Topic: Bitcoin decentralization debate (Read 563 times)

But on other hand, upgrade/addition to Bitcoin network need some amount of support in order to be activated. People also have freedom to choose Bitcoin wallet which suitable for them where usually they can switch between different wallet.


Actually it's wrong. Most miner don't run full node and simply connect to pool through Stratum protocol[1]. Basically pool send mining task to miner and miner send the result to the pool.

[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Stratum_mining_protocol

i hope you have learned that the "backward compatibility" trick core uses now means there is now no longer a UASF nor UAHF operation to activate new features. because since 2016 a user required activation has no longer been required

instead its done via a coalition of economic(popular services) nodes (~50 services) agreeing to only see a certain versionbit of blocks after  certain date, thus threatens the mining pools to comply just to stay visible to such services. and knowing the partnership(sponsorship) that core devs have from those economic nodes. you start to see the centralisation pattern

code doesnt write itself and user nodes are not required to run new code for a feature to activate. thus the control is not decentralised

learn lessons from the past using available current/historic public code releases/features and also block data.(not social group PR scripts) then you can learn what to watch out for to stop it getting worse(more centralised)

but im going to guess with your 7 years of involvement, if you have not learned the abusive utility of the backward compatibility trick to not require user majority to activate a feature. you sure as hell dont seem to want to learn. but i hope it changes soon before you fall further down the hole you dig for yourself

pretending its fully decentralised to stroke people to sleep is not healthy for the network.. ignorance is not a defence.. instead recognising central points of failure and highlighting them to keep them from repeatedly abusing their control techniques.

hold them to account. make them accountable for their actions
code doesnt write itself and those that write it dont receive money for nothing, they get paid for a reason. research it

You have a good understanding of how system updates and wallet tools can lead to centralization. Its like when people say, "Im unique"; technically, everyone is, but we all have something in common. In the same way, Bitcoin is a leader in decentralization, but some of its parts are naturally more controlled. Its...not easy. I mean, if we look into how mining works, we'll find that a few big mining pools control most of the hashing power. Isnt that centralized?

But you got it right when it comes to storing info. Every worker has a copy of the whole chain, which is about as decentralized as you can get. Its a data network with control hubs in the middle. Not the same, right? But its the differences between Bitcoin and blockchain that make them so strong and special. Control and division are like those friends who rarely agree but cant live without each other. This tug-of-war makes sure Bitcoin stays strong.

Bitcoin is centralised if we take a look at how the protocols are being updated: additions are performed by a small (mostly anonymous) group of people. Moreover, wallet tools and the companies which create and update wallets also bring in some degree of centralisation. We can't say that any project is fully decentralised. But we can evaluate the degree of decentralisaton, which is very high in blockchain projects, especially when we compare them with digital fiat systems. The main thing here is data storage: every mining facility stores the whole blockhain. So, in this aspect, the system is highly decentralised. As for control, I think that decentralisation degree and possibility to control the system are not connected with each other.

you might want to check actual events of bitcoin history 2015-2023 and not just repeat a philosophy of 2009
we are no longer in the same network landscape or approach to updates as 2009-2014

users do not update their software and then a new rule activates when the network is node majority ready.
check out the 2015-2023 philosophy about "backward compatibility" but read it with scrutiny about how it causes user nodes to not be part of the network vote.

it will enlighten you
then check out how core in november 2016-june 2017 did not even get 45% accomplishment to activate their feature, then suddenly with the proposal of the mandatory activation suddenly core got an UNNATURAL 100% activation by august

look at the REKT campaigns of 2015-2023 where anything that was different to cores roadmap plans were treated as 'control attempts' and were made into pushing for those branks to 'fork off into an altcoin or else'

even the delusional doomad keeps saying 'anyone can fork the network and create their own altcoin and see who follows them' where he keeps shouting the only path for non-core nodes to make changes is via making an altcoin and seeing if they can populate another network..

so try to read actual code of actual activation methods, and how activations since 2015 have not needed the mass of user nodes to be network secure ready to verify a new feature before such feature activates.. and then realise the security risk of such method

Yes, decentralization implies various actors; no one said its all about individual nodes! But its laughable that you think CORE, is some omnipotent puppeteer in this scenario. The essence of Bitcoin's decentralization is the consensus mechanism. If CORE developers released malicious or unwanted changes, nodes wouldnt adopt them, making them meaningless

Your rather ill-conceived notion that users merely "follow" code is so reductionist. In reality, users choose which software they want to run, demonstrating their power of choice. If a significant portion of users decides not to follow a certain update, the network will fork, as history has evidenced.

And as for your dramatic allegation that dissenting opinions are "attacked as an enemy," wake up! Open source means open discussions. Just because someone's proposal isnt adopted doesnt mean they're branded enemies. It means their proposal wasnt good enough or didn't align with the project's ethos. Look forward, adapt, evolve, and lets be grateful for the learning opportunities that come from challenges rather than wallowing in misguided cynicism

non mining(user) nodes, and economic(services) nodes dont write the code that propose rule changes.. and (as you adore) the non mining user nodes are not even part of the vote due to the lack of needing to upgrade (you love the backward compatible zero node vote) for the method of network feature activations

also there is a difference between bad idea's dont activate.. which is how decentralisation should work and did work 2009-2016.. vs mandated activation without a consensus vote of majority whether good or bad.. which core utilises 2017+

you dont want consensus vote. you want mandated activation followed by opt-in to remain full node after the fact..
YOU are the one promoting tyrannical methods of control..

