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Can you explain how it is centralized? Because… it isn’t.

• ruined 5y ago
  there's only one blockchain
  • randomhodler84 5y ago
    Only one Bitcoin blockchain, correct. There are affinity scams like bcash and bsv that try to steal the name. The users/miners decided, in decentralized fashion by contributing resources. Decentralized!
  • bavell 5y ago
    Depends on if you count hard forks as new chains. Successful hard forks require decentralized consensus to follow the new chain.
• dragontamer 5y ago
  Lets say Coinbase and Paypal (both BTC processors) stop supporting your website. Do you think that you'll get as many BTC transactions if this happens?
  • randomhodler84 5y ago
    I don’t think you understand how cryptocurrencies work. There ain’t much Coinbase and PayPal can do to stop someone sending coins to my address. I don’t have a website, nor do I care what Coinbase or PayPal do or say.
    • dragontamer 5y ago
      I don't think you understand the practical business realities of the internet. No typical business is going to work with BTC addresses on the raw. They're going to (and currently) using simple APIs like Coinbase API (https://developers.coinbase.com/ https://developers.coinbase.com/) to "implement BTC receipts". As far as US business is concerned, the typical payment processor for bitcoin is Coinbase. They handle the bitcoint transfer, transaction history, and conversion into USD all at the same time.
      • randomhodler84 5y ago
        There are many business that run their own payment infrastructure, BTCPay is the most popular. It is better for the network if people DONT use centralized providers. We all have the power to use decentralized infrastructure. Bitcoin works the way it is intended, that is peer to peer payments. Everything else is just ecosystem, which can be replaced. Coinbase is important as an on-ramp for users for now, yes, but their importance to the network is peripheral.
        • dragontamer 5y ago
          And the Exim email-server and "bind" DNS server is "decentralized", except everybody uses gmail.com, or even centralized upon AWS. There's your theory, and there's the practice of the internet and business. In theory, they should be the same. In practice, they're different.
          • randomhodler84 5y ago
            Bitcoin doesn’t care about businesses. It doesn’t care about peoples wishes. It doesn’t care that everyone else is using Gmail. It provides a peer to peer, censorship resistant append only ledger for transactions secured by cryptographic signatures and proof of work. That is all. And that is plenty.
            • bavell 5y ago
              I agree. I think you two are talking past each other to a degree - Bitcoin the protocol is decentralized, Bitcoin the ecosystem in 2022 is moderately centralized in various ways.
            • codebolt 5y ago
              Without an on-ramp and off-ramp for converting into dollars/euros, Bitcoin is entirely useless, even for the hardcore idealists like yourself. And those can quite easily be made illegal.
    • vorpalhex 5y ago
      You can't even access your wallet without an API provider. This includes MetaMask.
      • randomhodler84 5y ago
        Maybe in eth land, if you don’t run a fullnode. And that speaks to moxies recent post about centralization. I’m talking about Bitcoin, and you better believe I run a fullnode. No provider required. I recommend you run a Bitcoin full Node too, and transact without any 3rd parties!