bitcoin a centralized currency

It isn't even about an individual or institution claiming control over BTC, the network was designed to be decentralized and censorship resistant, it is not possible for it to be centralized because there is no single point of failure. The government cannot seize the network, unlike how they do with mixers and centralized services, there is nothing to be seized in the BTC network, nodes are scattered all around the world, so there can be no central authority over the BTC network.

That's why some central banks regulated some exchanged platform like in my country where they can earn profit from it since they can't control the bitcoin due to it being decentralized. I also wouldn't say that it lost its decentralization when it's been a decentralized cryptocurrency starting from its creation until to this day. Anyway, I think you mean having more than 50‰ hash rate to be able to attack but it won't be easy to achieve it.

I feel like people are talking past each other here. People have different definitions of the same term and are answering it accordingly.

Is Bitcoin "decentralized"? It depends on what you mean by "decentralized".

The term can mean:

1. The data for the ledger is stored in a highly redundant way, making it essentially impossible to lose a transaction.

2. The systems holding the ledger can be governed by multiple separate legal entities, making it difficult for governments to exercise any control over the software.

3. The way most people use the product is self-custodial, such that they are actually effected by #1 and/or #2.

Hence:

1. Systems (whether they use the blockchain architecture or not) that store the ledger on an insufficiently geographically disperse datastore are "not decentralized". In this sense, Bitcoin is very much decentralized.

2. Currencies that are on networks controlled by a single legal entity, or a small and identifiable number of entities that could easily be captured by a government (viz. all PoS networks like Ether) are "not decentralized". In this sense, Bitcoin is mostly decentralized (although >50% of the hashrate is controlled by only a few companies).

3. "Not your keys, not your coins". Unless you physically hold your private keys on your actual person using your own private storage system (e.g. your iPhone) then you are not using a decentralized product by any definition. Most people today use Bitcoin and other cryptos through a broker or an app that either stores their keys for them, or simply marks their holdings in some central database. In this sense, Bitcoin is not, in the defacto way people use Bitcoin, "decentralized".

I think those saying "Bitcoin is not decentralized" are saying it in the sense of #3.

I think those saying, "only Bitcoin is decentralized and all other digital currencies are not" are saying it in the sense of #2.

I think those saying that most of the more popular digital currencies like Ether etc. are still "decentralized" are saying it in the sense of #1.

Personally, my own focus is average consumers and getting digital currencies to be a mainstream mass-appeal phenomenon. Hence my own viewpoint is that of #3 when you ask me this question. My answer to the survey above was, "who cares?" (yes, that was me :)), and I answered that way because the customers I focus on definitely don't care, and the market is showing us that at least 90% of the market doesn't care.

I think a lot of the people who answered "no" are, like me, thinking in terms of #3.

People who answered yes are thinking in terms of #1 or #2.

Bitcoin being decentralized means that the bitcoin network is decentralized since it is a Peer to Peer network.
The nodes on the network which validates the blocks containing bitcoin transactions are the ones responsible for decentralization.
This has nothing to do with an entity holding a large amount of bitcoin.

If I am not wrong, this matter has been discussed many times. You may use the search button to get old discussions and more ideas. Technically, Bitcoin will remain decentralised always. Since wallet doesn't have limits, anyone can buy any amount, and they can sell as well. There is no way to prevent them, and that's why Bitcoin decentralised. No one can control it, either trade, buy, or sell. When someone is selling, on the other hand, someone is buying too. It does lead to a drop in price, though it doesn't make Bitcoin centralised anyway. The function of Bitcoin is decentralised; this wouldn't be questionable. 

That doesn't make it less decentralised, it makes the demand to rise so the price will hike. It's impossible for anyone or few of them to buy every Bitcoin that's available and in theory if they make it happen the Bitcoin will cease to exist but if they stop Bitcoin there will be another one with same algorithm of Bitcoin let's say LTC that will become the next thing so the cryptos became inevitable so there is no point of accumulating with the intention of stopping it from adoption.

