Can decentralization lead the next phase of the economy?

[cryptoboy007]

The entire cryptocurrency market capitalization is a toddler when compared to the global markets like the stock market and the commodity market. considering where Bitcoin started, the whole ecosystem have come a long way since the past decade.

Bitcoin has been the dominant cryptocurrency for long now, I think that could change in the future. For the market to grow large and compete with global market, its becoming clear that other cryptocurrencies might rise to compete with the Bitcoin's marketcap. Top players from the traditional market need to get involved in cryptocurrency and issue decentralized products, the space need a lot of attention at this time. Such close competition could be setting the stage for a multi trillion crypto market.

But then, what is uncertain is regulation, can cryptocurrency grow into a multi-trilion market without the proper regulations?

[teosanru]

The entire cryptocurrency market capitalization is a toddler when compared to the global markets like the stock market and the commodity market. considering where Bitcoin started, the whole ecosystem have come a long way since the past decade.

Bitcoin has been the dominant cryptocurrency for long now, I think that could change in the future. For the market to grow large and compete with global market, its becoming clear that other cryptocurrencies might rise to compete with the Bitcoin's marketcap. Top players from the traditional market need to get involved in cryptocurrency and issue decentralized products, the space need a lot of attention at this time. Such close competition could be setting the stage for a multi trillion crypto market.

But then, what is uncertain is regulation, can cryptocurrency grow into a multi-trilion market without the proper regulations?

Not as a mainstream economy for sure. Moreover to my surprise global markets look pretty stable now. The whole aura of huge market crashes and big depression is almost gone. People are thinking that recession's over. Talking about bitcoin Adoption would be possible only if we start to use bitcoin as a currency. But I don't see it's inherent problems getting resolved. The scalability and high fees issue still remains the problem. LN is just a dream we are taking from past 3 years. There is no reason why I think cryptocurrency market go mainstream in the next phase at all. Once while bitcoin was trying to fetch more capitalization in global space now is fighting in terms of capitalization in crypto space itslef.

[ethereumhunter]

As long as all of the government is not accept bitcoin, we won't see bitcoin will change the world economy, and all of the global markets will be like what we see now. It needs interfering with the government to improve the economy or the market, and the decentralized system can not run without centralized, which will control the process. Maybe that is what will happen. But if the government doesn't have a choice to survive, I think the government will accept crypto and use crypto as what they usually use. I am sure there will be regulations from the government which can control the cryptocurrency and the market.

[livingfree]

its becoming clear that other cryptocurrencies might rise to compete with the Bitcoin's marketcap.

I don't see any clarity on this. How could the other cryptos that can be par with bitcoin in terms of market cap? there's no coin that be equal with its market cap.

And looking to that day, it's highly not going to happen.

[webtricks]

But the question arises, 'Are other cryptocurrencies decentralized enough'?

For cryptocurrencies, the strength of network defines the level of decentralization. Bitcoin Network is backed by thousands of volunteers contributing their hash power to make this network hard to hack. But can this be said for other cryptocurrencies? Maybe same could be said for Ethereum Network too but every other network is certainly prone to centralization. In such circumstances, it is very much possible that parties holding major stake in any cryptocurrency's network would exert extra control/manipulation on currency supply if the price of currency increased dramatically as we seen in the case of XRP. I don't see big future (in trillions) ahead for crypto market except for Bitcoin.

[slapper]

A significant change in the economic system requires a significant revolution. If there is no revolution, there will be no shift from centralization to decentralization. There are always conflicts between the old and the new, from these people to those people. I'm not a prophet who can see what will happen in the future, but I can ensure you that the world which based on the decentralized system will be much more different from our current world. The society we live, the government we depend on, the countries, lots of things will cease to exist in order to make huge development like that

In my opinion, the Fiat is still doing a great job up to now and there is no need to change at the moment. The cryptocurrency, on the other hand, is still young and there are many errors and disadvantages, but I believe we can solve many things in the next few decades. Still looking forward to the world where cryptocurrency is used and accepted by most of the people

[Darker45]

Decentralization is desirable. But I guess it cannot become the be-all and end-all of an economy. To a certain degree, there has to be some kind of a regulating authority in terms of a nation's economy. You simply cannot decentralize everything.

There is already competition happening inside the crypto market. There were already times when Bitcoin was lesser than 50% in the entire crypto market cap. But then the competition is not going to be close because the simple fact remains that Bitcoin is never attached to a single individual unlike the rest.

Would Ethereum still be Ethereum if Vitalik totally abandons it? Would Litecoin continue as it is if Charlie Lee decides to leave it all behind?

[target]

We all sees things differently when it comes to seeing crypto being decentralized. There may be projects we can consider being decentralize when it comes to its consensys but when it comes to its market and being listed to regulated CEX the whole reference will change in a way because we are not free at all for funds can even be frozen by authorities. Some of us will not be in this kind of market and they'd excluded XMR already.

