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Huh? What a strange characterization. Blockchains, some, are clearly decentralized and permission-less. US banking system is highly regulated and permission-ed.

Huh? What a strange characterization. Blockchains, some, are clearly decentralized and permission-less. US banking system is highly regulated and permission-ed. Are you standing by your statement with a serious face? https://www.occ.gov/about/who-we-are/index-who-we-are.html https://www.occ.gov/about/who-we-are/index-who-we-are.html

namaria 4y ago
Centralization is a loaded term here. Using a distributed protocol doesn't automatically make it decentralized. Alternatively, being heavily regulated doesn't mean it's centralized. You can move your business to a different bank. You can't move to a different blockchain and stay in the same payment system.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> standing by your statement with a serious face? Yes. There is no database of who has how much in every account. Even with bank and account number, lookup is nontrivial. Blockchains present a single record of everyone’s wallets, all the time. (Even politically, Bitcoin is an oligopoly of miners. Their controlling persons may number fewer than half of the Congress. Proof of Stake, meanwhile, is explicitly rule by the rich.) Permissionless, and more pointedly, unregulated, are blockchain’s features. Decentralisation is not.
- alchemist1e9 4y ago
  Your first point refers to to the perceived lack of privacy features of Bitcoin. I’ll mention that there are many working solutions to that and Litecoin has taken that even further already with MWEB and it’s quite conceivable this will eventually be added to Bitcoin, however even with segwit and taproot, Bitcoin at L2 can be used with high levels of privacy and will be. So that makes your observation about on chain address balances being public not so relevant. In regards to your point that the current US banking system has an franchised type credit creation model and that could be viewed as decentralized. First I’m a bit confused as we are discussing CBDCs which are explicitly an attempt to make the system more centralized. But irregardless, it still makes no sense, because to move money between US banks, the systems involved flow through the Fed and the messages include extensive identifying meta data. Additionally all transfer information and account balances can be requested by federal authorities without warrants, their is no legal expectation of privacy in regards to your banking transactions. So it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to call this decentralized simply based on the franchised style credit creation model, while simultaneously discussing transaction privacy. Lastly, on miner oligarchy and lack of decentralization. Your statements are actually pure misinformation. Mining pools are ephemeral relationships amongst actual miners, actual operators are highly decentralized and global. The Bitcoin node network is the most decentralized network that exists. I don’t believe you actually understand the topic as you claim to.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > observation about on chain address balances being public not so relevant Not public. Centralised. > to move money between US banks, the systems involved flow through the Fed and the messages include extensive identifying meta data No, it doesn’t. When I transfer funds from UBS to JPMorgan, UBS deducts my account and adds money to JPMorgan’s account at UBS. (Exceptions including cheques and wires.) > transfer information and account balances can be requested by federal authorities without warrants This hasn’t been true since at least 1978 [1]. > Mining pools are ephemeral relationships amongst actual miners Mining control is highly concentrated [2]. Whether they’re in pools or acting alone is irrelevant to the question of concentration of governance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Financial_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Financial_Privacy_Act [2] https://www.nber.org/papers/w29396 https://www.nber.org/papers/w29396
    - alchemist1e9 4y ago
      Significant US domestic bank transfers are most done by a combination of Fedwire and FedACH. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedwire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedwire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedACH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedACH The raw messages include specific recipient and sender identifying fields. All those messages are monitored and stored by multiple federal agencies, including intelligence agencies. So NO your transfer from UBS to JOMorgan is not handled operationally as you imply other that obviously the Fed clearing account balances belong to each of the participant bank. However the actual recorded and available messages include names and details of sender and receiver! (edit) The privacy act you refer was altered by the Patriot act and is no longer the case. Your financial records are property of the bank and the government can inspect them at anytime without any notification under Patriot act. It took me a few minutes to reconcile understanding of what actually occurs being in contradiction to the link you provided to the Privacy law, which is as I say, no longer relevant. As for mining operator centralization if I can get access to the nber paper without registering (not on sci-hub unfortunately) I’d read it and have a comment. My guess is it was likely a result of flawed analysis and misunderstanding of mining pool payouts.
      - 4y ago

