Bitcoin is not decentralized [video]

I generally agree with his conclusions, but I found his argument about centralization very weak. Bitcoin on mars seems like an impractical thought experiment compared to the actual reality that 50 miners (maybe less) control enough of the network to seize control when they desire. [1]<p>I wish he&#x27;d spent some time discussing the fact that bitcoin&#x27;s &#x27;value&#x27; is proportional to the electricity needed for hashing, and that property will favor aggregating control to a few actors at whatever geographic local has the cheapest electricity. The political and environmental shenanigans exploited by these actors is a deep dive, too, but out of scope for his thesis.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tomshardware.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;study-finds-bitcoin-more-centralized-than-expected" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tomshardware.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;study-finds-bitcoin-more-c...</a>

That is a good video. I do have a couple questions. I asked these questions at a company that implemented blockchain but was never really given a complete answer.<p>- Who runs the ledgers and what guarantee is there aside from cryptographic smoke that the entities&#x2F;corporations running the ledgers can&#x27;t collude? This gets into the question of independent cryptographic audits and looking for mathematical back doors. How can one know with certainty that one entity can&#x27;t make subtle manipulations to this systems&#x2F;markets?<p>- How do you delete data from the blockchain? Let&#x27;s say someone decides to use blockchain for identity management. Some day a court agrees that a person needs to be protected under witness protection but their identity is in the blockchain. How do you remove it? Not revoke it, but completely remove all traces of it?

Some interesting points, but very myopic. He says he is talking about blockchain crypto in general not bitcoin, and then goes and enumerate bitcoin limitations<p>He ignores that there are a lot faster networks other than Bitcoin<p>He ignores that there are more private networks like Monero<p>Even if blockchain crypto is a step behind cash, which is being phased out in most places, it is still a step ahead of all other virtual finance platforms, and will probably replaced them<p>Everything else, blockchains are tools... We just need to use them to our advantage. Dystopian futures will not cease because of it or lack thereof

He first say that google servers are decentralized, but after his explanations, the google servers are more like distributed than decentralized.

If there was a good argument, it should make sense in plain text:<p>&gt; and you can think of this like the google search that&#x27;s provided &gt; google search is a centralized search system yet the the actual computation for that search is actually distributed across the entire planet &gt; so uh that provides a perfect analogy for how uh bitcoin and uh litecoin and dogecoin how all of these different coins work they&#x27;re actually centralized systems providing a centralized service while at the same time having the computation spread out across the entire planet<p>Totally missing the point that centralization is about who has control, not where things happen. Distributing operation but not control of those operations isn&#x27;t meaningful here, which is what makes Google search not a good analogy for blockchains. I&#x27;m not pro-blockchain (until we find effective use&#x2F;implementation), but I&#x27;m definitely anti-misinformation.

just curious, have you heard of lightning network ? try things out, try breez wallet. you can pay with lightning at McDonalds, Starbucks in El Salvador<p>rest of your claims about blockchain, privacy etc - are correct<p>the &quot;Crypto&quot; and &quot;web3&quot; is all scams