Bitcoin decentralization debate

[bussybuddy]

Bitcoin really has value only when people are willing to accept it in the purchase and sale of goods or services. Bitcoin's decentralization and independence are strong points, but to really use it, we need validation from others.

Not everyone and everywhere accepts Bitcoin. Some countries have already accepted Bitcoin as a legal payment method, but others are still considering and discussing their approach to cryptocurrencies.

And yes, in order to have an effective discussion about Bitcoin, we need a basic understanding of it. Mastering the principle of decentralization, how money works in the Bitcoin system, is important to avoid misunderstandings and ensure an accurate view of it.

[Ucy]

Hello bitcoin community

I am a fan of Bitcoin, so I have a friend who introduced him to Bitcoin and explained to him the great advantages that Bitcoin has, especially decentralization and privacy.

My friend is one of the people who believe in conspiracy theory, so he doubts that Bitcoin is decentralized and believes that there is a party or country behind it.

I tried to explain to him repeatedly that this is impossible and that Bitcoin is completely decentralized, that no one owns Bitcoin and no one controls it, and that any change that occurs on the network must To gain the consensus of the community, but he nevertheless insisted that he does not believe that Bitcoin is decentralized, only because he does not believe that there is decentralization in anything.

How can I convince my friend that Bitcoin is indeed decentralized?

Your best bet would be to use National Banks as example.   Bitcoin, unlike National banks allows everyone to download/access the entire software & its very secure database that runs the Bitcoin system in order to be their own banks and jointly help in controlling & regulating the system, whereas Banks only allow few people, such as the banks heads, the access to entire bank database, in order to control and regulate their banks alone.

The ability to download and run the entire Bitcoin system by anyone anywhere in the World, to jointly & equally regulate the system with thousands of people who have exact copy of the system on their personal computers, and to fully control their money/bitcoins in the system is what makes Bitcoin decentralized. The opposite is the case for banks, as only few people are allowed to run & regulate the banks system on behalf of millions of people who have/own money in the banks.

No one anywhere in the world have ultimate control or power over the Bitcoin System thus decision can't be made centrally, unilaterally or by one/few people for the rest of the Bitcoin Network.. A proof to this is that it cannot be shutdown. It continues to operate in other places if a tyrant stops a host from running the system in one part of the world

[Abu-Naim]

How can I convince my friend that Bitcoin is indeed decentralized?

The majority of centralized things rarely have the ideal moment. Take into account other coins; occasionally, you'll hear or see news about their teams' personal conflicts, which will have an immediate negative impact on the project before they are resolved and the project is maintained. Has your friend ever observed a similar trend with bitcoin?

In fact, since conspiracy believers are difficult to persuade, you don't need to waste your time trying; all you need to do is do your best to convince your friend that Bitcoin is decentralized and then walk away if he doesn't believe you.

[franky1]

Your best bet would be to use National Banks as example.   Bitcoin, unlike National banks allows everyone to download/access the entire software & its very secure database that runs the Bitcoin system in order to be their own banks and jointly help in controlling & regulating the system, whereas Banks only allow few people, such as the banks heads, the access to entire bank database, in order to control and regulate their banks alone.

The ability to download and run the entire Bitcoin system by anyone anywhere in the World, to jointly & equally regulate the system with thousands of people who have exact copy of the system on their personal computers, and to fully control their money/bitcoins in the system is what makes Bitcoin decentralized. The opposite is the case for banks, as only few people are allowed to run & regulate the banks system on behalf of millions of people who have/own money in the banks.