namaria 4y ago

Centralization is a loaded term here. Using a distributed protocol doesn't automatically make it decentralized. Alternatively, being heavily regulated doesn't mean it's centralized. You can move your business to a different bank. You can't move to a different blockchain and stay in the same payment system.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> standing by your statement with a serious face? Yes. There is no database of who has how much in every account. Even with bank and account number, lookup is nontrivial. Blockchains present a single record of everyone’s wallets, all the time. (Even politically, Bitcoin is an oligopoly of miners. Their controlling persons may number fewer than half of the Congress. Proof of Stake, meanwhile, is explicitly rule by the rich.) Permissionless, and more pointedly, unregulated, are blockchain’s features. Decentralisation is not.

alchemist1e9 4y ago
Your first point refers to to the perceived lack of privacy features of Bitcoin. I’ll mention that there are many working solutions to that and Litecoin has taken that even further already with MWEB and it’s quite conceivable this will eventually be added to Bitcoin, however even with segwit and taproot, Bitcoin at L2 can be used with high levels of privacy and will be. So that makes your observation about on chain address balances being public not so relevant. In regards to your point that the current US banking system has an franchised type credit creation model and that could be viewed as decentralized. First I’m a bit confused as we are discussing CBDCs which are explicitly an attempt to make the system more centralized. But irregardless, it still makes no sense, because to move money between US banks, the systems involved flow through the Fed and the messages include extensive identifying meta data. Additionally all transfer information and account balances can be requested by federal authorities without warrants, their is no legal expectation of privacy in regards to your banking transactions. So it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to call this decentralized simply based on the franchised style credit creation model, while simultaneously discussing transaction privacy. Lastly, on miner oligarchy and lack of decentralization. Your statements are actually pure misinformation. Mining pools are ephemeral relationships amongst actual miners, actual operators are highly decentralized and global. The Bitcoin node network is the most decentralized network that exists. I don’t believe you actually understand the topic as you claim to.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > observation about on chain address balances being public not so relevant Not public. Centralised. > to move money between US banks, the systems involved flow through the Fed and the messages include extensive identifying meta data No, it doesn’t. When I transfer funds from UBS to JPMorgan, UBS deducts my account and adds money to JPMorgan’s account at UBS. (Exceptions including cheques and wires.) > transfer information and account balances can be requested by federal authorities without warrants This hasn’t been true since at least 1978 [1]. > Mining pools are ephemeral relationships amongst actual miners Mining control is highly concentrated [2]. Whether they’re in pools or acting alone is irrelevant to the question of concentration of governance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Financial_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Financial_Privacy_Act [2] https://www.nber.org/papers/w29396 https://www.nber.org/papers/w29396
  - alchemist1e9 4y ago
    Significant US domestic bank transfers are most done by a combination of Fedwire and FedACH. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedwire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedwire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedACH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedACH The raw messages include specific recipient and sender identifying fields. All those messages are monitored and stored by multiple federal agencies, including intelligence agencies. So NO your transfer from UBS to JOMorgan is not handled operationally as you imply other that obviously the Fed clearing account balances belong to each of the participant bank. However the actual recorded and available messages include names and details of sender and receiver! (edit) The privacy act you refer was altered by the Patriot act and is no longer the case. Your financial records are property of the bank and the government can inspect them at anytime without any notification under Patriot act. It took me a few minutes to reconcile understanding of what actually occurs being in contradiction to the link you provided to the Privacy law, which is as I say, no longer relevant. As for mining operator centralization if I can get access to the nber paper without registering (not on sci-hub unfortunately) I’d read it and have a comment. My guess is it was likely a result of flawed analysis and misunderstanding of mining pool payouts.
    - 4y ago