Is Bitcoin becoming too centralized with big miners and institutions?

[Apocollapse]

I have no idea with people who said government/institution can't control Bitcoin because they only affect the price while the network is decentralized. Actually, once the government/institution has successfully acquire most of Bitcoin, they can control Bitcoin and due to decentralization it makes them unstoppable!

Imagine if 20 Million Bitcoin belong to US and they choose to never sell the coins, this means the rest of the world are fighting to get a share of 1 Million, not to mention if the next entity choose to buyout the whole 1 Million and never sell it.

No one can get any satoshi anymore and Bitcoin developers can't steal/force the entity to sell their coins due to decentralization.

[john_egbert]

I have no idea with people who said government/institution can't control Bitcoin because they only affect the price while the network is decentralized. Actually, once the government/institution has successfully acquire most of Bitcoin, they can control Bitcoin and due to decentralization it makes them unstoppable!

Imagine if 20 Million Bitcoin belong to US and they choose to never sell the coins, this means the rest of the world are fighting to get a share of 1 Million, not to mention if the next entity choose to buyout the whole 1 Million and never sell it.

No one can get any satoshi anymore and Bitcoin developers can't steal/force the entity to sell their coins due to decentralization.

Because it would be very hard for such an entity to get a hold of such an amount, knowing how much is on the retailers` side and on the companies` side as well already.

Though it's a possibility in the distant future - as for now, it's more of a boogie tale.

[nemesis_incarnate]

To be fair with the institutional buyings, that's just how it is. The more capital you got, you can own much more bitcoin than other people. That's why holding in self custody is recommended. You can help decentralize holders.

In regard of mining, the biggest hashrate owners is Foundry USA then AntPool with just half of ahshrate. Personally I have no problem since its still far from 51% attack. However if people can start doing mining as their side hobby, it can definitely help decentralization of hashrate.

For now, we are still on the bright side of things, but I do not think that institutions put such a goal of - controlling - BTC (yet).

They surely do not like it in some regards, but they are using it as they see fit now. Some do it more, some - just deny crypto in general (unfortunately).

[BitGoba]

Seeing big companies buying billions+ dollars of bitcoin, isn't it becoming too centralized. Could they centralize it if they own a lot of it's portion.
How can we defend against this process?

Bitcoin does not become centralized based on how much someone owns ,even if someone holds 90% of all bitcoins, they cannot change the rules. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer monetary network and digital cash system, with software that anyone can run on their computer. As long as anyone can run their own node, choose their software, and decide which rules to follow , and as long as this remains easy ,cheap and simple , Bitcoin stays decentralized.

[Synchronice]

Seeing big companies buying billions+ dollars of bitcoin, isn't it becoming too centralized. Could they centralize it if they own a lot of it's portion.
How can we defend against this process?

Yes, it is getting centralized and I'm afraid that there isn't much that we can do. They are even buying Bitcoin at 100K USD while most of the people are selling at this price. They are here for a long-term plan while many people are here for short-term gains. They are buying millions of Bitcoins and are concentrating a large portion of Bitcoin in their hands. With this, they can move the market and manipulate the price to make more money.
Trump wants to mine the rest of the Bitcoins in the United States, which will make it more centralized but I'm sure that this was another populistic statement from him and it won't happen in reality.

[pawanjain]

Seeing big companies buying billions+ dollars of bitcoin, isn't it becoming too centralized. Could they centralize it if they own a lot of it's portion.
How can we defend against this process?

When it comes to centralization of bitcoin there are two aspects to focus and those are mining and the total supply.

If less number of miners acquire more mining power then it would increase the centralization and could possible lead to a 51% attack.
To tackle this, miners need to divide so that the decentralization increases among them.

If large institutions keeps on buying more bitcoins, it would happen that less people will hold more number of bitcoins.
This would increase the possibilities of market manipulation and to be honest, nothing can be done about this.
Bitcoin gives everyone freedom and some are leveraging their power to buy more bitcoin.

[348Judah]

Seeing big companies buying billions+ dollars of bitcoin, isn't it becoming too centralized. Could they centralize it if they own a lot of it's portion.
How can we defend against this process?

Because institutions are investing in bitcoin does not make it centralized or to be in future, e ery investors are not going to be whales or crayfish holders, all we may have to consider is the network, which is decentralized ans the way bitcoin has been of an important asset of investment that yields more over time, they can't regulate it, everything here lies on the p2p network and the blockchain which all forbids censorship.

[betswift]

Seeing big companies buying billions+ dollars of bitcoin, isn't it becoming too centralized. Could they centralize it if they own a lot of it's portion.
How can we defend against this process?

Because institutions are investing in bitcoin does not make it centralized or to be in future, e ery investors are not going to be whales or crayfish holders, all we may have to consider is the network, which is decentralized ans the way bitcoin has been of an important asset of investment that yields more over time, they can't regulate it, everything here lies on the p2p network and the blockchain which all forbids censorship.

That's why they push for the adoption mainly through ETFs / big services offering BTC => fiat + the fees stuff, and so on: they want BTC, and they want to profit from it, not to give the people what they really want: something that enables themselves.

