I presume XMR's mining is more decentralized since there is yet no ASIC and afaik it is as CPU friendly as GPU in terms hashes per Watt. Given that 65% of Bitcoin's mining is run through Chinese mining pools and within that perhaps a large portion of the hashrate is centralized amongst ASIC mining farms, I assume Bitcoin's market float is more manipulated than Monero's.
How "decentralized" the mining actually is would be hard to know. There are certainly some big miners, but they don't seem to shut out small timers. We can only infer much of it from indirect indicators such as newcomers who join the community and mine. Old timers probably mine some too, even if if not professional miners. I don't mine much any more but I have a computer or two I leave going. Mostly this doesn't happen with Bitcoin although some old timers do run semi-obsolete ASICs at a loss on principle (though mine are fully shut down). This gives the whole Monero mining scene a very long-tail feel to it.
Botnets exist but claims of rampant massive botnets have always been doubtful to me, and I worked out some numbers in a recent post on this thread that supported reasonably strongly that it is unlikely. Small botnets (putting aside ethical issues of botting) add to decentralization.
Does that make sense? Is Monero the most free market crypto currency right now?
It is a plausible claim. It is certainly true that almost anyone can mine, at worst at a small loss, and in many cases at a small profit. When at a loss, the loss is generally small enough in absolute terms that suggesting people just mine if they support the coin and want it to succeed is not absurd, and some actually do it. The proposed idea of "egalitarian mining" from the white paper seems to have held up reasonable well after two years.
