Bitcoin's decentralization can never be taken for granted.

[headingnorth]

There will always be those in the world who want to dominate and control everything, including bitcoin.
Human nature tends to gravitate towards centralized power and control, if not to outright destroy.
Which is true for all things in life not just bitcoin btw.

That is why it will always be a constant struggle to maintain the network's integrity and keep it true to Satoshi's original vision.
You can win one great battle against powerful reactionary forces, only to face another one immediately after. We can never let our
guard down and allow ourselves to become complacent because there will always be those who are scheming to roll back and contain it.
Decentralization is a revolution and will always be a threat to the existing order.

The fight against tyranny is never ending. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

[JiiBs]

That is why it will always be a constant struggle to maintain the network's integrity and keep it true to Satoshi's original vision.
You can win one great battle against powerful reactionary forces, only to face another one immediately after. We can never let our
guard down and allow ourselves to become complacent because there will always be those who are scheming to roll back and contain it.
Decentralization is a revolution and will always be a threat to the existing order.

Several networks do exist to ensure the integrity of Bitcoin is never compromised. We have miners to mine and record these transactions in the blockchain, several volunteers to run nodes and ensure their isn’t any case of double spending and the longest chain is always used to archive this.

The concerns many do have now sterns from the fact that, several treasury companies and the government are buying lots of Bitcoin and the idea of a collaboration begins to build but, even then, they wouldn’t get to control the Bitcoin market, issues of goals and they wouldn’t be bought out quickly as well.

[alani123]

Those seeking to destroy bitcoin will use a multitude of ways to do it.

Stalking development seems to have brought things to a standstill in the past.
Then came trying to pass through completely irrelevant updates and pass them off as bitcoin.
The community split during this time.

Then now also came big money interests funding their own developers to go in the repositories and do as they say and please.
When the stakes are so high, it's hard to defend against such delicate attacks.

[peter0425]

The concerns many do have now sterns from the fact that, several treasury companies and the government are buying lots of Bitcoin and the idea of a collaboration begins to build but, even then, they wouldn’t get to control the Bitcoin market, issues of goals and they wouldn’t be bought out quickly as well.

The concern is when they try to manipulate the market already but as you said they can only manipulate the prices. But they can’t actually control bitcoin. Which is good because we know for sure that if the government or any banks can control bitcoin, they would be making a lot of changes on it.

[CryptoYar]

It is true that Bitcoin is built on decentralization which goes against natural human desire for control and power. Because Bitcoin gets rid of need for banks and governments it is direct threat to current financial system. This fight will never end. So here powerful groups will always try to control Bitcoin through new rules or technical changes. As Thomas Jefferson said The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. This perfectly describes what Bitcoin community must do. They must constantly be watchful and work hard to keep network free and true to its original goal of financial freedom.

[Darker45]

Although the network's integrity remains intact, it can't be denied that a great portion of the community has already gravitated toward centralized power and control. If we conduct a survey, for instance, it's highly probable that majority in the community is more familiar with Binance or Coinbase than Electrum.

That's not only complacent and letting our guard down, that's openly and willingly welcoming the rotten system into what's supposed to be a highly critical and vigilant community.

[headingnorth]

Those seeking to destroy bitcoin will use a multitude of ways to do it.

Stalking development seems to have brought things to a standstill in the past.
Then came trying to pass through completely irrelevant updates and pass them off as bitcoin.
The community split during this time.

Then now also came big money interests funding their own developers to go in the repositories and do as they say and please.
When the stakes are so high, it's hard to defend against such delicate attacks.

If there is a perpetual weakness in bitcoin's armor, that would be it (the developers).
Humans are the weakness in any system because they can be corrupted. When you read
about bitcoin devs praising ethereum and proof of stake, you know something isn't right.

The open-source nature of bitcoin means anyone can be a developer, even those who may be hiding
the worst intentions. Fortunately, they can be countered by the community rejecting their
work or not running their code, through the nodes for example.

But the control freaks are smart and know they can be countered so they can't simply ram through big
unpopular changes all at once. So instead may do it with tiny incremental changes over a long period of time,
killing you with death by a thousand cuts.

The community at large should be ever mindful and looking out for such subtle attacks, and not just blindly
accepting of something just because it comes from a deemed authority figure. The smartest adversary
works to gain your trust over time, even years, before stabbing you in the back.

What is the timeless principle and doctrine of every Bitcoiner? Don't trust, verify. In other words,
think for yourself and question everything always. Which may be easier said than done for most,
because it's not always easy to question authority. It's easier to just do as you are told, go along to get along.

[d5000]

In general I agree with the OP. The cypherpunk ethos (privacy, decentralization, censorship resistance ...) has to prevail in Bitcoin's community, above all in those groups who take care of the protocol.

And if miners or economic nodes seek to change that ethos into one more aligned with "business" ideas, then perhaps also the less active community members should make their voice heard, to always make sure that even in the case of a hard fork resulting from such disagreements, the majority will be on the side of a decentralized Bitcoin.

But an attack on the cypherpunk ethos could come from places and angles some people wouldn't expect.

