Has The Decentralization Concept Failed?

[Blitzboy]

Decentralisation is lovely. Restoring power to the people by eliminating middlemen. Still difficult. Like starting a business, it takes time, work, and adaptability to survive. Bitcoin started something spectacular. But every startup requires structure, right? Some guidance. It gets tricky there.

Ethereum claims to be decentralised, however it has some centralization. Not a dealbreaker, simply part of the process. I've compromised in my enterprises too. Progress is what matters, not perfection.

DEXs are real. They're carrying out the initial goal of empowering the people. No KYC, no government control, just freedom. We need more of that. Decentralisation is a long path. Its hard but worthwhile. Like building a tower, it takes time and effort but yields a masterpiece.

[yudi09]

When a peer-to-peer network makes it easier for people to make transactions, such as when we send an email without needing to go to an office in charge of shipping or when people no longer need to go to the bank to send money to other parts of the world, people will naturally be greatly helped.
Initially there may be doubts about PoW, but in the end those who rely on PoS also intend to switch to PoW.
From this I can say decentralization has not failed.

That's why you see KYC everywhere.

Problems everywhere require KYC, it is optional. Whether you want to do it or not, it depends on the individual.

[legiteum]

Average consumers don't want or need "decentralization" and never have.

The only unique benefit of Bitcoin's architecture--the blockchain architecture--is that it resists legal scrutiny by governments.

That's it. That's all it purported to do when it was invented. You can say Bitcoin and blockchain can do all kinds of other things, but so can non-blockchain architectures (like Haypenny, for instance).

Most average consumer investors don't live in the "grey market" that forces them to make sure their assets or transactions could be discovered by a legally constituted government.

Most average consumer investors do not want to tangle with their government at all. They just want to click on an investment and for that investment to go into their account.

And Bitcoin itself is less private than privacy-enhanced non-blockchain architectures because of the public ledger and chain analysis.

Today, Bitcoin is just a meme that a lot of investors invest in. There's nothing wrong with that, and it may well have a long life as a cool name people click on in their investment app (which is on a centralized database with full KYC), but that's all it is to them.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Achieving bitcoin’s level of decentralization is not an easy thing to accomplish. Most new projects that launch are focused on growth and increasing the price of their native token. Without having an active and vibrant community, your token will just become irrelevant and it won’t matter how decentralized you were.

Users are also at fault much of the time because too many people are looking to get rich quick, and would rather invest in whatever memecoin is trending rather than support projects that have stronger fundamentals and are more decentralized. The incentives are just not there for something similar to bitcoin to emerge again.

[Fiatless]

Bitcoin, the first blockchain project, was built based on the concept of decentralization. Have you noticed that nearly every other project has team members that know one another? Even Ethereum, which claims to be decentralized, may have the email addresses of all its validators in one place. It very much seems that decentralization is no longer or has never been the vision of crypto projects since the days of Bitcoin. Why would a so-called blockchain product end up being linked to, say, a centralized exchange? Why are we no longer seeing qualitative, decentralized projects with anonymous teams? Even the Tornado Cash founders won't be in trouble today IF THEY WORKED ANONYMOUSLY AND FOCUSED ON DECENTRALIZATION. What seems obvious is that most blockchain products these days have their focus on making money and conforming to regulations, not giving people freedom from government control. That's why you see KYC everywhere.

One of the reasons why most developers are now focusing on making centralized coins is because the government is also making strict regulatory laws. Achieving decentralization is now difficult since almost every transactions that require an exchange will need KYC. Maybe developers think it will be unnecessary to focus on decentralized products in a highly centralized system.

Bitcoin was also able to achieve its aims because it was the first cryptocurrency and needed limited publicity. Currently, there are tens of thousands of cryptos, so the developers have to work hard to gain some market space. This will necessitate them to form centralized communities that usually share ideas and promote the project. I also agree that the focus of many developers currently is to make a quick profit. They will do everything that stands against decentralization just to pump their coin.

