Topic: Is bitcoin no longer a decentralized system ? (Read 985 times)

I don't think bitcoin is not decentralized anymore, bitcoin will always be decentralized. Probably, there are many government in the other country are trying to attempt to control bitcoin because they saw how big the impact it is. That's why from decentralization they want it to become centralize in the long but that's not going to be happen.

If this happens, then it makes no sense to use bitcoins. I do not want to use the crypto currency, which is controlled. Then it will not be different from Fiat. This will be a pyramid that can be destroyed by the owner

I think you are misleading others here, bitcoin decentralization will be never be change at all, it will remain at ease.  You are just giving other meaning of decentralization of bitcoin. This is not how the decentralization goes, it is only your speculation.

If you think that way then let me ask you this question before I will answer your question. I will rephrase it and I will throw it back to you.

So apparently Bitcoin Unlimited wanted to use Hardfork, I want to ask that when the majority of the bitcoin community is slowly reaching a consensus on segwit then instead of supporting the consensus why are they hell bent on destroying btc?

Its the same question you made but modify it and turn it back to you. Probably after reading that both parties core developers and BU must be questioned and not only the core developers.

I'm not sure of the reality as everything with bitcoin is not predicted precisely. I believe if the ongoing clash goes on at BTU holds the network then surely it gets termed as a centralized functioning network. Because majority of the network of BTU is under a single hand.

In the early conceptions of the bitcoin, there was an idea of creating a borderless currency that is based everywhere and nowhere, yet a handful of Chinese companies have taken the majority of the bitcoin network, they have done this through investing in vast farms of computers servers around the whole country, and since bitcoin has become a multibillion dollar industry and the fact that electricity is cheaper in their made bitcoin both a great and a safe way to make profit through investing in mining it, all of this made the Chinese hold the majority of it and made a disturbance to the bitcoin idea of decentralization.

I did not say majority supports BU currently, perhaps I even dont care, I just dont want a fork leading to two chains, I want people to wait till there is majority and then accept that chain as bitcoin chain whether it is BU or Segwit.

I dont think this is exactly true. Bitcoin will remain a decentralized system, Any attempt to make it centralized will not be taken as favorable among majority of the bitcoins users.

Not yet, but soon.  China is not going to fight bitcoin, it is going to use bitcoin dominance for its own purposes.

No, it's not logic, Chinese miners may not be proceeding in good faith, bitcoin is widely used in China to evade capital controls, that is not something the Chinese government is very fond of, so Chinese miners may be being subsidized to take more control over the network in order to control transactions.

This is the kind of state sponsored attack we've been talking for years, if more states around the world begin to subsidize bitcoin mining we might be able to compete with Chinese and keep bitcoin decentralized.

BTW, only 40.6% of hashrate is signaling for BU and only 11.32% nodes are BU, can't see where you get the idea the majority supports BU...

Agreed that one chain is better option, so I am asking that why not everyone is ready to move to single chain once there is consensus, why not wait till segwit or BU system has consensus as they have set percentage required for each and then take that chain as bitcoin chain and move forward, why do people want to first fork and then see what will happen. Are people so stubborn that they cannot accept that their opinion was not the majority opinion for one time.

so why are we talking about fork leading to two versions of bitcoin, if BU gets 75% concensus then logically BU should be the only bitcoin and the other fork should be killed, just the mining logic of adding  to the longest chain.

I don't know that a POW change would change anything in the long run.
There will always be big players with huge CPU/GPU farms. Someone will program an FPGA.
The small players have very little chance of solving a block by themselves, so join a mining pool. The bigger the mining pool, the lower the variation of payouts.
Miners in locations with lower economic costs (electricity, real estate for housing farms) will always have an advantage.

So not a lot different to what we have now. If there is an economic reason to create specialist hardware for the task, it will be designed and manufactured.

Then BCU and BCC goes live everywhere and let the market decided, but don't forget Metcalfe's law, the two chains together will be worth less than one chain, a split will be bad for everyone.

Hmm, something that is still the plan will certainly generate a lot of assumptions or different ideas when they get a fake news or unproven. If indeed the majority of miners and user BTC supports the BCU, then there will be no protest until now (not yet finished). If anything things have yet to reach an agreement means that plan is still disturbed to realize, because if the plan smoothly then nothing will do a demo or protest
 

ok suppose what you are saying is true and no one supports BCU, suppose by some miracle in few months majority of miners like whatever percentage value they have decided supports BCU then in that case bitcoin core developers must support BCU and BCU must be BTC or will there be a different excuse then.

I agree bitcoin is always decentralized that is why every updates need  a concensus and the reason why scaling problem takes a very long time before it is fixed.  Just like Segwit, they need 95% to approve and be activated while the one proposed by  BU needs 75%.  If any of them does not reach that set numbers they will not implement any upgrade or update.

This is not the definition of a "decentralized system", in fact.  You are confusing a decentralized system and a democratic (centralized) system.

A decentralized system is a system where there is no deciding power or hierarchy.  "the majority wins" means that the minority must undergo the will of the majority.   In a decentralized system, there are no votes, but there are emergent properties nobody actually decided on, and certainly not a "majority".  For instance, price setting in a competitive market is a decentralized system.  Biological evolution is a decentralized system.  Science is a decentralized system.  The internet is partly a decentralized system.

Of course, de facto, there is some "weight of the majority", but that doesn't come about with voting, but rather as an emergent property.  If the majority DOES X, then the consequences of X will lead to properties of the decentralized system.

From the moment that there is voting, governance and so on, the system is centralized.  The dynamics is not emerging any more, but decided upon, and imposed.

As to your question regarding bitcoin: bitcoin is losing its decentralized aspect, but it isn't yet fully centralized.  As long as there are more than 3 non-colliding miners of which none has more than 50%, centralization is not complete.  For the moment, 5 miners are deciding on the fate of bitcoin.  As long as they don't go and sit together in a room, bitcoin is still decentralized over a few entities.  The day these 5 people talk to one another, bitcoin reaches the end of its decentralized part of history.

The principal need for decentralisation in bitcoin is immutability (of history and of protocol) and permissionlessness.

Which doesn't mean that bitcoin will not continue to function.  It will be like facebook or google.  It is almost there, but not yet.  Immutability of history will remain.  Protocol however, might change.  And the most problematic aspect is most certainly permissionlessness.  You will need your "licence to use bitcoin" eventually.

not all core dev signed that i see only one, and besides core dev have no power, beacuse the miners decide, and i'm sure anything that is going to kill their profit by changing how pow work, because then you need to buy new asic probably

will be ignored automatically and never reach the proper consensus, you must understand that without the miners approval any change will not happen and it's pointless to discuss

I believe you're making some assumptions that may be false.

How do you know the majority of miners supports BCU?

How do you know the majority of users supports BCU?

Are you basing your assumptions on any kind of reality based information?