YOU dont want multiple brands offering their own proposals. funnier part is core did not even get 46% decentralised vote before they were aided by their sponsors in mid 2017 to implement the mandated activation trick before their contractual deadline

look at all the REKT campaigns you got involved in, and the many attempts to stop people even at the conversation stage where there was not even code, you tried to stop them offering anything before even letting the community have a choice

i do laugh that you defend core devs as gods but dont care about the actual network issues some of cores actions has caused.
also funny how you pretend to care when it suits your agenda. and dont care when it doesnt. EG you didnt want anything done to fix the ordinal bloat. though then cry about being against bloat due to hardware cost of non miners..
funny part is anyone that even suggested a fix you treated as an enemy before any fix code was released

also if you calculate the cost of a hard drive to store say 14 years of current data plus 5 years of future data (under standing most upgrade hardware every 2-6 years) you would calculate the daily cost of such hardware is far far less than a TX

so if you care about users daily costs of using the network.. FEES are the ultimate consideration.

if people are not transacting daily on the network. but instead using other networks you prefer them to use, they wont want to leave their PC on each day to secure the bitcoin network because for months they are locked in/busy using other networks. which is another flaw in your agenda. you cant pretend offering people other networks will help secure bitcoin. when it involves pushing people away from the network with strategies like wanting high tx fees onchain

even funnier part is we all know cores plan for these other networks is so the routing middlemen(cores sponsors) can get their ROI for their investments in features core wrote for them. so it is obvious you care more about the entities behind these schemes more than the bitcoin network

after all if we fix the fee issue onchain.. then no one will want to use the silly offchain subnetworks you advertise. meaning the core devs dont meet their obligations of their sponsorships and their sponsors dont get their ROI
so you are incessant about keeping core in control and treating anything thats proposed that doesnt fit the core roadmap as an enemy

People whose ideas are fundamentally harmful to the health of the network are treated as opposition.  If you don't want people to treat you like the enemy, stop proposing tyrannical, fascist bullshit or demanding that people contribute a heavier burden that they would like in order to secure the chain.  Non-mining node operators don't receive remuneration for their service to the network.  You are being selfish to ask them to contribute more in order for other to get cheaper transaction fees.  They will offer more throughput when THEY deem it appropriate, not when you whine about it. 

a decentralised network has many aspects.. the one you forget is that its not just individuals running code. its WHOS code they are running
you keep trying to avoid conversations about where CORE(as their namesake admits) are the central controller of that code that everyone follows and references.
nodes dont even need to run the most uptodate software for core to activate a rule change. as you know by your beloved "backward compatible" feature and mandatory activations with economic node group. meaning its the not independent general users running nodes that have power.

the power is more centered amongst the devs that write the code and the SERVICES(economic node group) that users rely on to spend funds with. the users just FOLLOW the code made by devs and the services they intend to spend funds with.

users dont need to write code to be on the network and those that do write their own code would be treated as opposition/rivals if they even try tried to have conversations about proposing a change that does not align to the core roadmap, let alone released their code to the general public to get officially REKT and treated as an attack rather than a decentralised option.

the path you prefer is people to just shut up and follow cores law or attacked as enemy

It's nearly impossible to convince a conspiracy theorist of the opposite, because such believes are not based on reason, they are based on emotion. Conspiracy theories give an easy explanation why bad things happen - it's because bad people who operate from the shadows have a lot of power. Thinking that they know more than the others makes conspiracy theorist feel superior to them.

You can't convince all people in this world to think rationally, often that would be a waste of time.

I understand that decentralisation does not involve fucking make-believe.  A decentralised network involves people running real code that actually exists.  If you don't code it, then you can't have have it.  Whine less.  Code more.

there he goes again his entire mindset is that the only option is one entity having power where the choice has to be oppositional of 2 rival entities.. where he thinks that its a franky vs core thing..
.. he totally does not understand the meaning of decentralisation

as you can see by his adiration of only wanting core in command

without even releasing code he wants to REKT all attempts before they have a chance... this is why many devs dont bother. whats the point when idiots like him campaign to treat anything not core as an enemy.. and core themselves moderate out any discussion that goes against their roadmap.

I'd have more respect for you if you did produce some code, you whiny gas-bag.  All you have is hot air.  All noise, no substance.  Don't sit there crying about change if you aren't going to put some actual effort in.





Don't just say it.  Do it.  Fly your banner with pride if it's what you truly believe in.  But you won't.  Because you are entirely lacking in spinal fortitude.  No fucking backbone.  Just more crying.



Translation:   franky1 wants a veto to block anything he doesn't personally approve of.  He claims he cares about majority, but he wants the minority to hold all the cards.  Get REKT.

funny part is doomad thinks i have proposals/code i release and get rejected..
and thats he default go to rebuttal. .. funny thing is i have not released a branded node to the public to offend his religion.. but he keeps thinking i have and do

i have to keep reminding him i have yet to release any code to the public. i have made no attempts to form cults or take control for myself.. my comments are not about any replacement of one power for another power.. its about decentralising the already existing central point of failure.
thus debunking his silly narrations of his scripts. funny part is he calls me a totalitarian wanting control by taking over the network. he calls me a totalitarian even though im not the one controlling things.. .. yet  how can i control something if im not the sole person/brand in control nor ever demanded such powers (unlike core)
real facts show core are the ones in control already. but doomad doesnt want people to talk about cores power in that way

im the one saying that bitcoin needs decentralisation of brands.. where many brands get to propose openly.. he does not like non-core club proposing or releasing code outside of core of new news/features.. he is the one that loves totalitarian control and likes to point the fingers away from where the control currently is and pretend its others that want control..

he loves to treat core as gods to show their power when it suits him. but pretends core dont exist and tries blaming anyone else, especially those that have not even released a node publicly (he blames forum commenters and asic machines)
he doesnt like any discussion about revealing that core have too much power and pretends when it suits him that core do not control the code, but debunks himself when it suits him when he wants to kiss ass admire them

the actual scenario that should occur is that no one has control(its called decentralisation). where anyone could propose without REKT attack of being treated as an enemy that should be thrown off the network just for proposing a different option to core. and instead where any ideas get shared and only the best idea's get built into code and adopted by all brands and then activated when the network is deemed safe enough to verify data that uses the new rules (majority readiness)..

doomad and his clan of religious followers do not want anyone outside the sponsored lobby group of core, asking/telling core what to do. no petitions no protests. no majority network rejection of core, instad he loves just letting core do as core desire without scrutinity outside their club. sounds authoritarian to me

especially when he doesnt want the majority network to have an ability to reject a core bug/flawed/cludgy code update

doomad and his chums have swallowed the religious pill of trusting devs control/power, not decentralised protocols(which core have disrupted and abused)

but hey doomad wont ever tell people to watch scrutinise, review core dev that makes code for rule control of the network. but will pretend anyone non core are an enemy ..

he should learn one day that treating human devs as gods is not the purpose of bitcoin. bitcoin HAD a solution to the byzantine generals problem to not need to trust devs. but instead he loves core being the sole general of the network

and thats bitcoins weakspot. the adoration of the central point of failure like a religion

It's beyond adorable that you ever thought it was about being "fair".  Not all proposals are equal.  Bad ideas don't deserve the same level of consideration as good ideas.  You don't get an award for participating here.  You had years to make a compelling argument and you failed.  Cry harder.

