Came across this short essay from MIT technology review to challenge the core concept of decentralization in the crypto world. Interesting perspective and like to know what's your input? How should we view the fact of centralized mining?
Measuring “decentralization.”
In the crypto community, the idea of decentralization is almost a moral good. It stems from Satoshi Nakamoto’s original breakthrough, when she/he/they showed the world that government-backed fiat currency isn’t the only way to do things: in this view, money can and should be controlled by no one. These days, though, the market is crowded with Bitcoin replicants, and crypto-enthusiasts delight in arguing which is “more decentralized” than another.
Unfortunately it looks like neither Bitcoin nor one of its most popular brethren, Ethereum, are very decentralized at all. Cornell University researchers spent the last two years measuring various parameters of decentralization in both Bitcoin and Ethereum. One major finding in their study, published Monday, is that both Bitcoin and Ethereum mining are actually “very centralized” processes. The top four Bitcoin miners and the top three Ethereum miners control more than 50 percent of the total mining power.
