Why it is said that bitcoin is centralized?

[expert4knowledge]

Hello everyone, we can heard in this forum that bitcoin is not centralized and it is one of advantages, but what do you think about this article and the idea that bitcoin is not centralized? I am saying this based on below research which is done on ETH Switzerland and Germany.
https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-infsec/system-security-group-dam/research/publications/pub2014/spmagazine_gervais.pdf

[1713487665]

1713487665

[zimmah]

I think they say that because a few people seem to hold back changes.

but even if this is the case, the users can just choose to fork and create a new 'official' bitcoin.

because bitcoin is what the majority considers bitcoin to be, so no matter who is trying to control bitcoin (even satoshi himself), the majority ultimately decides.

[MyBTT]

People say bitcoin is centralized because a certain entity or group of people have control or more control than the majority of people in the community. The core devs basically have total control, as they are basically the only ones who can allow and add changes to the bitcoin protocol.

[Reid]

People say bitcoin is centralized because a certain entity or group of people have control or more control than the majority of people in the community. The core devs basically have total control, as they are basically the only ones who can allow and add changes to the bitcoin protocol.

Someone in control? Is it the whales that do this? They think they owned it just because they have the higher number of bitcoin. That is ego in my side.

[Anduck]

People say bitcoin is centralized because a certain entity or group of people have control or more control than the majority of people in the community. The core devs basically have total control, as they are basically the only ones who can allow and add changes to the bitcoin protocol.

Start producing some code, make some ideas, make them into a BIP. You'll notice suddenly people will weigh in your opinion too.

You can try changing Bitcoin, but please do it via the BIP method. I've not heard that BIP process isn't proper. And it seems to be quite well working, so far. It can be updated too, of course. There are some (slightly trollish) groups who intend to bypass BIP process, because they think it's centralization. (Which it kind of is, but so is Bitcointalk, Reddit, GitHub, Intel, AMD, ISPs, governments and whatnot.) After all BIP system is not tied to any people or any platform. So it really is decentralized, even though you can't alone choose/change how it works.

Do you know who are the "Core devs"? They're developers who commit something to Core. Simple. Not a closed project, not a closed group. Open for all developers. You can have the "total control" you claim they have. But nobody listens to you (or in other words nobody considers you as a core dev) until you've proven you're a core dev.

[mindrust]

I tis because, on the contrary what everyone thinks, the community has nothing to say anything about bitcoin's development. The core developers do everything they like without asking anybody. Majority may not like it but they can't do a damn about it. (other than not using it anymore)

[TheKoolKid]

Hello everyone, we can heard in this forum that bitcoin is not centralized and it is one of advantages, but what do you think about this article and the idea that bitcoin is not centralized? I am saying this based on below research which is done on ETH Switzerland and Germany.
https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-infsec/system-security-group-dam/research/publications/pub2014/spmagazine_gervais.pdf

Mining centralization is done by China already..

90% of BTC transactions are from China...

Who ever said Bitcoin is decentralized? Only the development process is decentralized.

[jak3]

bitcoin is not completly centralised.it has a group of dav who are responsible for some miner changes but they can not control the will network.satoshi himself appointed some users to maintain it a little because he knows it was an experiment

[ImHash]

Because it is, have you tried mining on your own? to see if you can mine anything worth your time?
Nope, so it is kind of centralized imao.

[konovalets]

Hello everyone, we can heard in this forum that bitcoin is not centralized and it is one of advantages, but what do you think about this article and the idea that bitcoin is not centralized? I am saying this based on below research which is done on ETH Switzerland and Germany.
https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-infsec/system-security-group-dam/research/publications/pub2014/spmagazine_gervais.pdf

The truth is that bitcoin becomes more centralized last three years because of asics and china miners, but compared to fiat currencies it's still very decentralized.

[ranochigo]

Hello everyone, we can heard in this forum that bitcoin is not centralized and it is one of advantages, but what do you think about this article and the idea that bitcoin is not centralized? I am saying this based on below research which is done on ETH Switzerland and Germany.
https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-infsec/system-security-group-dam/research/publications/pub2014/spmagazine_gervais.pdf

Mining centralization is done by China already..

