Is Bitcoin really still decentralized??

[pawanjain]

I must say I completely agree with @NeuroticFish . Bitcoin is not about the price but the coin itself.
Yes it is still decentralized because many number of people hold bitcoin. Decentralization is not about the quantity that people hold but it's about the number of people who hold the particular thing. In this way, bitcoin is still decentralized.

I do agree that the distribution is not at an equal rate but we can't do anything about it. The distribution will get better as time passes by and more number of people join in.

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[kryptqnick]

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??

Mining and the market are not that related. Mining is largely controlled by big entities, sure. And even though it does not mean it's fully centralized, it is not that decentralized, so to speak. But miners only produce and possess a very small amount of bitcoins, they cannot use that to control the market. Now, some believe that the market is manipulated by the big whales, but there's no proof of that. It's true that there are about a hundred of the richest addresses that own the vast majority of BTC, but it's not even close to one entity, and many of those addresses belong to exchanges or other big companies and are pretty much off the money movements. So in the end, it's not that bad.

[Lauren Smith]

I agree it is not decentralized as farr as mining is concerned and many people cannot take part due to capitalization of mass mining factories. The little guy has no chance. This was not the vision of bitcoin. Bitcoin was ment to bring profit on even the most basic pc. Of course someone will invent an asic just like people will invent bots to do manual tasks over and over. It would be great if anyone could just mone but so far we have no solution to it and even other coins that only use CPU there seems to be no profit.

[johnwest]

The mining community may influence the market with its holdings but it doesnt mean that bitcoin is centralized. Common man can still buy/sell their bitcoin freely and hold it till they want. Bitcoin is truly decentralized and if more people get into it then more decentralization.

[finaleshot2016]

Bitcoin is already confirmed as a decentralized asset, I'm wondering what is the use of this thread?

We can freely but and sell bitcoin through many various platforms, that's how decentralized works right? So I think decentralization in this asset does really working. If you will compare trading to mining, it's very different as the mining can be controlled by many companies.

In trading, it can be also centralized, once the platform requires KYC to the users 'cause we can't buy bitcoin freely and anonymously.

[CarnagexD]

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.

I guess not, that isn't valid at all. Having corporations investments on bitcoin does not make it any centralized or being control, they can somehow manipulate but it is uncertain. Yup, technically it is decentralized however corporations are taking advantage of trendiness of it for them to generate and backed they assets since it is hitting the market now.

[Twentyonepaylots]

It's definitely decentralized, no one can 51% attack or reorganize the chain.

But even a 51% owning of bitcoin does not make it a centralized one, they could just somehow exceptionally manipulate and impact on the market, even having 75% cannot do the job of being centralized. And we can't just tell that miners are holding a lot of mined bitcoins knowing they are maintaining the expense of mining cryptorrencies such as electricity and equipments.

[xiboothrezi]

It seems that the OP has to go deeper into the meaning of decentralization, this shift in the meaning of the fundamental financial system cannot change just like that when "some people" are suspected of being able to manipulate the market. Bitcoin, since its inception, is a decentralized financial system because there is no official or central authority behind it that controls and is responsible for all aspects of the economy, including printing money, imposing taxes, giving approval to banks to service accounts, etc., not such a thing, yes right?

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But even a 51% owning of bitcoin does not make it a centralized one, they could just somehow exceptionally manipulate and impact on the market, even having 75% cannot do the job of being centralized. And we can't just tell that miners are holding a lot of mined bitcoins knowing they are maintaining the expense of mining cryptorrencies such as electricity and equipments.

This is what I mean, even though there are some people who have large amounts of bitcoin, it doesn't mean that they can control bitcoin fully, they can't, that person can indeed be a market maker that affects the price of bitcoin, but can't fully control it like the authority owner.

[Lizzylove1]

Bitcoin has always and will forever be decentralized. No one has single control of the network not even the US or the Chinese miners, for you to be profitable in mining, you need a specialized mining machine like the Asic miners. The distribution of bitcoin mining reward per block is decentralized, so no miner can lay claim to every 1,800BTC reward per 24hrs, which is approximately 12.5BTC per block for every 10mins. What usually case price dump and sudden rice is just what I will call emotional trading occasioned by majorly by FUD. This somewhat price manipulation is expected because of still developing bitcoin market. Even the stock market is based on speculations, the strong always win.

[minersday]

Bitcoin is still decentralized mate if not it might have suffered from a 51% attack by now. Just because many folks have it in larger quantity does not mean that bitcoin is not decentralized. Among all the coins in this industry, bitcoin is one of the cryptocurrency that can boast of full security and decentralization. Keep in note that, all these huge mining farms are there to keep the network stable from hackers. Can you count the number of coins that have been hacked successfully? Please spare us this FUD!

[pixie85]

It is decentralized and will remain decentralized as long as there's no single point of failure.

Some of you don't get what decentralization is. Your fiat is centralized because it's all in the hands of your central bank. This is a single point of failure. As long as there's more than 1 bitcoin mine and more than 1 exchange Bitcoin will be decentralized.

Crying that most mining is in China will not change anything because even if chinese miners are taken down all at once because of some natural disaster there will be plenty left to finalize transactions without them.

