Are Profits More Important Than Decentralization?

[monsterer]

that statement is probably true I bet.. but
we have no choice, there is no decentralized coin/system made we can switch to.

decentralization is critical to us moving forward with the technology of digital currencies.
problem being is we need a Satoshi to come along and marry the Problem with a viable Solution.
his work was genius.. few people can come up with such a lofty ambitious goal/idea then work out the logistics to make it happen.
and that is what we need.. someone(s) to figure out how it should be done (code wise)

The key to real decentralisation is proof of human. If you can find a way to prove that one node = one human, you can have excellent decentralisation. The problem comes when you try to combine anonymity with this kind of proof. That's the real challenge.

[Nxtblg]

That's why I'm asking the question. Decentralization is talked about, but when it comes to action, so many people take the centralized route.

Here's a humane answer that explains why. Many of us grew up in centralized systems; some of us not only grew up in them but also lived a lot of our lives in them. Our education, the way we normally think, and our habits all reflect this.

Right now, decentralization is largely an ideal. Sure, it's moved many mountains in the cutting-edge parts of the world,. but as yet the mainstream is unmoved. This is normal for any truly transformative ideal. Even in science: as Paul Samelson quipped, "Scientific progress advances funeral by funeral." And that's because we're human: our wetware is designed to carry us through our lives - all of our lives. From this angle, being largely creatures of habit is an evolutionary advantage.

An idea so transformative as decentralization, to become a new norm, will require a lot of still-useful habits to be broken. Do you know of any Ayn Rand admirer who has literally gone Galt - off-grid and scraping by on earning from unskilled labour? With regard to decentralization, it's a similar habit-shift. Decentralization is sometimes as messy as a dirt-farm. As of now, the only ones who live in a truly decentralized environment are outliers: people who, for whatever reason, don't have the advantageous habituation to centralized systems that the mainstream have.

That's not an indictment of us humans: if anything, it's the opposite. Radical changes need to be assimilated slowly by general society because all of them are partially pigs in pokes. Think of all the enthusiastic libertarians who greeted this unregulated jungle with delight, only to see the scams that have proliferated in the entire crytocurrency scene. Proof evident that transformative idea need a lot of field-testing.

[JohnnyBTCSeed]

I dont believe it is possible to live 100% decentralized. Id imagine there are some good things that can come from centralizing.

However the longest running decentralized human movement is the the rainbow gatherings. They have no leaders and no members yet continually meet since the 70's. It's a mix of educated people and those who have been shit out the buthole of society and everyone inbetween. Its both good and bad. And its international.

But they still have to rely on centralized systems for movement and food, etc

[JohnnyBTCSeed]

Growing your own food- decentralized

Not being able to grow everything and get what you need, centralized.

[sdmathis]

Centralization can be a good thing if the central agent is benevolent and competent. The problem, however, is that so many people around the world have had bad experiences with centralization. I really don't know what's best, but I agree that 100% decentralization in our lives is neither possible nor desirable.

[alt19]

Centralization can be a good thing if the central agent is benevolent and competent. The problem, however, is that so many people around the world have had bad experiences with centralization. I really don't know what's best, but I agree that 100% decentralization in our lives is neither possible nor desirable.

I have started recently a topic "True Decentralization is in Diversity" https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1120300.0.
No comments yet.

Profits? People buy a coin if it has a high market cap and if price is rising. The higher is price, the more will buy it. Very often the local maximum of price is a point where the largest volume is, that's why buying high is common and doesn't refer to bad luck only.

Why is Bitcoin not rising? Probably elite is selling coins to crowd.
And USD billionaires don't buy "cheap" (in comparison with Google or Facebook market cap) Bitcoin just like BTC millionaires don't buy "cheap" (in comparison with BTC) altcoins. Probably both don't want "to waste money" how they understand it.

In my opinion, small investors will be fans of decentralized economy and in future we will see wide adoption of more than one or two coins.  

[Brockspeculator]

Those who would give up essential Decentralization, to purchase a little temporary Profit, deserve neither Decentralization nor Profit.

But full decentralization essentially encourages P&D and the same bad behavior that allowed the bankers in America to cause the Recession, imo. Because lack of regulation and controls to prevent said bad behavior and greedy speculators.