[CryptoBuds]

Bitcoin, the first blockchain project, was built based on the concept of decentralization. Have you noticed that nearly every other project has team members that know one another? Even Ethereum, which claims to be decentralized, may have the email addresses of all its validators in one place. It very much seems that decentralization is no longer or has never been the vision of crypto projects since the days of Bitcoin. Why would a so-called blockchain product end up being linked to, say, a centralized exchange? Why are we no longer seeing qualitative, decentralized projects with anonymous teams? Even the Tornado Cash founders won't be in trouble today IF THEY WORKED ANONYMOUSLY AND FOCUSED ON DECENTRALIZATION. What seems obvious is that most blockchain products these days have their focus on making money and conforming to regulations, not giving people freedom from government control. That's why you see KYC everywhere.

One of the reasons why most developers are now focusing on making centralized coins is because the government is also making strict regulatory laws. Achieving decentralization is now difficult since almost every transactions that require an exchange will need KYC. Maybe developers think it will be unnecessary to focus on decentralized products in a highly centralized system.

Bitcoin was also able to achieve its aims because it was the first cryptocurrency and needed limited publicity. Currently, there are tens of thousands of cryptos, so the developers have to work hard to gain some market space. This will necessitate them to form centralized communities that usually share ideas and promote the project. I also agree that the focus of many developers currently is to make a quick profit. They will do everything that stands against decentralization just to pump their coin.

I don't think altcoin developers are afraid of government regulations and from there they just focus on creating centralized projects instead of decentralized projects. The reason is because they are just trying to find profit from their projects and the fact that they can control their projects makes it easy for them to manipulate, pump and dump. They do not intend to develop their project long term and that is why altcoins have a very short life cycle.
Meanwhile, Satoshi created bitcoin with the aim of creating a peer-to-peer currency for everyone, a non-profit project, he did not intend to make money like current projects.
Bitcoin was not created with the goal of being an investment like today's projects, but we turned it into an investment and accidentally turned it into a perfect decentralized asset.

[Faisal2202]

Bitcoin, the first blockchain project, was built based on the concept of decentralization. Have you noticed that nearly every other project has team members that know one another? Even Ethereum, which claims to be decentralized, may have the email addresses of all its validators in one place. It very much seems that decentralization is no longer or has never been the vision of crypto projects since the days of Bitcoin. Why would a so-called blockchain product end up being linked to, say, a centralized exchange? Why are we no longer seeing qualitative, decentralized projects with anonymous teams? Even the Tornado Cash founders won't be in trouble today IF THEY WORKED ANONYMOUSLY AND FOCUSED ON DECENTRALIZATION. What seems obvious is that most blockchain products these days have their focus on making money and conforming to regulations, not giving people freedom from government control. That's why you see KYC everywhere.

We should not be caring about other projects and comparing different things with each other, for example, first of all Ethereum is not decentralized and it is almost centralized (in other words), but BTC is not centralized although good amount of BTC are being held by centralized authorities but I still think most of the BTC are in hands of individuals. I might be wrong but nodes are scattered all over the world. So, BTC is decentralized and ETH is centralized.

Speaking of the owners of the Obfuscating platform, these owners were accused of something they did not but bad actors are the ones who really misused the service for which it was not made. But the involvement of regulation is somehow good for the adoption of BTC and overall crypto but it's beneficial only in the long run now, it is affecting products and services based on BTC. The answer to your last question is, even KYC can't stop Money Laundering then what's the real point for integrating KYC, its just what most of the innocent people think KYC is for but I think its just centralized exchanges using our data for personal usage and profits somehow.

[legiteum]

I'll try to organize this topic a little better by creating a matrix.

First, here are the things that a digital currency can do for somebody:

A. Faster and cheaper than credit card transactions.
B. Evade their government.
C. Be an investment.
D. Completely private from hackers and marketers.

Now let's talk about three examples of digital currencies which represent the market:

1. Bitcoin -- truly decentralized*, public ledger
2. Ether -- PoS model, "sorta" decentralized, public ledger
3. Monera -- PoS model, , "sorta" decentralized, private ledger
3. Haypenny currencies -- Non-blockchain and the fastest DC in the world, private ledger

Now we can compare what each of these products do:

Bitcoin: Not A, Not B, Yes C, Not D
Ether: Not A, Not B, Yes C, Not D
Monera: Not A, Yes B, Yes C, Yes D
Haypenny: Yes A, Not B, Yes C, Yes D


So in short:

• All digital currencies can be investments.
• Only Monera or cryptos like it can be used to evade governments.
• Only Haypenny currencies are viable for mainstream consumer transactions in terms of speed and cost.
• Only Monera and Haypenny are safe for average consumers in terms of privacy.

