Topic: Bitcoin cannot be decentralized if the Internet is centralized (Read 1104 times)

Definitely, even if the government regulating the use of bitcoin, you can actually buy your own because in my own opinion, the internet is decentralized because we are all able to access it without knowing who is moderating. Let us say that there are particular website or application can regulate you but in all, internet is decentralized.
 This is one of the answer if you want to buy bitcoin but your country regulates it. Although firewall are being used in your country but this VPN can allow you ti change your IP and location. Nothing can stop us buying bitcoin because we have experienced the greatness of this digital currency ourselves.

It's true that the aforementioned companies don't control the Internet in their entirety. But technically they do, since their services are indispensable within cyber space. A person cannot live nowadays without using Google, Facebook, or even Amazon. One fact is that Amazon also provides cloud services (storage, web hosting, etc), which are not limited only to e-commerce. Considering that most people don't care about using centralized services which steal their utmost sensitive information, decentralizing the whole Internet would be quite a difficult (if not impossible) task to achieve.

Bitcoin may be decentralized by design, but it still depends on the centralized public Internet for transaction broadcasting. While you could say anyone can use privacy solutions like Tor & VPN, these same solutions are not 100% anonymous. If you become the target of ISPs and the government, it'll be difficult to use Bitcoin without getting noticed. That's why we need a decentralized Internet infrastructure in order to maintain the Bitcoin blockchain as resilient as possible. After all, Bitcoin full node operators are subject to different governments' regulations.

Nonetheless, the implementation of satellites, radio waves, and even mesh networks may be the first step to further decentralized the way we access the Bitcoin blockchain. But a lot of hard work needs to be done in order to provide a perfect solution that would resist the opposition of worldwide governments and ISPs. Just my thoughts

I am still trying to understand what you mean by the internet being centralized, if you’re referring to all these companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon as you have said, then you’re completely wrong. And by the way, Amazon has nothing to do with controlling the internet, it’s just an online shopping platform and nothing else.

Facebook is a social media platform and they will only be focusing on that and nothing else. Google is just a search engine like Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, etc. These people don’t control the internet, they just help you reach the content you need. If it was able for them to control the internet and control Bitcoin, then the government would have started up similar platforms and their first targets would even be the dark web and not even Bitcoin, because there are lots of weird things going on there than you can imagine.

The title is a bit confusing but I get the point. For sure we all know that the bitcoin is decentralized because of the miners the mine bitcoin and process the transactions also it is not centralized because no one control bitcoin or regulates bitcoin. Thinking about bitcoin I think it is clear that it has nothing to do with the bitcoin technology we just use it to connect, either way, internet is both centralized and decentralized,, decentralized because it composed of a lot of routers that bounce information also at the same time, for example, we visit one website that only has one server that whats makes it centralized.

Who even cares if internet is centralized or not? we have VPN every where online right? And moreover bitcoin is not running on the internet but blockchain, internet is only required to make transaction, you only have a point if blockchain was internet

Of course it can. However, the internet is still decentralized, there is a VPN that you can use to overcome limitations and maintain privacy while using the internet. There are several internet protocols that try to innovate by utilizing the blockchain to create complete freedom on the internet, such as Tachyon, although it is still in a development project I think this should be appreciated because its supporters are strong. transmission acceleration can also be increased by tcp / ip reconstruction, it is effective and offers a good deal for users.

One way or another, bitcoins can lose their independence, and cryptocurrency users do not anonymize because of the centralized Internet, but because the legalization of cryptocurrencies will enforce certain laws.  In addition, the use of the Internet to work with cryptocurrency, in particular with bitcoin, is only a connection and nothing more, since in some cases you can even use Bluetooth to complete a transaction, about which discussions are very hot today.

As far as I know, we have these offline wallets but I don't think that is that good since I don't see or hear anyone talking or using it anymore. Another thing is that we are accessing our bitcoins through our bitcoin wallets, a bitcoin wallet is our key to our bitcoin that is why we can't really do anything about it. Here's the thing though, you can still access your bitcoins even the government ban it in your country, it is not like they can stop you from accessing it.

That sounds like a great idea. But I wonder if people will be interested in making this happen? So far, most people don't care about centralization issues as long as they're able to "get the work done". Bitcoin works great with the current public Internet infrastructure despite leading to a certain level of centralization. For paranoic crypto enthusiasts, alternative networks seem to be the way to go. For the average Joe, the public Internet will suffice for accessing the Bitcoin blockchain.