Taproot is an example. It is a very interesting method to increase decentralization and scalability, and has also privacy-friendly use cases.

But some social media warriors associate Taproot only with the Ordinals protocol, which is in my opinion a spam protocol, but could also have been implemented in other ways. Some have gone so far to demand for Taproot to be rolled back only for this reason.

Disagreements and discussions about Bitcoin development are natural and normally good. Shitstorms with poor arguments and fueled by social media mobs against some of the last cypherpunks in our community aren't.

[Dave1]

That is why it will always be a constant struggle to maintain the network's integrity and keep it true to Satoshi's original vision.

Bitcoin's uptime is 99.9%. You can track it here: (https://bitbo.io/uptime). So I don't think that there are struggle, there might be early in the days.

You can win one great battle against powerful reactionary forces, only to face another one immediately after. We can never let our
guard down and allow ourselves to become complacent because there will always be those who are scheming to roll back and contain it.
Decentralization is a revolution and will always be a threat to the existing order.

The fight against tyranny is never ending. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

And as per your title, I don't think that anyone here has taken Bitcoin's decentralization for granted. On the contrary we are pushing for it. We might say that the picture has change a bit since the entry of big players, institutions and ETF's. But still no one can control Bitcoin, it's too big too fall. Anyone trying to do 51% attack on Bitcoin will fail and it's not worth it.

[X-ray]

Although the network's integrity remains intact, it can't be denied that a great portion of the community has already gravitated toward centralized power and control. If we conduct a survey, for instance, it's highly probable that majority in the community is more familiar with Binance or Coinbase than Electrum.

That's not only complacent and letting our guard down, that's openly and willingly welcoming the rotten system into what's supposed to be a highly critical and vigilant community.

That's definitely concern of centralization.

People come flocking onto bitcoin because its decentralization yet put their money into custodial wallet. Basically just throwing away the thing they yearned for.

Self custody is literally super simple yet people don't really want to learn.

[fredericktaylor]

That is why it will always be a constant struggle to maintain the network's integrity and keep it true to Satoshi's original vision.

Bitcoin's uptime is 99.9%. You can track it here: (https://bitbo.io/uptime). So I don't think that there are struggle, there might be early in the days.

You can win one great battle against powerful reactionary forces, only to face another one immediately after. We can never let our
guard down and allow ourselves to become complacent because there will always be those who are scheming to roll back and contain it.
Decentralization is a revolution and will always be a threat to the existing order.

The fight against tyranny is never ending. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

And as per your title, I don't think that anyone here has taken Bitcoin's decentralization for granted. On the contrary we are pushing for it. We might say that the picture has change a bit since the entry of big players, institutions and ETF's. But still no one can control Bitcoin, it's too big too fall. Anyone trying to do 51% attack on Bitcoin will fail and it's not worth it.

Absolutely right, the spread of Bitcoin is increasing tremendously all over the world and will increase by double in the future. Bitcoin has created such a large and powerful network system and community that no one can control BTC even if they want to. If anyone tries to do so, they will fail. Many big companies can temporarily influence the price by collecting a large amount of BTC through ETFs, but they could not influence the decentralized network in Bitcoin and will not be able to do so in the future. Bitcoin was strong from the beginning and will be strong in the future. No government or country could control BTC and will not be able to do so in the future.

[GeorgeJohn]

Those seeking to destroy bitcoin will use a multitude of ways to do it.

I don't see Bitcoin like something someone can destroy, the way Bitcoin can be destroy is by campaigning negatively about bitcoin and it would have being something that would have done earlier or far back 2010 or 2011, but now, if such campaigns should carried out, it will result nothing...Bitcoin has gain dominion over many things so I believe that nothing can destroy bitcoin except satoshi or the team that knows the formula or the secret of bitcoin.

[FortuneFollower]

Those seeking to destroy bitcoin will use a multitude of ways to do it.

I don't see Bitcoin like something someone can destroy, the way Bitcoin can be destroy is by campaigning negatively about bitcoin and it would have being something that would have done earlier or far back 2010 or 2011, but now, if such campaigns should carried out, it will result nothing...Bitcoin has gain dominion over many things so I believe that nothing can destroy bitcoin except satoshi or the team that knows the formula or the secret of bitcoin.

FUD about Bitcoin doesn't affect the chain at all, so it wouldn't destroy it, I agree.

If BTC is already there - there is not much to stop up it from the inside.

[BitGoba]

There will always be those in the world who want to dominate and control everything, including bitcoin.
Human nature tends to gravitate towards centralized power and control, if not to outright destroy.
Which is true for all things in life not just bitcoin btw.

That is why it will always be a constant struggle to maintain the network's integrity and keep it true to Satoshi's original vision.
You can win one great battle against powerful reactionary forces, only to face another one immediately after. We can never let our
guard down and allow ourselves to become complacent because there will always be those who are scheming to roll back and contain it.
Decentralization is a revolution and will always be a threat to the existing order.

