Topic: There are no decentralized cryptocurrencies (Read 416 times)

As long as I am getting to reap the benefits out of bitcoin without interference from any third party, I don’t care whether you call it centralized or decentralized. I am free to use it the way I want to and that’s all I care about.

You misunderstand my use of  the word. I mean equal in terms of worth & importance and that all hierarchies we create are merely ideas we can choose to agree or not agree upon.

And with "we" I mean all human beings.

There are many cryptocurrencies that are decentralized. Bitcoin is most decentralized Cryptocurrency entire whole ecosystem. XRP, Etherium are also decentralized Cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin itself is fully decentralized as it was created for peer to peer cash transfer. There are coin like XRP, USDT, BNB that are created by centralized institutes and they have the control to manipulate the blockchain. While nobody can control or manipulate the BTC blockchain. Exchanges that require KYC are not part of Bitcoin decentralized ecosystem.

When we start ignoring all the services which are asking to clear KYC, we could solve this. But, in this busy world everyone (including myself), goes for KYC mandatory services (for exchanging, gambling, etc) for quick and ease access and killing the true purpose of bitcoins.

We must develop community based P2P exchanges to skip centralized exchanges and should support only gambling services which are promising about No-KYC-forever. I guess we cannot lead a life without dependent on any of centralized services but we could stay anonymous by  protecting our privacy/identity to ensure the decentralization.

The only really decentralized coin is surely Bitcoin. For me decentralization means that there is nobody who can really control this system and change something on his own. We don't know who was a creator of Bitcoin so there is no such a big influencer like in case of Ethereum. 
But you are right that we are still not in complete control over blockchain as there are companies that control internet.

Would it be possible with Filecoin and IPFS?  I once encountered a discussion about this where they can decentralize hosting.

It's not hard to see why we also need the centralized system for governments to have control over what is theirs to take. Not everything is up to be decentralized using blockchain we've seen more decentralization of some kind.

XRP is centralized because 50% of the tokens belong to the company Ripple Labs and that's one kind of centralization.
ETH is centralized because if Vitalik dies, the project may not go on after that and this is some kind of centralization too.

You are probably looking into the direction of redundancy. Introducing an additional novel method of communication wouldn't make it more "redundant". Reason being, if people needs to get a completely new tech just to use Bitcoin, then you are raising the barrier of entry. You need new equipment which has to be visibly installed or obtained. It would only exist if the government which the users are in supports Bitcoin. Using an infrastructure that doesn't already piggyback on the country's core infrastructure is counterintuitive.

First I would like to say that what is the problem if Bitcoin is decentralized and dependent on the central internet? I think it is still decentralized and this will not affect anything, if we follow your logic we will find that there is no real decentralization actually but there is less or more centralization, well maybe with Web 3 we will move to a more decentralized Internet, maybe also in the near future we find a decentralized Internet that depends on The blockchain is not subject to any central authority.

we all truly equal?.. is a grammar paradox

..we are all unique, just like everyone else..


we all truly equal?.. is a grammar paradox

..we are all unique, just like everyone else..


lets take amazon servers. if they were all networked together in one warehouse, in only america. and only connected to one ISP. where that ISP was servant to US government regulations.. then that would be centralised.

blockchains work, as-is. by not being in one country, under 1 ISP, under one government.

blockchains do not work within just one central point. thats the point of blockchains. the issues/paranoia you have on the subject is actually fixed and a non-issue from the very beginning. its the whole point of blockchains existence and creation

I wholly agree, I understand that the definition of decentralization is what is crucial here. I included the framework a cryptocurrency is working within and is dependent of, which is not part of the cryptocurrency itself. -Which does not mean that the cryptocurrency is failing in being decentralized. The main postulation I make in the title is in fact incorrect.

Should I change it?

Thinking a bit more about this, my ponderings are actually about the framework which the crypto is working within and which ideas would be pointing towards possible solutions should that framework in any way break or become intentionally or accidentally limited in terms of the functionality of any blockchain technology.