Strength in numbers versus lone crybaby isn't a fair fight.  It never was and never will be.

Your ideas are weak.  Simple as that.

Bitcoin will stay decentralized as long as you can keep it decentralized. In simple words, if you know how to keep your assets and privacy safe, it will become decentralized and out of anyone's control except for you. As long as you hold the key, you will have full control over your assets. The price? No one controls that but we the users do. Based on demand and supply. Buy and sells. One person or an organization can control Bitcoin's movement or do any major impact. Sometimes influencers are saying this and that could lead to a price pump or dump, but that's totally on people's emotions. It is a sentimental situation where the price moves in either direction. But at the end of the day, we are doing the trades to make that difference.

You have told your friend all about Bitcoin I assume. Don't skip the bad parts and tell him all the good ones. Tell him everything about it. Good, bad - everything. Then it's his personal choice if he wants to accept it or not. Not everyone will be willing to adopt Bitcoin. Pushing it in their throat will only make things difficult. Let that be their own choice. You have done your job, now it's their choice to take it or not.

That will NEVER happen. The miners know the rest of the community would never follow them in such a chain. What probably might happen is, as Paul Sztorc tweeted, is an MASF to activate BIP-300.


If given a situation of "life or death", that's probably the compromise that could get community consensus.

Although, it's debatable if it can be done through MASF.

there are many sections of the bitcoin ecosystem
starting with most decentralised to least decentralised

key owners: decentralised milllions of keys, millions of devices, hundred countries+
full nodes archiving blockchain: decentralised tens of thousands of nodes, tens of thousands of locations, hundred countries+
asic miners: decentralised thousands of locations dozens of countries
pools: semi centralised dozens of pools handful of countries(cloud hosting services)
hashpower: semi centralised though lack of majority(<50% in one pool)

decision makers of the base network rules: centralised 6 lead maintainers working within one brand sponsored and lobbied by corporations

the weakest point of failure is the code developers that manage decide and implement the protocol level rules and no im not talking able the other brands that just follow rules and have different coded GUI, im talking abot the main rules of the networks decision makers.. and again for the multiple time that common sense needs to be mentioned. bitcoin was not created by god or AI. it was created via devs. so we need to watch review and scrutinise them and even have ways to veto them should they do shady crap

anyone saying dont scrutinise core devs and dont petition/protest against them are they types of people that want totalitarian control . we need to decentralise the decision makers

Yes, there's nothing to be funny at all. But in order for your friend to understand the decentralized nature of bitcoin, he should first know the basics of bitcoin. How can you explain to him when bigotry is taking over his mind? Please give him basic concepts and knowledge about bitcoin and they are easy to find on internet. I think the bitcoin's whitepaper will be helpful for both you and your friend in this case. Just by reading it, he will understand somewhat what the decentralized nature of bitcoin is.

This is not funny at all, just look at the amount of opinions and differences that exist in this thread only and you will know how much more complicated the issue is than you think. I thought it was simple at first, then I discovered through these opinions that decentralization is much more complicated than we think.

Then what is Google? Is Google a "god" who knows everything? It is just a search engine that gives you links to pages written by ordinary people who present their ideas as we do here in this thread, just opinions that may be true and may be wrong.

What benefit does it serve? Recirculating presumably lost coins goes against the intentions of the owners, and that is totally out of the scope of Bitcoin. The entire point about Bitcoin is not to have the decision of any important consensus changes to fall on the shoulders of the Core devs. The majority of the community would likely be against anything like this and true decentralization can be proven if the developers would stand by what they preach, and for those against this decision to start a fork.

It will only get more interesting in the years 2052 or later. When core developers propose reclamation of stale/lost coins.

make the proposal on Jan of 2052 and if an address has not had a withdrawal it 50 years the coins go back to mining rewards.

if franky1 is correct that under 20 'core' developers are in charge they will do the reclamation of stale/lost coins and nothing will be done about it.

So in 2059 all 2009 'dead' address roll back to rewards.
so on and so forth. Year after year.

I only wish I could live long enough to see it happen.

you mentioned active nodes. but ignored the question entirely.. the ability to propose network upgrades without getting REKT

its time you do some bitcoin history checking and see the term REKT and see how the core religion treat any proposal not part of the core road map to be an enemy and where all attempts to offer anything not part of the core plan was treated as something that should be forked away into an altcoin rather than an "even fair fight" or even a community option to upgrade uniting brands in unison with something the wider community would want.

it is funny how you admit though the other brands just "follow" the current ruleset. but again you ignored the part about which other brands can openly suggest network ruleset changes without being treated like an enemy..

i do laugh how you want to defend core devs honour by saying its not their fault all the time. yet bitcoin core code didnt write itself and the path bitcoin has moved to follows the core roadmap path.. it was not some god/AI to done this.

learn how bitcoin evolved and how certain features were activated, hint: it was not done by magic or a natural event

This is funny honestly when the internet is always available to us. You don't need to beg to convince someone about what Bitcoin is capable of doing or whether it is decentralized or not. You can ask the person which is your friend to Google what Bitcoin is all about and whether it is decentralized or not. This is the simoly way to convince someone on your own opinion and it is left for them to concur or not.

Bitcoin is a decentralized coin and also we can see it form the angle of investment. There are also some posts or threads here the relate with what you are arguing about. You can likewise check the Bitcoin whitepaper to get a better clarity.

Attempt to elucidate the technical intricacies of Bitcoin's decentralization. While occasional influence from prominent holders can impact prices, comprehending Bitcoin's technical aspects is vital for conveying its genuine decentralization. I'd elucidate Bitcoin's peer-to-peer operation devoid of third-party intervention and the enigmatic creator to effectively persuade others of its true decentralization.

1-bcoin node:

Totally independent from core, perfectly maintained, alive and running, used by Bitpay, Purse.io, Copay and many others.

2- btcd:

Totally independent from core, active since 2013, perfectly maintained written in golang

3- Bitcoin Knots:

Has over a 100 nodes online, all running with issues.

