Topic: Explain me Like I'm 5 why Bitcoin is decentralized (Read 4018 times)

OK, Johnny.  See this nickel?  Well on the computer there are pretend nickels...

Wait, come back!  This is really interesting!  You can ride your bike later...

And the solution to that is the same as it always was.

Hashing with a couple of GH/s is not the same as hashing with 51% of the network hashrate.
Commercial farms & mining pools (virtually a necessity for private miners) are much more likely to grab that 51% today than they ever were.

Prior to ASICs, I was not mining Bitcoin.  Now I own ASICs and am hashing away.  At least from my point of view that means less centralization of Bitcoin.  I would assume lots more small players like myself have been able to get into Bitcoin thanks to ASICs, but maybe I'm wrong.

Bitcoin is not decentralized anymore since it went to ASICs

How many manufacturers of ASICs are there? <-- Control them, you control Bitcoin!
They let a few trickle out to keep the illusion that anyone can own one.
Just see who Yifu/Avalon now works for and their goals.

Litecoin is decentralized because anyone can mine with off the self PC parts. Litecoin was designed to keep FPGAs/ASICs out of the game, and keep the printing press in the hands of the people.

It's true. That is what makes it decentralised. We can run our own. Indeed with testnet, we can keep using the new bitcoin software, just recompiling with the testnet3 genesis block if necessary.

Keep thinking that

Ok , so it appears that we might have the answer to our question sooner that expected , I'm sure you've already read about Coinvalidation,
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/boycott-all-businesses-associated-to-alex-waters-matt-mellon-and-yifu-guo-332918

I thinks this is already a major test , community versus some of the members with power or influence around the foundation.

Suppose I give you 10,000 Testnet Bitcoins for a pizza.  You and I both think this is a great idea, the exchange is made, I get my pizza, you get your (worthless) Testnet Bitcoins.

Other people pick up on this and start exchanging Testnet Bitcoins.  Testnet Bitcoins gain value.  They start exchanging for real Bitcoins, for USD, for North Korean Yuan, for gold and silver and litecoins and crapcoins and stocks.  And pizzas.

The Bitcoin developers do not want Testnet Bitcoins to gain any monetary value.  In the past they have reset the testnet with a new genesis block to avoid this.  The current testnet is actually testnet3 because of those.

Suppose the Bitcoin developers get wind that Testnet Bitcoins are rising in value, and take action to prevent it.  They reset the testnet, create a new genesis block, make changes in the client to start a new chain off of the new testnet genesis block, there's a newly released client, and we have a testnet4.

But - suppose you and I and many other people really like our pizza, and we really like exchanging Testnet3 Bitcoins for pizza and other things.  Maybe we are irrational.  Or maybe we are enlightened.  Regardless, we really want to continue the economy we have built up on the Bitcoin Testnet, and the decision the developers have made would reverse all that.

So, we continue to use the original client, the one that still runs off Testnet3.  We ignore Testnet4.  We don't use the new Bitcoin client.  Eventually some of us take the Bitcoin code and release a new Testnet3-only client.  The testnet3 economy continues, thanks to our decentralized action.  We are not at the mercy of the developers at all - we can do whatever we want, whether other people like it or not.

That's decentralization.

for my mind the language analogy was the most fitting. But this is also why I like the idea of having good alt-coins going, in case power gets too crazy, the people can just shift to another coin.

sure, the internet is becoming one huge American Intertube.

the same general threats exist with Bitcoin.  The typical way these things pan out is that centralization happens, the initial protocols suddenly cannot manage the capacity, then they say 'were gonna fix it!' and they take away the decentralization.  Then they start churning out technologies with flashy features that are committed to these new protocols.  Thus going back to a decentralized situation becomes extremely difficult and expensive for the average person.

These trends emerge in a number of areas of telecom.  For instance here in The Land Of The Free(tm) we had a big fuss about 'Network Neutrality' which was a highly politicized debate between the telecoms who wanted to create something like a toll-based information highway, and a few advocates here and there who wanted to keep things accessible for everyone.  If you ever watched PBS or Public Access TV you know where these sorts of populist movements end up(although I do sometimes like PBS when theyre not running Jerry Lewis telethons).

I already found this
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bitcoinx/oAERXr17zII

but I'll check that site out.

This I actually agree with, and do have some concern about. As major telecoms merge control over the pipes (or tubes if you prefer) becomes increasingly centralized. There was recently one big U.K. based merger I believe.

Still, my main point is not exactly about the infrastructure itself, but rather the idea of the Internet. If people don't like the companies (or countries) that increasingly have some measure of control or influence over how the Internet functions they will route around, and nobody can stop them. Bitcoin works the same way.

there will be some upcoming releases soon.  I don't talk TOO much about it, because too many people on here monkey whatever claims I make, distracting away from what I'm doing and greatly distorting the facts.  It's turning out to be a huge problem.

you can find the initial whitepaper here: http://www.altchain.org

Sounds interesting. Both mining and the POW hack always bothered me.
Ideally, everything should be decided, accepted and rejected by the network

But it is decentralized. If it's not where is the owner/control?

if we want some system that requires a foundation where the kind of people who put 'High School Class President' on their resume email you about running for office then I think it's fair to say that this thing is no longer decentralized.

the problem is much bigger than what you describe.



NSA's Lucky Break: How the U.S. Became Switchboard to the World
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/10/domestic_taps


Bitcoin is not really decentralized anymore.  It's a system increasingly owned by a number of commerical enterprises.  Even IBM seems to be poking around these days.  Remember IBM is the primary technology support for all the big financial firms, including the ones that got the trillions in bailout money.  It's a clear sign of the current state of this particular corner of the field.

everyone here seems to be complaining that Gavin A and his team are ignoring requests from the community.

this is because its his program and he is getting paid by members of the foundation, so he will ocourse do as they say.

the good thing about bitcoin is that anyone can take for example 0.6 of the QT client. (before the SD patch) and remove the transaction fee demand prompt, add in just the features they want. and release that as a their own program.

YOU do not have to rely on Gavin A's team. if you dont like a patch then get a coder to unpatch it, but leaving in the latest bug fixes..

people can then check the source code is legit, and spread the word and everyone is free to use the modified version by this new person.

It may help you to think of it like the Internet. Would you say the Internet is centralized? That one country completely controls it?

Of course not. The Internet is also decentralized.

Now, is does happen that the U.S. has a large measure of control and influence over the Internet, mostly because it's the country that created the Internet. The U.S. is home to the DNS root servers and ICANN, the organization that administers Top Level Domains (TLDs) like .com, .co.uk, etc. Since people are good with remembering names, but bad with remembering numbers like IP addresses, shutting down or corrupting domain name service would largely make the Internet unusable for most of the world.

That sounds like the Internet is centralized, but it's not. The U.S. maintains an influential role because it's quite capable and has been doing a pretty good job. If everyone is happy there is no need to change. However, the Internet is an idea, just like Bitcoin is an idea. Should the U.S. abuse or otherwise deserve to be stripped of its current role the rest of the world would probably ensure that happened, because fundamentally the Internet is simply about connecting computers globally; that belongs to everyone innately.

So you can see how there can be still be pseudo-leaders of something fundamentally meant to be decentralized. Bitcoin works very similarly.

Note: if I recall there has been some discussion about reworking the setup of the root servers. Also, this is all from the top of my head, so anyone with technical corrections please jump in.