No one anywhere in the world have ultimate control or power over the Bitcoin System thus decision can't be made centrally, unilaterally or by one/few people for the rest of the Bitcoin Network.. A proof to this is that it cannot be shutdown. It continues to operate in other places if a tyrant stops a host from running the system in one part of the world

having an ability for everyone to see the banking laws is different to who gets to activate new banking laws.
having the ability to see everyone elses bank statements, but still control your own fund spending control is different to who sets the rules of what format of payments or financials tools can be used or not.

when you look at bitcoin history. you will see there has been many conflicts over new rules and every time there actually has been a small elite class of devs that do make the decisions and to activate new rules and new financial tools without needing the majority of users to upgrade first to vote/understand or accept the rules. the backward compatible trick means nodes dont need to be network ready to activate a new rule(that alone is a network security risk). thus new rules can be added without network readiness of majority. this means that a certain group which has dominated development has/can and will continue to change thing without mass consent (consensus) or readiness to verify new data types
this has been proven by their actual events of faking a 100%(unnatural but they managed it) compliance even before the actual network of nodes were even ready to understand and verify the new data.

certain people want others to just trust that devs are good hearted and 'just believe' in humans rather than actually scrutinise and verify code/data. however this has not played out well in the many conflicts where anyone not obeying the religion of core dev allegiance is to be treated as the enemy. thus giving ultimate control to core to be the sole proposer of new rules and sole brand to propogate the new rules without requiring majority users abstaining to vote out any potentially bad buggy/cludgy code

the block data is decentralised.. yes
users private key control of their own fund movement is decentralised.. yes
asic mining is decentralised.. yes

but the rule making decisions is done by half a dozen core dev maintainers who make the decisions and they are a central point of failure. their name 'core' is not by accident. nor is their REKT campaigns against anyone not in their allegiance group brand
we should always be reviewing and scrutinising them. if anyone tells you not to worry and just trust a dev, you are ignoring bitcoins main feature. verify, review and check

[Xampeuu]

if I were you and had a friend like that, in fact it is difficult to give an explanation, maybe I will leave it, after giving an explanation according to our understanding, and he doesn't want to open his mind then I think no matter how hard we explain it, the result will be nil. therefore we cannot force other people's thoughts to follow according to our thoughts even though we are right in their statement, anyway bitcoin with a decentralized system has not been legalized in the country, so there is no obligation to have to follow it

[tygeade]

My friend is one of the people who believe in conspiracy theory, so he doubts that Bitcoin is decentralized and believes that there is a party or country behind it.

Don't blame him much because he does not know anything and yet but willing to learn, such people cannot believe there is a way to achieve decentralization than the normal centralized way the government and other institutions controls us abd take custody of what belong to us

I do believe that there is going to be something that will change eventually but I think it is going to be not what we expect. Bitcoin is a strange world, the regular life doesn't matter here and what you have seen so far in life may not be what you see here.

I mean when something drops 10% in a single day or goes up that much in a single day and nobody reacts and considers that as a normal situation, you realize that you are in a different place. Sure, due to inflation we have seen those things recently but that doesn't mean that we are going to end up with being used to it right away. This is why there will be a lot of debate about a lot of parts regarding bitcoin, from decentralization to fees to miners to many other things.

[Furious 7]

How can I convince my friend that Bitcoin is indeed decentralized?

There's no need to do anything and just assume what your friend says is true and it's done.
Arguing about such things is a waste of energy and time when trying to explain to someone who doesn't want to accept that the reality of bitcoin decentralization is true.

Focus on what you believe in and don't make things up to convince someone who is already unconvinced from the start because it won't have any impact.
You believe in bitcoin then you yourself must believe, even though inviting others to bitcoin is good enough but in other conditions when things like this will only make you waver and your time is wasted then I think it's not worth it to do.

[Trawda]

but the rule making decisions is done by half a dozen core dev maintainers who make the decisions and they are a central point of failure. their name 'core' is not by accident. nor is their REKT campaigns against anyone not in their allegiance group brand
we should always be reviewing and scrutinising them. if anyone tells you not to worry and just trust a dev, you are ignoring bitcoins main feature. verify, review and check

Do you mean that there are specific developers who are only entitled to vote and decide on the development or change in the Bitcoin network, if this is really what you say then this is the centralization itself!!!