[bitgolden]

There is never a "phase" in economy, stuff happen at the same time during the same period and one of them becomes bigger and bigger over time. You think when coins were first invented (first coins ever made) people stopped barter right away? Of course not, they were still doing that at the same time for centuries (and even small tribes that still have it today). Or when credit cards were a thing, people stopped using cash all together? Cash is still being used today.

So, do not think that blockchain and decentralization will become something huge right away, or could be next phase, it would be just part of it and it will continue like that forever until something better comes along. In any case, I would just say that decentralization is quite important but I am not sure people who are the centralization will let it be standard that easily.

[Wexnident]

Hmm not really. If you consider the entire world, I suppose only a minority of those actually want something like the concept of Bitcoin. Most would rather want something automated, something secure (secure in the sense that they don't need to guard it, but can leave it to others), something they basically can leave to others without worry so that they can do something else.

Still, this doesn't mean that it'd phase out all of a sudden one of these days, the idea of decentralization provided by Cryptocurrency is an amazing thing, one of which that can help us in various situations, but in the end, it can't really accommodate for every situation, not to mention the complete opposition (most likely) of centralized organizations. It'd probably be a part, but it doesn't really have the ability to eat up the entire economy, replacing centralization as its core.

[uneng]

Very doubtful... Our world is still ruled by centralized tought systems and the groups behind them won't let a decentralized force take control as the currently centralized domination model is very confortable for these groups.
Actually decentralization is already going away: nowadays you can't do many things on crypto sites without showing your personal data, sending your documents and your phone number to fulfill the regulators requirements. Decentralization is becoming a kind of utopya as I see.

[fiulpro]

One cannot soley rely on just cryptocurrencies and decentralized economy because at the end of the day it does need help from the centralized one to fully function. Therefore we can easily point out one thing that :
The growth of the economy will be dependent upon how the government handles and give freedom to the decentralized market.

In most of the cases the banks and the government are dead scared about giving cryptocurrencies freedom as this would mean , they are loosing their dominance, they are trying to hide the fact that they are banning cryptocurrencies soon by : Making their own digital currency , which is completely absurd.

I do think decentralized system can help the potential market to grow not just in the favour of the large business man but at the same time the person who makes those products and gets only 1/10th of the price. It could very easily eleminate the middle man and with the ability of Bitcoins to form smart contracts ( I do understand that it's not very good as compared to ETH ) it will be able to secure some transactions .

Government , the centralized economy is not equipped to handle bad situations and at the same time it does not give people freedom they deserve . This system can actually give the matters in the hands of people and most benefits will go to them with added privacy. But then again the governments won't let this happen.

[target]

Very doubtful... Our world is still ruled by centralized tought systems and the groups behind them won't let a decentralized force take control as the currently centralized domination model is very confortable for these groups.
Actually decentralization is already going away: nowadays you can't do many things on crypto sites without showing your personal data, sending your documents and your phone number to fulfill the regulators requirements. Decentralization is becoming a kind of utopya as I see.

Decentralization hasn't won anything yet but we see more bitcoin users are already willing to give up their KYC documents to every centralized exchange. I don't normally see these kinds of bitcoin users back in 2015.

This is why Defi comes up in the space now, it had improved a lot though it struggles hard since the time of DAO hacking, it slowly developed and somehow we might be seeing decentralization taking over in the next phase, there could be a light if we just go cotinue going to the tunnel.

[Ucy]

Depends on what you mean by Proper Regulation. I think proper regulation should be decentralized regulation.  You regulate what needs to be regulated in decentralized manner. This will help prevent the centralization of decentralized systems and applications.
Centralized regulated encourages corruption, lack of transparency, secrecy, lawlessness, etc

[Taskford]

But then, what is uncertain is regulation, can cryptocurrency grow into a multi-trilion market without the proper regulations?

Although bitcoin is currently the most valuable coin and everyone wants to own it, that does not indicate the true value of bitcoin in the outside society. The constant volatility and easily manipulated values have made it unacceptable in many countries around the world, besides that it also makes it easy for mafia to launder money. The crypto market can only grow to a certain extent and will not be able to grow strongly because the crypto market has no laws. then only the small fish will fight against whales specializing in manipulating the value of bitcoin, in addition, bitcoin is no longer worth anything more.

Currently yes if we talk about those things up but if we just look up how useful it is specially that there is pandemic well maybe we can see that this will be a game changer in terms of profitability since by now major establishments together with stock is now at dump state and bitcoin is remaining giving a promising profit to it's users. for now the acceptance we want is not possible especially in big institutions since we cannot rely on it in terms of stability since the price is so volatile and might this is a major cause of bankruptcy if the accepting merchant doesn't know on how to handle a dumping situation.

