Is ETH decentralized?

[Little Mouse]

ETH is the 2nd largest crypto as per the market capital. Till now, I did not know that once upon a time in 2016, Vitalik Buterin has forked ETH to rollback transactions from DAO hack. I knew from here- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5242048.msg54262172#msg54262172
So, if the creator of the ETH can fork the blockchain to reverse or in other words to manipulate the chain, how can it be decentralized?
Share your opinion.

[mk4]

Because it isn't; simply because Vitalik simply has so much influence over Ethereum. It's safe to assume that this is one of the main reasons Satoshi left the Bitcoin community and went into the shadows— because he/she/they knew that their influence would be too big.

[akhjob]

I think Ethereum is decentralized, yeah Vitalik is influential so but the majority of the community stood with him resulting in the forks ETH and ETC. My current opinion on ETH is that it is decentralised but buggy and the bugs need to be fixed. That's the main reason for the frequent attacks on smart contracts.

[mk4]

I think Ethereum is decentralized, yeah Vitalik is influential so the majority of the community stood with him resulting in the forks ETH and ETC.

No offense, but you do realize that your statement is actually somewhat a contradiction right?

[akhjob]

I think Ethereum is decentralized, yeah Vitalik is influential so the majority of the community stood with him resulting in the forks ETH and ETC.

No offense, but you do realize that your statement is actually somewhat a contradiction right?

Yeah it sounds a bit contradictory. But I tried to mean is that only because the majority chose to be with Vitalik ETH is were it is now. Else, ETC would have been in its place. For example, Roger is not the creator of Bitcoin but he was a influential in the Bitcoin community, however the majority stood with BTC not BCH. I think you get what I tried to mean.
The reentrancy issue resulted in the DAO hack and the same issue resulted in the recent dForce hack. They should have fixed the bug instead of roll over but doesn't mean the network is centralised.

[pooya87]

short answer is no.

it is not only about the influence of one person although that is a valid reason, it is mostly about the network itself. there is only a handful of real full nodes running on ethereum blockchain and the rest which is about 95% of the nodes are running simplified versions that do not verify or even download the entire blockchain. that is also why they could easily roll back since nobody had any voice on that chain!

additionally the day ETH switches to PoS it centralizes even more since by then those who have the premined millions of Ether will have the biggest power and those people are Vitalik and the foundation which are all in same group.

[mk4]

Yeah it sounds a bit contradictory. But I tried to mean is that only because the majority chose to be with Vitalik ETH is were it is now. Else, ETC would have been in its place. For example, Roger is not the creator of Bitcoin but he was a influential in the Bitcoin community, however the majority stood with BTC not BCH. I think you get what I tried to mean.
The reentrancy issue resulted in the DAO hack and the same issue resulted in the recent dForce hack. They should have fixed the bug instead of roll over but doesn't mean the network is centralised.

Regardless if forking out the DAO hack is the right decision or not, whether or not it gave Ethereum a positive effect or not, the main point is that Vitalik's influence is just too big.

As for the Roger Ver example, yes sure. But the difference with Bitcoin is that while there are lots of sort of "influencers", there's A LOT of them and their respective influences are more equally shared. Erik Voorhees, Andreas Antonopoulos, Adam Back, Pieter Wuille, Nick Szabo, Jameson Lopp, and the list goes on and on. In contrast to Ethereum whereas the influence is heavily skewed towards Vitalik, and a very low influence for a smaller diverse group of people.

[amishmanish]

ETH was supposed to do just one thing. Run smart-contracts in a decentralized, trustless and efficient manner. It was imagined that the use-cases would eventually come. Unfortunately the money grabs that happened in its wake in the form of ICOs took away all the focus from development to greed and the next pump and dump for traders/ ICO devs to make money from.
It has probably been the single biggest drain of technical manpower in the last century with thousands of these scam devs working their way to generate template for the next token while spending time to write nonsense whitepapers and websites. Ethereum has been exploited and the example was laid down by the founders themselves.

As far as decentralization is concerned, the GPU miners are the ones contributing to mining pools and those are fairly spread out. The top two pools account for around 30 and 20% of total haspower respectively. That is further divided into the individual GPU miners. The hashing power is sufficiently decentralized imo. Further as far as governance is concerned, that is surely not the case as one person calls the shots on development as well as calamity resolution.

Further still, decentralization on ethereum means little because the idea of DApps that it proposed has turned out to be a failure due to the transaction rates. Even if they move to PoS, the situation would not change. EOS is already a POS chain and has no promising DApps development that shows any proof that there is any need for them. The time remaining for Eth to actually prove itself with a use-case is shrinking fast.

[tbct_mt2]

Because it isn't; simply because Vitalik simply has so much influence over Ethereum. It's safe to assume that this is one of the main reasons Satoshi left the Bitcoin community and went into the shadows— because he/she/they knew that their influence would be too big.

You nailed it. The same with Steve Jobs & Apple, Bill Gates & Microsoft, Warren Buffett & Berkshire Hathaway, they have so much influence on those companies. Each statement they say have huge impact on investors' emotion and decisions. In crypto, statements from developers are more influent from technical side. For Ethereum and Vitalik, I don't think Vitalik will leave Ethereum and stay in the shadow like what satoshi did for bitcoin, years ago. And if he want to do so, he will be not able to do this because everyone knows him. He is not anonymous like satoshi.