(* Two companies control over 51% of the Bitcoin hashrate, so not that decentralized, but Bitcoin is still the most decentralized there is.)

[BlackHatCoiner]

The only unique benefit of Bitcoin's architecture--the blockchain architecture--is that it resists legal scrutiny by governments.

That is simply not true. Limited supply, verifiable supply, transaction finality and divided possession in a trustless manner are properties which have nothing to do with government resistance, but can only be achieved through a blockchain.

And I'd argue that many of these properties are useful for the average person. They just don't know it yet.

[legiteum]

That is simply not true. Limited supply, verifiable supply, transaction finality and divided possession in a trustless manner are properties which have nothing to do with government resistance, but can only be achieved through a blockchain.

And I'd argue that many of these properties are useful for the average person. They just don't it yet.

Limited supply: lots of things have this, including gold for instance; you don't need blockchain to do this digitally.

Verifiable supply: lots of things have this, including gold for instance; you don't need blockchain to do this digitally.

Transactional finality: all transactional systems do this (?)

Divided possession in a trustless manner: physical cash does this; you don't need blockchain to do this digitally.

In short, a digital currency that does not use blockchain can do absolutely everything Bitcoin does faster, cheaper and more securely--except resist government subpoenas*.

(* Except that anything that has a public ledger is subject to chain analysis; except that even Bitcoin isn't "that" distributed almost all of the hashrate is controlled by very well known companies).

The only blockchain-based currency that actually does what Satoshi envisioned today is Monera and those like it, or the combination of Bitcoin and a mixer.

Almost all consumers who use Bitcoin use it as a meme investment, which doesn't require blockchain or any technology at all for that matter.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Limited supply: lots of things have this, including gold for instance; you don't need blockchain to do this digitally.

Might sound like a funny question, but how do you really know that gold is limited? You don't really know. You're guessing. There may be asteroids in outer space, full of gold, waiting to be found by the human species.

Verifiable supply: lots of things have this, including gold for instance; you don't need blockchain to do this digitally.

You clearly have overlooked "trustless". There is no money system in the world with verifiable supply in a trustless manner, apart from Bitcoin. And, as I've already said, gold's supply isn't verifiable. In fact, no money supply is verifiable, apart from Bitcoin, trustless or not.

Transactional finality: all transactional systems do this (?)

Transaction finality, in general? Yes. Transaction finality in a trustless manner? Only blockchain systems, and physical cash.

Divided possession in a trustless manner: physical cash does this; you don't need blockchain to do this digitally.

You probably don't know, then, the meaning of the word "trustless". There is no mechanism which can provide both of us divided possession of cash in a trustless manner. We either need to trust each other that we will keep our word, or use a lawyer during the transaction process. With Bitcoin, we can create a multi-sig address, fund it, and when you want to make a transaction, you'll have to take my permission, otherwise the funds don't move.

[legiteum]

Limited supply: lots of things have this, including gold for instance; you don't need blockchain to do this digitally.

Might sound like a funny question, but how do you really know that gold is limited? You don't really know. You're guessing. There may be asteroids in outer space, full of gold, waiting to be found by the human species.

For all practical purposes, the supply of gold is well known, as it the growth of gold discovery.

It's true that there's some chance that a giant asteroid could hit the earth made out of pure gold, but we'd all be dead if that happened anyhow.

You clearly have overlooked "trustless". There is no money system in the world with verifiable supply in a trustless manner, apart from Bitcoin. And, as I've already said, gold's supply isn't verifiable. In fact, no money supply is verifiable, apart from Bitcoin, trustless or not.

What exactly do you mean by "trustless"?

In the case of Bitcoin, you are trusting a set of miners to faithfully execute the software. It's a good system with good trust, but it is not "trustless" in that sense.

But please, try to define your terms in benefits to the end-consumer rather than abstract ideas--that might make it easier to understand.