[StanLarimer]

Decentralization is like insurance.
You pay for it in cases where there are risks you want to mitigate.

In other cases, where those risks are acceptable, you may choose the convenience or savings of using a more centralized solution.

I don't mind using a centralized bank to pay my utility bill or daily credit card expenses.
I'm much less comfortable trusting them with my retirement account or private business transactions.

Thus, not all financial products and services have the same need for decentralization purity.

And maximum decentralization is seldom the sweet spot in the design trade space.

People should be free to choose how much decentralization they want to trade off against other desirable features like convenience or cost.
Entrepreneurs should be free to earn a living offering services with a mix that meets the needs of their intended customers.

If I'm designing a new car, I only use enough steel in it to keep the passengers reasonably safe.
Adding more steel after that hurts performance and affordability more than it increases safety.

Decentralization is like steel. 

Entrepreneurs need to ask how much is enough to offer an affordable product that will sell well at a reasonable profit.

[DecentralizeEconomics]

Those who would give up essential Decentralization, to purchase a little temporary Profit, deserve neither Decentralization nor Profit.

But full decentralization essentially encourages P&D and the same bad behavior that allowed the bankers in America to cause the Recession, imo. Because lack of regulation and controls to prevent said bad behavior and greedy speculators.

Centralization is what allowed the bankers to rob the people via taxpayer bailouts.

Decentralization is like insurance.
You pay for it in cases where there are risks you want to mitigate.

In other cases, where those risks are acceptable, you may choose the convenience or savings of using a more centralized solution.

I don't mind using a centralized bank to pay my utility bill or daily credit card expenses.
I'm much less comfortable trusting them with my retirement account or private business transactions.

Thus, not all financial products and services have the same need for decentralization purity.

And maximum decentralization is seldom the sweet spot in the design trade space.

People should be free to choose how much decentralization they want to trade off against other desirable features like convenience or cost.
Entrepreneurs should be free to earn a living offering services with a mix that meets the needs of their intended customers.

If I'm designing a new car, I only use enough steel in it to keep the passengers reasonably safe.
Adding more steel after that hurts performance and affordability more than it increases safety.

Decentralization is like steel.  

Entrepreneurs need to ask how much is enough to offer an affordable product that will sell well at a reasonable profit.

Nice rationalization of your motives for copying NXT's decentralized PoS and centralizing it creating Bitshares' DPoS.

Right here folks is how they take away your rights and freedoms.  Take away a little here, give away a little there, and pretty soon you're left with nothing but shackles.

[Brockspeculator]

Centralization is what allowed the bankers to rob the people via taxpayer bailouts.

Actually, no. Canada has bank regulation. Weathered the Recession fine. America LACKED regulation; Recession was triggered due to a LACK of regulation.

[Crestington]

I'm not sure if you ever can have a truly decentralized Cryptocurrency because you need to be able to trust whoever managing the codebase and people naturally want someone to make the decisions for them and provide updates so in any system you will have some kind of centralized authority that would have the final say but that doesn't mean that people do not have a say or have no opinion because you can still have cohesion of ideas. I think you can have a profitable system that is largely decentralized because people want to trade, Stake and sell Coins for profit and you want to have people to continually sell and distribute the Coins because that creates greater decentralization. The problem is not inflation because people will continue to buy Coins as long as the code is advancing, the problem is when inflation grows at a faster rate than investment can ever come in (compounding interest with no cap and interest more than 1000%).

I am quite interested in the subject of decentralization and profitability because it is the main reason why everyone is here.

[DecentralizeEconomics]

Centralization is what allowed the bankers to rob the people via taxpayer bailouts.

Actually, no. Canada has bank regulation. Weathered the Recession fine. America LACKED regulation; Recession was triggered due to a LACK of regulation.

Good luck preventing "recessions".  That's called the business cycle.  The bailouts were possible because of centralization.

[jeffthebaker]

One of the central tenets of cryptocurrency is the principle of decentralization. It seems, however, that more and more people are willing to trade the principle of decentralization for profits. Is it just me, or is the crypto culture shifting? Or are principles like decentralization that important to begin with?

The only reason to invest in, mine, and trade various altcoins is to turn a profit. If anyone cares about the core principles of cryptocurrency, then they stick to Bitcoin.

That statement couldn't be any more incorrect.

