Topic: Are Profits More Important Than Decentralization? - page 2. (Read 2481 times)

Decentralization is like insurance.
You pay for it in cases where there are risks you want to mitigate.

In other cases, where those risks are acceptable, you may choose the convenience or savings of using a more centralized solution.

I don't mind using a centralized bank to pay my utility bill or daily credit card expenses.
I'm much less comfortable trusting them with my retirement account or private business transactions.

Thus, not all financial products and services have the same need for decentralization purity.


People should be free to choose how much decentralization they want to trade off against other desirable features like convenience or cost.
Entrepreneurs should be free to earn a living offering services with a mix that meets the needs of their intended customers.

If I'm designing a new car, I only use enough steel in it to keep the passengers reasonably safe.
Adding more steel after that hurts performance and affordability more than it increases safety.

Decentralization is like steel. 

Entrepreneurs need to ask how much is enough to offer an affordable product that will sell well at a reasonable profit.

But full decentralization essentially encourages P&D and the same bad behavior that allowed the bankers in America to cause the Recession, imo. Because lack of regulation and controls to prevent said bad behavior and greedy speculators.

I have started recently a topic "True Decentralization is in Diversity" https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/true-decentralization-is-in-diversity-1120300.
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Profits? People buy a coin if it has a high market cap and if price is rising. The higher is price, the more will buy it. Very often the local maximum of price is a point where the largest volume is, that's why buying high is common and doesn't refer to bad luck only.

Why is Bitcoin not rising? Probably elite is selling coins to crowd.
And USD billionaires don't buy "cheap" (in comparison with Google or Facebook market cap) Bitcoin just like BTC millionaires don't buy "cheap" (in comparison with BTC) altcoins. Probably both don't want "to waste money" how they understand it.

In my opinion, small investors will be fans of decentralized economy and in future we will see wide adoption of more than one or two coins.  

Centralization can be a good thing if the central agent is benevolent and competent. The problem, however, is that so many people around the world have had bad experiences with centralization. I really don't know what's best, but I agree that 100% decentralization in our lives is neither possible nor desirable.

Growing your own food- decentralized

Not being able to grow everything and get what you need, centralized.

I dont believe it is possible to live 100% decentralized. Id imagine there are some good things that can come from centralizing.

However the longest running decentralized human movement is the the rainbow gatherings. They have no leaders and no members yet continually meet since the 70's. It's a mix of educated people and those who have been shit out the buthole of society and everyone inbetween. Its both good and bad. And its international.

But they still have to rely on centralized systems for movement and food, etc

Here's a humane answer that explains why. Many of us grew up in centralized systems; some of us not only grew up in them but also lived a lot of our lives in them. Our education, the way we normally think, and our habits all reflect this.

Right now, decentralization is largely an ideal. Sure, it's moved many mountains in the cutting-edge parts of the world,. but as yet the mainstream is unmoved. This is normal for any truly transformative ideal. Even in science: as Paul Samelson quipped, "Scientific progress advances funeral by funeral." And that's because we're human: our wetware is designed to carry us through our lives - all of our lives. From this angle, being largely creatures of habit is an evolutionary advantage.

An idea so transformative as decentralization, to become a new norm, will require a lot of still-useful habits to be broken. Do you know of any Ayn Rand admirer who has literally gone Galt - off-grid and scraping by on earning from unskilled labour? With regard to decentralization, it's a similar habit-shift. Decentralization is sometimes as messy as a dirt-farm. As of now, the only ones who live in a truly decentralized environment are outliers: people who, for whatever reason, don't have the advantageous habituation to centralized systems that the mainstream have.

That's not an indictment of us humans: if anything, it's the opposite. Radical changes need to be assimilated slowly by general society because all of them are partially pigs in pokes. Think of all the enthusiastic libertarians who greeted this unregulated jungle with delight, only to see the scams that have proliferated in the entire crytocurrency scene. Proof evident that transformative idea need a lot of field-testing.

The key to real decentralisation is proof of human. If you can find a way to prove that one node = one human, you can have excellent decentralisation. The problem comes when you try to combine anonymity with this kind of proof. That's the real challenge.

