Has Bitcoin Finally Lost Its Decentralization?

[davis196]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

Decentralization has nothing to do with the ownership of BTC. Decentralization is about having control over the protocol.
A bunch of corporations could own most of BTC in circulation and BTC could still be decentralized. BTC will become centralized when a big corporation controls most mining rigs and tries to change the blockchain protocol. This would lead to most miners, developers and users leaving the Bitcoin blockchain and the BTC price would collapse. What creates the value of Bitcoin is the community behind it. Destroying that community would lead to the destruction of Bitcoin.

[Rabata]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

One person can control a large part of Bitcoin and for this reason we cannot call it centralized. There is no denying that when an individual or organization controls a large chunk of Bitcoin, they can exert some influence over the market if they want, but that doesn't mean that they are able to centralize a decentralized platform. Bitcoin was and will be decentralized. Various individuals and organizations will continue to invest more and more around the potential of Bitcoin. Moreover, the governments of various countries are slowly getting interested in investing in Bitcoin. One of the reasons for this is that it is completely decentralized. If someone ever takes control then Bitcoin will become worthless. Bitcoin's greatest strength is its decentralized power.

[mindrust]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

What you described has nothing to do with bitcoin's decentralization. Bitcoin is still the same network for more than 10 years and it still works the same way. If some people own thousands of bitcoins, that doesn't mean the network is compromised. On the contrary, it only shows people are interested in bitcoin so they are buying huge shares of the platform. Buying coins can't threaten the decentralization of the network. Only the miners can do that. If one miner controls the majority of the hash rate, that would be catastrophic. Luckily that will never happen.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

I believe OP has got a point and while I agree with the majority that bitcoin remains decentralised in reality, the increasing adoption by institutions, buying on centralised exchanges, use as an investment and not P2P, etc., at least make it more centralised than it was intended to be.

No, Bitcoin is still decentralized. It is an internal property of Bitcoin. The only thing big groups can do is manipulate the price by buying/selling.

This is probably what @mrquackquack meant when he spoke about the decentralization of bitcoin (although this is not entirely correct), when large holders of bitcoin can influence the price and manipulate the market.

This is where I think he has a point but not only in that, but a truly decentralised use would be P2P, and today such use is minimal.

[shield132]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

No, it hasn't lost but it's not as decentralized as it once was because now big corporations own the majority of coins and mining became a commercial business. Today you can't mine Bitcoins at home while it was possible in 2016. Today only big corporations like BitFury can have a profitable mining business because they own thousands of miners and have access to a very cheap electricity. It leads to loss of decentralization but I like that Satoshi disappeared with 1 million Bitcoins in his wallet. 1 Million is a fair share and this share alone makes Bitcoin significantly decentralized because it's in good hands but if Satoshi doesn't ever appear, then this shair means nothing.
I hope there won't come time when Bitcoin will be fully centralized. Sadly, we are heading that path.

[MeGold666]

1 Million is a fair share and this share alone makes Bitcoin significantly decentralized because it's in good hands but if Satoshi doesn't ever appear, then this shair means nothing.

Quite contrary, if Satoshi (remember it could be a group of people represented by 1 guy) was to move his coins, it would create panic in share holders.

Satoshi could control the price of all Bitcoins by pumping and dumping or just sell it all which would result as he was planning it all from the beginning as an elaborate pyramid scheme.
If he still has access to this coins then there's another threat that someone will steal it from him or that family members will get access to it by inheritance and sell it all.

The best case scenario for Bitcoin is for this coins to never move and hopefully access to this coins is forever lost.

[Z-tight]

I believe OP has got a point and while I agree with the majority that bitcoin remains decentralised in reality, the increasing adoption by institutions, buying on centralised exchanges, use as an investment and not P2P, etc., at least make it more centralised than it was intended to be..

What people do and how they decide to use BTC does not affect the network in itself, BTC should be stored in a self custodial wallet but if people decide to store their funds in a centralized exchange, then it is up to them and it does not change what the network is about.

Institutional investors can buy as much BTC as they want, which can have an influence on the price of BTC, but it does not affect BTC's decentralization, as long as no central authority is in control and nodes are scattered all over the world, then the network remains decentralized.

[Porfirii]

No, Bitcoin is still decentralized. It is an internal property of Bitcoin. The only thing big groups can do is manipulate the price by buying/selling.