[Zackgeno96]

Depends on what you mean by Proper Regulation. I think proper regulation should be decentralized regulation.  You regulate what needs to be regulated in decentralized manner. This will help prevent the centralization of decentralized systems and applications.
Centralized regulated encourages corruption, lack of transparency, secrecy, lawlessness, etc

Definitely! In case of centralized regulation, there can be a lot of cases where people will abuse the power that they are having and corruption as you said will also be there when people will easily have the work done that favours them or their business by paying a fee to the person that has the most power in that centralized system. But I can't think of a way through which decentralized regulation can take place. Maybe you can tax people based on what they own or make in a fiscal year and directly cut that percentage through a smart contract or through miners imposed tax where miners/mining pools will apply the tax on the wallet and once the owner pays the fees in terms of a transaction fee to the pool then the transaction will go through the pool and reach its destination.

[amishmanish]

Completely centralized planning never worked as shown by the former USSR and various other failed communist experiments. Unabashed capitalism gave us a lot of things but took our souls. People and families are resources on a continuous assembly line. Competition for survival results in a situation where the rich keep getting richer while the masses remain at the mercy of those at the top. So introducing decentralization to balance the worse aspect of capitalism, can surely lead to a more equitable setup. If Bitcoin becomes the mass currency for people to do their own business in a lawful way, who is to say that won't lead to better earning opportunities and chances for the common man.
Decentralization in the way economy is organized can definitely lead to greater and better wealth distribution. Yet, an idea can only be as good as those backing it. Unfortunately, the new, wealthy elite don't seem to care much, just like the old wealthy, elite.

[Sanugarid]

Very doubtful... Our world is still ruled by centralized tought systems and the groups behind them won't let a decentralized force take control as the currently centralized domination model is very confortable for these groups.
Actually decentralization is already going away: nowadays you can't do many things on crypto sites without showing your personal data, sending your documents and your phone number to fulfill the regulators requirements. Decentralization is becoming a kind of utopya as I see.

Decentralization hasn't won anything yet but we see more bitcoin users are already willing to give up their KYC documents to every centralized exchange.

Decentralization is not what we need, if we keep insisting that we need decentralization so that we can utilize our freedom then be ready for a chaotic society. Just take a look on twitter being a decentralized platform, hacker did easily manage to fool the twitter world in just a day, causing a lot of damage, just imagine that. People now are impulsive, they just follow the trend, being radical these days means so much.

This is why Defi comes up in the space now, it had improved a lot though it struggles hard since the time of DAO hacking, it slowly developed and somehow we might be seeing decentralization taking over in the next phase, there could be a light if we just go cotinue going to the tunnel.

I believe in DeFi, this might be our future finance system, it has tokenization and everything, just like transitioning into digital one, centralized, regulated and more convenient. But we may taste this after a while, there are still some preliminary testing on DeFi, having a big potential also contains a big risk.

[dothebeats]

Unfortunately, for regulations to kick in, most services need to give up the idea of decentralization. This is in the form of stricter KYC procedures and other stuff concerning AML and fraud. While decentralized services sound like something 'new' to people and are ready to use it, apparently governments and regulators do not like this idea as it essentially takes away some portion of the profit they might take on taxes and registrations. Personally I think cryptocurrencies can progress with or without decentralization, but since we started believing on the power of decentralization brought by bitcoin on its early days, most are still insisting that this is what will bring us up there, no compromises needed.

Only time will tell how the mixed decentralized and centralized technologies and services focusing on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies pan out. For now, regulations require services to give up the idea of a decentralized platform to operate legally within a certain country, and I don't think that's going to change any time in the future.

[uneng]

Very doubtful... Our world is still ruled by centralized tought systems and the groups behind them won't let a decentralized force take control as the currently centralized domination model is very confortable for these groups.
Actually decentralization is already going away: nowadays you can't do many things on crypto sites without showing your personal data, sending your documents and your phone number to fulfill the regulators requirements. Decentralization is becoming a kind of utopya as I see.

Decentralization hasn't won anything yet but we see more bitcoin users are already willing to give up their KYC documents to every centralized exchange.

Decentralization is not what we need, if we keep insisting that we need decentralization so that we can utilize our freedom then be ready for a chaotic society. Just take a look on twitter being a decentralized platform, hacker did easily manage to fool the twitter world in just a day, causing a lot of damage, just imagine that. People now are impulsive, they just follow the trend, being radical these days means so much.

But decentralization doesn't have anything to do with twitter. That is a centralized social media platform. This argument just makes centralization looks worse, as a centralized platform was easily hacked. It means centralization doesn't guarantee safety.
I'm just being rational here reading the facts and I'm not totally against centralization, I think it has to exist in some proportion, but much smaller than it is today.