You wanted one, I gave you three, all those are active nodes that are not controlled by the current core devs, they all have active nodes that validate blocks based on the consensus and not what's written on core's code.

Just because MOST people prefer to use core, it means NOTHING, there are only 16429 core nodes out there, if 20,000 people run bcoin nodes they will have the majority of node software, do you think it's difficult to do that when and if needed? nop.

Now if you want to propose a change to the network, you are going to have to get the blessing of the devs that run one of the public nodes, and then you need to lobby around to convince the miners, and maybe one or two large CEXs, and walla, if your change doesn't require a hard form, you won't even need core devs to include it, if it does, you need to convince the people who RUN core to use bcoin or btcd instead, assuming the core devs refused the change while the majority of miners agreed to it.

I am not sure how to explain it better, it's not core devs fault that the majority of people use their version of node when there are others available, it's the user, you keep talking about core devs and that we should stop them from doing x and x, have you ever attempted to run a non-core node to help with that? probably not.

Also, based on your assumption that core devs control BTC, then you are simply saying that Microsoft controls BTC, are you aware that some Microsoft dev who maintain Github may very well just edit bitcoin core without dev's permissions? the question is, WILL people run a node that has a different consensus from what the majority want?

Did your friend learn about Bitcoin?
If he never learned Bitcoin, you should understand that he doesn't know anything. He probably doesn't agree with your explanation because he only viewed Bitcoin on his own perspective. Unfortunately, he believe in his own perspective without sufficient references, he may claim it negatively according to the FUDs he had ever heard of. I think you don't only need to explain it with your own view, but you show him valid references, and it will be better to describe it with examples. I think it is the maximum way that you can do. If your friend still don't believe in you, you can stop explain it and let you friend find the truth himself.

It is always not easy to convince someone who is already influenced by FUDs. Especially if he is a person who only believe on something managed by the government. So, he will trust that anything in the world must be controlled by the government/institution.

@OP remember it is a conspiracy theory, meaning not proven or factual at all.  If I am in your shoes, I wouldn't spend my time debating or having an argument with this kind or person.  I would just respect his point of view and move on.  He will learn it eventually if he wanted to prove his theory correct.  How about instead forcing yourself to prove that Bitcoin is decentralized, you can just let him prove that his conspiracy theory is correct? 

Bitcoin network is decentralized but I also agree that there are certain factors that Bitcoin is centralized which were given in the earlier replies.  I also think the core developers are somehow the source of the centralization of Bitcoin but the consensus of miners somehow nullifies it assuming there is no corruption or conspiracy between these two entities of the system.

you might want to check your bitcoin history. the red line was crossed with a blackmailed unnatural 100% fake vote 6 years ago..

things like that should not be standard practice ongoing. and no its not the false perception of an even fight. learn tricks like backward compatible meaning users dont get to vote. and tricks like REKT like rejecting anything not core

tell me a brand of active node today thats not core that has a method for individuals to propose a network feature upgrade or change to the rules.. you wont find one because the centralisation has already occured. now we should be making sure devs dont fall foul to their power and realise they do have power instead of pretending "not their fault"

it was their code that allowed these tricks to be played to give them the control.
lets not just act like religious freaks saying dont blame them, its divine intervention and the way the world works.

we should hold them accountable and ensure they dont abuse their power consistantly

We often define decentralized networks in technical terms as distributed networks where no one party controls the direction the market is supposed to go. But we obviously know that there are big mining players that obviously have a bit of control of the computing power in the network. But one fact stands out:

No one entity can gain 51% of the mining power on the network because of the underlying costs required to pull a move like that.

At the end of the day, it's just a conspiracy theory and there are no known facts to counter those claims.

Miners chose to mine to a certain blockchain with certain rules, they also chose to mine to whatever node software they wanted, they could use Core, Bitcoin Knots, Lillbtcoin, bcoin, or even their one full node software, Bitcoin core just so happened to be the most popular piece of software, but that doesn't make it the ONLY one out there, while 98% of nodes run on core software, they do it for

1- popularity.
2- core is well maintained.

If enough people feel that they need to add more decentralization to the node level, they can just start using Core alternatives, you could write your own if you want to, it's very important to understand that what matters is the protocol consensus, not the software, Core is a medium that connects different people who happen to agree to the same rules, if everyone moves from core to XYZ node the next day, nothing will change, you will just start to have the same "issues" with the devs of XYZ.

It's not the dev's fault that people don't want to use another software, there is nothing much you can do when everyone wants to use the same piece of software, you could remove all the current devs, but the same issue will arise with the next team of devs.


There is a huge difference between "refusing the change" and not "approving" the change, if pools would want to oppose said changes, they would just fork the network, what would core do without miners? we will end up with 2 blockchains

1- very weak, broken, and approved only by core devs.
2- strong, the longest, secured by miners.

Which blockchain do you think CEXs and Wallets will support?

Miners are not fighting the core devs because none of the changes that were made affect the miner's income or how they operate, but if there will be a red line crossed where the devs attempt to fudge around with miners, it will be only a matter of time before everyone stops using core and move to something else.

Really, this is somewhat "an even fight" between all the parties, would be hard for a single party to force changes that are unwelcomed by the rest.

miners do not control the network.. miners dont write the code. it is really funny how people want to avoid discussing the developers and try to point the finger at miners

did you not realise that the last few updates made by core did not even require pools to have upgraded their nodes to be ready. all they needed to do was to change one bit of header data to say they wish to remain allegiant with cores path or else have their block rejected if they dont flag unity. it was not a case of rule checking. it was silly flag event activations. forcing miners hands to comply

ASICS do not have a hard drive to store the blockchain. asics do not have a CPU to verify the blockdata.. all an asic does is hash a 256bit length of data.. that is it.. miners are not a central point of failure or a point of control

the rules change due to developers. and when there is one empirical group of half a dozen lead devs self reviewing and not wanting independent review outside their club. then when you notice who makes the rules, you should start to see where the central points of failure are

EVERY lead maintainer that retired left with a resignation note that they fear the central point of failure being the development
satoshi left becasue people relied on him too much for decisions. gavin left with messages about how core maintainers were gaining power. and even wlad left with concerns of the central control core had gained

we should scrutinise the core devs actions and hold them accountable to any bugs they implement and get them to fix the flaws they create. we cannot pretend they are gods to do as they please to add things in. and then pretend they are just janitors, powerless to do anything when bugs appear.