Bitcoin network remains decentralized, and it will stay like that with proof-of-work, but distribution of coins is changing after Blackrock entered the market and start buying coins.
This is not the only company who decided to invest in Bitcoin, but they have most power to manipulate markets because they are majority owners of most assets in the world.
Everyone can help Bitcoin decentralization by running their own nodes, using non-custodial wallets, and decentralized exchanges.

By its very nature, Bitcoin is decentralized, but certain entities are trying very hard to change that. I am more concerned with the fact that some people own large amounts of Bitcoins, have power and are very prone to manipulation to make extra profit.

I have always attributed Bitcoin decentralization to it's network, and other criteria comes second. As long as no individual is in charge, then it's still holds its quality of decentralization, and not necessarily centralization. But taking a look at how it's currency is been distributed among hodlers, which is enough to question the decentralization since certain users have more portion of it than others as a result of differences in purchasing power. But I don't really see any threat in this, as long as the individuals who buy Bitcoin massively are not a single entity (i.e they don't work for one another).

The most important factor that keeps Bitcoin decentralized has been how the network is structured, where everyone depends on another to make changes (i.e take a decision). No single person can just wake up and make some changes without the consent of thousands/millions of users that are connected to the same network. So, I still believe that Bitcoin is still decentralized, and will continue to be decentralized, as long as it is not managed by a single person.

Who buys or owns most of Bitcoin's won't have big influence on Bitcoin decentralization, Bitcoin's blockchain continues to be secured by thousands of independent miners around the world, and participation is open to anyone with an internet connection. The problem will occur when big company invest in mining and take over 51% of Bitcoin network. Bu I think the Bitcoin community will remain vigilant in advocating for decentralization, whether it’s by supporting smaller miners, using decentralized exchanges, or developing new technologies that keep the power distributed. While Bitcoin hasn’t fully “sold out,” the growing influence of large entities is something we should watch closely to ensure that it stays true to its decentralized roots.

This is probably what @mrquackquack meant when he spoke about the decentralization of bitcoin (although this is not entirely correct), when large holders of bitcoin can influence the price and manipulate the market.

If this becomes known to the BTC-community, and before that moment there is time to do harm.

How many active BTC-developers are there at the moment? Probably a few dozen at most?

There is another point regarding decentralization: the majority of the hashrate (computing power) is in the hands of only a few mining companies, which also doesn't benefit the discussions about decentralization.

Decentralization has nothing to do with the ownership of BTC. Decentralization is about having control over the protocol.
A bunch of corporations could own most of BTC in circulation and BTC could still be decentralized. BTC will become centralized when a big corporation controls most mining rigs and tries to change the blockchain protocol. This would lead to most miners, developers and users leaving the Bitcoin blockchain and the BTC price would collapse. What creates the value of Bitcoin is the community behind it. Destroying that community would lead to the destruction of Bitcoin.

One person can control a large part of Bitcoin and for this reason we cannot call it centralized. There is no denying that when an individual or organization controls a large chunk of Bitcoin, they can exert some influence over the market if they want, but that doesn't mean that they are able to centralize a decentralized platform. Bitcoin was and will be decentralized. Various individuals and organizations will continue to invest more and more around the potential of Bitcoin. Moreover, the governments of various countries are slowly getting interested in investing in Bitcoin. One of the reasons for this is that it is completely decentralized. If someone ever takes control then Bitcoin will become worthless. Bitcoin's greatest strength is its decentralized power.

What you described has nothing to do with bitcoin's decentralization. Bitcoin is still the same network for more than 10 years and it still works the same way. If some people own thousands of bitcoins, that doesn't mean the network is compromised. On the contrary, it only shows people are interested in bitcoin so they are buying huge shares of the platform. Buying coins can't threaten the decentralization of the network. Only the miners can do that. If one miner controls the majority of the hash rate, that would be catastrophic. Luckily that will never happen.

