Is Bitcoin really still decentralized??

[satori1]

After the years in trading Bitcoin it came more and more clear to me that Bitcoin is technically not decentralized anymore... its mainly owned by huge mining farms or early adopters who are able to manipulate the market at will, many exchanges playing with Bitcoin and Altcoins by making fools out of the normal Joe who wants to enter the Crypto world, i know many here will think that you should be ready and get informed before taking any step into the crypto world, but does it not bother anyone that some people are enriching them self by kicking the crap out of your wallets??


Bitcoin Mining is dead unless you own a mining farm with the necessary hashrate, again only big companies having access to Bitcoin!!!


What is your thought about this??

[NeuroticFish]

What is your thought about this??

You've mixed up some things, I believe.

In the same was money distribution in the world is not uniform, in the same way Bitcoin distribution is not uniform. Some were luckier, some had money to invest, some have missed the train.

But this is is not related to mining. Bitcoin mining has became a business, indeed, average Joe cannot mine anymore. On the other hand this is good, helping blockchain safe against attacks and this also keeps the price high, so some of the "average Joe" can invest and gain (although, as said, this doesn't happen in many cases, but I'll get to this too).

And all this is is not related to decentralization as known for Bitcoin. Bitcoin decentralization is about how many full copies of the blockchain there are, it's about the full nodes and the number of mining pools. And these are fairly dispersed and decentralized.

Now about your concerns:

* Market manipulation is indeed bad, but isn't this concern out of greed "you want a piece too"? Bitcoin should be a coin, not necessarily an investment. Also the average Joe doesn't afford investing, this is the sad reality in the world. Bitcoin is not about easy money.

* Bitcoin mining is not dead. Just may not be a good business for average Joe. And we get back to the greed part.

* You are unhappy about the scams. Isn't like this everywhere in the world? The world is full of fake shops, of people trying to steal from you and so on. Here there's no difference, that's why one has to inform himself before trying this or that.

[Lucius]

After the years in trading Bitcoin it came more and more clear to me that Bitcoin is technically not decentralized anymore... its mainly owned by huge mining farms or early adopters who are able to manipulate the market at will...

Bitcoin exists in the free market, small users cannot influence who will have what amount of Bitcoin and where people who mine Bitcoin will be located. Who's fault is that you and I are not mined Bitcoin in the first days, months or years when it was possible to do it with ordinary home computers and when the reward per block was 50 Bitcoins? I wouldn't say we can blame anyone for that unless you think Satoshi should have sent one mass e-mail or SMS to all people in the world?

People get rich, but they also lose everything they have when it comes to cryptocurrency - but why do you think it hits someone who just holds coins in his wallet? No one can get rich from something I don't want to sell at the moment, only weak and inexperienced hands make losses.

Bitcoin is not perfect, you have to learn to adjust and not bother with things you can't change.

[hatshepsut93]

Miners own mining, they don't own Bitcoin's protocol or Bitcoin network or Bitcoin community. Miners don't influence the price in any special way, and there's also no solid proof that anyone successfully manipulates the price on a large scale, it's just rumors of frustrated traders who lose their money doing bad trades.

Bitcoin is still the most decentralized cryptocurrency, because it has the biggest network and community and the most decentralized development with hundreds of contributors.

[Youghoor]

First and foremost, do you really understand what decentralization means? In as much that there are huge mining farm companies mining Bitcoins, they do not actually control the entire Bitcoin ecosystem and the amount of transactions made on the bitcoin blockchain network. Decentralization is about the freedom to make transactions without needing a third party to confirm the transactions. The nature of Bitcoin mining does not make the entire Bitcoin look not decentralized.....

[DreamStage]

What really is decentralization:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization

Learn that first and feedback later...

Mining has nothing to do with decentralization around bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency transactions.

When someone talks about bitcoin being decentralized it means you can exchange it anywhere, whenever you want as long you have a network (internet) and an exchanger.
There is no centralized bank that approves each individual transaction but rather a diversed network surrounding miners and exchangers.

[tsaroz]

After the years in trading Bitcoin it came more and more clear to me that Bitcoin is technically not decentralized anymore... its mainly owned by huge mining farms or early adopters who are able to manipulate the market at will, many exchanges playing with Bitcoin and Altcoins by making fools out of the normal Joe who wants to enter the Crypto world, i know many here will think that you should be ready and get informed before taking any step into the crypto world, but does it not bother anyone that some people are enriching them self by kicking the crap out of your wallets??


