How would you measure Decentralization?

[Frink]

If you wanted to compare two currencies and compare the level of decentralization, what measurement would you use?

Assuming you could know any information you needed about the number of miners, mining power distribution, number of users, etc.

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[TIDOVEE]

decentralisation to me simply mean to bring it out of the control of a particular person,government or place. and this can simply be measured by the strenght of influence of this factors on the object. bitcoin is decentralised as it is not subjected to a particular governmental influence.

[Frink]

Would you not agree that perfect decentralization is only achieved when every user mines as an equal?

[Lagonda]

As far as I know, there's no measure of decentralization yet. But you can measure centralization at a approximate level. For example, Bitmain is holding around 42% hash rate of Bitcoin Cash. It's very close to 51% attack's redline. And hence, BCH's centralization is high, i.e its decentralization is low.

[Frink]

As far as I know, there's no measure of decentralization yet. But you can measure centralization at a approximate level. For example, Bitmain is holding around 42% hash rate of Bitcoin Cash. It's very close to 51% attack's redline. And hence, BCH's centralization is high, i.e its decentralization is low.

Yup, looking to define such a benchmark and use it to score some currencies, couldn't find one yet either

I'm thinking something similar to this, look at the minimum number of people who could 51% attack the currency, and compare it to the number of users of the currency.

So for example, if Bitcoin is controlled by 4 mining pools and has 25 million users, then it's decentralization benchmark is 25 million / 4 = 6.25 million

So for Bitcoin, it'd have a decentralization score of '1 in 6.25 million' and the lower that number, the more decentralized the currency.

Alternatively, could be 1/6.25 million = 1.6e-7 aka 0.0000007 but not sure that number would be as meaningful to most. If I did that multiplying by 2 might make sense so perfect decentralization is every user is equal mining power.

Thoughts? Fair way to do it?

Thanks.

[fortunecrypto]

If you wanted to compare two currencies and compare the level of decentralization, what measurement would you use?

Assuming you could know any information you needed about the number of miners, mining power distribution, number of users, etc.

I don't think we can see decentralization if you are going to use those parameters, decentralization to me is free from a third party intrusion and government intervention, we all know the traditional way like Paypal and credit card payment you need to go through a a lot of verification and you only allow to use one account, with cryptocurrency it's very much different.

[mu_enrico]

If it's POS or ERC tokens, then we can use the coin distribution to measure decentralization. You wouldn't buy POS or ERC tokens that have 90% of supply controlled by the top 10% of the holders, right?

As for POW coins, I think hash power distribution is more meaningful than coin distribution. Whoever possesses 51% of the hash, controls the network.

[Frink]

If you wanted to compare two currencies and compare the level of decentralization, what measurement would you use?

Assuming you could know any information you needed about the number of miners, mining power distribution, number of users, etc.

I don't think we can see decentralization if you are going to use those parameters, decentralization to me is free from a third party intrusion and government intervention, we all know the traditional way like Paypal and credit card payment you need to go through a a lot of verification and you only allow to use one account, with cryptocurrency it's very much different.

But as long as a small groups of individuals control it and charging for access to use it.. isn't it just as bad as the government controlling it?

[JeffBrad12]

If you wanted to compare two currencies and compare the level of decentralization, what measurement would you use?

Assuming you could know any information you needed about the number of miners, mining power distribution, number of users, etc.

I will take numbers or miners and mining hashrate power distribution. To ensure if the blockchain is decentralized or not and you can see that from the hashrate (applied for POW). The possibility of 51% attack will be there when there are only a few parties that hold the majority of the hashrate power.

[Tipstar]

There's no proper way to measure decentralization. We consider bitcoin to be a decentralized currency but if you look closely, most of the bitcoins are hold by a small number of people. Mining is an industry now and individual users can't mine with their hardware. To be real, there's no decentralization, just the different level of centralization.

[MisterLangley]

Comparing something is possible in one project to decentralize those who only want to use two currencies which assume a lot