To my new followers: decentralization is hard.

Everyone in this space promises to have it or revolutionize it, but the reality is different.

Unless you can join the network as a node to validate your own transactions with your home computer, the project is not decentralized

2/ First of all, let’s talk about computer specs: most “new generation blockchain” projects run on dedicated industrial-grade servers to deliver their “fast and scalable” transactions.

So you trust someone else’s hardware to handle your transactions fairly. This is wrong.

3/ You see cryptographic digital money (aka crypto), was created to eliminate trusted third parties. This mindset encourages participation & accessibility.

Around here we like to say “don’t trust, verify”. You can’t know for certain that a transaction is valid unless you verify.

4/ So if the founders & developers make it difficult for you to verify your own transactions, then the project is not really decentralized.

If they make you trust their own validating servers, they’re no different from the legacy financial institutions we’re trying to replace.

5/ Another roadblock for decentralization is a threshold for the minimum internet connection speed.

If you need 100 mbps broadband internet to partake in validation, then 90% of the world is excluded from participating.

Lots of new & fast blockchains have such requirements.

6/ You must understand that there are always tradeoffs involved and you can’t have it all.

But high speed is not a friend of global-scale decentralization and it’s wiser to remain slow so everyone can synchronize than to demand trust in your servers and service.

7/ I like to think that a lot of these blockchain projects are willingly malevolent, as they never explain the tradeoffs & use fairytales for marketing, in hopes of pumping the price.

One-sided marketing is also a sign that you deal with a company, not a decentralized network.

8/ The software must also be decentralized. This is relatively easy, as most projects in the space are open source and you can verify their work on GitHub repositories.

But if you have a single team/company maintaining the code, then the project is not decentralized.

9/ Not only that you need multiple unbiased reviewers to have a healthy and well-functioning network, but you should also have many third party wallet developers.

If outsiders write code for a project because they believe in it, it’s usually a good sign.

10/ A diverse geographic distribution of software developers is also a sign of decentralization. It means that the project is more robust and resilient against potential government opposition.

It’s harder to have multi-state coordination to kill a project.

11/ Last but not least, ask yourself “Would they let me contribute?”. Forget about your actual specialization and imagine you’re a good coder.

Would you require someone’s permission to work on the project? If the answer is yes, then run away because it’s not decentralized.

12/ There is a reason why #Bitcoin is slow: it’s the tradeoff to maintain security and decentralization.

You think that if the solution to the tradeoff was created by some boy genius selling DeFi tokens, the project with the highest market cap wouldn’t find ways to use it?

13/ With Bitcoin you can start mining without anyone’s permission, without needing an initial amount of coins (as stakers do).

You can also run a node to validate your own transactions on pretty much any computer sold in the last 10 years – even a $30 Raspberry Pi.

14/ Furthermore, you can sync your Bitcoin node or mining rig on any internet connection which can handle 1 MB of data every ~10 minutes. You can be in the middle of nowhere with poor signal and still be in sync.

This is what decentralization should be like.

15/ No internet connection because your government shut it down or you’re in the middle of a desert?

You can use a cheap antenna to connect to the @Blockstream satellite and download an updated state of the blockchain transactions.

Yes, #Bitcoin has a satellite in space.

16/ There are lots of teams of #Bitcoin developers, and they work on different projects.

Some maintain the Core client code (Chaincode, Blockstream, MIT), others work on Lightning (Acinq, Nayuta, Blockstream, Lightning Labs), and there are hundreds of independent wallet devs.

17/ Anyone can contribute and write code, but not everybody’s proposals will be accepted to get added into the reference client.

Yet in the end, it’s the sovereign miners and node operators who decide which version of the code they run and which they don’t.

18/ In Bitcoin, decentralization also means that there must be consensus for major upgrades such as Taproot.

Though almost everyone agrees that it’s a useful addition to the code, the actual activation follows procedures which allow every participant to vote.

19/ Without consensus between participants, no change will be made. This is part of the design to resist censorship and external attacks, but it also makes some otherwise beneficial operations slow and deliberative.

This is decentralization.

20/ To recap: unless a crypto project allows you to participate with code writing or review, run the official client on your home computer with a common internet connection, and vote on changes, then it’s definitely centralized.

Decentralization is hard.

21/ Bonus reading: my article “Bitcoin is not slow, it’s highly secure” https://bitcoin-takeover.com/bitcoin-is-not-slow-its-highly-secure/