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It's doing pretty well actually. It's still less centralized as all viable alternatives.
by VMG 11y ago
It's doing pretty well actually. It's still less centralized as all viable alternatives.
- 07d046 11y agoAren't there a small group of people who essentially control all of Bitcoin with no oversight? There might be a group of 30 very wealthy early adopters, miners, main developers, people who own the communication channels, and other influencers, who have 90% of the influence in what happens with Bitcoin. Real currencies can't boast to being that centralised.
- VMG 11y agoTheir wealth depends on bitcoin keeping the properties it currently has. For instance they could try to merge a code change that doubles the balances for early adopters, but it would immediately destroy their wealth because people would stop using the currency.
- solotronics 11y agoI agree with this, game theory shows they have everything to gain by protecting and fostering Bitcoin development.
- bhaak 11y agoSome examples for viable alternatives?
- brighton36 11y agoWell there's none, which in the point. But.. Lightcoin, dash, monero, etc
- richardwhiuk 11y agoNormal currency which is both less centralized and easier to use.
- VMG 11y agoWith "normal" currencies you mean the ones issued by central banks?
- flatline 11y agoIssuance may be centralized but the payment network, not so much.
- VMG 11y agoDo you mean cash or Paypal & Co?
- flatline 11y agoCash, visa MasterCard etc. - there are many banking options. There is only one Bitcoin network, and it is currently very centralized.
- VMG 11y agoTrue, in that sense it's less centralized. But each of those payment provider you pick holds your assets and can restrict your transactions any time. With Bitcoin that is not possible.
- flatline 11y agoMiners can elect to not include certain transactions. I'm not aware of any evidence that this is happening now except with low/no-fee transactions, but the centralization of hash power makes it possible and, I would contend, inevitable, given sufficient time and adoption. We already see this with the banking institutions that grow like barnacles on the side of the blockchain - they track where their customers spend coins, and blacklist the customer if they go to e.g. DNMs. If bitcoin gained wide enough adoption that people could cut out these middle men, the government would have much more incentive to inject itself into the mining process. There is already ample evidence they are doing various things on-chain to track the spending of large/active users, see e.g. https://reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/4fov8h/i_regularly_receive_00001_btc_deposits_to_my_btc/ https://reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/4fov8h/i_regula... Edit: FWIW, Bitpay is one of these institutions. Steam doens't accept bitcoin, they accept fiat paid by Bitpay on behalf of someone with bitcoin.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]