they need to be accountable for their actions while in power and we need to make it so other brands can be part of the network on an EQUAL bases to cores power thus decentralising core power. where many brands can offer proposals and they all share their proposals and contribute and consider and even compromise to get something the majority will accept. then release code to be ready to verify the new rules. then activate the rules thus able to understand the data they receive. none of this crappy miscount, ignore, default valid without checking nonsense. actually have majority nodes ready and able to secure and validate the data and unite on a set of rules that decentralised and diverse node brands can all accept

@OP
How your friend was able to convince you that bitcoin is centralized. I mean, he is the one who must confirm the validity of his opinions.
Adopting a conspiracy theory does not provide convincing arguments, but rather can make us suspicious of everything. I can simply condemn the entire Internet and say that it is not trustworthy, given that hidden forces control it within a major global conspiracy, and therefore all its products are questionable. .

It is necessary to scrutinize the concepts a little, because it is more correct to say that Bitcoin is the closest thing that can be decentralized compared to others, because there is no single party that can control the Bitcoin network, and this is thanks to the characteristics of the Blockchain and the protocol developed by Satoshi. At the same time, it can be said that miners can basically control the network if they agree to that, and fortunately, there is no single mining pool that has more than 50% of the hash power. This central aspect of Bitcoin does not raise any concerns because miners do not have an interest in any party manipulating the network and that development operations on the network should only take place with the agreement between developers and mining pools.

The devs can write whatever code they want, it's just a piece of code sitting on GitHub, it all boils down to who would enforce it, the devs have only one main advantage over everyone else which is the ability to take an initiative, but going beyond that they will need the approval of mining pools and exchanges.

Imagine a scenario where core dev wakes up tomorrow and simply change the 21M cap to 31M, they sure can do so, but it will be just a few lines of codes that changed on git, the new "version" of BTC will be sitting there alone until it's approved by mining pools, wallets, and exchanges.

The majority of the average users are driven by the large CEX and wallets operators, BTC to them will be what Binance, Coinbase, Trezeors, Electrum and etc refer to as Bitcoin, what's inside the code or how long the blockchain is, are all things that the average joe don't know about.

On the other hand, Binance will have to go through the core devs if they want to make a change, Binance could make their own Bitcoin B version of nodes but they will have a hard time convincing anyone to run it.

All the different parties involved (Pools, Devs, Exchanges, Wallets and etc) are directly influenced by the community aka the investors, this aspect alone is good enough to call bitcoin decentralized, although many people don't really understand what decentralization means, they assume that it means the inability to change, or that we have to hold an election and call the (10M people or whatever the number is) who use BTC to vote for every protocol change.

If enough large pools, a couple of large CEXs, and a few famous wallets agree with the devs to make a protocol change, it will likely go through, but that doesn't take away from the decentralization aspect, remember all those parties are controlled by the investors which is us a community.

You may think that this isn't a perfect form of decentralization, but this is the best it could get.

Your scepticism is understandable, but let me explain why Bitcoin is actually decentralised. Bitcoin's decentralisation is a fundamental aspect of both its architecture and operation, not merely a theoretical idea.
A global network of computers known as nodes is the foundation upon which Bitcoin runs. Since each of these nodes abides by the same set of rules, there is no central authority over them. The network is resistant to being controlled by any one party or nation since changes must be approved by the majority of users.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the person who invented Bitcoin, had in mind a system that did away with the need for confidence in middlemen. To do this, decentralisation is emphasised throughout the whitepaper. Anyone can engage in the network due to its openness and transparency, and its wide user base prevents any one authority from dominating.
Open discussions between developers and users determine the direction of the Bitcoin network. Change proposals are thoroughly examined before being adopted, which requires consensus. No one can make arbitrary changes thanks to this procedure.
Additionally, both people and organisations mine bitcoin across the globe. It is virtually impossible for one entity to take control due to its scattered structure. Bitcoin's independence is demonstrated by the fact that attempts by governments or other entities to control it have been rebuffed.
Finally! Decentralized exchanges DEXs also demonstrate the decentralized nature of the ecosystem. They allow people to trade Bitcoin without relying on a central intermediary.

The initial point you should address is in regard to your friend's belief as a conspiracy theorist. There is no amount of evidence, proof, and arguments that might convince them. Say your friend has some misconceptions in regard to how Bitcoin systematically works, is developed, and distributed, if his main assumption lies on some obscure entity are the one who controls it, I believe you very likely have a hard time to deals with that.

Specifically about Bitcoin, others have addressed that there is a certain centralization that contributes to Bitcoin, but generally, they did not have any complete controls. They are not able to make the changes as they wish. So you should rather direct the conversion in an exact manner, say in which specific parts that he thinks, centralization within bitcoin existed. Only then, I think you may be able to pinpoint his misconception in regard to the bitcoin decentralization condition.

im saying bitcoin is not coded by AI.. im saying the code and the rules are decided by real world developers. by which you can pinpoint them down as the core maintainers.. and when you review them you get to see its only half a dozen that have a status to merge in any code changes to the reference client that everyone relies and follows. and they are also incharge of the moderations of what actually gets consideration

look at the core github and see who exactly has the merge/maintainer ability. its not that many

we no longer have a place where different brands of nodes propose their own upgrades to the protocol. instead its cores mandated activation date stuff that does not even need user nodes to upgrade first to be network supporting a new change. yep these days a change happens before the network is ready to support/verify the new stuff, thus a majority cant even veto or prevent a bad change.

they have not broke bitcoin* so people trust them like a religion and hate anyone speaking bad about them. its got so toxic that some treat it like a religion and think its blasphemy to even scrutinise or review the devs.
yet we should be scrutinising and keeping an eye on the rule makers and protesting when they propose something the  community does not benefit from. instead of giving them a VIP blind pass to implement anything thats been lobbied/sponsored by corporations to change the rules, where their religious follows dont like anyone teling them to not do x,y,z

*(but they have introduced some cludgy checks, unfinished features and features that have caused issues)

long story short. we should not give devs an all access VIP pass to do as they please. we should not have blind faith, belief and trust in their humanity.. we should always review scrutinised and protest/petition devs when they are not benefitting the wider community. if anyone says no one should tell devs what to do, those types of people are part of a centralised adoration religion.. and remember core devs are not god

we need to get back to a decentralised development of the network rules.. meaning multiple brands of nodes. and multiple brands sharing idea's where the best idea's get shared to all brands and all brands then accept it as the new rules and ready to verify data using new rules

Do you mean that there are specific developers who are only entitled to vote and decide on the development or change in the Bitcoin network, if this is really what you say then this is the centralization itself!!!