90% of BTC transactions are from China...

Who ever said Bitcoin is decentralized? Only the development process is decentralized.

Contrary to popular beliefs, most Bitcoin transactions are likely not to originate from China. I would say that the general public would have a certain degree of difficulty using it especially since their government has restricted Bitcoin there and it isn't recognised as a currency by the central banks.

Mining is also not extremely centralised in China, at least not to the extent of 90%, possibly around 50% of the mining rigs are in China. It is rather inaccurate to estimate it based on the pools since miners can always connect their machines to Chinese pools due to their location and/or fees.
Bitcoin software is decentralised since it does allow the community to decide what modifications they want to make for it to be considered Bitcoin. Anyone can change the code and people can choose to use and recognise it as the official Bitcoin.

[LordCoder]

Well I believe some people are confused with the term "decentralized". Having full control of your money is decentralized, because it cannot get banned nor depends on anyone to have your funds there. On the other hand, the mining process is centralized, because the more you have in equipment, the more you earn.

[coynedterm]

Hello everyone, we can heard in this forum that bitcoin is not centralized and it is one of advantages, but what do you think about this article and the idea that bitcoin is not centralized? I am saying this based on below research which is done on ETH Switzerland and Germany.
https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-infsec/system-security-group-dam/research/publications/pub2014/spmagazine_gervais.pdf

The truth is that bitcoin becomes more centralized last three years because of asics and china miners, but compared to fiat currencies it's still very decentralized.

Bitcoin has no central control: no central repository of information, no central management, and, crucially, no central point of failure. And yet, most of the actual services and businesses built within the Bitcoin ecosystem are centralized. They are run by specific people, in specific locations, with specific computer systems, and they are susceptible to specific legal entanglements.

[rphk]

i believe bitcoin is decentralized only because no one can control complete bitcoin , it is distributed equally control to the users, everyone can transact easily , i belive still no one can control this bitcoin like owning complete bitcoins for themselves, it is always decentralized.

[exscudo]

Well, there are different stages of centralization  like - absolute monarchy or absolute democracy. =)) as for btc, of course it has some grade of centralization since there are groups of ppl who own more btc than others. But I wouldn't call it an absolutely centralized system.

[cannonballsontherun77]

Bitcoin is not centralized "per se"; however, it is centraly managed by a select few insiders who don't want to open the doors to the masses or upgrade Bitcoin's dilapidating infrastacture. Without increasing the maxium "Block Hieght" (Currently set to a 1Mb) Bitcoin will start to fail in the next 5 years.

[Wind_FURY]

Hello everyone, we can heard in this forum that bitcoin is not centralized and it is one of advantages, but what do you think about this article and the idea that bitcoin is not centralized? I am saying this based on below research which is done on ETH Switzerland and Germany.
https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/infk/inst-infsec/system-security-group-dam/research/publications/pub2014/spmagazine_gervais.pdf

Mining centralization is done by China already..

90% of BTC transactions are from China...

Who ever said Bitcoin is decentralized? Only the development process is decentralized.

This is the correct answer. The cartelization of bitcoin mining has made it more centralized as opposed to before when anyone can enter the network and mine with their CPU. The rising difficulty is making it more and more a competitive area for miners. You need specialized hardware if you want to join the mining. With that idea in mind who is to say if collusion between miners is not possible today? The only thing that is stopping them is their incentive will be reduced in value if they are caught colluding.

The number of nodes are also going down because it is getting more expensive to maintain one because of the blockchain's size. There should be a mechanism to incentivize people who want to maintain bitcoin nodes.

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[bitdumper]

I did not think it needs to be centralized and actully it is not in that sense here centralized means that it is developed upto we can use it more like a coin than a wapsite or a program we can live in it not play games with it

[ekoice]

Mining is mostly done in china nowadays it gives miners a liitle bit control but not total control over bitcoin