This is probably what @mrquackquack meant when he spoke about the decentralization of bitcoin (although this is not entirely correct), when large holders of bitcoin can influence the price and manipulate the market.

Yes, I think that we continue to think about the same classic definition of decentralization in this topic, but the OP meant something else. He has already been warned about the terminological confusion, so it would be more constructive if we focused on answering his question.

Yes, I'm worried about more and more Bitcoins being held by such groups as it makes it easier for them to manipulate the market. If we were worried years ago about the power of miner farms, now we have additional risks to worry about.

[tranthidung]

How many active BTC-developers are there at the moment? Probably a few dozen at most?

According to https://bitcoindevlist.com/ there are 67 Bitcoin developers listed there.

According to Bitcoin's Github, there are 947+ contributors.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

There are enough developers for Bitcoin decentralized projects and they are world class developers.

[LDL]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

Bitcoin is fully decentralized but its decentralization system is changing day by day. Bitcoin is now being controlled by a number of famous people especially any one of their announcements can cause massive changes in the Bitcoin market. If Bitcoin is decentralized then no third party or counter party will control it and their big announcements will not affect the Bitcoin market but the system is completely upside down. If Bitcoin is controlled by individual institutions or countries then its decentralized nature will definitely change.

[Z_MBFM]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

The Bitcoin network is decentralized because it allows peer-to-peer transactions without any authorization.  While you can control your funds as you wish, they can never be centralized because no one's personal information can ever be traced through a Bitcoin wallet. transactions can always be made anonymously here. so it is not possible for any country to centralize Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin's algorithm can never be changed. so it will remain decentralized for life

[Abiky]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

Not quite. Bitcoin is still decentralized, despite the fact that most institutions are buying large sums of the circulating supply. What matters is node distribution and miner support. The rich can control the supply, but they won't be able to control the network hashrate. This means, they will be left out of the network consensus. It's ultimately in the hands of miners and node operators (people like you and me who run a full node at home). This is only possible in a PoW chain like Bitcoin.

For Ethereum, it's another story. Since it's a PoS coin, whales and big exchanges can influence the direction of the project with their stake. In other words, their ETH holdings can be used to participate in network consensus. Talk about centralization. I sure hope BTC stays decentralized enough to withstand the test of time. Otherwise, it will be "game over" for good.

[serjent05]

While the Bitcoin network itself is decentralized, the ecosystem that has grown around it includes both centralized and decentralized services.

True that and this is necessary and needed for Bitcoin to get adopted in the system where centralization is the major power.  If Bitcoin won't get integrated to a centralized system, then this will slowdown the adoption of Bitcoin.  Remember, it was the centralized systems like casinos, financial institutions that manage investment and exchanges that push Bitcoin advertisement too hard.  Regardless, even if Bitcoin is integrated to a centralized system, its very core is decentralized in nature so i do not think that Bitcoin has lost its decentralization because we still have this p2p feature where we can use anytime.

[HelliumZ]

Bitcoin is completely decentralized but many people think of it as centralized. If Bitcoin were controlled by a single person or organization, we could think of it as a centralized currency. But since Bitcoin is not controlled by any single person or entity, we can never consider it as a centralized currency. If Satoshi Nakamoto himself came forward and took control of Bitcoin we could assume it would become a centralized currency, but Bitcoin is still considered a decentralized currency as it is not controlled by a third party.

[Woodie]

Let's just say the face value of bitcoin...the exterior part of it is definitely looking like it's centralised because too many whales buying it for superiority & I believe the person that holds the most bitcoins can definitely dictate which direction ⬇️⬆️ it will be taking whether it goes up or goes down.

But it should be noted that the part that will forever remain decentralised is the Blockchain because it's a decentralised network of computers running the show.

[legiteum]

But it should be noted that the part that will forever remain decentralised is the Blockchain because it's a decentralised network of computers running the show.

Not to the average consumer. Most actually store their "Bitcoin" holdings in some central RDBMS run by a broker, and even then it's just a number saying how much Bitcoin you own.

That's why my answer to the poll question was, "Who Cares?"--because in reality, most Bitcoin holders don't actually care...

[SickDayIn]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

The points you mentioned - other big entities buying Bitcoin. Still to this day, it doesn't mean you can't accumulate it. You still control it. No one can seize it from you automatically without your involvement. It is still decentralised.