Agreed.

However isn't there a satoshi quote out there where he explains that bitcoin wasnt meant to be decentralized, but rather distributed.  Give me a sec, ill go find it.

that statement is probably true I bet.. but
we have no choice, there is no decentralized coin/system made we can switch to.

decentralization is critical to us moving forward with the technology of digital currencies.
problem being is we need a Satoshi to come along and marry the Problem with a viable Solution.
his work was genius.. few people can come up with such a lofty ambitious goal/idea then work out the logistics to make it happen.
and that is what we need.. someone(s) to figure out how it should be done (code wise)

Money is certainly above decentralisation, money has been above anything, even human lives.

That's why I'm asking the question. Decentralization is talked about, but when it comes to action, so many people take the centralized route.

A Ferengi bit/altcoiner without profit is no Ferengi bit/altcoiner at all .

I like when everybody talking about the importance of true decentralization and then most of the very same people are flocking to the most centralized, SEC/Fincen/whatever_ regulatory_body compatible exchanges and mining farms because of the better trading conditions .

Why do you think that Bitcoin is for those who believe in the core principles and altcoins aren't? There is some cutting edge development going on in with some altcoins, and there are some blatant scams happening in the world of Bitcoin. Just check out the scam accusation thread and see for yourself.

what's more important ... a woman's body, or her mind?

tits get old and sag eventually .. an older woman's mind can still be very sexy ...

decentralization all the way!!!!

That statement couldn't be any more incorrect.

The only reason to invest in, mine, and trade various altcoins is to turn a profit. If anyone cares about the core principles of cryptocurrency, then they stick to Bitcoin.

@newmine: I've been there. 
I've lost a lot of faith in BTS over the last few months. (not that I ever had enough faith to actually give Dan+Stan my hard earned cash, but still...)
My impression is of a good community/project that is being slowly pulled off the rails. 

Well said.

I have been following Bitshares since it started and every three or four months they keep taking a step towards centralization. The last change they made/are making is licensing the actual code so the Developers can sell it to competitors and charge Bitshares holders for upgrades and third party plugins and on/off ramps. They have admitted all this and the Koolaid drinkers accept it, claiming it's better than someone taking the code and doing something better with it. Well if it's better, then it is deserving.

I used to be a fanboy and still hold a few shares, but man they went the opposite direction from when they sold to the investors back in November 2013.

I just wrote a post on their forum about their departure from a decentralized blockchain to a single point of failure in Cryptonomex, the company they created to own the code license.

Here is the path they took all in the name of profit. Apparently I am the only one screaming about the central control everyone is bought into. Some over there are even saying decentralization is over rated and will only alienate the crypto community which they say they don't need.

Bitshares was to be POW with a 10% premine sold to early investors and 10% to protoshares miners.

They decided to change to POS and sell 50% to investors and drop the other 50% on Protoshares. It was also established that they would take protoshares as a payment from investors thus giving them a free premine so to speak. Since every PTS would be worth 100's of BTS.

They then decided they should merge the multiple chains they were going to create so no other chain would do it and render the multi Bitshares chains weak on their own. They also decided to buy out PTS holders who were still mining and who donated for other chains that had been killed off for the merger. They decided to expand the supply by giving 100BTS for every PTS out there. Guess who owned 25% of the PTS at this point?

Then they decided to change from a deflationary model where BTS was getting destroyed, to an inflationary model creating more supply so the Developers could profit off the chain. In essence getting paid by the chain and BTS holders. They have 30 or so people sucking 4227 BTS per day each and only about 4 full time developers. The rest are large stake holders using the stake voting system to profit off the chain without having to buy any mining equipment. The rest are just liars and scammers selling snake oil and promising delivery dates on wallets and exchanges that come and go and nobody actually uses.

All this is repeatedly justified by profits. The only problem with profits is it's been hurting the average BTS holder who has no say because the 100 delegates have amassed huge control.

They have justified one entity to control the Bitshares code. A single point of failure and greed, and they still consider the project decentralized.

Sorry for the rant.

Go to bitsharestalk, see for yourself the mental gymnastics.