[franky1]

but the rule making decisions is done by half a dozen core dev maintainers who make the decisions and they are a central point of failure. their name 'core' is not by accident. nor is their REKT campaigns against anyone not in their allegiance group brand
we should always be reviewing and scrutinising them. if anyone tells you not to worry and just trust a dev, you are ignoring bitcoins main feature. verify, review and check

Do you mean that there are specific developers who are only entitled to vote and decide on the development or change in the Bitcoin network, if this is really what you say then this is the centralization itself!!!

im saying bitcoin is not coded by AI.. im saying the code and the rules are decided by real world developers. by which you can pinpoint them down as the core maintainers.. and when you review them you get to see its only half a dozen that have a status to merge in any code changes to the reference client that everyone relies and follows. and they are also incharge of the moderations of what actually gets consideration

look at the core github and see who exactly has the merge/maintainer ability. its not that many

we no longer have a place where different brands of nodes propose their own upgrades to the protocol. instead its cores mandated activation date stuff that does not even need user nodes to upgrade first to be network supporting a new change. yep these days a change happens before the network is ready to support/verify the new stuff, thus a majority cant even veto or prevent a bad change.

they have not broke bitcoin* so people trust them like a religion and hate anyone speaking bad about them. its got so toxic that some treat it like a religion and think its blasphemy to even scrutinise or review the devs.
yet we should be scrutinising and keeping an eye on the rule makers and protesting when they propose something the  community does not benefit from. instead of giving them a VIP blind pass to implement anything thats been lobbied/sponsored by corporations to change the rules, where their religious follows dont like anyone teling them to not do x,y,z

*(but they have introduced some cludgy checks, unfinished features and features that have caused issues)

long story short. we should not give devs an all access VIP pass to do as they please. we should not have blind faith, belief and trust in their humanity.. we should always review scrutinised and protest/petition devs when they are not benefitting the wider community. if anyone says no one should tell devs what to do, those types of people are part of a centralised adoration religion.. and remember core devs are not god

we need to get back to a decentralised development of the network rules.. meaning multiple brands of nodes. and multiple brands sharing idea's where the best idea's get shared to all brands and all brands then accept it as the new rules and ready to verify data using new rules

[vv181]

My friend is one of the people who believe in conspiracy theory, so he doubts that Bitcoin is decentralized and believes that there is a party or country behind it.

~but he nevertheless insisted that he does not believe that Bitcoin is decentralized, only because he does not believe that there is decentralization in anything.

How can I convince my friend that Bitcoin is indeed decentralized?

The initial point you should address is in regard to your friend's belief as a conspiracy theorist. There is no amount of evidence, proof, and arguments that might convince them. Say your friend has some misconceptions in regard to how Bitcoin systematically works, is developed, and distributed, if his main assumption lies on some obscure entity are the one who controls it, I believe you very likely have a hard time to deals with that.

Specifically about Bitcoin, others have addressed that there is a certain centralization that contributes to Bitcoin, but generally, they did not have any complete controls. They are not able to make the changes as they wish. So you should rather direct the conversion in an exact manner, say in which specific parts that he thinks, centralization within bitcoin existed. Only then, I think you may be able to pinpoint his misconception in regard to the bitcoin decentralization condition.

[Ulven]

How can I convince my friend that Bitcoin is indeed decentralized?

Your scepticism is understandable, but let me explain why Bitcoin is actually decentralised. Bitcoin's decentralisation is a fundamental aspect of both its architecture and operation, not merely a theoretical idea.
A global network of computers known as nodes is the foundation upon which Bitcoin runs. Since each of these nodes abides by the same set of rules, there is no central authority over them. The network is resistant to being controlled by any one party or nation since changes must be approved by the majority of users.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the person who invented Bitcoin, had in mind a system that did away with the need for confidence in middlemen. To do this, decentralisation is emphasised throughout the whitepaper. Anyone can engage in the network due to its openness and transparency, and its wide user base prevents any one authority from dominating.
Open discussions between developers and users determine the direction of the Bitcoin network. Change proposals are thoroughly examined before being adopted, which requires consensus. No one can make arbitrary changes thanks to this procedure.
Additionally, both people and organisations mine bitcoin across the globe. It is virtually impossible for one entity to take control due to its scattered structure. Bitcoin's independence is demonstrated by the fact that attempts by governments or other entities to control it have been rebuffed.
Finally! Decentralized exchanges DEXs also demonstrate the decentralized nature of the ecosystem. They allow people to trade Bitcoin without relying on a central intermediary.

