[meanduck]

EDIT: OK lets say some 51% is dishonest. You have the option to become miner and reduce their power/influence share.

51% being honest is fundamental assumption of a cryptocurrency [1]. The assumption gets stronger as total computation power increases.

[1] Its necessery but not sufficient condition to make the whole state dishonest. You would need to have >50% computation work done.

[CoryG89]

> The assumption gets stronger as total computation power increases.

This assumes that the increases in computing power were not added via a mining pool, in which case the additional computing power is making things worse.

This is one reason that many view mining pools as one of the worst failures of bitcoin / other blockchains.

[meanduck]

Mining pool or single gpu its irrelevent. As long as honest people can get more computational power than dishonest ones, cryptocurrency is decentralised and 51%-honest.

[CoryG89]

Honest centralization is still centralization. You may be assuming that everyone participating in a mining pool will get an independent vote. From my understanding, this is usually not the case. If a small number of mining pools control more than 50℅ of the capacity then just a few people can decide these types of matters, honestly or dishonestly. That's centralization.

It's not total centralization, but it's a far cry from the level of decentralization that would be possible if mining pools did not exist.

[meanduck]

Cryptocurrency does not mean it has perfect dicentralised distribution. It only means that its (much) better than fiat currency's.

[CoryG89]

My point was not that mining pools completely do away with decentralization, just that contrary to your comment, additional network computing power does not necessarily contribute to that decentralization. It can in fact push it in the opposite direction. And the reason for that is mining pools. If it wasn't for mining pools, your statement would always be true.

There is a lot about this topic in the new, free book from Princeton authors titled "Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies" (a great read)[1]. There is much research being done on the front of finding the best way to eliminate mining pools or at least stop them from potentially centralizing consensus to just a handful of people.

[1]: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/randomwalker/the-princeto...