There's no need to do anything and just assume what your friend says is true and it's done.
Arguing about such things is a waste of energy and time when trying to explain to someone who doesn't want to accept that the reality of bitcoin decentralization is true.

Focus on what you believe in and don't make things up to convince someone who is already unconvinced from the start because it won't have any impact.
You believe in bitcoin then you yourself must believe, even though inviting others to bitcoin is good enough but in other conditions when things like this will only make you waver and your time is wasted then I think it's not worth it to do.

I do believe that there is going to be something that will change eventually but I think it is going to be not what we expect. Bitcoin is a strange world, the regular life doesn't matter here and what you have seen so far in life may not be what you see here.

I mean when something drops 10% in a single day or goes up that much in a single day and nobody reacts and considers that as a normal situation, you realize that you are in a different place. Sure, due to inflation we have seen those things recently but that doesn't mean that we are going to end up with being used to it right away. This is why there will be a lot of debate about a lot of parts regarding bitcoin, from decentralization to fees to miners to many other things.

if I were you and had a friend like that, in fact it is difficult to give an explanation, maybe I will leave it, after giving an explanation according to our understanding, and he doesn't want to open his mind then I think no matter how hard we explain it, the result will be nil. therefore we cannot force other people's thoughts to follow according to our thoughts even though we are right in their statement, anyway bitcoin with a decentralized system has not been legalized in the country, so there is no obligation to have to follow it

having an ability for everyone to see the banking laws is different to who gets to activate new banking laws.
having the ability to see everyone elses bank statements, but still control your own fund spending control is different to who sets the rules of what format of payments or financials tools can be used or not.

when you look at bitcoin history. you will see there has been many conflicts over new rules and every time there actually has been a small elite class of devs that do make the decisions and to activate new rules and new financial tools without needing the majority of users to upgrade first to vote/understand or accept the rules. the backward compatible trick means nodes dont need to be network ready to activate a new rule(that alone is a network security risk). thus new rules can be added without network readiness of majority. this means that a certain group which has dominated development has/can and will continue to change thing without mass consent (consensus) or readiness to verify new data types
this has been proven by their actual events of faking a 100%(unnatural but they managed it) compliance even before the actual network of nodes were even ready to understand and verify the new data.

certain people want others to just trust that devs are good hearted and 'just believe' in humans rather than actually scrutinise and verify code/data. however this has not played out well in the many conflicts where anyone not obeying the religion of core dev allegiance is to be treated as the enemy. thus giving ultimate control to core to be the sole proposer of new rules and sole brand to propogate the new rules without requiring majority users abstaining to vote out any potentially bad buggy/cludgy code

the block data is decentralised.. yes
users private key control of their own fund movement is decentralised.. yes
asic mining is decentralised.. yes

but the rule making decisions is done by half a dozen core dev maintainers who make the decisions and they are a central point of failure. their name 'core' is not by accident. nor is their REKT campaigns against anyone not in their allegiance group brand
we should always be reviewing and scrutinising them. if anyone tells you not to worry and just trust a dev, you are ignoring bitcoins main feature. verify, review and check

The majority of centralized things rarely have the ideal moment. Take into account other coins; occasionally, you'll hear or see news about their teams' personal conflicts, which will have an immediate negative impact on the project before they are resolved and the project is maintained. Has your friend ever observed a similar trend with bitcoin?

In fact, since conspiracy believers are difficult to persuade, you don't need to waste your time trying; all you need to do is do your best to convince your friend that Bitcoin is decentralized and then walk away if he doesn't believe you.

Your best bet would be to use National Banks as example.   Bitcoin, unlike National banks allows everyone to download/access the entire software & its very secure database that runs the Bitcoin system in order to be their own banks and jointly help in controlling & regulating the system, whereas Banks only allow few people, such as the banks heads, the access to entire bank database, in order to control and regulate their banks alone.

The ability to download and run the entire Bitcoin system by anyone anywhere in the World, to jointly & equally regulate the system with thousands of people who have exact copy of the system on their personal computers, and to fully control their money/bitcoins in the system is what makes Bitcoin decentralized. The opposite is the case for banks, as only few people are allowed to run & regulate the banks system on behalf of millions of people who have/own money in the banks.

No one anywhere in the world have ultimate control or power over the Bitcoin System thus decision can't be made centrally, unilaterally or by one/few people for the rest of the Bitcoin Network.. A proof to this is that it cannot be shutdown. It continues to operate in other places if a tyrant stops a host from running the system in one part of the world

Bitcoin really has value only when people are willing to accept it in the purchase and sale of goods or services. Bitcoin's decentralization and independence are strong points, but to really use it, we need validation from others.

Not everyone and everywhere accepts Bitcoin. Some countries have already accepted Bitcoin as a legal payment method, but others are still considering and discussing their approach to cryptocurrencies.

And yes, in order to have an effective discussion about Bitcoin, we need a basic understanding of it. Mastering the principle of decentralization, how money works in the Bitcoin system, is important to avoid misunderstandings and ensure an accurate view of it.

You don't have to convince anybody. Why do you want to convince him anyway? If one thing I learned in this life, that it is almost impossible to convince someone to do/believe something. The harder you try to convince your friend, the more he will think that you are retarded and he will hate you because of it. Is it worth to lose a friend over a financial debate? If you like your friend don't even talk about money when you are together. Talk about girls, vacations, music etc. Money is the #1 reason that makes people hate each other.

That "party" WAS Satoshi. He has left since Gavin Andresen announced that he was going to the C.I.A. headquarters in Langley.

Plus the network was always decentralized after that time when more and more full nodes started joining the network. Tell you friend to read this blog, https://medium.com/hackernoon/bitcoin-miners-beware-invalid-blocks-need-not-apply-51c293ee278b


Paraphrase Satoshi - "If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry".

It's his problem.