Bitcoin Mining is dead unless you own a mining farm with the necessary hashrate, again only big companies having access to Bitcoin!!!


What is your thought about this??

There's been a lot of discussion about it in the past.
Bitcoin is one of the most decentralized currency ever. People may argue large amount of bitcoin is hold by limited individuals and companies and earned by large mining farms. But it's distribution is still much more decentralized than any other currency.
A context, 26 richest people owns more than rest of population
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/21/world-26-richest-people-own-as-much-as-poorest-50-per-cent-oxfam-report

[dothebeats]

People always get their ideas tangled up. The bitcoin network, per se, is still decentralized as long as there are still thousands upon thousands of individual machines having a copy of the entire blockchain on their storage systems. While it is true that mining became so centralized, particularly in China, it doesn't necessarily mean that bitcoin in itself is centralized as well. Miners can alter or choose which transactions goes through, but then again by doing so they are limiting their profits and that's not what they want to do.

We are still not bound by heavy regulation unlike any other markets out there so I guess we're still doing pretty good.

[aardvark15]

I think you certainly have a valid point. I was thinking the same thing about corporations and especially governments like China mining Bitcoins.  I still think it’s technically decentralized because no one government controls Bitcoin and it’s still an open ledger, but mining is no longer something a regular individual can do anymore.

[chaoscoinz]

Yes to a degree of course. The current developers have had quite the few disagreements in the past which has happen to split the chain during the past hard-fork. Other than the numerous hard-forks that have taken place over the past few years, Bitcoin seems to be recovering quite well from it's 2017's pump/bubble fiasco. I think Bitcoin still remains decentralized in honor of Satoshi Nakamotos original plan to keep things knowingly transparent and open source. If it wasn't for Bitcoin and Block-chains decentralization, there wouldn't be any other similar projects around right now.

[Maus0728]

Decentralization is a system that allows one person to transact peer to peer across the globe without the need for middlemen/ banks. Decentralization also means that you do not need to ask permission from another person in order to use it and can absolutely show the transparency of the transactions from the public ledger called blockchain.

Mining is just one of the contributing factors that make bitcoin decentralize, mining helps the verification process of bitcoin transactions to make sure that it is true and to prevent double-spending. On the contrary, I think that mining helps bitcoin to become more decentralized due to an increasing mining space done by large companies and big businesses.

We also cannot blame big investors by having a large amount of money who has the capacity of controlling the market, which in turn normal joe cannot keep up with continuous price increase. We all have a different status in life specifically in the financial area and we all must accept that fact.

We cannot outrun the fact that scamming is continual in this world. That is why reading informing oneself is a must not just crypto-space but in real world as well.

[darkangel11]

OP focused on 2 points
-centralized mining
-centralized trading

Both are wrong.

You said yourself that mining is centered around big farms but this IS decentralization. If mining was done in 1 or 2 farms it would be centralization. Farms are all around the world mostly in China but also in Russia and the USA. This makes mining decentralized.

Trading is also not centralized because it's not done on 1 platform but on a number of them. Also there's no 2 or 3 big whales who own everything that is being traded.
One more thing. Traded coins are not all coins. In fact coins that are traded on exchanges are less than half of all coins in circulation. Most of the supply is not traded at all.

[blckhawk]

Decentralization only comes to the part where full nodes and hash rates are computed. In financial terms, Bitcoin as of now isn't decentralized and equal. Mining pools and whales indeed got a large part, contribution, and power over the network. Proof of work forces them to gather as mining pools, but the rewards are still split up though, but the power remains on those powerful enough, such as huge holders like exchanges.

[HeRetiK]

Bitcoin is far from perfect, but in terms of decentralization it's still the best bet we currently have.

Bitcoin Mining is dead unless you own a mining farm with the necessary hashrate, again only big companies having access to Bitcoin!!!

I think we still have a couple of small(ish) miners on Bitcointalk that would disagree? Profit margins and economics of scale have pushed towards mining consolidation, that's true, but despite all that Bitcoin remains uncensorable and secure. And that's the important bit.

[Ucy]

What is your thought about this??

