Is True Decentralization a Myth?

[Abiky]

Since Bitcoin was created, Blockchain technology promised to bring full decentralization over people's funds. Each cryptocurrency has a certain level/degree of decentralization depending on the consensus algorithm used and the number of distributed nodes worldwide. While Bitcoin is known to be the most decentralized cryptocurrency today, it still has a certain level of centralization attached to it. PoW is not perfect, as well as, PoS, DPoS and other consensus algorithms.

In the search of "True Decentralization", I found out that there's no such thing. One way or another, a cryptocurrency will have some level of centralization as nothing is perfect in this life. Which is why, I'm starting to think if "True Decentralization" is more of a myth than anything else? What are your thoughts?

[dnprock]

Decentralization exists. Our perception of it is wrong. Some say Bitcoin has centralized mining, not true decentralization. Instead of thinking about absolute decentralization, we should think of increasing money options. Having crypto options is a way to decentralize our money from existing financial system.

Even within Bitcoin, if you take all the forks of Bitcoin into account, the whole ecosystem is fairly decentralized. We have many coin variants, mining algorithms. That is decentralization.

Our lazy brain somehow fools us to think decentralization means search for truth. Decentralization is not about searching for the absolute, centralized truth, one true coin. It's about freedom to choose what we want to do. Decentralization is detachment from existing system. We give it up to find new alternatives. They could be better or worse than what we leave behind. The choice is always ours. Do Your Own Research.

[crzy]

Cryptocurrency gives a decentralized system where we transact anonymously but we have also to remember that this is not a fully decentralized because there are some transactions that you still need to do a KYC especially on withdrawing your funds from a wallet to your bank. What we have right now is better compare before, everyone knows already the real meaning of fiat money with a slow transaction system. 100% decentralized or not at least we are ahead to yesterday and we are looking forward to a better financial system.

[pakhitheboss]

Complete decentralisation is not possible, I mean some one needs to keep a check of what is happening in the ecosystem. 80 percent of the world is living under centralization. We few are enjoying the perks of somewhat decentralization. Isn't that good enough.

[GucciBoy]

I'll take 95% decentralization over any centralized option out there any day. Agree that BTC has a few centralized points, due to the way it's mined. Actually more a fan of POS, however these are prone to 51% attacks if the supply isn't diversified enough amongst it's users, meaning a whale could potentially buy up more than half of it's supply over time.

It's a funny discussion, since it proves that more and more people is starting to actually care about this topic, meanwhile we see everyone trade their favourite cryptocurrencies on centralized exchanges, which is as close to as centralized as you can get. It boggles me every single day, that no one seems to scare, I guess everyone is just in it for the money Haha! 

I have a strong feeling that once people actually DO start to care, that projects like Blocknet for example, will be major players, since their DEX solutions will off set peoples need to stay anonymous while trading. As the bigger players are entering the scene, with millions of dollars to play with, I'm sure a LOT of these guys, would love to hide their money this way. As we've seen so many times, the rich and wealthy hides the majority of their money from the tax man, I wonder why 

[Abiky]

Complete decentralisation is not possible, I mean some one needs to keep a check of what is happening in the ecosystem. 80 percent of the world is living under centralization. We few are enjoying the perks of somewhat decentralization. Isn't that good enough.

Sadly but surely, there's no way to achieve 100% decentralization these days. There has to be a certain level of centralization for a system to function as intended. The only way I'd see decentralization would work is if everything is performed by AI, instead of human beings. Other than that, there will always be the ambitions of greed and other factors that would make any system obtain a certain level of centralization. In the world of crypto, some coins are more decentralized than others and vice versa. It's best to take our efforts in ensuring the crypto industry remains as decentralized as possible. Of course, most people still depend on centralized exchanges to perform their crypto trades which greatly defeats crypto's purpose. Luckily, we have diverse solutions (like DEXs, non-custodial mixers, etc.) that maintain the crypto industry censorship-resistant in some way.

Nonetheless, it's safe to say that "True Decentralization" is just a myth than anything else. The term "decentralization" has become a buzzword where many companies use it for their own benefit. Even Ripple claims it's XRP Ledger to be decentralized when that's not truly the case. Hopefully, people would understand how crypto truly works in order to avoid many misconceptions about its design. Just my opinion

[ecnalubma]

I tend to believe too that Bitcoin is not fully decentralised yet due to unequal distribution because large miners can influence prices and has partial control in the ecosystem. But once it will become more diversified and distributed equally among users worldwide then full decentralisation might be achievable but very slim possibility.