You know, convincing a person about the decentralized nature of Bitcoin can be a challenging task indeed, especially if they're stubborn on a belief system thats inclined toward the idea of conspiracies. Conspiracy beliefs are, after all, so strong, so pervasive, arent they?

In fact, Bitcoin's decentralized, isnt it? Try telling him about the peer-to-peer transactions. You can explain, in simple words, how decentralization in Bitcoin works; maybe use some examples of other things in life that are decentralized but not necessarily linked to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a network, run by the community, like a community garden, but not really a garden, you know?

The more technical aspects of Bitcoin like consensus algorithms and the proof of work might be too much for him. Maybe try some diagrams or pictures; people sometimes understand better with pictures. Show him, but dont really show him, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin. Its really decentralized, isnt it?

> Bitcoin is decentralized and believes that there is a party or country behind it.

Bitcoins is decentralized, that's true. Nothing wrong with that. It's also anonymous, and also provides you functionalities to be your own bank. What else?

There is a party or group behind the development of Bitcoin? Who knows. I just know that Hal Finney was the one who developed Bitcoin using Satoshi Nakamoto as his pseudo name.

Op first of all you have to re-edit your thread and make some corrections because base on what you are trying to say there are mistakes found in the op. Go and re-read the thread and see the errors. Then when talk of the decentralism of bitcoin, we are talking about the devolution of central or authority control which allows the owners of the wallets to control their funds and that is true but the only part whales or major bitcoin influential people control is the price, now on that they could determine by when the price can go up and down through their purchasing power. Op leave your conspiracy theorist friend and let your investment power compel him to believe you. That is let your prosperity influence him to join.

Don't blame him much because he does not know anything and yet but willing to learn, such people cannot believe there is a way to achieve decentralization than the normal centralized way the government and other institutions controls us abd take custody of what belong to us


We don't know how much you also know about bitcoin to be able to teach someone to fully understand what you're passing across to him, i hope you understand that this aspect of teaching is not everyone that can do it perfectly to convince others the way we want except they just decided to take a look at what we are saying willingly from their mind.


Don't convinced him, time will do so, let him see such of your result than your words, he will change his thoughts by himself with time, though it might have been too late then for him.

If you really want to spend time arguing with him, maybe you can focus on this point first. If his fundamental beliefs can't be changed then it's really useless even if you bring miners or nodes decentralization and so on. It's kinda useless if he just says "well, there's nothing decentralized in this universe" every time you talk to him. On top of that, maybe his understanding of Bitcoin is already different from yours, so there's no middle ground to debate on.

I do agree with others that doing something like this is just a waste of time. The result probably won't change that much regardless of what method or argument you bring to the table.

Because certain trolls on the forum have peculiar definitions of the words "consensus" and "community" (and also believe it means they have to personally approve of any changes before they can go ahead), it's probably best to pin down what this means in practice.  

If you help secure the chain by mining or running a non-mining node to validate and relay transactions, you have a limited amount of influence over consensus.  The code you are running will help determine what the rules of the network are.  Developers only have influence over consensus if people decide to run any new code which allows rules to change.  If any developers were to write code with rule changes which didn't meet the approval of those securing the blockchain, users can simply choose not to run that code.  If no one runs code, it doesn't do anything.  

When anyone claims that developers control consensus, they clearly don't understand this fact.  Or, they do understand it and claim users are merely "sheep" and "fanboys" who run the code without thinking, because they have no real arguments.  Please ignore such obvious trolling.  Some people just can't accept when their ideas were weak and no one shared their view of what Bitcoin ought to be.

Some believe consensus means that everyone has to agree.  This is false.  If a majority of network participants decide to move on, they can and will leave those who resist behind.  If a small minority were able to block or filibuster proposed changes, it would give individuals too much power and pose a threat to decentralisation.  If anyone tries to tell you that changes to the protocol can only occur if they personally agree with it, understand that their mindset is dangerous and poses a serious risk to network governance.  Dictators have no power here and we must always be vigilant to ensure this remains the case.

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FTFY.

What you believe is what matters, not what someone is saying, have you done your own homework on Bitcoin? If No it's better you should do your own research, I have done mine and that's why I am able to know that Bitcoin is truly decentralized, privacy? Not really because privacy belongs to privacy coins like Xmr, Bitcoin is not a privacy coin it's a decentralized coin, there is a different between privacy and decentralized.

Like I've said, you only need to enlighten yourself, by doing your own research on these things, there is no greater understanding than seeking for one, not relying on what others have to say, they might be right or wrong, but it's left for you to find your own answer.

Exit the talk with your friend.

Let's say different. How can your friend convince you to keep educating him about Bitcoin?

If you are not convinced by your friend that your time spent to talk with him is not worthy, why should you continue to make any effort to talk with him?

In fact, your friend does not need you to understand that Bitcoin is decentralized. If he are not deeply in conspiracy, he will easily find facts with search engines.

By saying that he should understand what is the concept of decentralized.

And FYI, even if someone owns 21 million bitcoins still it is decentralized because he can control how he can use it but can never take control over how the network runs because it is entirely different and it's not based on how much stake one has like other shitcoins.

I won't waste my time by convincing anyone if they are not ready to accept the facts over conspiracy theories.

He is not wrong that a country or a group of citizens from a certain country/corporation is probably behind Bitcoin, with the motive to either control the people in the long term, or to bring freedom and alleviate us from the tyranny of central banking. Which one is actually quite hard to say right now.

Yes, Bitcoin is decentralized to an extent. There is still a power hierarchy within the ecosystem which gives more influence to those who either own more coins or have control over hashing power. It's not flawlessly decentralized though it is in the sense that the ledger can not be modified, and probably won't be able to be modified with the current power structure.

Though, to criticize bitcoin and to still use the fiat money system is quite contradictory. Fiat will always be worse than Bitcoin, even if there are ulterior motives behind Bitcoin that we are not aware of.

Whales who have a lot Bitcoin doesn't entirely mean they control 100% of Bitcoin price.

Mining companies which have a huge hash rate doesn't entirely mean they able to perform 51% attack or prioritizing their transactions to be included in the next block by paying cheaper fees.

Government which ban their citizen to not buy, sell or hold Bitcoin doesn't entirely mean they able to stop every citizen to not buy, sell or hold Bitcoin since they have an another option.