You've mixed up some things, I believe.

In the same was money distribution in the world is not uniform, in the same way Bitcoin distribution is not uniform. Some were luckier, some had money to invest, some have missed the train.

But this is is not related to mining. Bitcoin mining has became a business, indeed, average Joe cannot mine anymore. On the other hand this is good, helping blockchain safe against attacks and this also keeps the price high, so some of the "average Joe" can invest and gain (although, as said, this doesn't happen in many cases, but I'll get to this too).

And all this is is not related to decentralization as known for Bitcoin. Bitcoin decentralization is about how many full copies of the blockchain there are, it's about the full nodes and the number of mining pools. And these are fairly dispersed and decentralized.

Now about your concerns:

* Market manipulation is indeed bad, but isn't this concern out of greed "you want a piece too"? Bitcoin should be a coin, not necessarily an investment. Also the average Joe doesn't afford investing, this is the sad reality in the world. Bitcoin is not about easy money.

* Bitcoin mining is not dead. Just may not be a good business for average Joe. And we get back to the greed part.

* You are unhappy about the scams. Isn't like this everywhere in the world? The world is full of fake shops, of people trying to steal from you and so on. Here there's no difference, that's why one has to inform himself before trying this or that.

How about miners censoring transactions in the future? You think this is not possible? I have read couple of posts concerning this. One of the fears is that transactions can be censored if mining is centralized by a single group/entity. The entity can even decide to stop mining altogether when mining equipments become scarce or hard to produce

[HeRetiK]

How about miners censoring transactions in the future? You think this is not possible? I have read couple of posts concerning this.

Miners censoring transactions would require an amount of centralization that's probably nothing short of what is required to run a 51% attack. As long as some miners are willing to mine a "blacklisted" transaction it will enter the blockchain eventually.

One of the fears is that transactions can be censored if mining is centralized by a single group/entity.

The minute Bitcoin is controlled by a single entity it's dead. That has been known from the beginning. And it's luckily very unlikely to happen.

The entity can even decide to stop mining altogether when mining equipments become scarce or hard to produce

Any major miner stopping mining altogether is a win for decentralization as other miners take their place. If ASICs for some reasons stop existing, people will regress to GPU and CPU mining. Simple as that.

[d3nz]

One thing that i know, Bitcoin is really decentralized and the only problem with the manipulation its because they already horde a lot of it and if they buy or sell a lot of bitcoin then it will surely be depends on the market circulation if they will keep it up or down the value. And its like a game that you should rrally think of if its a win or lose situation.

And it is only becoming centralized from the exchanges and if its required a KYC.

[iamaruf]

Bitcoin is created for decentralization but if people use like centralization then It's people’s fault not bitcoins fault.If you start trading in centralized exchanger and use KYC in exchanger it’s your fault mate.Bitcoin have there own wallet to hold,there are exchanger which don't allow KYC and if you use that then you are hiding yourself.If you own your keys and using then no one can control your money without you.So it’s decentralized.But if you use third party to mine or trade then it turns into centralized.That's why I am telling that people making bitcoin centralized and decentralized,but bitcoin created for decentralized.           

[Eugenar]

I see you are more focused on mining as a decentralized characteristic of bitcoin. But what about considering your personal usage of the bitcoin? Because for me, it does not necessarily mean that you need to mine bitcoin just to satisfy what you want in having bitcoin as decentralized. In addition, Bitcoin as decentralized is not also based on the huge exchanges operating in the market. In the first place, you can still create transactions without any third party, and you can send money without your anonymity being exposed.

[YuginKadoya]

After the years in trading Bitcoin it came more and more clear to me that Bitcoin is technically not decentralized anymore... its mainly owned by huge mining farms or early adopters who are able to manipulate the market at will,

Not all early adopters can manipulate the market, I guess you are talking about whales, and to get your assumption correct I think it should be "Whales are manipulating the market" and Bitcoin is always decentralized and that kind of thing will never be taken out to Bitcoin because it is a part of it when Satoshi created it.

Bitcoin Mining is dead unless you own a mining farm with the necessary hashrate, again only big companies having access to Bitcoin!!!

This is pretty much well known here, that it is not advisable to mine anymore if you had a good cool place, a lot of mining farm, free internet, and low cost electricity.