I like to visualize technology that might be possible in the future, like some quantum scalar-wave communication tech that is not limited to any geographical distance and also not time-delayed like ordinary radio tech. Studying the EPR experiment, quantum entanglement and surrounding research and information strongly suggest, at least to me, that it is very much possible. It would allow for a truly peer-to-peer new "internet", and with open source community-driven hardware as well as software, we would be on the next step towards actual information freedom.

Just babbling on here haha...

I think that a decentralized Internet could be a great thing, but given how everyone is already so used to the one we have now, I'm not sure it's possible to switch to a different system (at least, not globally). But the Internet isn't that bad, and given that there are tons of ISPs all over the world, I'd say that access to it IS pretty decentralized, and I don't think it's likely that anyone could be cut off (unless it's a confined space like prison or a totalitarian country like North Korea). Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe it's possible to find a workaround and use Bitcoin without the Internet (it would be very difficult, of course, but still).

Most cryptocurrencies are in fact decentralized by definition, because there isn't an actual central authority that regulates it. The degree of decentralization is the point of discussion here. That has to do with how any entity is feasibly able to control Bitcoin, and the answer for that is that it is not easy. You can restrict access to it, through GFW or something similar but it isn't effective till you block it off entirely.

Even if you establish a hermit empire like NK, you don't compromise the decentralization of Bitcoin. You merely lose access to that part of consumers but it doesn't compromise the decentralization of it otherwise.

Well we are on that, it is not theory that decentralization is currently happening, it does not depend on the infraestructures depend of the individuals to carry it out and understand what it really means.

There is no link of internet and VPN with the centralized / decentralized nature of bitcoin.

You need to detach ISP's from crypto currencies, ISP's are not inherent to cryptocurrency. Yes, an ISP generally stands in the way of you and sending crypto, but by inherent nature cryptocurrency does not rely on an ISP, so it's not a productive argument to make.

Take it one step further from ISP's. Who controls the ISP? The government. You could argue that crypto isn't decentralized because you might live in a jurisdiction that proposes crypto taxes or strict regulations on any sort of trading. Again, governmental intervention isn't an inherent, by design, property of crypto, so you wouldn't correct in making that argument.

Your fundamentals aren't faulty, because you essentially make the case for free and fair internet without purview of the government. But tying this to bitcoin isn't the best application of your concern. It's comparing apples to oranges.

I agree with you, we don't need to focus on whether bitcoin is centralized or decentralized, but just look at bitcoin that has been running for years but is still safe and cannot be hacked by any system. As a player, it is enough to just look at the positive and don't need to be stuck with negative issues that can cause people to be afraid to invest in crypto.

Thanks for all the input, all of the answers are valuable to paint the picture so to speak. As much as it might actually be a non-issue now and maybe always, we don't really know what kind of technology will emerge in the future and how big the possibility it will be for any individual to utterly create and/or control ones own piece of tech.

As for "being paranoid"-comments, haha, just look at the world.. Look at it! What the funk are we doing as a species on this planet? Are we not all truly equal? Why do we pretend otherwise? Well, that's another discussion

Again, Thank you all for your input so far.

I think the big misconception is; Decentralisation is always a good thing, while in certain situations decentralisation could potentially cause more issues than its worth. Personally, I'm not bothered to some extent on compromising in certain aspects, as long as my main principles are catered for; security, privacy, and freedom. At the moment, there are ways around ISP's being dicks, and while they have definitely been working on preventing that in recent times, they haven't succeeded.

I suspect something like the Tor Project will be incorporated in many countries internet providers once people start to realise the freedom they could have. It'll only take a few large scale events to make it happen, but it will likely happen. Probably, being spawned due to the fact that governments will be looking to restrict their populations more so in the future, and with the evolving technology retaining your privacy will likely become a thing of the past. That'll be the time when people start looking for alternatives.

China is probably one of the more public governments on restricting their population, but that's by no means as effective as they like to admit.  

If the internet is the only problem, there it's not a problem.

As long as there's the internet, anything can be accessed with the use of a VPN to bypass the restrictions. I don't see it as a big problem actually and in the time bitcoin has already existed, it was never brought up to be a serious issue to destroy the decentralization of bitcoin. Maybe you are just overthinking but I like how your mind works, you dig deeper but I tell you, this thing is not a concern at all.