[2017-07-20]Former Factom VP: Bitcoin May Crash Due to Serious Centralization

[hl5460]

Wang Liren, former VP of Factom, told Caixin that Bitcoin is very likely to crash due to serious centralization issue. He was the co-founder of China Energy Blockchain Labs and Deputy Secretary General of Beijing Zhongguancun Blockchain Association. But he was better known as former VP of Factom to the cryptocurrency circle.

wangliren
As a famous financial media outlet, Caixin posted the 87-second video to its 2.5 million followers on weibo, which soon sparked on hundreds of shares and comments. He also predicted that ICO would become centralized as well in the video. Below are some comments:


http://news.8btc.com/former-factom-vp-bitcoin-may-crash-due-to-serious-centralization

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[iram1011]

I agree that Chinese mining pools control maximum of the Bitcoin network’s collective hashrate. But I doubt if it is in the best interest of miners to have 51% attack on bitcoin. They are the one who are earning through it the most. Why would they try to end it. But if they all came together for the attack then yes Bitcoin is at risk but I fail to see any reason for that. The thing that bothers me the most is if Chinese government tried to ban Bitcoin or exchanges then, there would be a problem.

[Slow death]

He spoke of a very complicated problem to solve, china has cheap energy, is a good condition for many mining companies to be in china. of course with that china will dominate the mining industry... unless other countries have cheap energy and many miners mining bitcoin in these other countries to change the current scenario


It seems that cao yin wanted to get away from this comment

“We acknowledge Mr. Wang Liren’s historical contribution as a co-founder of the laboratory. But since July 2016, Mr. Wang Liren has no longer been a team member of the Energy Blockchain Laboratory because of differences in the direction of laboratory development. His statements in the past, the present and the future are completely of his own and cannot represent the Lab.” cao yin

[1Referee]

If you look at basically every crypto coin from a critical and unbiased point of view, you'll see that they all in a way might become centralized when x scenario becomes reality. This dude is just cherry picking in the hope to get some attention pointed at himself, but everything he is saying was already perfectly clear years ago. Despite all these potential scenarios, Bitcoin has seen its userbase increase significantly, its price increase significantly, and even the majority of the main stream media sources aren't all that negative anymore. In general, the sentiment has never ever been this good. We are part of something so unique and beautiful, that it only makes sense to keep holding every coin you have for plenty of more years.

[gentlemand]

As long as the money rolls in not enough people care enough about centralisation. It'll take a major scare for it to be firmly back on the radar.

[Iranus]

Bitcoin has been moderately centralised right from the beginning. However, usually the centralisation is from groups like mining pools - if miners decide that the pools are acting in an unethical way, they can move to a different one.  To have power, Bitcoin's public figures rely on support from the BTC community, and they would lose it if they attempted something shockingly bad.

Now though, it's probably less centralised than it's been before.  We're no longer talking about being terrified of ghash.io getting >50% of the hashrate, there are shitloads of (non-listening) nodes, and there are a lot more users.

So to blame a crash on it now, of all times, would be absurd.

Of course if the price goes down everyone will claim that it was because of centralisation, but that's not something that everyone suddenly decided was a huge problem after several years.  They're just making up reasons for a drop in price, when really it's just about speculation.

[LenyaPoker]

This chinese guy, won't be able to harm Bitcoin. I don't believe, he has enough power to change the game. Yeah, they used to have much power, but not now

[hl5460]

Bitcoin has been moderately centralised right from the beginning. However, usually the centralisation is from groups like mining pools - if miners decide that the pools are acting in an unethical way, they can move to a different one.  To have power, Bitcoin's public figures rely on support from the BTC community, and they would lose it if they attempted something shockingly bad.

Now though, it's probably less centralised than it's been before.  We're no longer talking about being terrified of ghash.io getting >50% of the hashrate, there are shitloads of (non-listening) nodes, and there are a lot more users.

So to blame a crash on it now, of all times, would be absurd.

Of course if the price goes down everyone will claim that it was because of centralisation, but that's not something that everyone suddenly decided was a huge problem after several years.  They're just making up reasons for a drop in price, when really it's just about speculation.

Bitcoin last forever?

[CryptoBry]

he can be speaking of something worth looking into...as we all know that cryptocurrency should be decentralized and if that is not the case then there can be a perceived problem. However, we also have to consider the fact that centralization can happen because there are some factors beyond our control. Now, as time passes, I am sure the Bitcoin community can find some remedies on this future problem or at least find ways to counteract or balance things out.

All of these comments regarding the future of Bitcoin and how bleak it might be is not actually serving the whole Bitcoin community but since it is already brought into the open then maybe we can all start discussing this scenario so that a time will come we can find the correct solutions.