I believe that the more we work together towards making Bitcoin decentralized, the better it'll be for its longevity within the mainstream world. Too much centralization will lead towards failure in the long run. At least, the openness in Bitcoin's design allows anyone to develop new means to communicate with it without the need to rely on the public Internet infrastructure. It's now possible to send/receive Bitcoin transactions over radio waves, satellites, mesh networks, and more. As long as it's possible to disguise IPs of Bitcoin nodes from ISPs and worldwide governments, there's nothing to worry about. Just my thoughts

How about everyone sending internet balloons in the sky (community owned internet?) in prearranged way to revolve around the earth & send/receive data around isolated communities without internet? This could help decentralize the internet, I guess. There are probably other cheap ways to create community-owned internet that's more suitable for Bitcoin/crypto & function in a decentralized manner around the world.

it still cannot be tested offline using technology other than the internet, security protocols will not be better, and the range of the transmitter also cannot be expanded and only applies in a limited area. I haven't read a more concrete technology other than the development of the internet in more decentralized media such as the use of blockstreams and similar technologies.

No authority, no bank, not even internet can control Bitcoin. Internet is the biggest medium used by the Bitcoin for its working but I recently read somewhere that we will be able to make Bitcoin transactions without internet soon. As it is developing there will be time when it will not be dependent on internet anymore. People will be able to use it with Bluetooth and all other non-internet connections.

No doubt internet is a reason for creation of BITCOIN but the programming and networking of BTC is totally different,Internet is just a source for operations of Bitcoin but there is no any direct relativity to control the Bitcoin.

Bitcoin itself bank,an asset,medium of exchange at the same time,Uniqueness of Bitcoin is that still no one can control it.It is a system that can bring more revolution in the financial market.

I agree with the author.
Bitcoin is connected to the Internet, nothing can be done about it. Of course, there are paper wallets with bitcoins, but how to check them without the Internet? They may be complete or may be empty.
And if you suddenly do not have an Internet connection, then your bitcoins become practically nothing, they exist, but you cannot spend them.

Governments are always looking for ways to control every system, especially financial ones, cryptocurrencies have gotten out of hand a little. I think that even using VPNs, proxy or the famous Deepweb there may be a kind of "centralization" because if a person commits a crime there are security agencies that are responsible for monitoring (FBI),
if they want to get you, they will do it anyway

I personally think that cryptocurrencies are: centralized for people with little furtive knowledge, and decentralized for those who manage well in places like deepweb. (speaking of avoiding all contact with the system) from the daily point of view they are decentralized because we know that it is managed by a network of nodes that connect blocks with mathematical codes that change hash each time it fulfills its function. a centralized cryptocurrency could be a stable-coin / fiat currency.

Good point. Where there's a will, there's a way. With many alternatives networks & protocols available today, it's possible that one could interact with the Bitcoin blockchain under the radar of ISPs, and mainstream governments alike. The Internet is just a global network of interconnected computers by different means (LAN or WLAN). The average Joe could easily setup his own Internet by connecting different computers between each other. In the public Internet, one could use a combination of VPN and Tor (or any other alternative network) to obfuscate potentially identifiable information. The tech world is constantly evolving, and now we have ways to communicate off-grid without the need to use the mainstream Internet at all. I've seen how it's possible to send/receive Bitcoin transactions over radio waves and even satellites. You can also interact with Bitcoin using mesh network antennas.

It's true that we can use the Internet without relying on mainstream companies such as Google or Facebook. But we cannot deny that avoiding these companies, would make our life much more complicated than we've ever imagined. Sometimes centralized services exist to make our life much easier. You'd have to choose between convenience/ease of use or decentralization/censorship-resistance. Most people will choose convenience over censorship-resistance as they prefer everything to be done in the least amount of time (and in an easier way) possible. But you and me, would choose the latter option as we'd get to keep control of our utmost personal and financial information. As long as there's diversity in cyber space, there's nothing to worry about. In all ends, Bitcoin can still be used in a decentralized fashion even though the Internet is somewhat centralized. Just my thoughts

I once read an article that sending bitcoin is possible without the internet.
what facility is used to send bitcoin without the internet is radio waves.
also possible to use satellite. if I remember the article I meant I would edit this post to put the URL link.

In the first place internet is really decentralized, we just have some providers or the internet service providers that help us to be connected to the internet that makes it centralized. But they seem to not provide sufficient security features at all. If you have an internet connection, most of the cases, you are making yourself vulnerable to hacking not because of centralization, but because of lacking the personal responsibility you should have to keep yourself secured.

Point taken. So, could you consider that if we have decentralized internet the percentage of hacking incident will decrease? I mean hackers wouldn't be able to easily pass through in the system or not? Or I'm just hallucinating about this. Lol!

Sure, nothing is impossible and we have good bitcoin developers so maybe eventually they'll have to consider about being real and fully decentralized of bitcoin.

Reading this, I somewhat have to believe you. But being centralized means being flicked by any of the association or the government which even gives full access to the usability of the Internet but we could see a lot of illegal things already going onto the internet today.

If the Internet was centralized than why would the governments not actually stop the use of such illegal concepts onto their so-maned Internet? We could see the use of Deep web, Tor, etc which is most harmful for the community but yet those are into existence which itself explains us that no one actually has the 100% control over the internet which actually does not make it centralized.