Transactional finality: all transactional systems do this (?)

Transaction finality, in general? Yes. Transaction finality in a trustless manner? Only blockchain systems, and physical cash.

[/quote]

Again, what does "finality" mean in this context? Again, define in terms of benefits to end-users.

Divided possession in a trustless manner: physical cash does this; you don't need blockchain to do this digitally.

You probably don't know, then, the meaning of the word "trustless". There is no mechanism which can provide both of us divided possession of cash in a trustless manner. We either need to trust each other that we will keep our word, or use a lawyer during the transaction process. With Bitcoin, we can create a multi-sig address, fund it, and when you want to make a transaction, you'll have to take my permission, otherwise the funds don't move.

Again, what are you talking about here? I can guess at a few things, but maybe you can clarify instead? Why is this thing you are describing "good" for people? What benefit does it give them?

[Cryptomultiplier]

Bitcoin, the first blockchain project, was built based on the concept of decentralization. Have you noticed that nearly every other project has team members that know one another? Even Ethereum, which claims to be decentralized, may have the email addresses of all its validators in one place. It very much seems that decentralization is no longer or has never been the vision of crypto projects since the days of Bitcoin. Why would a so-called blockchain product end up being linked to, say, a centralized exchange? Why are we no longer seeing qualitative, decentralized projects with anonymous teams? Even the Tornado Cash founders won't be in trouble today IF THEY WORKED ANONYMOUSLY AND FOCUSED ON DECENTRALIZATION. What seems obvious is that most blockchain products these days have their focus on making money and conforming to regulations, not giving people freedom from government control. That's why you see KYC everywhere.

One of the reasons why most developers are now focusing on making centralized coins is because the government is also making strict regulatory laws. Achieving decentralization is now difficult since almost every transactions that require an exchange will need KYC. Maybe developers think it will be unnecessary to focus on decentralized products in a highly centralized system.

Bitcoin was also able to achieve its aims because it was the first cryptocurrency and needed limited publicity. Currently, there are tens of thousands of cryptos, so the developers have to work hard to gain some market space. This will necessitate them to form centralized communities that usually share ideas and promote the project. I also agree that the focus of many developers currently is to make a quick profit. They will do everything that stands against decentralization just to pump their coin.

I don't think altcoin developers are afraid of government regulations and from there they just focus on creating centralized projects instead of decentralized projects. The reason is because they are just trying to find profit from their projects and the fact that they can control their projects makes it easy for them to manipulate, pump and dump. They do not intend to develop their project long term and that is why altcoins have a very short life cycle.
Meanwhile, Satoshi created bitcoin with the aim of creating a peer-to-peer currency for everyone, a non-profit project, he did not intend to make money like current projects.
Bitcoin was not created with the goal of being an investment like today's projects, but we turned it into an investment and accidentally turned it into a perfect decentralized asset.

Satoshi meant well, but unlike many people will argue, the idea of cryptocurrency still remains a growing term and knowledge today because of the success of Bitcoin.

Despite the control of government in form of regulations to make Bitcoin and exchanges bare, the idea of decentralization will always be a bleak term and only attainable by those who are well versed in Blockchain development and languages and can understand economics that they know market trends and unfavorable policies with loopholes to exploit.

[BlackHatCoiner]

For all practical purposes, the supply of gold is well known, as it the growth of gold discovery.

What will the supply of gold be in December 2040? You can be absolutely certain about the supply of Bitcoin that month.

In the case of Bitcoin, you are trusting a set of miners to faithfully execute the software. It's a good system with good trust, but it is not "trustless" in that sense.

It is trustless in the sense of a game theoretical fairness protocol. This is the definition: https://github.com/lnbook/lnbook/blob/develop/01_introduction.asciidoc#fairness-without-central-authority.

In short:

In this book, we call this pattern a fairness protocol, defined as a process that uses a system of incentives and/or disincentives to ensure fair outcomes for participants who don’t trust each other. Enforcement of a fairness protocol is only necessary to ensure that the participants can’t escape the incentives or disincentives.

But, read all of it. It's good stuff.

But please, try to define your terms in benefits to the end-consumer rather than abstract ideas--that might make it easier to understand.

