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>Ethereum is becoming increasingly centralized. How do people see the forks, the ‘closed’ meetings, the pivots, the obvious influence that a couple devs have o

>Ethereum is becoming increasingly centralized. How do people see the forks, the ‘closed’ meetings, the pivots, the obvious influence that a couple devs have over the entire system - and still walk away with any notion there is decentralization?

bhaak 8y ago
The usual reply is "Ethereum Classic". If Ethereum were as centralized as claimed ("cult of Vitalik", etc.), the survival of ETC wouldn't have been possible.
Kiro 8y ago
None of the things you mention have anything to do with the decentralization problem he's talking about. See the attached tweet. It's about not being able to run a full node yourself, which consequently means everyone is using third-party services such as Infura.
- imtringued 8y ago
  If everyone being able to run a full node is necessary for bitcoin then it's simply going to fade away into irrelevance.
lawn 8y ago
Because there are several different kinds of decentralization and it's not black and white. Miner decentralization is important is the whole security model relies on nobody controlling >50% of hashrate. Developer centralization is another important point. BTC arguably fails at this when a small group, combined with extensive propaganda campaigns, artificially constrains Bitcoin's throughput. There are no valid arguments against raising the blocksize to 2MB for example. Then there's node centralization, wealth distribution and maybe other types I'm missing.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  >Developer centralization is another important point. BTC arguably fails at this when a small group, combined with extensive propaganda campaigns, artificially constrains Bitcoin's throughput. There are no valid arguments against raising the blocksize to 2MB for example. If a handful of people could effectively destroy a “currency” at any point... it’s not decentralized in any sense of the word that is important for trustworthyness or longevity. A government could crash its own money, but there is a strong incentive to not do that. Bitcoin or Eth has nothing tied to it, it’s entitely at the whim of some programmers who as I understand it, aren’t economics experts. That’s the point I made above. You want to say the blockchain and hashing is decentralized, great. But when people use that word, they’re talking about (imo) how it’s “safe” to put money into because “no one owns the crypto coin” and if anyone still believes that latter part, well, they probably aren’t paying attention.
  - lawn 8y ago
    That's not really true though. They didn't "destroy" it. They constrained it's development and hindered adoption. They didn't do it by themselves either. They got miners and exchanges on board as well. Also if you disagree and you think there's a better way to develop it you can by creating a fork or sell your coins. There is nothing stopping you. > they’re talking about (imo) how it’s “safe” to put money into because “no one owns the crypto coin” and if anyone still believes that latter part, well, they probably aren’t paying attention. There's a difference between believing nobody has significant sway over how the cryptocurrency should be developed and you personally having full control over your own coins.

bhaak 8y ago

The usual reply is "Ethereum Classic". If Ethereum were as centralized as claimed ("cult of Vitalik", etc.), the survival of ETC wouldn't have been possible.

Kiro 8y ago

None of the things you mention have anything to do with the decentralization problem he's talking about. See the attached tweet. It's about not being able to run a full node yourself, which consequently means everyone is using third-party services such as Infura.

imtringued 8y ago
If everyone being able to run a full node is necessary for bitcoin then it's simply going to fade away into irrelevance.

lawn 8y ago

Because there are several different kinds of decentralization and it's not black and white. Miner decentralization is important is the whole security model relies on nobody controlling >50% of hashrate. Developer centralization is another important point. BTC arguably fails at this when a small group, combined with extensive propaganda campaigns, artificially constrains Bitcoin's throughput. There are no valid arguments against raising the blocksize to 2MB for example. Then there's node centralization, wealth distribution and maybe other types I'm missing.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
>Developer centralization is another important point. BTC arguably fails at this when a small group, combined with extensive propaganda campaigns, artificially constrains Bitcoin's throughput. There are no valid arguments against raising the blocksize to 2MB for example. If a handful of people could effectively destroy a “currency” at any point... it’s not decentralized in any sense of the word that is important for trustworthyness or longevity. A government could crash its own money, but there is a strong incentive to not do that. Bitcoin or Eth has nothing tied to it, it’s entitely at the whim of some programmers who as I understand it, aren’t economics experts. That’s the point I made above. You want to say the blockchain and hashing is decentralized, great. But when people use that word, they’re talking about (imo) how it’s “safe” to put money into because “no one owns the crypto coin” and if anyone still believes that latter part, well, they probably aren’t paying attention.
- lawn 8y ago
  That's not really true though. They didn't "destroy" it. They constrained it's development and hindered adoption. They didn't do it by themselves either. They got miners and exchanges on board as well. Also if you disagree and you think there's a better way to develop it you can by creating a fork or sell your coins. There is nothing stopping you. > they’re talking about (imo) how it’s “safe” to put money into because “no one owns the crypto coin” and if anyone still believes that latter part, well, they probably aren’t paying attention. There's a difference between believing nobody has significant sway over how the cryptocurrency should be developed and you personally having full control over your own coins.