[squatter]

additionally the day ETH switches to PoS it centralizes even more since by then those who have the premined millions of Ether will have the biggest power and those people are Vitalik and the foundation which are all in same group.

Which addresses belong to Vitalik and the foundation?

The "pre-mine" in the genesis block was distributed to pre-sale investors. Implying that the developers own it all is ridiculous.

[20kevin20]

Theoretically, purely based on its structure, it is decentralized. But as all members above said, the reality says the opposite.

I never really liked that much the way ETH even works. I dunno - it gives me a weird vibe as if I am not under complete control of my wallet. It's sad how a coin can be promoted as decentralized when there is a huge manpower laying over the entire coin and willing to conquer it even more.

If one has the power to do such a large & full-of-consequences move, run away.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Pretty much convince that ethereum was once a decentralized space for cryptocurrency before. However, since a lot happened on their network and much controversy had been exposed with their CEO Vitalik It safes to assume its no longer the case. Remember what does it mean by decentralized? A framework and structure that allows people except government or any central authorities to have control over the network. That contradicts to many claim of ethereum with its activity.

This is a good discussion why we should believe ethereum is not decentralized.

ethereum isnt decentralized and other myths

_{OP I'm pretty sure this thread belong to Altcoin Discussion}

[slackovic]

Reading all these comments, I think it would be better to say that Ethereum network is decentralized but the problem is that Vitalik's influence is just too big. And probably every decision that he make will be OK with the community. Because of that influence, I would describe Ethereum as pseudo-decentralized network. Would you agree?

[Little Mouse]

additionally the day ETH switches to PoS it centralizes even more since by then those who have the premined millions of Ether will have the biggest power and those people are Vitalik and the foundation which are all in same group.

You are correct, with PoS, Vitalik will have more power in the ETH chain and it will get more centralized. So, basically PoS is the opposite for ETH what it was supposed to be.

Reading all these comments, I think it would be better to say that Ethereum network is decentralized but the problem is that Vitalik's influence is just too big. And probably every decision that he make will be OK with the community. Because of that influence, I would describe Ethereum as pseudo-decentralized network. Would you agree?

If anyone has so much influence in certain asset, that can never be called decentralized. Bitmover was correct, that was the end of ETH although I did not know anything about it.

[WalkerIVIV]

Reading all these comments, I think it would be better to say that Ethereum network is decentralized but the problem is that Vitalik's influence is just too big. And probably every decision that he make will be OK with the community. Because of that influence, I would describe Ethereum as pseudo-decentralized network. Would you agree?

Any decision that has already taken by ethereum developer will put miners as a party that plays a big role. I guess you must need to read the whole story of DAO hack. I just suggest you read this
https://medium.com/@ogucluturk/the-dao-hack-explained-unfortunate-take-off-of-smart-contracts-2bd8c8db3562

Just like that the implementation fo the EIP will never happen if the majority of miners say no for that proposal. This is similar as when bitcoin was also doing BIP and the community ( miners) were voting for which proposal that made them all interested.

[slackovic]

Reading all these comments, I think it would be better to say that Ethereum network is decentralized but the problem is that Vitalik's influence is just too big. And probably every decision that he make will be OK with the community. Because of that influence, I would describe Ethereum as pseudo-decentralized network. Would you agree?

Any decision that has already taken by ethereum developer will put miners as a party that plays a big role. I guess you must need to read the whole story of DAO hack. I just suggest you read this
https://medium.com/@ogucluturk/the-dao-hack-explained-unfortunate-take-off-of-smart-contracts-2bd8c8db3562

Just like that the implementation fo the EIP will never happen if the majority of miners say no for that proposal. This is similar as when bitcoin was also doing BIP and the community ( miners) were voting for which proposal that made them all interested.

True, all of the EIPs has to be accepted by the majority of the miners in order to be implemented. No one is saying that Vitalik can implement an EIP by himself. But his opinions are very influential and most miners will accept whatever he says. That's why I'm saying that Ethereum is pseudo-decentralized.

[danherbias07]

Well he has control over it so we could not say it is decentralized right?

Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group.

Credits to Wiki.

That tells it all. Actually, the answer to your question lies in your own statement which had been done before.
The fact that he have authority over it is the answer.
You could always use bitcoin for easier comparison.

[popeye95]

ETH is decentralized. Vitalik Buterin able to forked ETH to rollback transactions from DAO hack because there are many ETH users who stood with his action. Yes, he is a leading figure of ETH but ETH users agree with that course of action so it isn't like Vitalik Buterin could do whatever he wants without the agreement with ETH users at that time.

[rdluffy]

You can consider a mid term, not totally decentralized, because Vitalik have a lot of power in ETH of course, and I don't blame him, it's his own coin and at least he try to do his best to improving ETH
And it's a good job, it's the biggest altcoin and have a real use, it works, so there's no problem to ETH

[Wh00re]

Ether is very centralized, as Vitalik holds a good bunch of the premined coins still. Doesn't seem like people care at all, as he did amazingly well with his platform.

I'm not a fan of centralized projects, regardless of how popular they may seem, this includes Ripple and a few others on the list.
Been a fan of Blocknet since the very beginning, since everything is funded through super blocks, meaning everything is voted for. The investors decides how the money is spent, and where. It's pretty cool.
They are all about decentralization, mostly known for their DEX, but also works on their own oracle network, and Infura solution which is actually far more powerful than Ethereums.