I no longer consider bitcoin as a decentralized currency...

[N[e]wBie]

not only are ASICs disallowing most people from mining, they are also used in massive pools. Isn't 51% of the network being mined by a few pools? That just means the three owners (or less?) of those pools have to be bribed, manipulated, threatened, or motivated to fundamentally destroy bitcoin. Not that resilient.

[1715040879]

1715040879

[inBitweTrust]

Tell me otherwise?

Reasons Why Bitcoin is and will remain decentralized :

1) Miners do not control the direction of the code, full nodes do. All someone needs is 20GB of space on their hard drive to have a vote on the implementation of the code used and ultimately direction of the network.

While there has a been a slight drop off in the quantity of nodes due to more people using SPV clients  :
https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/dashboard/chart/?days=60
 
There is still a very robust decentralized network of nodes across the world. I expect this trend to reverse with greater adoption and when the developers implement better ways to prune the size of the blockchain.

2) There are more than 16 companies who sell ASICs and they are located around the world. This is decentralized!

3) Most of the costs with ASIC manufacturing comes from the initial investments. Just like with computers expect faster and cheaper hardware in the future for mining which in turn means more ubiquitous and decentralized use. I wouldn't be surprised if mining rig space heaters are sold where they warm homes and earn money while doing so in the future.

4) More users every month = more decentralized

5) More retailers = more decentralized

6) There are still plenty of early adopters who have invested their gains in mining hardware

7) Bitcoin development is decentralized because its open source, the amount of developers keeps growing, the variations of bitcoin implementations keep growing as well. Examples of new versions... btcd (Go), Bits of proof (Java), bitcoinj (java), picocoin (C), libbitcoin (C++), caesure (Python), ect....

Overall Bitcoin is becoming more robust while remaining decentralized.

[Catastrough]

What do you mean by 'monopolized'. Can somebody own the majority of all bitcoins? Sure, its possible, Satoshi owns about 10% of them, but at this point, in order to buy a huge stake of bitcoin would require an absurd amount of money. The more you buy, the more the price rises.

[BillieGin]

What do you mean by 'monopolized'. Can somebody own the majority of all bitcoins? Sure, its possible, Satoshi owns about 10% of them, but at this point, in order to buy a huge stake of bitcoin would require an absurd amount of money. The more you buy, the more the price rises.

Maybe it's about that there's very low fees and so there's like no 'middle man' correct, like a brokerage. I heard point like that.

But the thing is that with bitcoin, you only need to deal with an Exchange (like MtGox) when you want to trade your bitcoin for something like dollars, or you want to trade your dollars for bitcoin. If you are purchasing something with bitcoin, and staying inside the bitcoin ecosystem, then there are no middle men, and fee's are either zero, or close to zero in some cases. You just send your bitcoin to the recipient, and they send you your goods or services.

So still there's no reason to talk about any monopolization.

[dogechode]

Reasons Why Bitcoin is and will remain decentralized :

2) There are more than 16 companies who sell ASICs and they are located around the world. This is decentralized!

Uh, number of companies that make asics = has nothing to do with how de-centralized it is. There are tons of companies that make GPUs, but that doesn't mean any coin being mined with GPUs is more "de-centralized" because of it.

3) Most of the costs with ASIC manufacturing comes from the initial investments. Just like with computers expect faster and cheaper hardware in the future for mining which in turn means more ubiquitous and decentralized use. I wouldn't be surprised if mining rig space heaters are sold where they warm homes and earn money while doing so in the future.

Or in the case of BFL apparently most of the cost comes from buying a house and other personal possessions with the pre-order funds.

4) More users every month = more decentralized

5) More retailers = more decentralized

I fail to see how either of these are valid statements. More users = nothing unless they are miners. Many "centralized" currencies have billions of users, way more than any cryptocurrency. Retailers don't diversify the network unless they are mining which they do not do. Again, many retailers accept USD, CAD, Euros, etc that doesn't make those currencies de-centralized.

6) There are still plenty of early adopters who have invested their gains in mining hardware

And? Some people who made a lot of money early on and have built up bigger and bigger farms and pushed out their smaller rivals are actually making it less and less de-centralized.

7) Bitcoin development is decentralized because its open source, the amount of developers keeps growing, the variations of bitcoin implementations keep growing as well. Examples of new versions... btcd (Go), Bits of proof (Java), bitcoinj (java), picocoin (C), libbitcoin (C++), caesure (Python), ect....

Overall Bitcoin is becoming more robust while remaining decentralized.

Open source does not mean de-centralized. That means absolutely nothing.

[dogechode]

What do you mean by 'monopolized'. Can somebody own the majority of all bitcoins? Sure, its possible, Satoshi owns about 10% of them, but at this point, in order to buy a huge stake of bitcoin would require an absurd amount of money. The more you buy, the more the price rises.

