CryptoCurrencies are NOT Decentralized!
Everybody nowadays has a decentralization fetish but if you really look at it, none of them are decentralized, not by far. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have a decentralized world, but that would imply total decentralization, not just the cryptocurrencies. You can't isolate this world from the outside world, and whatever wrong is going on out there, will permeate into this space, all the Government regulation, the criminality, the Banksters, all of it.... We are not living in a bubble, this world can just as easily can be corrupted.
First of all:
- Electricity Grid
- Internet
I don't know if you have noticed it, but it looks like the Government and a few Corporations control the entire digital world. Without internet there are no cryptocurrencies. So your ISP holds you by the ballz!
Then you have the power grid, which the Government can just probably switch off if they feel like it. So they are holding us by the ballz! What did you expect?
Of course people can start to become more self-sustainable with solar energy (which will be highly regulated, the bureaucrat will want his cut too, so expect solar licenses later), and the Meshnet is not entirely operational, besides Governments control the radio frequencies too. So better get your radio license before operating a wireless P2P network, or the Government will squeeze you by the ballz!
Other "stuff":
Ok so even ignoring these 2 monstrously big problems, then other problems arise. Ok let's suppose the internet itself is free. Well it doesn't matter how decentralized a currency is .... if the information you are getting is crap.
A democracy requires 2 things:
- Voters having a right to vote, directly without intermediaries "representatives"
- Free speech, and a largely free press, free of censorship and propaganda
Now if you haven't noticed you don't have these either. I mean sure you can setup a FULL NODE anytime, but is it economically feasible? I don't know somebody calculated the costs, was it about 100$/month to run a Full Bitcoin node?
Why the hell would you pay 100$/month to run a Full Bitcoin node just to vote? So Bitcoin by default can't be a direct democracy, it will be a representative democracy or an oligarchy.... Same with many other coins, which is fine, I mean if they are honest and accountable, that is still better than your average politician, who is above the Law...
I have no problem with Steemit witnesses, I have even recommended some who are trustworthy in my opinion, so accountability could make Representative Democracy work, but then people should not call it Decentralization, that would imply a Direct Democracy.
Secondly, Bitcoin is full of disinformation, corporate intermingling, propaganda and massive censorship. Need I remind people:
The /r/bitcoin subreddit together with the Bitcointalk forum, is massively censored, so say goodbye to free speech!
Plus literally what is it like 5 people directly control 42 billion $ in Bitcoin, they are the Bitcoin Core developers who make the software, and since all nodes are sheep, they will just use their software. At best case scenario they might not upgrade if they don't agree, but eventually they will have to, since updates bring bugfixes.
So it looks like the Bitcoin Core team has all Bitcoin users by the ballz! They hold all of your ballz in their hands, all of the 42 billion $, indirectly, but still, very tightly as explained here:
Conclusion
So what kind of decentralization are these people talking about? It seems to me like a mindless meme. Don't get me wrong, I do want decentralization, but this is not just a problem of cryptocurrencies, this is a general problem of humanity, this is how corrupt people are in general, they all want power. Power to hold us all by the ballz!
Sources:
https://pixabay.com
A good thing womenfolk got no balls ;) ;)
So atm cards and virtual cards are useless offline?
Hahaha you are right, but they will just probably find some other way to deal with women in cryptocurrencies...
Well the ATM card also has to interact with the blockchain eventually, without the blockchain running 24/7, there is no cryptocurrency. Otherwise you are implying a bank, that acts as a custodian of payment, which is not decentralized by definition. Same with cards, or even crypto-notes, like people printing out their private keys and using that as fiat currency.
1st time ive heard of private keys being used as fiat. A friend of mine wants to be educated about synereo @ogoowinner
Like this:
http://www.bitnotes.org/
I am not an expert on Synere obut you should signup for the beta:
http://wildspark.me
Am at work so will have to check that tom.
here you go @ogoowinner..summarise it for me ;)
Excellent post. I couldn't have said it better. However I don't think centralization will harm the price much in the mid-term.
Maybe there is a little bit hope as long as there are many different competing governments on earth, which is some kind of decentralized power, which the "one-world-gov" psychopaths are trying to overcome as well. If one gov tries to prevent free access to coins/internet/power, others might have an incentive to do the opposite, but this is not sure at all, only some hope.
Wasn't sure where that rant was going at the beginning.
Sounded at first like you were going all Obama on us.
If You've Got A Business, You Didn't Build That - YouTube
Nice one
Interesting.
I do programming tutorials here (Ethereum etc.) and some fundamental math, but to be honest I am a bit overwhelmed by all this tech, and even steemit itself :O
The way I understand it, crypto-currencies are distributed in the technical sense, not in the democratic sense.
What I mean is that the blockchain is spread out over many nodes, doesn't reside on a central server and is not directly controlled by a centralized authority.
This is still true of most crypto-currencies, even ones with shortcomings (I read your article on Bitcoin).
I am still excited about the decentralized nature of crypto!
Well you need to have both, otherwise what is the point.
What is the point in having many nodes if the owners of the nodes are all in an echochamber of lies?
There has to be political decentralization too.
The democracy of crypto is that everyone has the opportunity to use it. Not everyone has to have a say in how it works.
That's one of the reasons I like "proof of stake" cryptos. You have a larger voice if you are more invested in the platform. Why should someone who just arrived and has almost nothing invested have the same voice as someone who has been active in the community for a while and has a good amount of value invested in the platform?
I like your writing. It's good to ask questions and challenge assumptions.
True, but if you invest a lot in a coin you already have power over it's price.
If the devs don't play as investors want, they can just cashout and crash the price.
you are on point @profitgenerator your view is very correct....
Great read. subscribed. please subscribe also!
where did you get the figures to run a full node?
I set up one just last month and I used a cheap server with a lot of storage. Still, it's around $30. So I don't understand.
Depends where you live, in some places electricity has like 10 different taxes on it, and buying the equipment like even a rapsberry node costs like what 100$?
So it can be costly, not to mention a 1 TB harddisk for the blockchain and things like that.... Internet bandwidth.... etc
It is all centralized in one way most coin fev team hold enough to cash out and be rich.
if internet goes down it is centralized. most cpin have a few 5-10 people working on the code they again make it centralized.
so pretty much as a whole most things will always be centralized in most the world for our life time anyway.
Well at least they are transparent, that is already a huge leap ahead from closed-source software.
So the open source revolution is already a big leap ahead, plus there are many other benefits, so there are positive things too.
There is huge benefits to crypto just not wuite the centralized part fully yet
Very solid post. You have strong arguments.