The fight against tyranny is never ending. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

When I explain Bitcoin, I like to tell people about a form of money that existed on the islands of Yap and Indonesia, where people used large stones called Rai stones as currency. These stones were so big that people couldnt carry them around instead, the whole village knew who owned which stone. If a transaction took place someone paid someone else for something  the village would gather and remember who the new owner was.This is very similar to Bitcoin. The difference is that instead of a village and people, Bitcoin uses nodes that keep track of who the new owner is, verify transactions, and enforce the rules of the network.

If someone wanted to destroy Bitcoin or take control, they would have to convince people not to run their nodes or make it too expensive for them to do so.For example, with some shitcoins like Ethereum, an ordinary small user cannot run a node because its too costly, instead, large insider companies do it. They decide the rules and verify transactions, meaning a small number of people can always abuse their power.

Fight for Bitcoin is a fight to get as many people as possible to run their own nodes  and not just run them, but also understand why they do it, to verify and record transactions themselves, enforce the networks rules, manage their own Lightning channels, and use Bitcoin as their own money and bank account
 The goal is to make running nodes as cheap and easy as possible. If someone tries to make running nodes harder or tells you that you dont need to run your own node, they are an enemy of Bitcoin.

[Swordsoffreedom]

People come flocking onto bitcoin because its decentralization yet put their money into custodial wallet. Basically just throwing away the thing they yearned for.

No, in my view, most people flock to bitcoin for the profits, not for the decentralization and privacy it offers.
If I remember correctly, the collapse of the Mt.gox exchange in 2014 caused the exchange to lose more than 850KBC, including 700,000BTC of customer and 100,000BTC owned by the exchange. It has been shown, from the very beginning, that most of us came to bitcoin for profit and nothing else.
People don't crave privacy and freedom as much as we think.

Self custody is literally super simple yet people don't really want to learn.

Yes, it's not that complicated, and people don't want to learn it because they don't care.

[ABCbits]

But an attack on the cypherpunk ethos could come from places and angles some people wouldn't expect.

Taproot is an example. It is a very interesting method to increase decentralization and scalability, and has also privacy-friendly use cases.

But some social media warriors associate Taproot only with the Ordinals protocol, which is in my opinion a spam protocol, but could also have been implemented in other ways. Some have gone so far to demand for Taproot to be rolled back only for this reason.

This also apply to SegWit, they attack it due to how witness data extend spam capability. Those people doesn't seem to know that SegWit fix transaction malleability and quadratic sighash issue.

[Darker45]

~snip~

People come flocking onto bitcoin because its decentralization yet put their money into custodial wallet. Basically just throwing away the thing they yearned for.

There probably was a time very early in Bitcoin's adoption when people joined because it's decentralized. Today, it's certainly the price appreciation that's mainly the driving factor of the majority. Even when I first encountered Bitcoin around 10 years ago, it was already treated more as an asset than a decentralized electronic cash system.

I doubt if there's somebody who adopts Bitcoin because of its decentralization only to keep the funds in a centralized custodian.

[melinoe]

~snip~

People come flocking onto bitcoin because its decentralization yet put their money into custodial wallet. Basically just throwing away the thing they yearned for.

There probably was a time very early in Bitcoin's adoption when people joined because it's decentralized. Today, it's certainly the price appreciation that's mainly the driving factor of the majority. Even when I first encountered Bitcoin around 10 years ago, it was already treated more as an asset than a decentralized electronic cash system.

I doubt if there's somebody who adopts Bitcoin because of its decentralization only to keep the funds in a centralized custodian.

It's the ultimate store of value as of now, but the adoption won't stop there, imo.

Eventually, everybody will have reserves of BTC - and they would want to take it a bit forward.

[Jubilee58]

There will always be those in the world who want to dominate and control everything, including bitcoin.
Human nature tends to gravitate towards centralized power and control, if not to outright destroy.
Which is true for all things in life not just bitcoin btw.

That is why it will always be a constant struggle to maintain the network's integrity and keep it true to Satoshi's original vision.
You can win one great battle against powerful reactionary forces, only to face another one immediately after. We can never let our
guard down and allow ourselves to become complacent because there will always be those who are scheming to roll back and contain it.
Decentralization is a revolution and will always be a threat to the existing order.

The fight against tyranny is never ending. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Bitcoin decentralization is one of the things that makes bitcoin unique, and am very sure that before this time some people and even countries have fought against the uniqueness of this digital gold, but all their efforts to damage the effort of Satoshi Nakamoto was to no avail.

Even though institutions, individuals and countries are accumulating bitcoin in large quantity, it can never change bitcoin from being decentralized, for this the original purpose.

[Ucy]

Ofcourse, it's however not in human nature to accept whatever that is thrown at them without review for issues or question. If it happens on the contrary, it's likely because the human is asleep, afraid, controlled, powerless, bought or corrupted.

Achieving consensus through unhindered open/transparent reviews or questions that are done responsibly, is actually right, but this is largely forbidden or limited in tyrannical or autocratic system for fears that the evil agenda of autocrats/tyrants who typically operate in the dark will be exposed and hindered.

Bitcoin is counter system designed with good principles, and functions through public consensus (that must not be denied to anyone who wishes to be part of it) to help prevent its abuse and takeover by tyrants