I believe OP has got a point and while I agree with the majority that bitcoin remains decentralised in reality, the increasing adoption by institutions, buying on centralised exchanges, use as an investment and not P2P, etc., at least make it more centralised than it was intended to be.


This is where I think he has a point but not only in that, but a truly decentralised use would be P2P, and today such use is minimal.

No, it hasn't lost but it's not as decentralized as it once was because now big corporations own the majority of coins and mining became a commercial business. Today you can't mine Bitcoins at home while it was possible in 2016. Today only big corporations like BitFury can have a profitable mining business because they own thousands of miners and have access to a very cheap electricity. It leads to loss of decentralization but I like that Satoshi disappeared with 1 million Bitcoins in his wallet. 1 Million is a fair share and this share alone makes Bitcoin significantly decentralized because it's in good hands but if Satoshi doesn't ever appear, then this shair means nothing.
I hope there won't come time when Bitcoin will be fully centralized. Sadly, we are heading that path.

Quite contrary, if Satoshi (remember it could be a group of people represented by 1 guy) was to move his coins, it would create panic in share holders.

Satoshi could control the price of all Bitcoins by pumping and dumping or just sell it all which would result as he was planning it all from the beginning as an elaborate pyramid scheme.
If he still has access to this coins then there's another threat that someone will steal it from him or that family members will get access to it by inheritance and sell it all.

The best case scenario for Bitcoin is for this coins to never move and hopefully access to this coins is forever lost.

What people do and how they decide to use BTC does not affect the network in itself, BTC should be stored in a self custodial wallet but if people decide to store their funds in a centralized exchange, then it is up to them and it does not change what the network is about.

Institutional investors can buy as much BTC as they want, which can have an influence on the price of BTC, but it does not affect BTC's decentralization, as long as no central authority is in control and nodes are scattered all over the world, then the network remains decentralized.

Yes, I think that we continue to think about the same classic definition of decentralization in this topic, but the OP meant something else. He has already been warned about the terminological confusion, so it would be more constructive if we focused on answering his question.

Yes, I'm worried about more and more Bitcoins being held by such groups as it makes it easier for them to manipulate the market. If we were worried years ago about the power of miner farms, now we have additional risks to worry about.

According to https://bitcoindevlist.com/ there are 67 Bitcoin developers listed there.

According to Bitcoin's Github, there are 947+ contributors.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

There are enough developers for Bitcoin decentralized projects and they are world class developers.

Bitcoin is fully decentralized but its decentralization system is changing day by day. Bitcoin is now being controlled by a number of famous people especially any one of their announcements can cause massive changes in the Bitcoin market. If Bitcoin is decentralized then no third party or counter party will control it and their big announcements will not affect the Bitcoin market but the system is completely upside down. If Bitcoin is controlled by individual institutions or countries then its decentralized nature will definitely change.

The Bitcoin network is decentralized because it allows peer-to-peer transactions without any authorization.  While you can control your funds as you wish, they can never be centralized because no one's personal information can ever be traced through a Bitcoin wallet. transactions can always be made anonymously here. so it is not possible for any country to centralize Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin's algorithm can never be changed. so it will remain decentralized for life

Not quite. Bitcoin is still decentralized, despite the fact that most institutions are buying large sums of the circulating supply. What matters is node distribution and miner support. The rich can control the supply, but they won't be able to control the network hashrate. This means, they will be left out of the network consensus. It's ultimately in the hands of miners and node operators (people like you and me who run a full node at home). This is only possible in a PoW chain like Bitcoin.

