Few questions about Bitcoin and it's Network

[Lontor]

I want to keep this questions short as possible, I feel like it's a good day to learn something more about Bitcoin.

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?
2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?
3. Is it true that three companies control the 50% of the entire Bitcoin mining hashrate?

I will gladly read through all replies on here, thanks for your contribution.

[Charles-Tim]

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?

Bitcoin mining is decentralized.

2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?

The exchanges may let other parties know about your information. This is the reality.

3. Is it true that three companies control the 50% of the entire Bitcoin mining hashrate?

Yes, but the pools are not in only one country and also not the pools that have all the hashrate generated, but individual miners are joining the pool. The individual miners can decide to leave the pool at anytime if they see something bad about the pool.

[Dunamisx]

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?

Bitcoin mining is decentralized, anyone can decided to go for it as long as the have all it takes to compete with other miners and show the PoW as required.

2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?

Just know that your personal information and not safe because you have all your kyc details with centralized exchange, but you could prevent all these by using a decentralized exchange like bisq or hold hodl

3. Is it true that three companies control the 50% of the entire Bitcoin mining hashrate?

Yes

Mining hash rate is distributed across the world so that it does not permit for 51% attack and you may also expect only three companies to control this up to 50%

[Zaguru12]

I want to keep this questions short as possible, I feel like it's a good day to learn something more about Bitcoin.

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?
2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?
3. Is it true that three companies control the 50% of the entire Bitcoin mining hashrate?

I will gladly read through all replies on here, thanks for your contribution.

1. Bitcoin mining is decentralized, no mining pool can actually change of the bitcoin network protocol a consensus must be reached with all other nodes from verifying transactions to everything on the network. Yes the higher the hashrate of a mining pool the bigger opportunities it get to mine a block but this doesn’t mean decentralization

2. Yes you’re doxxed for life once you actually hand over your details through KYC to any exchange or platform. I believe it’s actually with them permanently and then can choose to sell it out or can get exposed. This details of they are true about will definitely link to your real world Identity.

3. Yes three mining pools; Foundary USA with ~25% hashrates, AntPool with ~19% hashrates and F2Pool with around ~13% hashrates all totally around 57% hashrates. but you need to understand that they are mining pools and millions of individual miners can withdraw their mining rigs if anything against the protocol rules is committed by the pool management


While your style of questioning doesn’t look more like you want to learn if truly you wish to learn I will advice you search the forum there are answers to this question.

[BlackBoss_]

I want to keep this questions short as possible, I feel like it's a good day to learn something more about Bitcoin.

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?

Bitcoin network is decentralized by mining hashrate distribution that comes from Bitcoin miners and mining pools. It also comes from Bitcoin nodes including Bitcoin full node distributions.

Decentralized, in a nutshell.

2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?

Yes. It's a very big risk when people use centralized exchanges.
KYC, no longer privacy, no anonymity, and there is another risk: fund can be frozen and confiscated anytime.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts.
Events made you scare about custodial wallets, centralized exchanges.

3. Is it true that three companies control the 50% of the entire Bitcoin mining hashrate?

It's correct.

Why did you ask this question?
Days ago, there was a topic about that in this forum, did you read it?
If you read it, why don't discuss about it in that topic?
Too late for 51% attack

Three biggest mining cools can come together to cause a 51% attack, since they are all centralised, I don't say this, it came from a long time friend who I just got his contact back, I am wondering how many people have this mindset as well.

The three biggest mining pools are Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool. They account for approximately 24%, 18% and 13% of the total bitcoin hashrate, respectively. That's around 55% in total.

I got the data from bitref.com.

But why there was no 51% attacks so far?
It's because there is no benefit for attackers and in Bitcoin history, there were several times like this, but mining pools did not attack the network, and certainly there were reasons for that.
Bitcoin mining history.

[Charles-Tim]

3. Yes three mining pools; Foundary USA with ~25% hashrates, AntPool with ~19% hashrates and F2Pool with around ~13% hashrates all totally around 57% hashrates.

Let us make it clearer.

Foundry USA: 25.43%
AntPool: 18.30%

F2Pool: 12.87
Spider Pool: 11.60%
Via BTC: 10.43%

Foundry USA and AntPool + F2Pool,  56.60 hashrate.
Foundry USA and AntPool + Spider Pool, 55.33 hashrate.
Foundry USA and AntPool + ViaBTC, 54.16 hashrate.

Only Foundry USA and AntPool generates 43.73% which is even a threat if bitcoin blockchain is not decentralized, but it is decentralized.

[YellowSwap]

If Bitcoin mining is in any slit way centralised we would be cooked already, that 51% attack will be very possible because been centralised means one or few numbers of people in a groups chat will be able to cause the 51% attack.

Bitcoin right out of the box is resistance to censorship, there is no authority governing Bitcoin, there is no one or no any group of powerful people that can prebt transactions from happening, the rules of the network can't be altered.

How about the peer to peer side of Bitcoin? Normally Bitcoin operates on a decentralised network of computers, something many like to called Nodes, and these nodes communicate directly with eachother, this means one thing, that transactions can occur without the need for of banks and institutions.

[GreatArkansas]

Some already answered...
I'll just my take on #2, about being doxxed for life when you use a central exchange.
So for me, this is really a current issue for the entire Bitcoin market, as most centralized exchanges are already shifting; every day or most of the time right now, centralized exchanges are starting to collect personal data or ask for KYC from their customers before you can use them at all. Back in the day, there was no such thing.