"One of the reasons Nxt is groundbreaking is because it gives the economy back to the people and re-establishes them as their own sovereigns over their destiny.  An economy is an expression of a political ideology.  Do not mistake us as just another cryptocurrency.  We are a movement."

If I wanted to change the world via a decentralized currency, I would participate in Bitcoin, not Nxt or any other altcoin. This is the case of the vast majority. If it wasn't Nxt would be the big crypto, which it isn't. Just because altcoins offer revolutionary ideas, they don't have the tools Bitcoin has.

[DecentralizeEconomics]

One of the central tenets of cryptocurrency is the principle of decentralization. It seems, however, that more and more people are willing to trade the principle of decentralization for profits. Is it just me, or is the crypto culture shifting? Or are principles like decentralization that important to begin with?

The only reason to invest in, mine, and trade various altcoins is to turn a profit. If anyone cares about the core principles of cryptocurrency, then they stick to Bitcoin.

That statement couldn't be any more incorrect.

"One of the reasons Nxt is groundbreaking is because it gives the economy back to the people and re-establishes them as their own sovereigns over their destiny.  An economy is an expression of a political ideology.  Do not mistake us as just another cryptocurrency.  We are a movement."

If I wanted to change the world via a decentralized currency, I would participate in Bitcoin, not Nxt or any other altcoin. This is the case of the vast majority. If it wasn't Nxt would be the big crypto, which it isn't. Just because altcoins offer revolutionary ideas, they don't have the tools Bitcoin has.

What makes you think Bitcoin is still decentralized?

[ridery99]

Most important are promises. If dev makes good promises for coming geek hype tech it's easy to attract investors and dump on them.

[Ingatqhvq]

One of the most important reasons we are here because we want to make some profit.
So profits are more important than decentralization
                                                                               

[EvilDave]

If I wanted to change the world via a decentralized currency, I would participate in Bitcoin, not Nxt or any other altcoin. This is the case of the vast majority. If it wasn't Nxt would be the big crypto, which it isn't. Just because altcoins offer revolutionary ideas, they don't have the tools Bitcoin has.

jtb : you're not looking hard enough, certainly not at Nxt.
Bitcoin has almost no native functionality: the only feature it offers is the storage and transfer of secure tokens over its blockchain.
All other tools/features are built by 3rd parties on top of BTC, often using very breakable code.
Take a look at what happened to Counterparty as a result of the recent BTC 'stress test'

Nxt, on the other hand, has been designed from the ground up to offer a wide range of functions integrated into the core, running on Nxts own native blockchain.
The philosophy behind Nxt is pretty much the same as Satoshis original vision for BTC, and does not exclude the use of Bitcoin.
My vision for the future of crypto still has BTC as 'the gold standard', with NXT providing a range of 2nd generation functions, that BTC ítself simply can't.

[Kevin77]

One of the central tenets of cryptocurrency is the principle of decentralization. It seems, however, that more and more people are willing to trade the principle of decentralization for profits. Is it just me, or is the crypto culture shifting? Or are principles like decentralization that important to begin with?

Decentralization is nice, decentralization sounds great, but everybody cares more about their own wallets.
If they cashed in, then decentralization can also come, no problem.

[pseudonymdude]

If you want an altcoin with a real developer who's trying to solve all the problems of bitcoin with decentralized solutions, look into Vanillacoin

-Can be compiled on any platform, including Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, game consoles, etc.  No other cryptocurrency can do this.
-Full, staking mobile wallets with transferable wallet.dat
-Only other coin besides BTC to require only 1 confirmation on Poloniex.
-Unlike Bitcoin, Vanillacoin's global transaction pool is highly synchronized, which makes malicious block reorganizations nearly impossible.
-Active dev, most talented I've seen in the altcoin space.

Also, look into upcoming features.

[Crestington]

I'm not sure if you ever can have a truly decentralized Cryptocurrency because you need to be able to trust whoever managing the codebase

unless you, as stakeholders could vote on weather or not to change the codebase, and how.  Imagine the bitcoin blocksize debate happening over the course of a month or so as bitcoin holders voted either for or against the change the next time they logged into their wallets.  Simple.  Painless.

I'm not sure it would be any more painless when it comes to Bitcoin, I imagine you would still have people complaining about the voting and how it is unfair.