Being able to know exactly the inflation rate of your currency, at any moment of time in the past or the future, gives the producers and consumers the ability to protect themselves from arbitrary inflation and devaluation of their purchasing power. It also creates an environment, where prices cannot become distorted by bad monetary policy. Money that is not prone to corruption is a net positive for society.

Again, what does "finality" mean in this context? Again, define in terms of benefits to end-users.

If you send me bitcoin, and the transaction is sufficiently confirmed, it cannot be reversed, no matter the excuse. That's accomplished without trusting any third parties.

[Nrcewker]

Sadly, but yes, this is happening everywhere. The companies, in order to operate, need the support of the government, and the government is putting them under pressure to take KYC of their customers. I doubt that hardly any decentralized platforms are available. In many countries, crypto taxes are very high, or they have just completely banned it. The government is trying hard to break this ecosystem, but as long as P2P traders are present, I don’t think the concept of decentralization will disappear.

[cryptosize]

Transactional finality: all transactional systems do this (?)

Really?

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-cyprus-bank-disaster/274096/

Only Biden's rotten brain would make such a ridiculous claim.

[legiteum]

It is trustless in the sense of a game theoretical fairness protocol. This is the definition: https://github.com/lnbook/lnbook/blob/develop/01_introduction.asciidoc#fairness-without-central-authority.

But what earthly benefit does that technical thing bring to consumers? Why would anybody want that?

I know you might think the answers are obvious, but once you define the term through it's uses, then you'll see the thing isn't unique at all.

But please, try to define your terms in benefits to the end-consumer rather than abstract ideas--that might make it easier to understand.

Being able to know exactly the inflation rate of your currency, at any moment of time in the past or the future, gives the producers and consumers the ability to protect themselves from arbitrary inflation and devaluation of their purchasing power. It also creates an environment, where prices cannot become distorted by bad monetary policy. Money that is not prone to corruption is a net positive for society.

Great, that's a tangible benefit.

You don't need blockchain to achieve that benefit.

Again, what does "finality" mean in this context? Again, define in terms of benefits to end-users.

If you send me bitcoin, and the transaction is sufficiently confirmed, it cannot be reversed, no matter the excuse. [....]

Again, a benefit. But again, that can be achieve with any transactional system, and indeed, almost all transactional systems in use today work that way. If you reverse a credit card transaction, for instance, you aren't removing the original transaction from existence, you are creating a new transaction that has the net-effect of counteracting the first transaction--exactly as you would do (and is commonly done today) with Bitcoin or any other digital currency, or any other means of value transfer for that matter.

As for "trustless", that can mean a dozen different things, so the question is, why do I want "trustless" in the way you define it? And/or why is trusting the Bitcoin network and its set of miners superior to trusting other entities like a financial institution*? Again, what is the benefit to the user?

[cryptosize]

Verifiable supply: lots of things have this, including gold for instance; you don't need blockchain to do this digitally.

You clearly have overlooked "trustless". There is no money system in the world with verifiable supply in a trustless manner, apart from Bitcoin.

Hold on, give it a few more posts and he'll tell you about his favorite little shitcoin project (Haypenny) that trumps Bitcoin.

[MusaPk]

Sadly, but yes, this is happening everywhere. The companies, in order to operate, need the support of the government, and the government is putting them under pressure to take KYC of their customers. I doubt that hardly any decentralized platforms are available. In many countries, crypto taxes are very high, or they have just completely banned it. The government is trying hard to break this ecosystem, but as long as P2P traders are present, I don’t think the concept of decentralization will disappear.

There are thousands of cryptos floating in the market today and they may have features like fast transaction which is better then Bitcoin but there is no crypto available that is truly decentralised like Bitcoin. Most of cryptos blockchain code is patent which is under the control of team and can be manipulated.  
The government greatest fear about Bitcoin is it's decentralised nature which restrict anyone from taking over it's control.

[legiteum]

Hold on, give it a few more posts and he'll tell you about his favorite little shitcoin project (Haypenny) that trumps Bitcoin.

There's already a Trump currency on the Haypenny platform here:

https://haypenny.net/Trump

It isn't the "Trump" most people probably think of these days, but that's probably the point.