Not true if they buy off-exchange. Supposedly the recovered Gox coins will be sold at auction, which means they will likely go to large whale investors at one rate, without the market going up a single tick in the process (though it may adjust after the fact when the sale is made public knowledge, but that won't affect the whale who already completed his transaction.)

[inBitweTrust]

Uh, number of companies that make asics = has nothing to do with how de-centralized it is.

The amount of different manufactures and sellers of Mining hardware shows how the hardware manufacturing is decentralized. This is important because it makes it difficult to co-opt every manufacturer being so decentralized. The more diverse the better and I would certainly appreciate more entrants into the arena.

More users = nothing unless they are miners.

Yes, you are failing to see the importance of users. The users are the ones who ultimately decide the implementation of the code and direction of the protocol, not the miners. Your analogy concerning retailers accepting foreign currencies does not apply because they cannot directly vote on fiat monetary policy. With the Bitcoin protocol you not only vote on the direction of the protocol but you can decide at a moments whim to opt out of any new changes being foisted upon you by the developers and fork the blockchain. 

Some people who made a lot of money early on and have built up bigger and bigger farms and pushed out their smaller rivals are actually making it less and less de-centralized.

The early adopters are largely made up by geeks and anarchists/libertarians that aren't part of any institutionalized investment class. Investors, banks have entered into Bitcoin and now are competing with these mining farms. Sure, some of the early adopters have left and some have been co-opted by the traditional financial sector but their are still plenty of miners who are invested in Bitcoin not just the profits but do so for ideological reasons as well. 

Open source does not mean de-centralized.

Certainly it does. Open source is decentralized because anyone can read and understand the code in a decentralized manner without centralized permissions. Open source is decentralized because it can be forked in a decentralized manner without any centralized permissions. Open source is decentralized because anyone can decide to contribute as a developer.

[dogechode]

Yes, you are failing to see the importance of users. The users are the ones who ultimately decide the implementation of the code and direction of the protocol, not the miners. Your analogy concerning retailers accepting foreign currencies does not apply because they cannot directly vote on fiat monetary policy. With the Bitcoin protocol you not only vote on the direction of the protocol but you can decide at a moments whim to opt out of any new changes being foisted upon you by the developers and fork the blockchain.  

Please do explain to me how someone who does not mine, can fork the bitcoin blockchain.

And if someone tries to go against the tide they won't accomplish anything unless the massive players back them. Thus, de-centralized my ass.

The early adopters are largely made up by geeks and anarchists/libertarians that aren't part of any institutionalized investment class. Investors, banks have entered into Bitcoin and now are competing with these mining farms. Sure, some of the early adopters have left and some have been co-opted by the traditional financial sector but their are still plenty of miners who are invested in Bitcoin not just the profits but do so for ideological reasons as well.  

I think you are being naive about how fast people sell out when money is involved. Also, I think it is highly improbable that too many hardcore geeks held onto their bitcoin and timed their sells perfectly. That's more likely to be the people with a lot of investing experience and financial resources. You know, the businessmen.

Open source does not mean de-centralized.

Certainly it does. Open source is decentralized because anyone can read and understand the code in a decentralized manner without centralized permissions. Open source is decentralized because it can be forked in a decentralized manner without any centralized permissions. Open source is decentralized because anyone can decide to contribute as a developer.

No, they are not even related. Open source does not mean de-centralized. Where are you coming up with these ideas? Open source just means people can view the code and sure they could make changes - and be promptly told to go fuck themselves when the big players don't back said changes. Zerocoin was basically started after they got frustrated that their "ideas" were not being accepted by the bitcoin leaders.

[EFFV]

While I agree with the points that expose the flaws of Bitcoin, these flaws are not large enough (eg 51% Attack) to grant credence to the argument that Bitcoin is not decentralized.

Bitcoin currently is decentralized, although it may have potential to not be later...

[pekv2]

Wasn't bitcoin centralized when gavin coded to block small transactions? I see the point of it but still, censorshiped and centralized controlling btc.

Big mining corps & developers own it.

[inBitweTrust]

Please do explain to me how someone who does not mine, can fork the bitcoin blockchain.

A hard fork happens when any full-node or user(does not need to be a miner) on the network uses code which is not backwards compatible with the rest of the Bitcoin nodes on the network. That is the point the fork happens. Miners cannot force the users to use their preferred version of code and cannot steal users coins if the users decide not to "upgrade" to the new implementations of Bitcoin. Miners are simply users who also do a few other tasks like securing the network and processing new transactions.