For Ethereum, it's another story. Since it's a PoS coin, whales and big exchanges can influence the direction of the project with their stake. In other words, their ETH holdings can be used to participate in network consensus. Talk about centralization. I sure hope BTC stays decentralized enough to withstand the test of time. Otherwise, it will be "game over" for good. :)

True that and this is necessary and needed for Bitcoin to get adopted in the system where centralization is the major power.  If Bitcoin won't get integrated to a centralized system, then this will slowdown the adoption of Bitcoin.  Remember, it was the centralized systems like casinos, financial institutions that manage investment and exchanges that push Bitcoin advertisement too hard.  Regardless, even if Bitcoin is integrated to a centralized system, its very core is decentralized in nature so i do not think that Bitcoin has lost its decentralization because we still have this p2p feature where we can use anytime.

Bitcoin is completely decentralized but many people think of it as centralized. If Bitcoin were controlled by a single person or organization, we could think of it as a centralized currency. But since Bitcoin is not controlled by any single person or entity, we can never consider it as a centralized currency. If Satoshi Nakamoto himself came forward and took control of Bitcoin we could assume it would become a centralized currency, but Bitcoin is still considered a decentralized currency as it is not controlled by a third party.

Let's just say the face value of bitcoin...the exterior part of it is definitely looking like it's centralised because too many whales buying it for superiority & I believe the person that holds the most bitcoins can definitely dictate which direction ⬇️⬆️ it will be taking whether it goes up or goes down.

But it should be noted that the part that will forever remain decentralised is the Blockchain because it's a decentralised network of computers running the show.

Not to the average consumer. Most actually store their "Bitcoin" holdings in some central RDBMS run by a broker, and even then it's just a number saying how much Bitcoin you own.

That's why my answer to the poll question was, "Who Cares?"--because in reality, most Bitcoin holders don't actually care...

The points you mentioned - other big entities buying Bitcoin. Still to this day, it doesn't mean you can't accumulate it. You still control it. No one can seize it from you automatically without your involvement. It is still decentralised.

(rhetorical question)
but how many have the privilege to merge those contributors efforts, look at who moderates the path of the roadmap, look at also who force-merges their own code in, even when certain things are controversial

when you realise that most of the "contributors" are not actively in their hundreds per release but only in the dozens per release. and then learn the "contributors" (that are not the main dozen privileged set of maintainers) are generally just spell checkers and translators and not really doing any big roadmap protocol upgrading activity.. it will become clearer that things are in a hierarchy of centralised group of devs. and we need to keep an eye and scrutinise and critique their work instead of brush it under the carpet pretending its decentralised to then become complacent

I think some of this is fights in the community of cryptocurrencies. The growing involvement of corporations, companies, and even several countries in Bitcoin definitely raises some questions as to its governance structure and what it means for the future of the network.

On one hand, the local and government interests are a violation of legitimacy and potential of Bitcoin as a store of value or as an investment asset. The companies generally increase liquidity, stability, and adoption. This would foster growth and growth in the space of cryptocurrency.

On the other hand, there are valid concerns that would tamper with the regional structure of Bitcoin. Most Bitcoins in the hands of a few large participants result in control and power, which will directly affect the network for anti-censorship and basic decentralization.

However, basic technical features and the governance structure are kept the same through a shared library and consensus mechanism. The community involvement is on a rise, though. The fundamental principles and distribution of the network remain intact. Regional nodes and miners ensure the security and integrity of the system. This keeps the basic characteristics intact.


It is true that while many projects-including projects in the crypto space-commit to being decentralized, the actual development and decision-making lie with a small group of administrators, which then potentially affects the direction of the project by a big margin.

In many projects, core developers hold an inordinate amount of control over the direction that the project is going to take and the influence to make binding decisions over the community at large. Centralizing that authority-even in a decentralized community-can sometimes be a transparency and inclusivity concern.

Communities need to be vigilant and carefully look at the development process for specificity in decision making, active participation of the various donor groups, and a strong system of checks and balances that would ensure projects are sound and lend themselves to social objectives. - - -

Consideration and accountability of the activities of master developers are key aspects in maintaining zoning principles. Holding an open discussion supports everyone, and it makes sure participation is duly monitored and appraised accordingly. It may help in dealing with potential imbalances and ensures more equity in the development process.