For me, the only downside here if these centralised exchange will have leak on their customers' data, so it will be still on the hands of these centralised exchanges.

[ABCbits]

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?

decentralized, but note that some people have concern such as few major mining pool and few company that actually create the ASIC / mining hardware.

2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?

If you mean whether government and other 3rd party know you have history of buying/selling Bitcoin and some of your personal data (that used as part of identity verification), then yes. But with some privacy practice (such as not re-using address or choosing address when createing TX), they have limited information such as which address belong to you or how much Bitcoin you own.

[coinlary]

Let us make it clearer.

Foundry USA: 25.43%
AntPool: 18.30%

F2Pool: 12.87
Spider Pool: 11.60%
Via BTC: 10.43%

Here's a even more precise live data from Braiins
learn.braiins.com >Bitcoin Mining Pools Stats
Spider Pool & Via BTC now have same market share 10.56%, not going to be for long anyway.

For me, the only downside here if these centralised exchange will have leak on their customers' data, so it will be still on the hands of these centralised exchanges.

They don't have to leak it either. Another way it could happen is if they get hacked and the data that could lead to it is stolen and sold by attackers to people who need it. An employee can also doxx an account, but that's not necessarily or directly the exchange's fault.

[hosemary]

Yes the higher the hashrate of a mining pool the bigger opportunities it get to mine a block but this doesn’t mean decentralization

You probably meant "centralization".

Here's a even more precise live data from Braiins
learn.braiins.com >Bitcoin Mining Pools Stats
Spider Pool & Via BTC now have same market share 10.56%, not going to be for long anyway.

The numbers you see on that website aren't necessarily more precise. They are just estimations.
Note that unless mining pools publish the data themselves, it's not possible to know their exact hash rate.

[KiaKia]

I want to keep this questions short as possible, I feel like it's a good day to learn something more about Bitcoin.
 
2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?

Not really, you are not doxxed for life if you use a crypto wallet to move funds into a crypto exchange or if you passed KYC verification, the thing is you are only identified with the wallet addresses that you used to withdraw and deposit on the crypto exchanges.

To get off the possible tracking you have to open a new wallet address and never interact with any crypto exchanges or any of your former crypto wallets that you have used in the past, every newly generated bitcoin address is undoxxed until you interact with an exchange.

Let's say you plan to stay off the radar you need to abandon every bitcoin wallets that you have used to interact with exchanges in the past, every single last one of them, them create a new one, this time, only use it when Peer to Peer transaction is available, no one will know who owns the new address.

[BlackHatCoiner]

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?

It is decentralized.

2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?

Pretty much. Once your ID is tied to a withdrawal address, chain analysis clusters everything downstream of it. You can mix the coins, but the government will know it. Bitcoiners are known for being careless in boating trips, though!

3. Is it true that three companies control the 50% of the entire Bitcoin mining hashrate?

Two mining pools (Foundry and AntPool) may send around half the blocks, but pools don't have ownership of the hashrate. Individuals or companies do.

[Cookdata]

I want to keep this questions short as possible, I feel like it's a good day to learn something more about Bitcoin.

What you should do next time when you are in doubt about some questions, a little Google will help you out, if you ask some questions, people will think you are not actually learning. Sometimes learning means doing research about something you are curious, this has been explained many times before.

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?

Bitcoin mining is not centralized, it's decentralized. We have mining pool, see it like a group of people that put their mining hashrate together to mine Bitcoin, this increases their chance of finding the next block and what's more interested about pool mining is that they don't know each other. Just people with the same goal, to find block and share reward, that's it.

2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?

Kyc breaks your privacy, if you are verified on an exchange and you make a couple of transactions, it will be there for life except for exchanges that do delete user but even with that, don't trust when they say they don't have your data, they do have it even after the delete.

3. Is it true that three companies control the 50% of the entire Bitcoin mining hashrate?

I will gladly read through all replies on here, thanks for your contribution.

They don't control hashrate, it's miners that control the hashrate. If miners that are under those pools decide to leave, that total percentage hashrate will reduce. The mining pool alone are nothing without other miners that are mining under their pool.

[macson]

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?

It's decentralized. And the miners are distributed globally, making Bitcoin more resistant to control by any entity.

2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?

That's more or less it. Since you connect your wallet to a centralized exchange, that company links your identity to it, and they can share your data with other parties. If a data breach occurs, your personal information could potentially be exposed.

3. Is it true that three companies control the 50% of the entire Bitcoin mining hashrate?

I wouldn't call them "controlling" the hashrate, because that would make it seem like they dominate the network. Rather, they are mining pools where miners can combine their computing power to increase their chances of successfully mining a block. This means that even though these three companies seem to have a significant amount of hashrate, they are still just mining pools --- it's still the miners who own the infrastructure and the hashrate.

[shinratensei_]

I want to keep this questions short as possible, I feel like it's a good day to learn something more about Bitcoin.

1. Is Bitcoin mining centralised? Or decentralised?
2. Are you doxxed for life when you use a centralised exchange?
3. Is it true that three companies control the 50% of the entire Bitcoin mining hashrate?

I will gladly read through all replies on here, thanks for your contribution.

1. Miners are decentralized, a serious attack can only happen if a pool manage 51% of hashrate but right now nobody is managing near that number.
2. Not really, sending out coin from exchange usually won't dox you, the exchange use hot wallet to send coin and there is no single identification leaking out and you can always create another bitcoin address as pseudonym.
3. They are pools and a pool is made of thousands of miners. The three company don't really control it.