Is centralisation unavoidable?

[monsterer]

Is it possible that centralisation is unavoidable?

In any system where there are gains to be made by specialising, the rational behaviour is to specialise. The best performing specialists dominate by outcompeting their competition.

This is true in nature, in businesses, in criminal organisations. But is it unavoidable?

The few with the most hashing power dominate in POW, the few with the most stake dominate in (D)POS. In both these cases there is disproportionate power available to those who dominate. This is at odds with the principle of security through decentralisation.

[1714934294]

1714934294

[1714934294]

1714934294

[1714934294]

1714934294

[r0ach]

I think the main question to ask is, are all economic systems doomed to end up with 1% of the population owning 50% or more of the wealth?  If that's how it's always going to be, they can take over PoW, PoS, and probably most any other system you can invent with ease if they really want to.  They don't have to buy up the PoS coins either.  Force is the ultimate consensus mechanism and besides wealth, governments have lots of that too.  As long as entities exist that have monopolized force to that extent, then not much is safe.  Oh, you're running a supernode over Tor?  We invented Tor, incoming billion dollar cruise missile.

[shanem]

Any cryptocurrency that is going to be successful will be centralised in one way or another. There is no way to avoid like in fiat currency and stock market.