Advantages of decentralization and why blockchain technology is an improvement over centralized systems
In politics there is a distinction between centralized and decentralized political influence.
In one example there is this concept of a totalitarian government that oversees the activity occurring within its borders.
The totalitarian government approves and disapproves the activities according to a set of rules agreed upon by its member states.
Many corporations have this governing structure and so did Imperial Rome.
The opposite concept to a totalitarianism is the concept of direct democracy.
In direct democracy the member states have a means of agreeing which set of rules becomes the law of the land.
In this analogy we can agree that having a direct democracy is more congruent to the concept of a decentralized rule of law as opposed to the totalitarian government which is politically and conceptually centralized.
Time has shown that there are problems about centralized powers that can be solved by decentralized powers.
When we take this analogy to the concept of money and other things of value we see why having centralized powers is not very good to the community.
In a community we tend to expect that the things we hold valuable stay that way for a long time if not indefinitely.
However when the centralized power is responsible for the management of the things the community hold valuable, such as money and taxation, then we can also agree that this is too much power in the hands of a central entity.
Blockchain technology as a decentralized entity can be a good solution to this because it is decentralized by nature.
The blockchain has a collection of member nodes which agree to a common set of rules by which they follow.
This is also known as a blockchain protocol.
Nakamoto blockchain is the first implementation of decentralized technology that allows borderless transactions possible without the use of a centrally governed manual entity.
It has solved many of the most complex mathematical problems that its predecessors in peer to peer networks couldnt solve.
Some of the more critical challenges it has overcome are the Byzantine Generals problem, and protection against Sybil attacks.
The solution is an elegant one in which a common ledger where transactions are pushed into the ledger
This becomes the network state in which all members of the decentralized network agrees to using a consensus method call Proof of Work.
Time has shown that a central entity that controls the assets of the community tends to have an out of control system of checks and balances when left to its own devices.
The nature of a Nakamoto Blockchain is that it is immutable.
This means that changes to its state, the token transactions, cannot be reversed.
Transactions that occur within its network will stay on its records for as long as the network exists.
This is an advantage over centralized entities that keep its information private from its citizens or community members.