[mikeywith]

d. the devs have control over the change of direction of bitcoin. and they have many tricks up their sleeve. they can mandate a new proposal to activate where by in conjunction with partnerships with ECONOMIC NODES (those run by most famous services) choose which path to follow making users and mining pools follow as sheep, else not have their funds seen transact with those services if they dont comply with the rules the services use.

The devs can write whatever code they want, it's just a piece of code sitting on GitHub, it all boils down to who would enforce it, the devs have only one main advantage over everyone else which is the ability to take an initiative, but going beyond that they will need the approval of mining pools and exchanges.

Imagine a scenario where core dev wakes up tomorrow and simply change the 21M cap to 31M, they sure can do so, but it will be just a few lines of codes that changed on git, the new "version" of BTC will be sitting there alone until it's approved by mining pools, wallets, and exchanges.

The majority of the average users are driven by the large CEX and wallets operators, BTC to them will be what Binance, Coinbase, Trezeors, Electrum and etc refer to as Bitcoin, what's inside the code or how long the blockchain is, are all things that the average joe don't know about.

On the other hand, Binance will have to go through the core devs if they want to make a change, Binance could make their own Bitcoin B version of nodes but they will have a hard time convincing anyone to run it.

All the different parties involved (Pools, Devs, Exchanges, Wallets and etc) are directly influenced by the community aka the investors, this aspect alone is good enough to call bitcoin decentralized, although many people don't really understand what decentralization means, they assume that it means the inability to change, or that we have to hold an election and call the (10M people or whatever the number is) who use BTC to vote for every protocol change.

If enough large pools, a couple of large CEXs, and a few famous wallets agree with the devs to make a protocol change, it will likely go through, but that doesn't take away from the decentralization aspect, remember all those parties are controlled by the investors which is us a community.

You may think that this isn't a perfect form of decentralization, but this is the best it could get.

[Kavelj22]

@OP
How your friend was able to convince you that bitcoin is centralized. I mean, he is the one who must confirm the validity of his opinions.
Adopting a conspiracy theory does not provide convincing arguments, but rather can make us suspicious of everything. I can simply condemn the entire Internet and say that it is not trustworthy, given that hidden forces control it within a major global conspiracy, and therefore all its products are questionable. .

It is necessary to scrutinize the concepts a little, because it is more correct to say that Bitcoin is the closest thing that can be decentralized compared to others, because there is no single party that can control the Bitcoin network, and this is thanks to the characteristics of the Blockchain and the protocol developed by Satoshi. At the same time, it can be said that miners can basically control the network if they agree to that, and fortunately, there is no single mining pool that has more than 50% of the hash power. This central aspect of Bitcoin does not raise any concerns because miners do not have an interest in any party manipulating the network and that development operations on the network should only take place with the agreement between developers and mining pools.

[franky1]

It is necessary to scrutinize the concepts a little, because it is more correct to say that Bitcoin is the closest thing that can be decentralized compared to others, because there is no single party that can control the Bitcoin network, and this is thanks to the characteristics of the Blockchain and the protocol developed by Satoshi. At the same time, it can be said that miners can basically control the network if they agree to that, and fortunately, there is no single mining pool that has more than 50% of the hash power. This central aspect of Bitcoin does not raise any concerns because miners do not have an interest in any party manipulating the network and that development operations on the network should only take place with the agreement between developers and mining pools.

miners do not control the network.. miners dont write the code. it is really funny how people want to avoid discussing the developers and try to point the finger at miners

did you not realise that the last few updates made by core did not even require pools to have upgraded their nodes to be ready. all they needed to do was to change one bit of header data to say they wish to remain allegiant with cores path or else have their block rejected if they dont flag unity. it was not a case of rule checking. it was silly flag event activations. forcing miners hands to comply