So, which part is look centralized and would stop Bitcoin? none.

I agree but that doesn't mean you have to ignore them, yes some of them are absurd on paper but when some of them are proven, we always end up regretting not believing about it. Remember the conspiracy that the US government is involved in funding rebellions in Central and South America? Turned out to be true and they're funded through drug trafficking, they even discredited the investigative reporter that uncovered the conspiracy and even staged his suicide. It's a bit of both though, either you're pretentious about your argument because you don't know how to properly argue your points and you end up berating the person who talks about those conspiracy thinking you're high and mighty or you're just blissfully ignorant.

Well, for such type of people, I do not give myself much stress trying to convince them, i will just allow him to wallow in his unbelieve, i believe he at least own a smart phone  and has some internet connection, allow him to do the research himself, if at the end of the day, he still wont believe that bitcoin is fully decentralized,, then that is his cup of tea, if his unbelieve is going to make him not to invest in bitcoin, that is his missed opportunity as well, we have many of his type on this forum today who are full or regret, simply because they came across bitcoin years ago when bitcoin was worth almost nothing, they had the resources to invest but didn't simply because they did not believe bitcoin will worth anything in the future, they came back years later to discover that bitcoin is now a currency with multi billions of dollars in market capitalization.

So just allow anyone who refuses to believe, at least, not like anyone is going to pay you if you find a way to convince him or any other person who have refused to believe.

You could tell them the network is spread out across the world with nodes in over 200+ countries, which makes it very difficult for a single entity to take control of the entire network.

You can also say that it's open source, so it's extremely hard for anyone to secretly encode malicious code into the protocol. These are just a few strong arguments as to why Bitcoin is decentralized.

Or maybe your friend already knows he's lost the argument, but just doesn't want to admit that to you? There are a lot of people like that

i am a bitcoin maximalist. however i am a realist, meaning i do not fear speaking of the bad side to make people fully aware of risks and facts of bitcoin ( i dont do the fluffy utopian dream crap)

a. individuals do not have a vote.. due to a trick invented in 2017 called "backward compatibility" users do not become part of a vote of which direction bitcoin goes, they do not need to have to upgrade their node to trigger a new protocol change activation. that option has been taken away from the wider community.

b. miners/mining pools do not write the code/changes/proposals. its the devs not the miners. infact any and all asics do not even have a hard drive to store the blockchain or bitcoin protocol code. all a miner does is hash a block header hash. that it

c. mining pools manage miners and mining pools can if the devs allow it do a flag day event to allow miners a choice to vote in an activation. or not. however devs can activate or code a change that just activates at a certain date no matter what

d. the devs have control over the change of direction of bitcoin. and they have many tricks up their sleeve. they can mandate a new proposal to activate where by in conjunction with partnerships with ECONOMIC NODES (those run by most famous services) choose which path to follow making users and mining pools follow as sheep, else not have their funds seen transact with those services if they dont comply with the rules the services use.

over the last 8 years we have seen a centralisation of a group of 6 main decider devs called core maintainers. they have moderation control to decide whos code even gets popularised in discussion or ignored, and what gets given the privileged to be merged into the release candidates of the sole proposal making reference client

even previous lead maintainer devs have admitted when they retire that core have become like their namesake a central point of failure which should decentralise.


..
that being said. your funds on your key belong to whomever has access to that key. so as long as you own that key and not told anyone. no one can steal those funds. however the small risk of possibility is if some altcoin scammer sues cored evs and wins to open a back door to remove funds ownership without signature proof.. or some government sues the core devs to make a code alteration to ignore certain addresses or blacklist addresses from being allowed to transfer coins. where governments can do the same to the economic nodes too (famous well used services such as regulated exchanges) then thing can change, but most of the time these abusive changes occur from the core dev involvement first then the wider community second, third fourth place

the previous paragraph is objectionably a small risk to individuals. but whilst certain groups are shouting "blame asic owners if things go bad" the truth is to keep an eye on core devs code decisions in concert with economic nodes allegiances where they change things for the benefit of corporations more then individuals, and or just brutalise the rules for their personal internal reasons, and/or if any legal actions are held against them for governance/regulation reasons to brutalise the rules

there is no single individual/group that has all-access to the blockchain data or everyones keys to just delete the blockchain or sign their funds away from them. the data is safe from any individual, group, entity, corporation, government abuse.. however the future code changes are subject to decisions done by core devs. so they are the ones to keep an eye on, review and scrutinise. and not be blindly trusting of.. there are some code changes that can be added(and have been) to cause issues for users

I wouldn't waste too much time with people who tend to believe in conspiracy theories. In the end, rational arguments do not convince them.

In this case, simply by him studying a bit about what bitcoin is and how it works, if he wasn't too narrow minded, he would understand. There is some centralization, as ranochigo comments, but compare that with how almost all shitcoins or the fiat system work, and you will see that bitcoin is much more decentralized than these.

Bitcoin is decentralized to a certain extent. There is no doubt that mining pools and the bigger economic actors has a say and influence over how the direction of Bitcoin should go. You can see it across the many conflicts that we've had throughout the history of Bitcoin. However, the extent of their influence only goes so far. Each individual in Bitcoin has their own say over what they want Bitcoin to be; if they don't want a certain aspect of Bitcoin but the rest of the network wants it, they can use a fork of it that follows the older rules or an alternative path.

It is very much akin to a system of actors where game theory applies heavily in the decision making of Bitcoin. No single entity can control Bitcoin, and everyone has a say in what they want Bitcoin to be. However, it is centralized by the fact that you still have pools and hordes of miners that are aligned with their own goals. That is inevitable.

Hello bitcoin community

I am a fan of Bitcoin, so I have a friend who introduced him to Bitcoin and explained to him the great advantages that Bitcoin has, especially decentralization and privacy.

My friend is one of the people who believe in conspiracy theory, so he doubts that Bitcoin is decentralized and believes that there is a party or country behind it.

I tried to explain to him repeatedly that this is impossible and that Bitcoin is completely decentralized, that no one owns Bitcoin and no one controls it, and that any change that occurs on the network must To gain the consensus of the community, but he nevertheless insisted that he does not believe that Bitcoin is decentralized, only because he does not believe that there is decentralization in anything.

How can I convince my friend that Bitcoin is indeed decentralized?