What are you opinions on this- Algorithms that sacrifice decentralization for scalability are not ideal, as they increase the attack surface from powerful adversaries.
There are many variables to this statement- Decentralization, scalability, protocol security, why sacrifice? Is there a better way to think about it all and what are your thoughts on this?
Cryptocurrencies can only be valuable if they are truly decentralized, otherwise they are just electronic payment systems similar to PayPal and Visa. So, in my opinion decentralization is more important than scalability, because even if a coin doesn't scale well, it can still be used for storing value or big transactions, as settlement layer and so on. But "decentralization" is often a very misunderstood term, and it's actually only a mean to an end - a game-theoretic balance that makes uncooperative strategies unprofitable. For example, the current state of Bitcoin mining can hardly be called decentralized, but thanks to the network of nodes and strong community of users, miners are kept in check. The rejection of forks like SegWit2x and Bcash shows that Bitcoin community is not willing to take any tradeoffs for short-term scalability, even though transaction fees can get very high during big congestions.
100% agree. It is the whole reason for btc. The internet created a global community, low-cost smart phones has provided global access. A global currency is the next step.