ASICS do not have a hard drive to store the blockchain. asics do not have a CPU to verify the blockdata.. all an asic does is hash a 256bit length of data.. that is it.. miners are not a central point of failure or a point of control

the rules change due to developers. and when there is one empirical group of half a dozen lead devs self reviewing and not wanting independent review outside their club. then when you notice who makes the rules, you should start to see where the central points of failure are

EVERY lead maintainer that retired left with a resignation note that they fear the central point of failure being the development
satoshi left becasue people relied on him too much for decisions. gavin left with messages about how core maintainers were gaining power. and even wlad left with concerns of the central control core had gained

we should scrutinise the core devs actions and hold them accountable to any bugs they implement and get them to fix the flaws they create. we cannot pretend they are gods to do as they please to add things in. and then pretend they are just janitors, powerless to do anything when bugs appear.

they need to be accountable for their actions while in power and we need to make it so other brands can be part of the network on an EQUAL bases to cores power thus decentralising core power. where many brands can offer proposals and they all share their proposals and contribute and consider and even compromise to get something the majority will accept. then release code to be ready to verify the new rules. then activate the rules thus able to understand the data they receive. none of this crappy miscount, ignore, default valid without checking nonsense. actually have majority nodes ready and able to secure and validate the data and unite on a set of rules that decentralised and diverse node brands can all accept

[mikeywith]

miners do not control the network.. miners dont write the code. it is really funny how people want to avoid discussing the developers and try to point the finger at miners

Miners chose to mine to a certain blockchain with certain rules, they also chose to mine to whatever node software they wanted, they could use Core, Bitcoin Knots, Lillbtcoin, bcoin, or even their one full node software, Bitcoin core just so happened to be the most popular piece of software, but that doesn't make it the ONLY one out there, while 98% of nodes run on core software, they do it for

1- popularity.
2- core is well maintained.

If enough people feel that they need to add more decentralization to the node level, they can just start using Core alternatives, you could write your own if you want to, it's very important to understand that what matters is the protocol consensus, not the software, Core is a medium that connects different people who happen to agree to the same rules, if everyone moves from core to XYZ node the next day, nothing will change, you will just start to have the same "issues" with the devs of XYZ.

It's not the dev's fault that people don't want to use another software, there is nothing much you can do when everyone wants to use the same piece of software, you could remove all the current devs, but the same issue will arise with the next team of devs.

did you not realise that the last few updates made by core did not even require pools to have upgraded their nodes to be ready. all they needed to do was to change one bit of header data to say they wish to remain allegiant with cores path or else have their block rejected if they dont flag unity. it was not a case of rule checking. it was silly flag event activations. forcing miners hands to comply

There is a huge difference between "refusing the change" and not "approving" the change, if pools would want to oppose said changes, they would just fork the network, what would core do without miners? we will end up with 2 blockchains

1- very weak, broken, and approved only by core devs.
2- strong, the longest, secured by miners.

Which blockchain do you think CEXs and Wallets will support?

Miners are not fighting the core devs because none of the changes that were made affect the miner's income or how they operate, but if there will be a red line crossed where the devs attempt to fudge around with miners, it will be only a matter of time before everyone stops using core and move to something else.

Really, this is somewhat "an even fight" between all the parties, would be hard for a single party to force changes that are unwelcomed by the rest.

[nelson4lov]

How can I convince my friend that Bitcoin is indeed decentralized?

We often define decentralized networks in technical terms as distributed networks where no one party controls the direction the market is supposed to go. But we obviously know that there are big mining players that obviously have a bit of control of the computing power in the network. But one fact stands out:

No one entity can gain 51% of the mining power on the network because of the underlying costs required to pull a move like that.

At the end of the day, it's just a conspiracy theory and there are no known facts to counter those claims.

[franky1]

Which blockchain do you think CEXs and Wallets will support?