[Alpha Marine]

Bitcoin cannot be centralised. The way it is used may be centralised, but Bitcoin itself cannot be centralised. Corporations and governments buying bitcoin does not make it centralised, it makes it valuable. It means it has proven people wrong enough for big corporations and governments to trust in them. I don't see big corporations and governments buying bitcoins as necessary for the growth of bitcoin, but at the same time, I am not threatened by it because no matter how much they buy, they can't control it. They can't even manipulate it that much anymore.

The more big companies buy, the more the demand for bitcoin increases, and that's the more the price increases, and that will make it more difficult to manipulate. We could see how easy it was to manipulate the market when bitcoin was between $20k-$40k, compared to now that bitcoin is over $100k. Manipulating the market is now expensive, plus, people have more trust in bitcoin now than they did a few years ago.
There are things I can be worried about when it comes to Bitcoin, but its decentralisation is not one of them

[Dogedegen]

Seeing big companies buying billions+ dollars of bitcoin, isn't it becoming too centralized. Could they centralize it if they own a lot of it's portion.
How can we defend against this process?

Because institutions are investing in bitcoin does not make it centralized or to be in future, e ery investors are not going to be whales or crayfish holders, all we may have to consider is the network, which is decentralized ans the way bitcoin has been of an important asset of investment that yields more over time, they can't regulate it, everything here lies on the p2p network and the blockchain which all forbids censorship.

That's why they push for the adoption mainly through ETFs / big services offering BTC => fiat + the fees stuff, and so on: they want BTC, and they want to profit from it, not to give the people what they really want: something that enables themselves.

Most of the people don't want what Bitcoin offers, they buy it for all kinds of different reasons. If they did care about the fundamentals, they would not touch any shitcoins and yet look what has happened in the last decade. Why should institutions care when most crypto users don't? They aim to make money, not to heal the world.

[Rustam Meraj]

Bitcoin cannot be centralised. The way it is used may be centralised, but Bitcoin itself cannot be centralised. Corporations and governments buying bitcoin does not make it centralised, it makes it valuable. It means it has proven people wrong enough for big corporations and governments to trust in them. I don't see big corporations and governments buying bitcoins as necessary for the growth of bitcoin, but at the same time, I am not threatened by it because no matter how much they buy, they can't control it. They can't even manipulate it that much anymore.

The more big companies buy, the more the demand for bitcoin increases, and that's the more the price increases, and that will make it more difficult to manipulate. We could see how easy it was to manipulate the market when bitcoin was between $20k-$40k, compared to now that bitcoin is over $100k. Manipulating the market is now expensive, plus, people have more trust in bitcoin now than they did a few years ago.
There are things I can be worried about when it comes to Bitcoin, but its decentralisation is not one of them

You made great point that Bitcoin itself can not be centralized even if big companies and governments buy it. In fact their interest actually proves value and trust in Bitcoin. It is also much harder to control market now that Bitcoin price is so high unlike when it was cheaper. Huge amount of money needed to change price protects it from manipulation which is why decentralized nature of Bitcoin is not something to worry about anymore.

[Negotiation]

Seeing big companies buying billions+ dollars of bitcoin, isn't it becoming too centralized. Could they centralize it if they own a lot of it's portion.
How can we defend against this process?

Large companies buying bitcoin creates a form of centralization of ownership which can have an impact on the market it does not directly centralize the bitcoin core protocol. The bitcoin network is automated and decentralized so it is difficult to say that it will become completely centralized just because of a few large investors. It is still one of the most decentralized cryptocurrencies in the world also the more large companies buy the more demand will increase and the price will increase further which will ultimately help make the market more stable and free from manipulation. This is a virtuous cycle which is very helpful for the long term stability of bitcoin.

[bangjoe]

In conclusion as long as the miners are scattered throughout the world as long as the Bitcoin system will remain decentralized, this is in terms of network and its protocol mechanism, but for fabrics from Bitcoin itself, it does not care about it by whom, even if it is owned by 50% coins by the institution it will not affect the decentralization of bitcoin because it is only a product not a network system (more precisely to the market instead of the system).

[finaleshot2016]

Seeing big companies buying billions+ dollars of bitcoin, isn't it becoming too centralized. Could they centralize it if they own a lot of it's portion.
How can we defend against this process?

Supply ownership doesn't mean centralizing Bitcoin.

Even they hold a lot of supply, they can't change anything to be honest, bitcoin remain as it is, the decentralization features that makes them used by a lot of people. The supply is limited, even they're trying to buy a lot of supplies, and they're slurping those satoshi-era wallets, they might have the influence to control the market, but imbalances are always getting fixed in crypto market, we still have the power as individuals if we keep learning the ways of the manipulators.

But again, they can't the rules of Bitcoin. It is what it is.

[goldkingcoiner]

Seeing big companies buying billions+ dollars of bitcoin, isn't it becoming too centralized. Could they centralize it if they own a lot of it's portion.
How can we defend against this process?

If Bitcoin was Proof Of Stake (POS) then yes, them owning more Bitcoin would make Bitcoin more centralized. But since it is Proof Of Work (POW) there is no need to worry about who owns how many Bitcoin since the amount owned does not represent anything else other than having a lot of Bitcoin.

Although that being said, it could be speculated that there is a certain meta danger that the government keeps pushing for POS and more regulation. I extremely doubt the Bitcoin community would agree to that, even if we were under pressure from various attack vectors.

In a single line: Bitcoin is safe, no need to worry.