[Blitzboy]

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??

Mining is not related to Bitcoin's decentralization, the problem here is how you understand and look at bitcoin. From the start, bitcoin was decentralized, and at that time, only a few people held large amounts of bitcoin. So until now, or at any moment, no matter how a big company owns a lot of bitcoins. It's decentralization remains unchanged. Do you understand?
Here, you have misunderstood the term "decentralization", you should refer to the answers above!

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.

[Shasha80]

Of course bitcoin is still decentralized, as long as there is still no party who can control bitcoin. As long as we as bitcoin users still can conduct
transactions without the intervention of third parties in this case the bank, and as long as the transaction is transparent it can be seen by anyone
on the network blockchain. If all of that is still valid then bitcoin is still decentralized. So there is no decentralized relationship with mining and
trading according to me. Most people misunderstand the notion of decentralized, no matter whales have a lot of bitcoin and do manipulation
price. Then China controls the mining farm, because in the country its electricity costs are cheap. All that has nothing to do with decentralized.

[1Referee]

As long as there's more than 1 bitcoin mine and more than 1 exchange Bitcoin will be decentralized.

Hmmm. BCash and BSV have different mining pools on their network and plenty of exchanges their shitcoins are listed at, yet they remain heavily centralized. In both cases it's one team/entity deciding what the development roadmap is. In both cases chains have been rolled back more than once and checkpoints were put in place for 'security' purposes.

In a sense that's actually great for those who control both networks. In case of a large scale hack they just roll back the chain and undo the theft. If your Bitcoins get stolen you can't do anything but cry yourself to sleep. That's the definition of an immutable ledger. No one can mess with it. Rolling back chains is a no go.  

[Artemis3]

It is decentralized and will remain decentralized as long as there's no single point of failure.

Some of you don't get what decentralization is. Your fiat is centralized because it's all in the hands of your central bank. This is a single point of failure. As long as there's more than 1 bitcoin mine and more than 1 exchange Bitcoin will be decentralized.

Crying that most mining is in China will not change anything because even if chinese miners are taken down all at once because of some natural disaster there will be plenty left to finalize transactions without them.

I think this is the best explanation so far on this thread.

Always ask the question, what can i do to stop it?

In the case of centralized money, this might mean arrest the creator, confiscate a company, destroy a (few) datacenter(s) or stage a coup.

Tell me exactly how can you stop Bitcoin? I can tell you how to stop many altcoins, especially those that depend on some millionaire, few devs can revert blockchain transactions or a dictator change the rules of the coin on a whim.

Indeed most fiat currencies cannot pass this test. If the US gov falls, and the American economy collapses, so will the USD. But Bitcoin would remain not affected. Just because your government is great and "never" allows such tragedies to occur, doesn't mean that such a tragedy might never actually occur.

Some countries have a longer standing record for "proper" monetary policy, but in the end you have to trust people. Not with Bitcoin, it remains the same unless the vast majority accepts a change. All your wealth holds pending on an executive decision... Not with Bitcoin, there can never be surprises with Bitcoin.

[JeffBrad12]

early adopters doesn't necessarily have the power to manipulate though, that's just your assumption and just because some portion of circulating bitcoin supply owned by individual doesn't make it centralized. however, the "centralized" hash power mainly coming from china might be your concern but it's okay if they can't 51% attack the blockchain and recently there's china's news or rumour regarding the raid of crypto related company, that could potentially decrease the miners.

[pooya87]

well you are not the first person to fail in trading bitcoin and lose money then end up trying to find someone else to blame for their losses. but you are the first one that is linking it to decentralization, probably because you don't understand what being decentralized really means.
all the market manipulations and the things that led to your losses have nothing to do with bitcoin being decentralized, they are all stemming from the fact that there are a lot of people who don't understand what bitcoin is, and how its market works but they still want to trade it and only trade it. so the result is a lot of weak hands that could be easily manipulated and cause the wild market swings that lead to a lot of losses for the same people.

[bitvalak]

You can bitcoin transactions among users without the need to take care of permission from anyone, it's already called decentralization.
Just because there are some people who hold large amounts of bitcoin and manipulate the market you say that bitcoin is now centralized.
It is natural to happen, there are always pros and cons in any sector. Depending on how you respond to it because I was used to such conditions in previous years.

[Astvile]

Miners does not own the bitcoin network.
Bitcoin is still decetralized what is currently centralized are exchange websites and the whole mining industry. Because there are people or group of people who owns various exchange and mining company. So totally the whole bitcoin network is still decentralized for sure.

[LogitechMouse]

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I'm not a technical guy but I think that what you are saying is totally false.


First of all, Bitcoin is still decentralized as always. Its just that rich investors, exchanges, and miners are owning more than an average person since they have many fiat money to invest into it. Its the same as paper money that rich people are owning most of it but the only difference is that Bitcoin is decentralized while the other doesn't

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

Yes big companies does have access to Bitcoin mining so it is not dead. Simple, they have money to invest to Bitcoin mining that is why they are mining. Go to China and you will see many miners there. Bitcoin mining isn't dead.