[franky1]

How many active BTC-developers are there at the moment? Probably a few dozen at most?

According to https://bitcoindevlist.com/ there are 67 Bitcoin developers listed there.

According to Bitcoin's Github, there are 947+ contributors.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

There are enough developers for Bitcoin decentralized projects and they are world class developers.

(rhetorical question)
but how many have the privilege to merge those contributors efforts, look at who moderates the path of the roadmap, look at also who force-merges their own code in, even when certain things are controversial

when you realise that most of the "contributors" are not actively in their hundreds per release but only in the dozens per release. and then learn the "contributors" (that are not the main dozen privileged set of maintainers) are generally just spell checkers and translators and not really doing any big roadmap protocol upgrading activity.. it will become clearer that things are in a hierarchy of centralised group of devs. and we need to keep an eye and scrutinise and critique their work instead of brush it under the carpet pretending its decentralised to then become complacent

[Yatsan]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

I think some of this is fights in the community of cryptocurrencies. The growing involvement of corporations, companies, and even several countries in Bitcoin definitely raises some questions as to its governance structure and what it means for the future of the network.

On one hand, the local and government interests are a violation of legitimacy and potential of Bitcoin as a store of value or as an investment asset. The companies generally increase liquidity, stability, and adoption. This would foster growth and growth in the space of cryptocurrency.

On the other hand, there are valid concerns that would tamper with the regional structure of Bitcoin. Most Bitcoins in the hands of a few large participants result in control and power, which will directly affect the network for anti-censorship and basic decentralization.

However, basic technical features and the governance structure are kept the same through a shared library and consensus mechanism. The community involvement is on a rise, though. The fundamental principles and distribution of the network remain intact. Regional nodes and miners ensure the security and integrity of the system. This keeps the basic characteristics intact.

How many active BTC-developers are there at the moment? Probably a few dozen at most?

According to https://bitcoindevlist.com/ there are 67 Bitcoin developers listed there.

According to Bitcoin's Github, there are 947+ contributors.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

There are enough developers for Bitcoin decentralized projects and they are world class developers.

(rhetorical question)
but how many have the privilege to merge those contributors efforts, look at who moderates the path of the roadmap, look at also who force-merges their own code in, even when certain things are controversial

when you realise that most of the "contributors" are not actively in their hundreds per release but only in the dozens per release. and then learn the "contributors" (that are not the main dozen privileged set of maintainers) are generally just spell checkers and translators and not really doing any big roadmap protocol upgrading activity.. it will become clearer that things are in a hierarchy of centralised group of devs. and we need to keep an eye and scrutinise and critique their work instead of brush it under the carpet pretending its decentralised to then become complacent

It is true that while many projects-including projects in the crypto space-commit to being decentralized, the actual development and decision-making lie with a small group of administrators, which then potentially affects the direction of the project by a big margin.

In many projects, core developers hold an inordinate amount of control over the direction that the project is going to take and the influence to make binding decisions over the community at large. Centralizing that authority-even in a decentralized community-can sometimes be a transparency and inclusivity concern.

Communities need to be vigilant and carefully look at the development process for specificity in decision making, active participation of the various donor groups, and a strong system of checks and balances that would ensure projects are sound and lend themselves to social objectives. - - -

Consideration and accountability of the activities of master developers are key aspects in maintaining zoning principles. Holding an open discussion supports everyone, and it makes sure participation is duly monitored and appraised accordingly. It may help in dealing with potential imbalances and ensures more equity in the development process.

[Ale88]

Thats a question we all would like to know. Has Bitcoin been finally sold out to big businesses, corporations, investment groups and even countries?? In the last few years these things have resonated louder than ever. Investment groups buying thousands and even millions worth of Bitcoin at a time, countries even making the once comical like currency its very own currency for everyday life. So the question once again is asked... Has Bitcoin Finally Lost It's Decentralization? Let us know of your thoughts and comments on this and thanks again.

I really struggle to understand what you are trying to say here. Bitcoin is still completely decentralized, nobody controls it and nobody has control over the blockchain, the big corporations have nothing to do with this also because I'm pretty sure there are single entities that own way more bitcoins than these corporations so, following your logic, bitcoin has never been decentralized and we know that it's not like that.