[tsaroz]

Just like a true democracy, we would never have a true decentralization. Arguably the most decentralized coin bitcoin is controlled by miners and developers while the largest amount are hold by early adopters and whale investors. The price is mostly determined by the manipulation rather than the market. For any other coins, thing are much worse.

[blckhawk]

I quite agree on OPs statement. Even though the platform is really made to be decentralized, there would always be a point that it becomes centralized. For instance, mining pools are centralized in the sense that mining rigs work together under a single mining pool to get block rewards, then only it would be distributed in the true decentralized network of nodes.

But one thing came into my mind. Think about torrents, the famous file sharing protocol that uses P2P connections to find fragments of files over the network. Isn't it truly decentralized?

[aprilnot]

there is no perfect decentralization, all consensus has its drawbacks. so don't be surprised by this. but I think the current blockchain technology (except POS / DPOS) is better and far from centralized. even though it's not perfect yet, but we can still compromise on this.

[caffu chino]

PoW is determined from a lot of HASH, the more hash a person has that he can control mining. like bitcoin right now which is controlled by a few big companies.

and no different from Pow, PoS is the same. the more coins they have the more stakes they get. so from the start there was no perfect decentralization. if someone still asks this now, I think it's too late.

[dimonstration]

there is no perfect decentralization, all consensus has its drawbacks. so don't be surprised by this. but I think the current blockchain technology (except POS / DPOS) is better and far from centralized. even though it's not perfect yet, but we can still compromise on this.

For now we might not consider them perfect as we all know they can still all improve and can still have many ways to progress and be entirely decentralised. But for now as government finds it unacceptable for them as they don't have control over things that's why they should still be sort of customization happening in different projects.

[takngantuk]

yes it's just a myth, but decentralization right now is good enough. it might not really be the decentralization that we want, but that's enough than using centralized technology. as long as it's not controlled by the government or an institution like the central bank, that's enough for me. Pow and Pos have flaws, and indeed from the beginning this technology was not perfect, so we have to understand it

[antsam]

Decentralization is very unlikely in my opinion, because without supervision it will be very wild. Regulations are needed so that KYC is now common in the crypto world

[mirgo1791]

different customs as parties to manage on uses with distinctive as appealing release on moderation as extensive with offers to connects on network with the blockchain helps as securing least on waste to work on latency as the server connects to deliver notables on exchange with the function of utilization.

[magneto]

I wouldn't say that it is a myth, but rather something that is not very easily achievable.

There is bound to be some degree of centralisation here or there along the way of using even decentralised cryptos, whether it's on the exchanges, trusting a third party to hold escrow, etc.

Sometimes, these central points don't necessarily need to be eliminated despite traditional outlooks. From a pragmatic standpoint, it's unlikely we'll ever see a system that can be truly decentralised, because that's not feasible.

[jrrsparkles]

We may not get complete decentralization from cryptos but we can get more freedom of using it compared to the current fiat,Why this is happening because we choose decentralized platforms to by cryptos which are working under the regulations of governments so they need to follow the laws from government so they seek for consumer details which makes the system not to be completely decentralized.

If everyone buying cryptos from decentralized platforms then this may change.

[Kevondo]

We may not get complete decentralization from cryptos but we can get more freedom of using it compared to the current fiat,Why this is happening because we choose decentralized platforms to by cryptos which are working under the regulations of governments so they need to follow the laws from government so they seek for consumer details which makes the system not to be completely decentralized.

If everyone buying cryptos from decentralized platforms then this may change.

I don't know what decentralization can be exactly other than what it is now in case of crypto currencies or bitcoin, to be very specific. Decentralized means owned by no one, having no central authority or server. Altcoins are a bit different than bitcoin in this case. There are so many of them, all varying from each other. If it was possible to control crypto currencies, then China would have already taken over bitcoin.

[Ucy]

No, it's not a myth atall. Nothing is impossible really.  People probably don't understand what true decentralization is, or don't know how to make things truely decentralized or don't want people to know that true decentralization is possible. I don't want to say much about this. I believe a time will come when most people will yern for true decentralizion.

[abeecrypto]

There is no full decentralisation. I repeat! There is no full decentralisation. I doubt if there is going to be such. But there are platforms that are far less centralised than the other. That is what blockchain implemented concepts provide: far less centralisation. This ‘far less centralisation’ only creeps towards true decentralisation.

But, hey, I would still prefer 'far less centralisation' to traditional centralisation.

Only time will tell if true decentralisation is achievable or not.