Miners are not fighting the core devs because none of the changes that were made affect the miner's income or how they operate, but if there will be a red line crossed where the devs attempt to fudge around with miners, it will be only a matter of time before everyone stops using core and move to something else.

Really, this is somewhat "an even fight" between all the parties, would be hard for a single party to force changes that are unwelcome by the rest.

you might want to check your bitcoin history. the red line was crossed with a blackmailed unnatural 100% fake vote 6 years ago..

things like that should not be standard practice ongoing. and no its not the false perception of an even fight. learn tricks like backward compatible meaning users dont get to vote. and tricks like REKT like rejecting anything not core

tell me a brand of active node today thats not core that has a method for individuals to propose a network feature upgrade or change to the rules.. you wont find one because the centralisation has already occured. now we should be making sure devs dont fall foul to their power and realise they do have power instead of pretending "not their fault"

it was their code that allowed these tricks to be played to give them the control.
lets not just act like religious freaks saying dont blame them, its divine intervention and the way the world works.

we should hold them accountable and ensure they dont abuse their power consistantly

[lionheart78]

@OP remember it is a conspiracy theory, meaning not proven or factual at all.  If I am in your shoes, I wouldn't spend my time debating or having an argument with this kind or person.  I would just respect his point of view and move on.  He will learn it eventually if he wanted to prove his theory correct.  How about instead forcing yourself to prove that Bitcoin is decentralized, you can just let him prove that his conspiracy theory is correct? 

Bitcoin network is decentralized but I also agree that there are certain factors that Bitcoin is centralized which were given in the earlier replies.  I also think the core developers are somehow the source of the centralization of Bitcoin but the consensus of miners somehow nullifies it assuming there is no corruption or conspiracy between these two entities of the system.

[kawetsriyanto]

Did your friend learn about Bitcoin?
If he never learned Bitcoin, you should understand that he doesn't know anything. He probably doesn't agree with your explanation because he only viewed Bitcoin on his own perspective. Unfortunately, he believe in his own perspective without sufficient references, he may claim it negatively according to the FUDs he had ever heard of. I think you don't only need to explain it with your own view, but you show him valid references, and it will be better to describe it with examples. I think it is the maximum way that you can do. If your friend still don't believe in you, you can stop explain it and let you friend find the truth himself.

It is always not easy to convince someone who is already influenced by FUDs. Especially if he is a person who only believe on something managed by the government. So, he will trust that anything in the world must be controlled by the government/institution.

[mikeywith]

tell me a brand of active node today thats not core that has a method for individuals to propose a network feature upgrade or change to the rules.. you wont find one

1-bcoin node:

Totally independent from core, perfectly maintained, alive and running, used by Bitpay, Purse.io, Copay and many others.

2- btcd:

Totally independent from core, active since 2013, perfectly maintained written in golang

3- Bitcoin Knots:

Has over a 100 nodes online, all running with issues.

You wanted one, I gave you three, all those are active nodes that are not controlled by the current core devs, they all have active nodes that validate blocks based on the consensus and not what's written on core's code.

Just because MOST people prefer to use core, it means NOTHING, there are only 16429 core nodes out there, if 20,000 people run bcoin nodes they will have the majority of node software, do you think it's difficult to do that when and if needed? nop.

Now if you want to propose a change to the network, you are going to have to get the blessing of the devs that run one of the public nodes, and then you need to lobby around to convince the miners, and maybe one or two large CEXs, and walla, if your change doesn't require a hard form, you won't even need core devs to include it, if it does, you need to convince the people who RUN core to use bcoin or btcd instead, assuming the core devs refused the change while the majority of miners agreed to it.

I am not sure how to explain it better, it's not core devs fault that the majority of people use their version of node when there are others available, it's the user, you keep talking about core devs and that we should stop them from doing x and x, have you ever attempted to run a non-core node to help with that? probably not.

Also, based on your assumption that core devs control BTC, then you are simply saying that Microsoft controls BTC, are you aware that some Microsoft dev who maintain Github may very well just edit bitcoin core without dev's permissions? the question is, WILL people run a node that has a different consensus from what the majority want?