Let me walk you through a few very unlikely worse case scenarios with bitcoin:

Unlikely Nightmare Scenario 1: All the developers become co-opted and implement black-listing(keep in mind that over 190 different devs have made commits which are found within Bitcoin core; hardly monolithic), The miners and users are unhappy with the changes.

Result- Most miners and users simply don't "upgrade" to the newest implementation or use one of many other variations which work with the existing blockchain (btcd (Go), Bits of proof (Java), bitcoinj (java), picocoin (C), libbitcoin (C++), caesure (Python), ect.) and a hard fork is created where the new code exists as an alt which no ones uses and has a vulnerable amount of hashing power securing it.

Unlikely Nightmare Scenario 2: The developers and miners collude and are mostly co-opted to implement a "feature" which most users dislike such as blacklisting.

 Result- Users simply don't "upgrade" to the newest implementation or use one of many other variations which work with the existing blockchain (libbitcoin,ect...) and a hard fork is created where the new code exists as an alt which no ones uses but has most of the hashing power secures it. The few miners who disagree with the new changes and all the users start mining with the few asics, and many gpu's and cpus on a separate blockchain. While this has considerably less hashing power than before, it still remains more secure than many alts because the size of the user base.

This is when a hardfork will occur with 2 different blockchains. One will have less hashing power but most users and the other will have 95% of miners and most developers but very few users.Try and guess which blockchain all the merchants will choose to accept? Yes, that's correct, the new blockchain controlled by the miners and devs will contain new bitcoins that will crash in value. What good is all that hashing power with no users and merchant acceptance?

[inBitweTrust]

No, they are not even related. Open source does not mean de-centralized. Where are you coming up with these ideas? Open source just means people can view the code and sure they could make changes - and be promptly told to go fuck themselves when the big players don't back said changes. Zerocoin was basically started after they got frustrated that their "ideas" were not being accepted by the bitcoin leaders.

The fact that alts exist shows open source inspires decentralization.

The fact that over 190 devs have made commits that are being used today to the Bitcoin core proves it is decentralized.

The fact that there are many other implementations of bitcoin that all work just fine on the same network with the existing blockchain which aren't alts( btcd (Go), Bits of proof (Java), bitcoinj (java), picocoin (C), libbitcoin (C++), caesure (Python), ect....) with each of their own githubs and own lead developers deciding what to accept proves bitcoin is robust and decentralized.

[Maidak]

So I opened up a group buy that will fund an asic chip that can be bought at manufacture costs if you helped fund the project https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=601152.0 I'm only scouting right now to see if I am able to get enough funds before actually editing the OP to be more proper.

If you guys would like to express your opinion on it please post it I've had 3 people interested and between those 3 it would reach about $190k usd which is not even close to whats needed to get a 20 or 28nm asic readily available.

[kianta]

Would it be possible to change the protocol so asics couldnt be used?

[LostDutchman]

Would it be possible to change the protocol so asics couldnt be used?

Fat chance.

[beyond1999]

i like bitcoin,but it's not cheaper

[dogechode]

Would it be possible to change the protocol so asics couldnt be used?

That would more or less be a fork and create a new currency. The bitcoin majority would never go for it, since obviously a lot of them operate asic mining farms.

[Polycoin]

you're right, bitcoin is not decentralized anymore because of those darn miners and such. Bitcoin is dead.

[stjepan]

First of all i 100% agree with OP. Bitcoin has lost big part of it's original idea on decentralization goes. ASIC's ruined it all. Someone (single person or small group) decided to "protect network" with hardware, when they could have done it much more effectivly with software (change in protocol) just like some other coins are doing right now.

Would it be possible to change the protocol so asics couldnt be used?

From programmers point of view, it can be done in one day of work. It's really THAT easy. But it wont happen, as ppl that OWN ASIC production companies are in control of code creation and they will never let it happe, as that would mean that all their work and investment turns to dust in a second.

And that last part is why i think that Bitcoin REALLY lost it's "decentralization". I hope everyone realizes it sooner than later.

Do i think Bitcoin will die because of it? No. It can not die because of only 1 problem
Do i still believe in bitcoin? I do.
Do i still use it? I do.
Will i buy even more? I will.

I still beleive in Bitcoin and what it could be. Bitcoin can still be really great thing, but we must take it for what it really is, not for what it wanted to be long time ago.

[whtchocla7e]

From programmers point of view, it can be done in one day of work. It's really THAT easy. But it wont happen, as ppl that OWN ASIC production companies are in control of code creation and they will never let it happe, as that would mean that all their work and investment turns to dust in a second.

Lets face it. The small guy has NO voice in Bitcoin. Just a cog in the machine.

Nobody here likes to be told that decentralization is a utopian dream and the power is always in the hands of the few.  The only thing that changes is who holds the power.