I really struggle to understand what you are trying to say here. Bitcoin is still completely decentralized, nobody controls it and nobody has control over the blockchain, the big corporations have nothing to do with this also because I'm pretty sure there are single entities that own way more bitcoins than these corporations so, following your logic, bitcoin has never been decentralized and we know that it's not like that.

This question seems rhetorical... but it surely isn't, and this is perhaps because simply due to its technological architecture bitcoin isn't, CEX, now, we certainly it look at it from that broader idea of ​​what the centralized opposite means, we could think that "maybe", but this is have in the hold of bitcoin, and that has nothing to do with the DEX concept.

(rhetorical question)

Who's "we"? You and I, who disagree on a fundamental level on what's Bitcoin? Or you and whoever agrees with you? Or the majority of the people in Bitcoin?

If you're not a coder or a contributor, then, no offense, but STFU. This is not a communist nor a democratic system. It's a zero-trust system. If you don't like coding, contributing or discussing in mailing lists, then you hold no influence in the space. You can "critique" their work all you like, but they're not working for you. They're working on whatever they find right, and ignore the noise.

Accept the facts, and move on with your life.

It’s always going to remain decentralized as long as folks have full custody of their coins and security over that. The big things that will affect the individual is government regulations and taking those taxes after you cash out.

Holders are only a part of bitcoin, and if someone holds a lot of coins that doesn't affects the centralization of the project. we should worry when someone holds a big part of the mining hardware, that would representa a risk for the project because they can attack the network with that, but Holders doesn't represent a risk at all. maybe a risk on the price and market, but that can't affects the nature of the blockchain.

^ the lemming speaks about his overlords power (of how they do not work for anyone but themselves and their self interests.(technically they work for whomevers sponsoring them to add crappy features that annoy bitcoiners))
when the devs ignore bitcoiners concerns and those critiquing them then that is where the power play evolves into communism/government
yep core have become bitcoins own government

you telling people to stop critiquing devs is a show that you want centralised power..
every insult you sling and command you make against others says more about you then it does about anyone

you know full and well the moderation control the centralised powerhouse has.. and to become a valid contributer is not a open door policy, its actually a kiss the ring and be malleable to follow the path of the moderated roadmap, else have your contributions 'Nacked'/not merged, your comments removed and your ability to participate on a area of the development platform banned.. but you love it so you dont care.


instead of asking people to just accept the centralisation as fact and move on.. its actually more morally right and appropriate to critique, scrutinise and highlight the problem to make people aware of it, instead of your attempt to sweep things under the rug and lull people to sleep in your dreamy buzzword of fake openness

the development of bitcoin is not trustless. because now we have to trust the core devs are 'doing whats right' as they dont accept any independent peer review
again core have become bitcoins government(policy makers) with their own power hierarchy and even a internal election system of how gets a seat of power

---

the funny part is these lemmings kissing the ring, want to divert peoples attention by saying a $80 hard drive for decades of all transaction data is "THE"(and only) centralisation threat, although the overlords think a $80 single transaction is fine and expected (facepalm)

Exactly. Most people are in it for the money. Not because they care about Bitcoin. Those who hold BTC in their own wallets (self-custody) constitute a small fraction of the network. I'd say Bitcoin is now owned by centralized exchanges and institutional investment companies. Even if miners and node operators are the ones in charge of network consensus. What use will these entities have if "Wall Street" holds most of the circulating supply?

Maybe the community go as far as forking off to a new chain? Or simply approve increasing BTC's max supply of 21m units (very unlikely)? I know other coins are faring worse (eg: Ethereum, and Solana). But I think Bitcoin can do better than that. Hopefully, Bitcoin stays true to its principles of decentralization and censorship-resistance in the long run. Otherwise, it was fun while it lasted.